Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/106

76 In concluding, Dr. Lozier said: I have now the honor to introduce Miss Julia E. Smith, of Glastonbury, Conn., who will speak to you concerning the resistance of her sister and herself to the payment of taxes in her native town, on the ground that they are unrepresented in all town meetings, and therefore have no voice in the expenditure of the taxes which they are compelled to pay.

Miss said: Gentlemen of the Committee—This is the first time in my life that I have trod these halls, and what has brought me here? I say, oppression—oppression of women by men. Under the law they have taken from us $2,000 worth of meadow-land, and sold it for taxes of less than $50, and we were obliged to redeem it, for we could not lose the most valuable part of our farm. They have come into our house and said, "You must pay so much; we must execute the laws"; and we are not allowed to have a voice in the matter, or to modify laws that are odious.

I have come to Washington, as men cannot address you for us. We have no power at all; we are totally defenseless. [Miss Smith then read two short letters written by her sister Abby to the Springfield Republican.] These tell our brief story, and may I not ask, gentlemen, that they shall so plead with you that you will report to the Senate unanimously in favor of the sixteenth amendment, which we ask in order that the women of these United States who shall come after us may be saved the desecration of their homes which we have suffered, and our country may be relieved from the disgrace of refusing representation to that half of its people that men call the better half, because it includes their wives and daughters and mothers?

, vice-president for Illinois: Gentlemen of the Committee—We recognize your duty as men intrusted with the control and guidance of the government to carefully weigh every phase of this momentous question. Has the time arrived when it will be safe and expedient to make a practical application of these great principles of our government to one-half of the governed, one-half of the citizens of the United States? The favorite argument of the opposition has been that women are represented by men, hence have no cause for complaint. Any careful student of the progress of liberty must admit that the only possible method for securing justice to the represented is for their representatives to be made entirely responsible to their constituents, and promptly removable by them. We are only secure in delegating power when we can dictate its use, limit the same, or revoke it. How many of your honorable committee would vote to make the presidency an office for life, said office to descend to the heirs in a male line forever, with no reserved power of impeachment? Yet you would be more fairly represented than are American women, since they have never elected their representatives. So far as women are concerned you are self-constituted rulers. We cannot hope for complete representation while we are powerless to recall, impeach, or punish our representatives. We meet with a case in point in the history of Virginia. Bancroft gives us the following quotation from the official records: