instituted among men" for the purpose of securing inalienable rights,
proves that in the opinion of the Declarers the method of instituting a
government was not in itself inalienable. Governments to secure certain
inalienable rights are instituted among men, wrote Jefferson, "deriving
their just powers from the consent of the governed." This was not the
first government founded upon "consent of the governed." The English
government had been so founded, but our fathers now refused their consent.
That particular government could no longer exist for them with their
consent. In their judgment, it had become destructive of the proper ends
of all government, and so they proclaimed that the inalienable right to
liberty made it--to use the words of the Declaration--"the right, the
duty, of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to
institute a new government."

In the New York Constitutional Convention of 1867, Mr. George William
Curtis defended the proposition so to amend the Constitution as to extend
the suffrage to women. In the course of his eloquent remarks he said: "The
Chairman of the Committee asked Miss Anthony whether, if suffrage was a
natural right, it could be denied to children? Her answer seemed to me
perfectly satisfactory. She said simply, 'All that we ask is an equal and
not an arbitrary regulation. If _you_ have the right, _we_ have it.'" To
me it seems to discredit the logical powers both of Miss Anthony and of
Mr. Curtis that one should have made this reply and the other should have
rested content with it. That was a pertinent question, and it was not
answered at all. To say "if you have the right, we have it," is not to
tell whether one thinks children should have it. As a matter of fact, an
agitation of "the rights of minors" arose from the discussion of "natural
right," and also an agitation for "minority representation" that is
continued to this day. Mr. Curtis added: "The honorable Chairman would
hardly deny that to regulate the exercise of a right according to obvious