that time and experience, the growth of the country and
the consequent expansion of the Government, would develop the
necessity for changes in it. Under this provision, at the first
session of the First Congress, ten amendments were submitted to
the Legislatures of the several States, in due time ratified by
the constitutional number, and thus became a part of the
Constitution. Since then there have been added to the
Constitution by the same process five different articles. To
secure an amendment requires the concurrent action of two-thirds
of both branches of Congress and the affirmative action of
three-fourths of the States. The question as to whether this
resolution shall be submitted to the Legislatures for
ratification does not involve the right or policy of the proposed
amendment....

No question in this country has been more ably discussed than
this has been by the women themselves. I do not think a single
objection which is made to woman suffrage is tenable. No one will
contend but that women have sufficient capacity to vote
intelligently. Sacred and profane history is full of the records
of great deeds by women. They have ruled kingdoms, and, my friend
from Georgia to the contrary notwithstanding, they have commanded
armies. They have excelled in statecraft, they have shone in
literature, and, rising superior to their environments and
breaking the shackles with which custom and tyranny have bound
them, they have stood side by side with men in the fields of the
arts and the sciences.

If it were a fact that woman is intellectually inferior to man,
which I do not admit, still that would be no reason why she
should not be permitted to participate in the formation and
control of the government to which she owes allegiance. If we are
to have as a test for the exercise of the right of suffrage a
qualification based upon intelligence, let it be applied to women
and to men alike. If it be admitted that suffrage is a right,
that is the end of controversy; there can no longer be any
argument made against woman suffrage; because, if it is her
right, then, if there were but one poor woman in all the United
States demanding the right it would be tyranny to refuse the
demand.

But our opponents say that suffrage is not a right; that