the roots to
strike deeper and cling more closely to the soil that sustains
it. Let the amelioration process go on, until evil is
exterminated root and branch; and for this end the people must be
instructed in the Rights of Humanity;--not in the rights of men
and the rights of women; the rights of the master and those of
the slave;--but in the perfect equality of the Rights of Man. The
rights of man! Whence came they? What are they? What is their
design? How do we know them? They are of God! Those that most
intimately affect us as human beings are life, liberty, and the
pursuit of happiness. Their design is happiness. The human
organization is the charter deed by which we hold them. Hence we
learn that rights are coeval with the human race, of universal
heritage, and inalienable; that every human being, no matter of
what color, sex, condition, or clime, possesses those rights upon
perfect equality with all others. The monarch on the throne, and
the beggar at his feet, have the same. Man has no more, woman no
less.

Rights may not be usurped on one hand, nor surrendered on the
other, because they involve a responsibility that can be
discharged only by those to whom they belong, those for whom they
were created; and because, without those certain inalienable
rights, human beings can not attain the end for which God the
Father gave them existence. Where and how can the wisdom and
ingenuity of the world find a truer, stronger, broader basis of
human rights. To secure these rights, says the Declaration of
Independence, "Governments were instituted among men, deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed;" and
"whenever any form of government becomes destructive of those
ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and
to substitute a new government, laying its foundation on such
principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them
shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness."
The Government of this country, in common with all others, has
never recognized or attempted to protect women as persons
possessing the rights of humanity. They have been recognized and
protected as appendages to men, without independent rights or
political existence, unknown to the law except as victims of its