Until you give woman the right to her children, every mother in America is liable to such a fate.

When the husband passes into weak enough, he can deprive her

But even the widow is not safe. the other world, if he is wicked, or of her children, for he can reach back from beyond the grave, and, by means of this unjust power which the law gives him, can will that her children shall be taken from her, even when he is justified by no dereliction of duty on her part.

The laws of property are just as bad. If a woman at marriage own personal, or any other kind of property, except real estate in fee simple, it becomes absolutely her husband's, liable for his debts, to be disposed of as he chooses; and when he dies, it passes to his heirs, and is taken forever from her control. Real estate in fee simple, though the title remains technically her's, becomes virtually his also. The total income, as fast as realized, remains his for life; so that, while he lives, she can never be one cent the richer for its nominal possession. At his death, his property goes to his heirs and does not return to her, but in its stead she holds a pitiful life interest only in one-third of his real estate, provided he leave any.

A wife has no legal right to her earnings. She may labor to support her offspring, and when she goes, at the end of the week or month, to draw the proceeds of her half-requited toil, the husband may have anticipated and taken them from her.

Thus, if a woman with property, marry, no matter whether she earned or inherited it, she becomes a pauper, dependant upon her husband, or after his death upon her children, for the clothes she Nobody can honestly say that such laws as

puts upon her back.

these are anything better than legalized robbery.

And yet when women ask a voice in the selection of the men who have made, and still maintain these laws, they are told that they are meddling with matters which do not concern them!

"But why do you not confine your attention to the specific injustice, and ask for the reform of the laws in these respects?" ask the opponents of this movement; "why claim to vote?"

Go ask the prisoners of his Holiness, the Pope, as they languish amid Roman dungeons, and mutter with quivering lips the sacred

words, "Freedom" and "Mazzini” in the ear of God, why they long for the key that can open the iron door of their sacerdotal sepulchre!

Ask the miserable Koszta, half-drowned, half-strangled, in the hold of the Emperor's frigate, why he invokes the stars and stripes of Republican America to wrap him in their folds, and save him from an Austrian scaffold!

Ask the hunted American fugitive, as he flies from his kidnapper across the soil of our own Ohio, why he turns his back upon those stars and stripes, to fix his eager eyes on the red-cross banner of St. George!

We ask the right to vote because it is the key to all other rights. We embody in this claim the idea of Human Rights, irrespective of sex. There is no hope of getting justice, except by claiming absolute equality before God and the law. We base our claim upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence. The experience of ages proves that no interests, not directly represented in government, ever get justice. Where, in the history of the race, did a class legislate for wider interests than its own? When, since the commencement of the world, did the Despot look beyond his own selfish aims, to build up the power of an Aristocracy? When did an Oligarchy ever labor earnestly for the elevation of the People? Do you tell me, that the interests of the sexes are, after all, identical, and therefore, that men will protect women? Why, if they only knew it, the interests of the aristocracy everywhere, are linked with those of the People. It is not for the real interest even of a class, that the People should be crushed down into serfdom. The class would gain by the development of individual energy, and the accumulation of national wealth. But selfishness is proverbially short-sighted. It is indeed for the interest of man that woman should obtain her rights. Yet it is contrary to experience to expect that man ever will be able so to comprehend her, as to do justice to her interests. The existence of the present laws, proves that you cannot entrust the interests of woman to man. These very laws have been put upon your statute book by husbands and fathers, and yet they do not woman jus

tice. Knowing the past, we do not believe that male Legislators ever will.

There is one other class only, beside woman, which in most of the States is excluded from the franchise-the free colored population of the country. What is their condition? Even pro-slavery men lament the disabilities which weigh so heavily on these unfortunates. Why, then, are their claims unheeded? Because they are precluded from the ballot-box. It is because politicians cannot hope to obtain votes by appealing to the colored population. Hence their interests are neglected. Compare the condition of these people in Massachusetts, where they have a vote, and in Indiana, where they have none, and you will find it true, that substantial justice goes hand in hand with political privilege. So it will be with woman. Just so soon as politicians can make something by advocating her rights, they will ransack the statute books, and there will be a strife among political parties to see who can do the most to ameliorate her condition.

But there is another reason why woman should have a voice in public affairs. History teaches us that if there be one thing for which woman is peculiarly fitted, it is for the art of Government. For, in no country but republican America, has woman been entirely excluded from politics. It is a singular fact in the annals of almost every country of Europe, that perhaps the most illustrious monarch, the one who has done most for the aggrandizement of the nation, has been a woman.

