. The subject was taken up by the
press and the people, and not escaping its meed of ridicule, was
seriously dealt with by both friend and enemy. Perhaps the
western champions of woman's recognition as an intelligent part
of the body politic were brought to understand the full meaning
of her disabilities by their own experiences as territorial
minors. Certain it is that the high spirit of the citizens of
Colorado chafed intolerably under the temporary limitations of
accustomed rights of sovereign manhood. The federal government,
in the capacity of regent, sent to these territorial wards their
officers and governors and fixed the rate of their taxation
without full representation. These wards were indeed empowered,
as were the people of their sister territories, to elect a
delegate to the national congress, whose opinions upon
territorial matters were allowed expression in that body, but who
could no more enforce there his convictions upon important
measures, by a vote, than could the most intelligent woman of
this territory upon the question of his election to represent her
interests.

In the Colorado papers of those days of territorial tutelage,
there appeared repeatedly most impatient protests against these
humiliating conditions of citizenship. With the attainment of
statehood in 1876 there came to the men of Colorado a restoration
of their full rights as citizens of the Republic. According to
the proscriptive usage, the humiliating conditions of citizenship
without the ballot, remained to the women of the Centennial
State; and those of their reenfranchised brothers who had felt
most keenly their own unaccustomed restrictions, were without
doubt the foremost advocates of the movement to secure the full
recognition of women's rights.

The majority of the territorial legislative assembly of 1870 was
unexpectedly Democratic, and almost as unexpected was the favor
promptly shown by the Democratic members to the passage of the
bill proposing woman suffrage. The measure was indeed
characterized by the opposing Republicans, as "the great
Democratic reform," and for weeks seemed destined to triumph
through Democratic votes, in spite of the frivolous and serious
opposition of the Republican minority, and the few Democratic
members who d