And this most
odious aristocracy exists, too, in the face of Section 4, of Article 4,
which says:
"The United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a
republican form of government."
What, I ask you, is the distinctive difference between the inhabitants
of a monarchical and those of a republican form of government, save
that in the monarchical the people are subjects, helpless, powerless,
bound to obey laws made by superiors--while in the republican, the
people are citizens, individual sovereigns, all clothed with equal
power, to make and unmake both their laws and law makers, and the moment
you deprive a person of his right to a voice in the government, you
degrade him from the status of a citizen of the republic, to that of a
subject, and it matters very little to him whether his monarch be an
individual tyrant, as is the Czar of Russia, or a 15,000,000 headed
monster, as here in the United States; he is a powerless subject, serf
or slave; not a free and independent citizen in any sense.
But, it is urged, the use of the masculine pronouns he, his and him, in
all the constitutions and laws, is proof that only men were meant to be
included in their provisions. If you insist on this version of the
letter of the law, we shall insist that you be consistent, and accept
the other horn of the dilemma, which would compel you to exempt women
from taxation for the support of the government, and from penalties for
the violation of laws.
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