ced
that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of
the governed," these words occur:

The chief concern in this regard, to us and the rest of the
world is, whether the proud trust, the profound radicalism,
the wide benevolence which spoke in the declaration and were
infused into the constitution at the first, have been in
good-faith adhered to by the people, and whether now the
living principles supply the living forces which sustain and
direct government and society. He who doubts needs but to
look around to find all things full of the original spirit
and testifying to its wisdom and strength.

Yet that very day in that very city was a large assemblage of
women convened to protest against the gross wrongs of their
sex--the representatives of twenty millions of citizens of the
United States, composing one-half of the population being
governed without their consent by the other half, who, by virtue
of their superior strength, held the reins of power and
tyrannically denied them all representation. At that very meeting
at which that polished falsehood was uttered had the women, but
shortly before, been denied the privilege of silently presenting
their declaration of rights. More forcibly is this mortifying
disregard of the claims of women thrust in their faces from the
fact that, amid all this magnificent triumph with which the
growth of the century was commemorated, amid the protestations of
platforms all over the country of the grand success of the
principle of equal rights for all, the possibility of the future
according equal rights to women as well as to men was, with the
exception of one or two praiseworthy instances, as far as reports
have reached us, utterly ignored. The women have no
country--their rights are disregarded, their appeals ignored,
their protests scorned, they are treated as children who do not
comprehend their own wants, and as slaves whose crowning duty is
obedience.

Whether, on this great day of national triumph and national
aspiration, the possibilities of a better future for women were
forgotten; whether, from carelessness, willfulness, or
wickedness, their grand services and weary struggles in the past
and hopes and aspirations for the future