ho have it not must be made to those who are asked to
part with a portion of their own power. It is only human nature
that the male sex should hesitate to yield one-half of its power
to those whose cause, however strong in reason and justice, lacks
that physical force by which so largely the masses of men
themselves have wrung their own rights from rulers and kings.

It is not strange that when overwhelmed with argument and half
won by appeals to his better nature, and ashamed to refuse
blankly that which he finds no reason for longer withholding, man
avoids the dilemma by a pretended elevation of woman to a higher
sphere, where, as an angel, she has certain gauzy, ethereal
resources and superior attributes and functions which render the
possession of mere earthly, every-day powers and privileges
non-essential to her, however mere mortal men may find them
indispensable to their own freedom and happiness. But to the
denial of her right to vote, whether that denial be the blunt
refusal of the ignorant or the polished evasion of the refined
courtier and politician, woman can oppose only her most solemn
and perpetual appeal to the reason of man and to the justice of
Almighty God. She must continually point out the nature and
object of the suffrage and the necessity that she possess it for
her own and the public good.

What, then, is the suffrage, and why is it necessary that woman
should possess and exercise this function of freemen? I quote
briefly from the majority report of the Senate Committee:[33]

"The rights for the maintenance of which human governments are
constituted are life, liberty and property. These rights are
common to men and women alike and both are entitled to the
sovereign power to protect these rights. This right to the
protection of rights appertains to the individual, not to the
family, or to any form of association, whether social or
corporate. Probably not more than five-eighths of the men of
legal age, qualified to vote, are heads of families, and not more
than that proportion of adult women are united with men in the
legal merger of married life. It is, therefore, quite incorrect
to speak of the State as an aggregate of families duly
represented at the ballot-box by their male head. The relation
between the gover