Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/436

tional Argument was made by Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.), who said in the course of a long and logical address:

We find that it is declared in Article IV, Section 4, that "the United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of Government." What is a republican form of Government? In a monarchy, the theory is that all power flows directly from the monarch; even in constitutional monarchies each concession has been obtained "by consent of our gracious sovereign." When the laws are based on the idea that the caprices of the ruler regulate the privileges granted to the people, it is at least logical, even if it is cruel, to refuse the right of suffrage to any class of the community. You will agree that this is not a monarchy, where power flows from the sovereign to the people, but a republic, where the sovereign people give to the Executive they have chosen the power to carry out their will. Can you really claim that we live under a republican form of government when one-half the adult inhabitants are denied all voice in the affairs of the nation? It may be better described as an oligarchy, where certain privileged men choose the rulers who make laws for their own benefit, too often to the detriment of the unrepresented portion of our people, who are denied recognition as completely as was ever an oppressed class in the most odious form of oligarchy which usurped a government.

Article XIV, Section 2, provides that "Representation shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians, not taxed." What sort of justice is there in excluding from the basis of representation Indians who are not taxed and including in this basis women who are taxed? The framers of this amendment were evidently impressed with the tenet that taxation and representation should be associated, and that as the Indian paid no taxes, and was not, therefore, forced to carry the burdens of citizenship, he might, with justice, be denied the privileges of citizenship. But by what specious reasoning can any one maintain that it is honest to tax the great body of women citizens, to count them in the basis of representation, and yet deny to them the right of personal representation at the ballot box? What excuse can be made for this monstrous perversion of liberty? Each one of you, gentlemen, sits here as the representative of thousands of women who, by their money, have helped to build this Capitol in which you assemble and to pay for the seats in which you sit; nay, more, they pay a part of the salary of every man here, and yet what real representation have they? How often do you think, of the women of your States and of their interests in the laws you pass? How much do you reflect on the injustice which is daily and hourly

N. J.; Jesse Overstreet, Ind.; De Alva S. Alexander, N. Y.; Vespasian Warner, III; Winfield S. Kerr, O.; Charles E. Littlefield, Me.; Romeo H. Freer, W. Va.; Julius Kahn, Calif.; William L. Terry, Ark.; David A. De Armond, Mo.; Samuel W. T. Lanham, Tex.; William Elliott, S. C.; Oscar W. Underwood, Ala.; David H. Smith, Ky.; William H. Fleming, Ga.