The Project Gutenberg EBook of The First Essay on the Political Rights of
Women, by Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet

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Title: The First Essay on the Political Rights of Women

Author: Jean-Antoine-Nicolas de Caritat Condorcet

Translator: Alice Drysdale Vickery

Release Date: March 8, 2010 [EBook #31550]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

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THE FIRST ESSAY
ON
The Political Rights of Women.

A Translation of CONDORCET'S Essay "_Sur l'admission
des femmes au droit de Cite_" (On the Admission
of Women to the Rights of Citizenship).
--_Collected Writings_, 1789.

BY
DR. ALICE DRYSDALE VICKERY.

(WITH PREFACE AND REMARKS.)

LETCHWORTH:
GARDEN CITY PRESS LIMITED.

=Price Twopence.=

Preface.

More than one hundred years have passed away since, in 1789, the
Marquis de Condorcet wrote his "_Esquisse sur l'Admission des Femmes
au Droit de Cite_," and yet the problem of women's enfranchisement
still awaits an equitable solution. Those of us who are old enough to
remember the inauguration of the popular movement for the extension of
the franchise to women (which may be dated from the day in which our
late noble leader, JOHN STUART MILL, addressed the House of Commons on
this subject, in May, 1867), feel that our lives are passing away
while wearily awaiting the dilatory educational development of mankind
in this question.

The essential principles of our claim have been reiterated again and
again. We form one-half of the human race, and need recognition by the
law as much as the other half of the race. But, as long a