Page:Democratic Ideals (Olympia Brown).djvu/113



Federal Suffrage Circular

voting then in New Jersey. Therefore, free women in all the States were pledged the same rights possessed by the women of New Jersey.

The Legislature of South Carolina did not at first accept the Articles, but returned them to Congress, asking that intercitizenship should be confined to "white males." Congress refused to put a limitation in the Constitution. Hence there was no sex barrier placed at the threshold of our Government.

Women Are People.

Women were manifestly included when the Declaration of Independence was issued, as it said, "In the name, and by the authority of the good people of these Colonies, etc."

Women were part of the "people" referred to in the preamble to the Constitution: "We, the people *** to secure to ourselves and our posterity," etc.

By common law and daily practice women are included in the word "people" in the Articles of Amendment—I, II, IV, and IX — which protect the civil rights of both sexes alike.

Plainly, if women were included in the term "people" as the word occurs six times in the Constitution, inferentially "women" were meant by "people" in the one other occurrence of the word, which is in Article