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Rh most excellent and well-instructed physicians. Women are doing everything which it is now claimed they have the right to do, except voting, which they are not yet permitted to do; and I am not sure, in regard to that, that the best plan would not be, as our Platonic friend in New England once said, for the women to go quietly and vote, without waiting to be asked or told that they would be permitted to do so. To be sure, he said, their votes could not be counted, but there they would be, and they would have their force. He thought that the moral influence of those votes would go a great ways, and it is quite possible that they would have that effect. But I hope, whether in that way or some other—perhaps before that step is taken—men will be led to see, that in the sphere of politics, as well as in the sphere of literature and art, woman's influence is needed; and all the objections that are made to woman's voting are of the most trivial character, that would not stand a day before any serious desire that she should have her simple right in this matter, so far as she chooses to claim it. And her right lies simply in these old propositions, so dear to our fathers—upon which they stood and fought an eight years' war—"Taxation without representation is tyranny," and that "all just powers of government are derived from the consent of the governed." And there is nothing in these two propositions which confines their application to man; there is nothing in them which does not demand that woman should be included as well as man. Wherever woman is taxed, she has a right to vote, by this fundamental principle of our government; and wherever she is legislated for and governed, she is entitled to a voice in that legislation and government.

This is a very simple matter. To-day, it is only a question of time, when, from a matter of speculation, it will become a matter of fact, the details of which can be managed as well as anything in the world. Women will not be obliged to enter into a scramble with dirty and fighting men at the polls—though it is possible, if she went where such men are, they would be put on their good manners, and be as well-behaved as anybody; but she could have a separate place to vote, and go to the polls as quietly, and with as little loss of time, as she now goes to the post-office, or walks the streets, where rough, rude men congregate, but where she has enough room to go and purchase her silks and satins and laces in Broadway. (Applause). I congratulate those who, taking an interest in this cause, espoused it when it was a great cross to bear—who took it up with the simple courage of woman, the patient perseverance of woman, and have carried it through as far as it has gone now—upon the advances which it has made, upon the opening and enlightenment of the public mind, and upon its favorable reception, spite of all the obstacles that still remain. I bid them be of good cheer, and remember that the great law of progress is a law of steps; so that we must needs all be patient, while we must also all needs be persevering. It is but a question of time and of steps. The great psalm of human progress is (to borrow a phrase from the Hebrew Bible) a psalm of degrees. By patient steps man rises out of falsehood into truth, out of wrongs into rights. So it is with woman, as a part of humanity. Let every woman be true to this as her mission; let no woman dare to place any obstacle or coldness in the way of this movement; but let all calmly consider it, hear the arguments that are made, and allow them to have their full weight; look at the simple facts, and decide. Then we may, perhaps, all of us live to see the day when, throughout all the spheres of his life, and all the