and the doctrine of the inferiority of
woman to man, are all alike the offspring of sin--all alike relics of
barbarism--alike the enemies of God and human freedom.

Long-established prejudices and old usages, no matter how false and
oppressive, are, like the everlasting hills, hard to be removed. But, as
the mountains themselves have been overcome by skill and hard work, and
the valleys are being filled by persevering toil; as the crooked is
being made straight and the rough places plain, so that the people of
this mighty continent may travel with ease in palace-cars from sea to
sea; so must the strong barriers of prejudice, ignorance,
misrepresentation, and indifference, be removed by the force of truth
and sound reason, and women be admitted to their legitimate position in
society, with equal prerogatives accorded to them, that they may thereby
more perfectly exert their natural influence in improving the world.

CHAPTER VI.

Woman Before the Law.

The fact that men and women are held amenable to the same Divine law,
and held equally accountable for any infraction of it, and that human
law, with regard to criminal actions, is based upon the same principle,
clearly proves that God has created men and women, as a race, with equal
mental and moral capacity, and that, so far as it suited them to do so,
men have acknowledged the equality in framing the laws, especially those
relating to the punishment for crimes committed. It was only where
masculine arrogance and selfishness were concerned, that the privileges
of equality were denied to women; and they are still denied for the
same reason. Such is man's consistency. If women, because of their
sex--indeed, in consequence of it--are inferior to men in mental and
moral capacity, then it is unjust to judge them by the same law; for
where little is given little should be required. Imbecile men are not
judged by the same code as men of sound mind. If men and women are
mentally and morally equal--and we hold they are--then they are justly
held to be equally accountable by the laws, provided they have been
equally represented in the making of those laws; and if held equally
accountable with men to the laws, they ought, in common justice, to be
entitled to the enjoyment of equal immunities with men, and an equal
voice in the making of the laws that are to govern them.

To urge that, because the house is the legitimate place for a woman, she
is therefore inferior to ma