Let us look at the Preamble of that instrument. It reads thus:
"We, the PEOPLE of the United States, in order to form a more
perfect union, establish _justice_, insure domestic tranquility,
provide for the _common_ welfare, and secure the blessings of
liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and establish
this Constitution for the United States of America."
Here we have a statement as to _who_ established the Constitution. It
was not the thirteen States as States, not the government in its
sovereign capacity, but the people: not the white people alone, not the
native born alone, not the male people alone, but the people in a
collective sense. Justice was not established by this Constitution if
one half the people were left out from its provisions, neither was the
_common_ welfare considered unless all people in common, equally shared
the benefits of the Constitution. And moreover, the posterity of the
people of that time are female as well as male. Therefore not only by
our knowledge of the course of argument taken by the framers of the
Constitution, not only by our knowledge that women as well as men helped
elect delegates to that convention,--not only from the original
principles proclaimed in the Declaration, but also by and through this
Preamble to the Constitution do we find woman equally with man,
recognized as part of the governing power.
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