Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/477

 which we toil is the enfranchisement of women, since the ballot is the only symbol of legal equality that is known in a republic.

Chancellor Wm. G. Eliot, of Washington University, St. Louis, wrote:

Considered as a right, suffrage belongs equally to man and woman. They are equally citizens and taxpayers. They share equally in the advantages of good government and suffer equally from bad legislation. They equally need the right of self-protection which the ballot alone can give. In average good, practical sense, wherever fair opportunity is permitted women are equal to men. In moral perception and practice women are at least equal—generally the superiors, if such comparison must be made. There is, therefore, no justification in saying that the right of suffrage, on whatever founded, belongs to man rather than to woman.

Considered as a privilege, little needs to be said on either side.Every citizen is under moral obligation to take part in the social interests and welfare of the community, whether national or municipal. Woman equally with man is under that moral law. In a republic she can not rightly be deprived of the Opportunity to do her full share as a citizen in all that concerns good government.

This seems to be the whole story. I have read with astonishment the arguments (so called) of Francis Parkman, the Rev. Brooke Herford and Mrs. Kate Gannett Wells. They scarcely touch the real merits of the case.

Dr. Mary F. Thomas, of Indiana, wrote:

As I see pictured before me all of you gathered from different parts of this great sisterhood of States to discuss the grand principle of human freedom, I can but compare this assembly with one con: vened in Philadelphia over a hundred years ago with this difference —they declared for the civil and political freedom of all men; you ask to-day that all human beings of sound mind shall enjoy the civil and political rights which they are entitled to by virtue of their humanity. As the judicious. management of the family circle requires the combined wisdom and judgment of father and mother, so this great political family, whose interests are identical, can only be consistently managed by the complete representation and concurrence of each individual governed by its laws.

It is not necessary for me to show argument for this statement, as your meeting to-day, composed of men and women thoroughly imbued with the spirit of the great truth contained in the Declaration of Independence, will supply words glowing with fervor that can not be written, that comes with a full conviction of the magnitude of this great question, involving even the perpetuity of our government.But without other reasons than that it is right, let the united voice of your meeting demand full recognition of the political rights of the women of the nation, so that it may