rough congressional action,
or by legislative ratification of amendments, each State has
arisen above and beyond itself into a higher national realm.

The one right above all others which is not local is the right of
self-government. That right being the corner stone on which the
nation was founded, is a strictly national right. It is not
local, it is not State....

It does not matter by what instrumentality--whether by State
constitution or by statute law--woman has been deprived of her
national right of self-government, it is none the less the duty
of Congress to protect her in regaining it. Surely her right to
govern herself is of as much value as the protection of property,
the quelling of riots, the destruction or establishment of banks,
the guarding of the polls, the securing of a free ballot for the
colored race or the taking of it from a Mormon voter.

In her address on The Work of Women, Miss Mary F. Eastman (Mass.)
said: "Men say the work of the State is theirs. The State is the
people. The origin of government is simply that two men call in a
third for umpire. The ideal of the State is gradually rising. No State
can be finer in its type of government than the individuals who make
it. We enunciate a grand principle, then we are timid and begin
restricting its application. We are a nation of infidels to
principle."

The leading feature of the last evening was the address of Mrs.
Zerelda G. Wallace (Ind.) on Woman's Ballot a Necessity for the
Permanence of Free Institutions. A Washington paper said: "As she
stood upon the platform, holding her hearers as in her hand, she
looked a veritable queen in Israel and the personification of womanly
dignity and lofty bearing. The line of her argument was irresistible,
and her eloquence and pathos perfectly bewildering. Round after round
of applause greeted her as she poured out her words with telling
effect upon the great congregation before her, who were evidently in
perfect accord with her earnest and womanly utterances."

An imperfect extract from a newspaper report will suggest the trend of
her argument:

In this Nineteenth annual convention, reviewing what these
nineteen years have brought, we find that we have won every
position in the field of argument for our cause. By its dignity
and justice we have overcome ridicule, although our progress has
been impeded by th