KATE N. DOGGETT.

* * * * *

The presents received were too numerous to mention. From Mr. and Mrs.
Cheney, South Manchester, Conn., $50; Erie Co. (N. Y.) Suffrage
Association, $50; Henry Ward Beecher, the Tiltons, Frank D. Moulton,
Mrs. Hooker, Mrs. S. C. Pomeroy, $25 each; Mr. and Mrs. Samuel E.
Sewall, $20; and from other friends, sums of ten, fifteen and twenty
dollars, amounting in all to $1,000. In addition were a broche shawl
from Mrs. Stanton, gold watch, chain and pin from Miss Sarah Johnston,
pen-and-ink sketch from Eliza Greatorex, point and duchesse lace collars
and handkerchiefs, sets of books, engravings, gold pens, pocket-books,
travelling case, and floral offerings.

CHAPTER XXV--PAGE 435.

CONSTITUTIONAL ARGUMENT.

_Delivered in twenty-nine of the post-office districts of Monroe, and
twenty-one of Ontario, in Miss Anthony's canvass of those counties prior
to her trial in June, 1873._

_Friends and Fellow-Citizens:_--I stand before you under indictment for
the alleged crime of having voted at the last presidential election,
without having a lawful right to vote. It shall be my work this evening
to prove to you that in thus doing, I not only committed no crime, but
instead simply exercised my citizen's right, guaranteed to me and all
United States citizens by the National Constitution beyond the power of
any State to deny.

Our democratic-republican government is based on the idea of the natural
right of every individual member thereof to a voice and a vote in making
and executing the laws. We assert the province of government to be to
secure the people in the enjoyment of their inalienable rights. We throw
to the winds the old dogma that government can give rights. No one
denies that before governments were organized each individual possessed
the right to protect his own life, liberty and property. When 100 or
1,000,000 people enter into a free government, they do not barter away
their natural rights; they simply pledge themselves to protect each
other in the enjoyment of them through prescribed judicial and
legislative tribunals. They agree to abandon the methods of brute force
in the adjustment of their differences and adopt those of civilization.
Nor can you find a word in any of the grand documents left us by the
fathers which assumes for government the power to create or to confer
rights. The Declaration of Independence, the United States Constitution,
the