is as really a slave, though he may have a good master, as if he had a bad one.”  Those of you who remember Adolph in Uncle Tom’s Cabin, will recall his apparent freedom.  Dressed in style, wearing his master’s garments before the first gloss was off, viewing Uncle Tom, superciliously through his eye glass, he was a petted companion of his master and did not feel his bonds.  But one day the scene changed.  St. Clair died, and poor Adolph, stripped of all his favors, was dragged off to the vile slave pen.  Do you see no parallel between Adolph and the women of America?  Adolph was restrained by unjust power from exercise of his natural rights, so are the women of this country, as is most fully shown, by this prosecution and trial of Susan B. Anthony.

In this country, two kinds of representation exist, property and personal.  Let us look for a moment, at the Constitution of the United States.  In three years we celebrate our centennial.  From what does it date?  Not from the Constitution, as our country existed eleven years without a Constitution,—­in fact, thirteen years, before it was ratified by the thirteen colonies.  The centennial dates from the declaration of Independence, which was based on underlying principles.  But as our government has recognized its own needs, it has thrown new safeguards around liberty.  Within a year after the Declaration, it was found necessary to enter into articles of Confederation, and those were soon followed by the Constitution, as it was found property rights were not secure “under the action of thirteen different deliberatives.”

England has never possessed personal representation, but only that of property; and in the secret proceedings upon the framing of our Constitution, the question as to property, or personal representation was strongly agitated.  Some of the delegates favored the fuller representation of property than of persons.  Others, who advocated the equality of suffrage, took the matter up on the original principles of government, recognizing the fact that it was not strength, or wisdom, or property, that conferred rights, but that “in a state of nature, before any government is formed, all persons are equally free and independent, no one having any right or authority to exercise power over another,” and this, without any regard to difference in personal strength, understanding or wealth.  It was also argued, and upon this acknowledgment the Constitution was based, “that when individuals enter into government they have each a right to an equal voice in its first formation, and afterwards have each a right to an equal vote in every matter which relates to their government.  That if it could be done conveniently, they have a right to exercise it in person.  When it cannot be done in person, but for convenience, representatives are appointed to act for them, every person has a right to an equal vote in choosing that representative, who is intrusted to do for the whole, that which, the whole, if they could assemble, might do in person, and in the transaction of which they would have an equal voice.”