her representation? By
what process of reasoning was Charles Sumner able to stand up in the
Senate, a few days after these sublime utterances, and rebuke 15,000,000
disfranchised tax-payers for the exercise of their mere right of
petition? If he felt that this was not the time for woman even to
mention her right to representation, why did he not, in some of his
splendid sentences, propose to release the wage-earning and
property-owning women from the tyranny of taxation?

We propose no new theories. We simply ask that you secure the practical
application of the immutable principles of our government to all,
without distinction of race, color or sex. And we urge our demand now,
because you have now the opportunity and the power to take this onward
step in legislation. The nations of the earth stand watching and waiting
to see if our Revolutionary idea, "all men are created equal," can be
realized in government. Crush not, we pray you, the myriad hopes which
hang on our success. Peril not this nation with another bloody war. Men
and parties must pass away, but justice is eternal; and only they who
work in harmony with its laws are immortal. All who have carefully
contrasted the speeches of this Congress with those made under the old
regime of slavery, must have seen the added power and eloquence which
greater freedom gives. But still you propose no action on your grand
ideas. Your joint resolutions, your reconstruction reports, do not
reflect your highest thought.

The Constitution, as it stands, in basing representation on "respective
numbers" covers a broader ground than any you have yet proposed. Is not
the only amendment needed to Article 1, Section 3, to strike out the
exceptions which follow "respective numbers?" And is it not your duty,
by securing a republican form of government to every State, to see that
these "respective numbers" are made up of enfranchised citizens, thus
bringing your legislation up to the Constitution--not the Constitution
down to your party possibilities? The only tenable ground of
representation is universal suffrage, as it is only through universal
suffrage that the principle of "equal rights to all" can be realized.
All prohibitions based on race, color, sex, property or education are
violations of the republican idea; and the various qualifications now
proposed are but so many plausible pretexts to debar new classes from
the ballot-box. The limitations of property and intelligence, tho