tongue, from continent or isles of the sea, who come to us, are included in its benefits.  Who can say our forefathers intended to include Chinamen, or Sandwich Islanders, or the Norwegian, Russian, or Italian in its benefits?  Yet they do all share in it as soon as they become citizens.  How absurd we should think the assertion that it was not the Lord’s intention to hold the people of the United States under the law of the Ten Commandments, as they were given to the Jews alone, some four thousand years before the United States existed as a nation.  Massachusetts never abolished slavery by legislative act; never intentionally abolished it.  In 1780 that State adopted a new Constitution with a Bill of Rights, declaring “All men born free and equal.”  Upon this, some slaves demanded their freedom, and their masters granted it.  The slavery of men and women, both, was thus destroyed in Massachusetts without intention on the part of the framers of the Constitution, and this, because it is a legal rule to argue down from generals to particulars, and that the “words of a statute ought not to be interpreted to destroy natural justice;” but as Coke says, “Whenever the question of liberty runs doubtful, the decision must be given in favor of liberty.”

          Digest C.L.

When a Charter declares “all men born free and equal,” it means, intends, and includes all women, too; it means all mankind, and this is the legal interpretation of the language.

To go back to the Constitution of the United States, let us examine if women were not intended.  The first amendment reads, “Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof, or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

No mention is there made of women, but who will deny it was not intended for them to enjoy the right of worshipping as they choose?  Were they not to be protected in freedom of speech, and in the right of assembling to petition the government for a redress of grievances?  Not a man before me will deny that women were included equally with men in the intention of the framers.

The Sixth Amendment reads, “In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and District wherein the crime shall have been committed, which District shall have been previously ascertained by law; and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory processes for obtaining witnesses in his favor; and to have the existence of counsel in his defense.”