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106 are up to the tendencies of the times, who desire to keep themselves in front of the great army of humanity which is marching forward just as certainly to universal suffrage as to universal manhood suffrage. Therefore, Mr. President, I offer this amendment and ask for the yeas and nays upon it.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. : I move that the Senate do now adjourn. ["Oh, no!"]

Mr. : I hope not.

The pro tem.: The motion is not debatable and must be put unless withdrawn.

The motion was agreed to; and the Senate adjourned.

, Dec. 11, 1866.

The President pro tempore: If there be no further morning business, and no motion is interposed, the chair, although the morning hour has not expired, will call up the unfinished business, which is the bill (S, No. 1) to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia, the pending question being on the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan] to strike out the word "male" before the word "person" in the second line of the first section of the amendment, reported by the Committee on the District of Columbia as a substitute for the original bill.

Mr. : I suppose the Senator from Pennsylvania introduced this amendment rather as a satire upon the bill itself, or if he had any serious intention it was only a mischievous one to injure the bill; but it will not probably have that effect, for I suppose nobody will vote for it except the Senator himself, who can hardly avoid it, and I, who shall vote for it because it accords with a conclusion to which I have been brought by considerable study upon the subject of suffrage. I do not contend for female suffrage on the ground that it is a natural right, because I believe that suffrage is a right derived from society, and that society is competent to impose upon the exercise of that right whatever conditions it chooses. I hold that the suffrage is a delegated trust—a trust delegated to certain designated classes of society—and that the whole body-politic has the same right to withdraw any part of that trust, that we have to withdraw any part of the powers or the trusts that we have imposed upon any executive officer, and that it is no more a punishment to restrict the suffrage, and thereby deprive certain persons of the exercise of that right who have heretofore exercised it, than it is a punishment on the Secretary of the Treasury if we should take from him the appointment of certain persons whose appointment is now vested in him. The power that confers in each case has the right to withdraw.

The true basis of suffrage, of course, is intelligence and virtue; but as we can not define those, as we can not draw the line that shall mark the amount of intelligence and virtue that any individual possesses, we come as near as we can to it by imperfect conditions. It certainly will not be contended that the feminine part of mankind are so much below the masculine in point of intelligence as to disqualify them from exercising the right of suffrage on that account. If it be asserted and conceded