ickness, accident
or age; nor does education mark the line, for the learned and the
illiterate meet at the ballot box.

With us a portion of the adult population have assumed to
exercise the right, admitted to exist somewhere, of governing,
and have forced another portion into the position of the
governed. That this assumption is just and wise is averred by
some and denied by others. If we call upon these rulers for a
copy of their commission they present one written by themselves.

Children, idiots and convicted felons properly belong to the
governed and not to the governing class, as they are
intellectually or morally unfit to govern. Necessity only places
them there; necessity is an absolute monarch and will be
everywhere obeyed. To this governed class has been added woman,
and we beg the House and the country to inquire why. They are
also "people" and we submit that they are neither moral nor
intellectual incapables, and no necessity for their
disfranchisement can be suggested; on the contrary, we believe
that they are now entitled to immediate and absolute
enfranchisement.

First: Because their own good demands it. Give woman the ballot
and she will have additional means and inducements to a broader
and better education, including a knowledge of affairs, of which
she will not fail to avail herself to the uttermost; give her the
ballot and you add to her means of protection of her person and
estate. The ballot is a powerful weapon of defense sorely needed
by those too weak to wield any other, and to take it from such
and give to those already clothed in strength and fully armed,
would appear to be unjust, unfair and unwise to one unaccustomed
to the sight. Long usage "sanctions and sanctifies" wrongs and
abuses, and causes cruelty to be mistaken for kindness.

The history of woman is for the most part a history of wrong and
outrage. Created the equal companion of man, she early became his
slave, and still is so in most parts of the world. In many
so-called Christian nations of Europe she is to-day yoked with
beasts and is doing the labor of beasts, while her son and
husband are serving in the army, protecting the divine right of
kings and men to slay and destroy. In the farther East she is
still more degraded, being substant