It reads "If any person
shall knowingly vote without _his_ having a lawful right," &c. Precisely
so with all the papers served on me--the U.S. Marshal's warrant, the
bail-bond, the petition for habeas corpus, the bill of indictment--not
one of them had a feminine pronoun printed in it; but, to make them
applicable to me, the Clerk of the Court made a little carat at the left
of "he" and placed an "s" over it, thus making _she_ out of _he_. Then
the letters "is" were scratched out, the little carat under and "er"
over, to make _her_ out of _his_, and I insist if government officials
may thus manipulate the pronouns to tax, fine, imprison and hang women,
women may take the same liberty with them to secure to themselves their
right to a voice in the government.
So long as any classes of men were denied their right to vote, the
government made a show of consistency, by exempting them from taxation.
When a property qualification of $250 was required of black men in New
York, they were not compelled to pay taxes, so long as they were content
to report themselves worth less than that sum; but the moment the black
man died, and his property fell to his widow or daughter, the black
woman's name would be put on the assessor's list, and she be compelled
to pay taxes on the same property exempted to her husband.
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