,
politically, with the lowliest born subject or serf. By them, too, men,
as such, were deprived of their divine right to rule and placed on a
political level with women. By the practice of these declarations all
class and caste distinctions would be abolished, and slave, serf,
plebeian, wife, woman, all alike rise from their subject position to the
broader platform of equality.

The preamble of the Federal Constitution says:

We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more
perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare and
secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do
ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of
America.

It was we, the people, not we, the white male citizens, nor we, the male
citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed this Union. We formed it
not to give the blessings of liberty but to secure them; not to the half
of ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole
people--women as well as men. It is downright mockery to talk to women
of their enjoyment of the blessings of liberty while they are denied the
only means of securing them provided by this democratic-republican
government--the ballot.

The early journals of Congress show that, when the committee reported to
that body the original articles of confederation, the very first one
which became the subject of discussion was that respecting equality of
suffrage. Article IV said:

The better to secure and perpetuate mutual friendship and
intercourse between the people of the different States of this
Union, the free inhabitants of each of the States (paupers,
vagabonds and fugitives from justice excepted) shall be entitled to
all the privileges and immunities of the free citizens of the
several States.

Thus, at the very beginning, did the fathers see the necessity of the
universal application of the great principle of equal rights to all, in
order to produce the desired result--a harmonious union and a
homogeneous people.

Luther Martin, attorney-general of Maryland, in his report to the
legislature of that State of the convention which framed the United
States Constitution, said:

Those who advocated the equality of suffrage took the matter up on
the original principles of government: that the reason why each
individual ma