he right of suffrage in a republic means self-government, and
self-government means education, development, self-reliance,
independence, courage in the hour of danger. That women may
attain these virtues we demand the exercise of this right. Not
that we suppose we should at once be transformed into a higher
order of beings with all the elements of sovereignty, wisdom,
goodness and power full-fledged, but because the exercise of the
suffrage is the primary school in which the citizen learns how to
use the ballot as a weapon of defense; it is the open sesame to
the land of freedom and equality. The ballot is the scepter of
power in the hand of every citizen. Woman can never have an equal
chance with man in the struggle of life until she too wields this
power. So long as women have no voice in the Government under
which they live they will be an ostracised class, and invidious
distinctions will be made against them in the world of work.
Thrown on their own resources they have all the hardships that
men have to encounter in earning their daily bread, with the
added disabilities which grow out of disfranchisement. Men of the
republic, why make life harder for your daughters by these
artificial distinctions? Surely, if governments were made to
protect the weak against the strong, they are in greater need
than your stalwart sons of every political right which can give
them protection, dignity and power....

The disfranchisement of one-half the people places a dangerous
power in the hands of the other half. All history shows that one
class never did legislate with justice for another, and all
philosophy shows they never can, as the relations of class grow
out of either natural or artificial advantages which one has over
the other and which it will maintain if possible. It is folly to
say that women are not a class, so long as there is any
difference in the code of laws for men and women, any
discrimination in the customs of society, giving advantages to
men over women; so long as in all our State constitutions women
are ranked with lunatics, idiots, paupers and criminals. When you
say that one-half the people shall be governed by the other half,
surely the class distinction is about as broad as it can be....

The disfranchisement of one-half the peop