To begin with England. Look back from the woman who now sits upon the throne, through the houses of Hanover, Stuart, Tudor, York, Lancaster and Plantagenet, to the Norman Conquest. Trace back still further the lines of Dane and Saxon till you reach the glorious name of Alfred. Where is the monarch of them all who can compare, for an instant, with Elizabeth? Her reign is the golden age of English history. She passed from a prison to assume the control of a nation embittered by religious feuds, and rent by civil commotion. She restored order, established unity, and made her country the protector and champion of Protestant Europe. In spite of excommunication abroad, and treason at home, she maintained herself in that position against the giant power of Spain, while, year

after year, the forces of banded Europe hung hovering around that little isle. With the aid of illustrious statesmen, whom her sagacity placed in power, she drove back the surges of invasion; and we are here to-day, free to discuss the rights of woman, because there was a woman then upon the throne of England, to defend religious liberty against the oppression of Catholic Europe.

It was a woman who furnished Columbus with the means of discovering this continent, when not a king in Christendom would venture upon the enterprize; and, while America stands, a living monument of the liberality of a Spanish Queen, it comes with a bad grace from Americans, to say that the intelligent and educated women of this country are not as fit to choose their own rulers as an Irish or German immigrant.

With a single exception, the greatest monarch who ever sat upon the throne of Austria, was a woman. How is it that Francis Joseph has had power to put his yoke upon the neck of nations? Because a woman, his ancestor, sat upon that throne when it seemed about to be overthrown forever. Had it not been for the genius of Maria Theresa, the house of Hapsburg would have been swept away, and there would have been no Austria, and no Kossuth! You remember how, when the neighboring powers had combined to divide the empire between them, and even her own nobles had deserted her, that heroic woman fled into Hungary, and presenting herself before the turbulent Diet, holding her child by the hand, appealed to them for help. The fierce barons yielded to her eloquent appeal. Fired with a sublime enthusiasm, which none but a woman can arouse, they all drew their swords as one man, exclaiming, “We will die for our king, Maria Theresa!"

While I speak, Russia is gathering her armies around the frontiers of Turkey, and threatens to annex Constantinople and the Mediterranean. Europe looks in terror at that grisly power, which casts its black shadow over a hemisphere. Do you ask me whence proceeds this colossal fabric of organized barbarism? I tell you, that, more than to any others, it is due to the genius of two women. It was the first Catharine, herself originally a slave, who influenced the Czar Peter to the great measures of policy which laid the foundation of

that power. Her history, is that of Russia. But for her, the ener getic but savage and brutal Peter might never have been called

the Great." And but for the second Catharine, who cemented the work of her predecessors, and sent forth that great warrior and great villain, Suwarrow, the present Nicholas would never have attained the eminence which threatens to swallow up civilization.

Look at the history of France. In spite of the Salic law, which excluded women from the succession, how often has that country been virtually ruled by women. Joan of Arc was really the greatest monarch who has ruled there since Charlemagne. There was a time in the outbreak of the French revolution, when the hopes of the friends of Humanity bade fair to be realized. Let me remind you, that that time was when Madame Roland drew around herself all the strength of the Girondist party. Her house was the center where the best and wisest men of France delighted to assemble. American statesmen, resident then at Paris, united in ascribing to this noble woman a character as spotless in its purity, as it was imposing in its intellect. And the demagogues who drowned liberty in a sea of blood, instituting that "reign of terror" which reacted in a military despotism, could not crush the Republic, until they had trampled the head of Madame Roland in the bloody mire of the guillotine.

When woman has done such great deeds in the old world, amid almost insurmountable obstacles and a thousand disadvantages, how strange it seems, that man should be so blind to the facts of history, as to say that the women of intelligent America are unfit to go to the ballot-box, to give their voice in the selection of their rulers.

Woman needs the elective franchise to destroy the prevalent sentiment of female inferiority. It is this almost universal prejudice which has created our unjust laws and customs. It is this, which shuts her out from the professions. It is this, which excludes her from the ballot-box. This contempt for woman pervades society like an atmosphere. I heard it well expressed, while traveling this summer in Indiana, by a little knot of villagers who were discussing "Uncle Tom's Cabin." They all agreed that it was a great work, but maintained stoutly that it could not have been written by a woman. They decided that its author was, of course, a man-probably Professor