the original
constitution until it was guaranteed by the sixth amendment.
And yet the women of this nation have never been allowed a
jury of their peers--being tried in all cases by men, native
and foreign, educated and ignorant, virtuous and vicious.
Young girls have been arraigned in our courts for the crime
of infanticide; tried, convicted, hanged--victims,
perchance, of judge, jurors, advocates--while no woman's
voice could be heard in their defense. And not only are
women denied a jury of their peers, but in some cases, jury
trial altogether. During the war, a woman was tried and
hanged by military law, in defiance of the fifth amendment,
which specifically declares: "No person shall be held to
answer for a capital or otherwise infamous crime, unless on
a presentment or indictment of a grand jury, except in cases
... of persons in actual service in time of war." During the
last presidential campaign, a woman, arrested for voting,
was denied the protection of a jury, tried, convicted, and
sentenced to a fine and costs of prosecution, by the
absolute power of a judge of the Supreme Court of the United
States.

_Taxation without representation_, the immediate cause of
the rebellion of the colonies against Great Britain, is one
of the grievous wrongs the women of this country have
suffered during the century. Deploring war, with all the
demoralization that follows in its train, we have been taxed
to support standing armies, with their waste of life and
wealth. Believing in temperance, we have been taxed to
support the vice, crime and pauperism of the liquor traffic.
While we suffer its wrongs and abuses infinitely more than
man, we have no power to protect our sons against this giant
evil. During the temperance crusade, mothers were arrested,
fined, imprisoned, for even praying and singing in the
streets, while men blockade the sidewalks with impunity,
even on Sunday, with their military parades and political
processions. Believing in honesty, we are taxed to support a
dangerous army of civilians, buying and selling the offices
of government and sacrific