who have rights that are entitled to them; those yet out of the pale of that fortunate condition being intended by Providence always to be and remain there. But notwithstanding this opinion has the weight of high authority, and notwithstanding the practice of the American people has thus far been in strict accordance with such opinion, the undersigned believes the theory proclaimed is not simply a rhetorical flourish, nor meaningless, but that it means just what it says; that it is true, and being true, is susceptible of an application as broad as the truth proclaimed.
All humankind, says the theory, are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights. Other governments proclaim the divine right of kings, and assume that man is the mere creature of the government, deriving all his rights from its concessions, and forever subject to all its impositions, while this government (or at least its theory) elevates all men to an equality with kings, brings every man face to face with the author of his being and the arbiter of his destiny, deriving his rights from that source alone; and makes government his creature instead of his master, instituted by him solely for the better protection and application of his God given rights. It is important to keep in mind this theory of our government and its difference with the theories of all other governments. Endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights, it says, because those rights are necessary to correct relations between each individual of humanity and his Creator. Herein is the whole merit of the American theory of government, and of its practice too, so far as that practice has gone. It is a grand theory, opening as it does to every human being the boundless plains of progress which stretch out to the foot of the eternal throne, and implying as it does such noble powers in humanity, and such noble conditions and uses for those powers. Its effect upon those who have enjoyed the benefit of its application has been in harmony with its own exalted character. Though but a day old, as it were, in the history of nations, the United States, in a great many respects, outstrip all other nations of the earth, and are inferior in few or no particulars to any. The mass of her people are conceded to be the most intelligent people of the world, and manifest, individually and collectively, the fruits of superior intelligence. It will not be denied that our theory of government, viewing as it does every man as a sovereign, opening up to every man all the distinctions, all the honors, and all the wealth which man is capable of desiring, appreciating, or grasping, exercises a powerful, indeed a controlling influence in making our people what they are, and our nation what it is.
These petitions ask only that these rights, enjoyed by one portion of the American people, may be extended to embrace the whole, not less for the abstract but all-sufficient reason, that they have been given to the whole by the Creator, than that by their application to the whole, the more general will be the benefits experienced; and the deeper, broader, more prevailing and more enduring will become those benefits. Manifestly, such must be the case; for as these rights belong to humanity, and produce their exalted and beneficial fruits by their application to and upon humanity, it follows that, wherever humanity is, there they belong, and there they will work out their beneficial results. To exclude woman from the possession of equal political rights with man, it should be shown that she is essentially a different being; that the Creator of man is not her Creator; that she has not the same evil to shun, the same heaven to gain; in short, the same grand, immortal destiny which is supposed to invite to high uses the capacity of man, does not pertain to nor invite her. We say this must be shown; and if it can not be, as certainly it can not, then it follows that to withhold these rights, so beneficial to one portion, is to work an immediate and particular injury to those from whom they are withheld, and, although a more indirect, not a less certain injury to all. Man-masculine is not endowed by his Creator with certain inalienable rights because he is male, but because he is human; and when, in virtue of our strong and superior physical capacity, we deny to man-feminine the rights which are ours only in virtue of our humanity, we exercise the same indefensible tyranny against which we felt justified in taking up arms, and perilling life and fortune.
The argument against conceding these rights all are familiar with. They are precisely the same which have been in the mouths of tyrants from the beginning of time, and have been urged against any and every demand for popular liberty. A want of capacity for self-government—freedom will be only licentiousness—and out of the possession of rights will grow only the practice of follies and wrongs. This is the argument, in brief, applied to every step of gradual emancipation on the part of the male, and now by him applied to the female struggling to reach the common platform. Should the American male, in the van of human progress, as the result of this theory of a capacity for self-government, turn round and ignore this divinity, this capacity in another branch of the human family? The theory has worked only good in its application thus far, and it is a most unreasonable, a most unwarrantable distrust to expect it to produce mischief when applied to others in all respects mentally and morally the equals of those who now enjoy it. It neither can nor will do so; but, necessarily, the broader and more universal its application, the broader and more universal its benefits.
The possession of political rights by woman does not necessarily imply that she must or will enter into the practical conduct of all the institutions, proper and improper, now established and maintained by the male portion of the race. These institutions may be right and necessary, or they may not, and the nature of woman may or may not be in harmony with them. It is not proposed to enact a law compelling woman to do certain things, but it is proposed simply to place her side by side with man on a common platform of rights, confident that, in that position, she will not outrage the "higher law" of her nature by descending to a participation in faults, follies, or crimes, for which she has no constitutional predilections. The association of woman with man, in the various relations of life in which such association is permitted, from the first unclosing of his eyes in the imbecility of infancy, till they close finally upon all things earthly, is conceded to be highly beneficial. Indeed, we think it will be found, on scrutiny, that it is only those institutions of society in which women have no part, and from which they are entirely excluded, which are radically wrong, and need either thorough renovation or entire abrogation. And if we have any duties so essentially degrading, or any institution so essentially impure, as to be beyond the renovating influence which woman can bring to bear on them, beyond question they should be abrogated without delay—a result which woman's connection with them would speedily bring about.
Who dares say, then, that such association would not be equally beneficial, if in every sphere of activity opened to man, woman could enter with him and be at his side? Are our politics, in their practice, so exalted, so dignified, so pure, that we need no new associations, no purer and healthier influences, than now connected with them? Is our Government just what we would have it; are our rulers just what we would have them; in short, have we arrived at that happy summit where perfection in these respects is found? Not so. On the contrary, there is an universal prayer throughout the length and breadth of the land, for reform in these respects; and where, let us ask, could we reasonably look for a more powerful agent to effect this reform, than in the renovating influences of woman? That which has done so much for the fireside and social life generally, neither can nor will lose its potent, beneficial effect when brought to bear upon other relations of life.
To talk of confining woman to her proper sphere by legal disabilities, is an insult to the divinity of her nature, implying, as it does, the absence of instinctive virtue, modesty, and sense on her part. It makes her the creature of law—of our law—from which she is assumed to derive her ability to keep the path of rectitude, and the withdrawal of which would leave her to sink to the depths of folly and vice. Do we really think so badly of our mothers, wives, sister, daughters? Is it really we only of the race who are instinctively and innately so sensible, so modest, so virtuous, as to be qualified, not only to take care of ourselves, but to dispense all these exalted qualities to the weaker, and, as we assume, inferior half of the race? If it be so, it may be doubted whether Heaven's last gift was its best. Kings, emperors, and dictators confine their subjects, by the interposition of law, to what they consider their proper spheres; and there is certainly as much propriety in it as in the dictation, by one sex, of the sphere of a different sex. In the assumption of our strength, we say woman must not have equal rights with us, because she has a different nature. If so, by what occult power do we understand that different nature to dictate by metes and bounds its wants and spheres? Fair play is a Yankee characteristic; and we submit, if but one-half of the race can have rights at a time because of their different