When Miss Anthony voted,
what did she do? She merely exercised her citizen's right of suffrage--a
right to which she, and all women citizens are entitled by virtue of
their citizenship in the nation--a right to which they are entitled
because individual political rights are the basis of the government. The
United States has no other foundation. If that right is trampled upon,
we have no nation. We may hang together in a sort of anarchical way for
a time, but our dissolution draws near. Can the United States destroy
rights on account of sex? In the original Constitution, before even the
first ten amendments were added, States were forbidden to pass bills of
attainder. By the fourteenth amendment, the right of voting was
forbidden to be abridged, _unless for crime_. Is it a crime to be a
woman? "In the beginning God created man, male and female, created he
them." A bill of attainder inflicts punishment, creates liabilities or
_disabilities_, on account of parentage, _birth_, or descent. Do United
States officials presume to create a disability, or inflict a
punishment, on account of _birth_ as a woman, and this in direct
defiance of the Constitution? When the Constitution of the United States
presents no barrier, no lesser power has such authority.
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