positions with their constituencies. A constituency composed of
ignorant men would vote solid against us because they have never
thought on the question. Every man or woman who believes in the
enfranchisement of women is educated out of every idea that he or
she was born into. We were all born into the idea that the proper
sphere of women is subjection, and it takes education and thought
and culture to lift us out of it. Therefore when men go to the
ballot-box they till vote "no," unless they have actual argument
on it. I will illustrate. We have six Legislatures in the nation,
for instance, that have extended the right to vote on school
questions to the women, and not a single member of the State
Legislature has ever lost his office or forfeited the respect or
confidence of his constituents as a representative because he
voted to give women the right to vote on school questions. It is a
question that the unthinking masses never have thought upon. They
do not care about it one way or the other, only they have an
instinctive feeling that because women never did vote therefore it
is wrong that they ever should vote.

MRS. SPENCER. Do make the point that the Congress of the United
States leads the Legislatures of the States and educates them.

MISS ANTHONY. When you, representative men, carry this matter to
Legislatures, State by State, they will ratify it. My point is
that you can safely do this. Senator Thurman, of Ohio, would
not lose a single vote in Ohio in voting in favor of the
enfranchisement of women. Senator EDMUNDS would not lose a single
Republican vote in the State of Vermont if he puts himself on our
side, which, I think, he will do. It is not a political question.
We are no political power that can make or break either party
to-day. Consequently each man is left independent to express his
own moral and intellectual convictions on the matter without
endangering himself politically.

SENATOR EDMUNDS. I think, Miss Anthony, you ought to put it
on rather higher, I will not say stronger, ground. If you can
convince us that it is right we would not stop to see how it
affected us politically.

MISS ANTHONY. I was coming to that, I was going to say to all of
you men in office here to-day that if you can not go forward
and carry out either your Democratic or your Rep