Others again have believed this
power vested in a single man called King, or Czar, or Pope, but it was
left to our country, and our age, to promulgate the idea that the
governing power lay in the _people themselves_. It took men a great many
thousand years to discover this pregnant fact, and although our
government laid down at the very first, certain underlying truths, it
has taken a very long time even for this country to see, and practice
these principles; but as men have opened their eyes to liberty there
have been constant advances towards securing its full blessings to each
and every individual, and in this progress we had first, the
Declaration; second, the Articles of Confederation; third, the
Constitution; then the ten Conciliatory Amendments, quickly followed by
an eleventh and twelfth, each one of these designed to more fully secure
liberty to the people, and making fifteen successive steps in the short
period of twenty-eight years.
At the time of framing this government women existed as well as men,
women are part of the people; the people created the government. Now,
when speaking to you to-night, I am speaking to the people of this part
of Ontario County, I am not speaking to men alone, I am not speaking to
women alone, but to you all as people.
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