first right of a citizen," because no one doubts that if the time came
when a majority deemed that the preservation of the state depended upon
disfranchising a number of voters, they would be disfranchised although
they remained citizens. The Suffrage leaders have, in theory at least,
also abandoned the claim to suffrage on the ground of their universal
right as citizens. A proof of this is seen in the fact that at various
times they have suggested the extension of suffrage under qualification.
Among the latest that I have noticed, is an address of Mrs. Stanton's to a
Suffrage Convention, held in 1894, in which she proposed the following:
"Resolved, that the women of New York petition the Legislature of the
State to extend the suffrage to women on an educational qualification."
She must therefore believe that the Legislature has the _legal_ right to
qualify it for men; and to withhold it from women is but an extension of
the right to qualify suffrage, because it only says: "We do not consider
woman citizens qualified to be voters." Writing a year ago, Mrs. Stanton
said: "It is the duty of the educated women of this Republic to protest
against the extension of the suffrage to another man until they themselves
are enfranchised!" Thus it would appear that Mrs. Stanton does not believe
in universal suffrage. A Suffrage speaker in New York not long ago said
naively: "We [the women, when enfranchised] will vote to withhold the
suffrage from the ignorant." She did not explain what would happen if the
ignorant voted not to have the suffrage withheld; nor did she appear to
realize that she was practically admitting that the present voters have
the right to withhold the suffrage from those whom _they_ consider
unfitted for it.

But it is not true that American women did not, and do not, "consent to be
governed." They have always consented loyally and joyfully. From the time
of the Boston Tea Party down to the Civil War, and in such times of peace
and prosperity as were indicated by the Columbian Exposition, when the