will be carried. I do not. I do not know that I would
have agitated it now, although it is as clear to me as the sun at
noonday, that the time is approaching when females will be
admitted to this franchise as much as males, because I can see no
reason for the distinction. I agree, however, that there is not
the same pressing necessity for allowing females as there is for
allowing the colored people to vote, because the ladies of the
land are not under the ban of a hostile race grinding them to
powder. They are in high fellowship with those who do govern,
who, to a great extent, act as their agents, their friends,
promoting their interests in every vote they give, and,
therefore, communities get along very well without conferring
this right upon the female. But when you speak of it as a right,
and as a great educational power in the hands of females, and I
am called on to vote on the subject, I will vote that which I
think under all circumstances is right, just, and proper. I
shrink not from the question because I am told by gentlemen that
it is unpopular. The question with me is, is it right? Show me
that it is wrong, and then I will withhold my vote; but I have
heard no argument that convinces me that the thing is not right.

There has been something said about this right of voting, as to
whether it is a natural or a conventional right. I do not know
that there is much difference between a natural and a
conventional right. Right has its hold upon the conscience in the
inevitable fitness of things, and whether it springs from nature
or from any other cause right is right, and a conventional right
is as sacred as a natural right. I can not distinguish them; I
know of no difference between them. It certainly does not seem to
me that it would be right now if a new community is about to set
up a government, for one-third of them to seize upon that
government and say they will govern, and the rest shall have
nothing to do with it. It seems to me there is a wrong done to
those who are shut out from any participation in the Government,
and that it is a violation of their rights; and what odds does it
make whether you call it a natural, or conventional, or
artificial right? I contend that when you set up a Government you
shall call every man who has