have men been guilty of such baseness toward the women of their race."

You will find in the national policies of all republics, that man is the Alpha and Omega; that the laws of all are wholly masculine-all things, legal, civic, and political being restricted to the thoughts, feelings, and desires of men; that in dealing with womankind they are the coldest, hardest, and the most cynical governments in Christendom; and that they always apply to our sex all their political sophistry, false assumptions, and blind selfishness.

A republic indeed was the first government to establish an aristocracy of sex, for as Mill says, “We must consider a government aristocratic, be the class it excludes from representation great or small." An oligarchy of class, where the refined govern the uncouth; of learning, where the educated govern the ignorant; of race where the Saxon rules inferior people, is natural and can be endured; but an oligarchy of sex is the most odious aristocracy under the sun. For the political disabilities of sex are far more grievous than those of class (a citizen in a re

public permanently disfranchised or refused enfranchisement is always a citizen attainted); and an oligarchy or aristocracy of sex is infinitely more absolute than any recorded in the annals of history. You have always heard that the Brahmin caste system was the most terrible chain ever laid upon humanity-investigate the sex-caste of democracy, and you will concede that it is a chain which weighs upon women with more crushing power than that which weighs upon the Brahmin.

The universal and exclusive manhood suffrage of republics has established an aristocracy of sex and thereby unquestionably imposes more cruel despotism upon woman than is attempted by any Occidental monarchy upon any class of its subjects. For every aristocracy proper is based upon birth, refinement, wealth, charity, ability, education, character, brave deeds, nobility, or acts of chivalry, but in a republic it is based upon sex alone, exalting brute force above moral power, vice above virtue, ignorance above intelligence, and coarseness above refinement.

In monarchies a woman can be political head,

can hold office; in all of them certain of our sex have hereditary rights which raise them above the masses of men; certain privileges not granted to peasant males; certain honours, ranging from an occupancy of the throne to the smallest dignities, which place them above the majority of men. Millions throughout monarchies have municipal suffrage, and in several parts of the British Empire have complete suffrage. There are no women in Europe (except in France, which is also a republic) so degraded politically as the women of the American Republics. "Indeed," says Carlyle, "-the disfranchisement of woman—as woman-is a democratic novelty."

In monarchies a woman has direct political power-the dividing lines are not sex, but rank. A peasant woman has no political power nor has her husband. Rank gives it to man and in a degree to woman, but “a republic is a pure sexocracy." Politically speaking all the men in democracies are patricians and all the women are plebeians. For as De Tocqueville says: "Wherever one class has exclusive or peculiar powers, there is an aristocracy, or an oligarchy."

It is too late by thirty centuries for republics to put in their brazen plea of woman's incompetency in political affairs. The jealous Jewish theocracy was judged by Deborah, who led armies to victory, and under whose guidance the land had peace for forty years. There was the mighty Semiramis, who founded Babylon, and whose wisdom was the bed-rock of the State. She led armies in person, and her talents were so great, both in peace and war, that after her death her people reckoned her among the gods. Then the famous Zenobia, that Empress feared and hated by the Roman Empire, to whose sway nearly the whole of the Eastern Provinces submitted. Then Isabella of Castile. What Spanish ruler, or indeeed any other of her day, equalled her in intelligence, was so great a protector of science, art and literature? It was owing to her personality that Spain was productive of the most important consequences to the whole world. Then Elizabeth, who picked up a prostrate nation and made England the sovereign power of the world! What Tudor was her equal -or indeed what English King ever equalled

her? What Russian ruler in personal force or energy excelled the Great Catherine of that land? It was she who first codified Russian laws, and throughout the land stand great monuments to her far-reaching intelligence, in the shape of public improvements which first gave Russia its impulse to encroach upon the four quarters of the globe. What Austrian Sovereign had the executive ability and unusual discernment of Maria Theresa? Though opposed by all the powers of Europe and possessing but one ally among them, she maintained the greatness and integrity of her Empire and was eminent in peace as she was in war. Which of the House of Brunswick for one moment compares with Victoria? In fact what ruler that ever lived has so greatly elevated and ennobled the entire world as she? How much of the glory of the nineteenth century enhaloes her throne? Under her rule England has gained such a foothold that "the sun never sets upon her possessions." And had a Victoria been upon England's throne in 1776, the entire North American continent would to-day be a part of the British Empire,