"
What was the three-penny tax on tea, or the paltry tax on paper and
sugar to which our revolutionary fathers were subjected, when compared
with the taxation of the women of this Republic? The orphaned Pixley
sisters, six dollars a day, and even the women, who are proclaiming the
tyranny of our taxation without representation, from city to city
throughout the country, are often compelled to pay a tax for the poor
privilege of defending our rights. And again, to show that
disfranchisement was precisely the slavery of which the fathers
complained, allow me to cite to you old Ben. Franklin, who in those
olden times was admitted to be good authority, not merely in domestic
economy, but in political as well; he said:
"Every man of the commonalty, except infants, insane persons and
criminals, is of common right and the law of God, a freeman and
entitled to the free enjoyment of liberty. That liberty or freedom
consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who
are to frame the laws, and who are to be the guardians of every
man's life, property and peace. For the all of one man is as dear
to him as the all of another; and the poor man has an equal right,
but more need to have representatives in the Legislature than the
rich one.
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