Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol II).djvu/62

upon which the one half of every society has thus been systematically excluded by the other half from all right of participating in government, which would not, at the same time, apply to and justify many other exclusions. If it be said, that all men have a natural, equal, and unalienable right to vote, because they are all born free and equal; that they all have common rights and interests entitled to protection, and therefore have an equal right to decide, either personally or by their chosen representatives, upon the laws and regulations, which shall control, measure, and sustain those rights and interests; that they cannot be compelled to surrender, except by their free consent, what, by the bounty and order of Providence, belongs to them in common with all their race;—what is there in these considerations, which is not equally applicable to females, as free, intelligent, moral, responsible beings, entitled to equal rights, and interests, and protection, and having a vital stake in all the regulations and laws of society? And if an exception, from the nature of the case, could be felt in regard to persons, who are idiots, infants, and insane; how can this apply to persons, who are of more mature growth, and are yet deemed minors by the municipal law? Who has an original right to fix the time and period of pupilage, or minority? Whence was derived the right of the ancient Greeks and Romans to declare, that women should be deemed never to be of age, but should be subject to perpetual guardianship! Upon what principle of natural law did the Romans, in after times, fix the majority of females, as well as of males, at twenty-five years?^[1] Who has a right to say, that in England it shall, for some purposes, be at fourteen, for others, at seventeen, and for all, at twenty-one years; while, in

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1. 1 Black. Comm. 463, 464.