Again, “Government is a contrivance instituted for the security of individuals; and it seems both reasonable that each man should have a share in providing for his own security, and probable, that partiality and cabal should by this means be most effectually excluded.”

And again, “To give each man a voice in the public concerns comes nearest to that admirable idea of which we should never lose sight, the uncontrolled exercise of private judgment.  Each man would thus be inspired with a consciousness of his own importance, and the slavish feelings that shrink up the soul in the presence of an imagined superior would be unknown.”

The mastery which this doctrine, whether right or wrong, has acquired over the public mind, has produced as its natural fruit, the extension of the right of suffrage to all the adult male population in nearly all the states of the Union; a result which was well epitomized by President Lincoln, in the expression, “government by the people for the people.”

This extension of the suffrage is regarded by many as a source of danger to the stability of free government.  I believe it furnishes the greatest security for free government, as it deprives the mass of the people of all motive for revolution; and that government so based is most safe, not because the whole people are less liable to make mistakes in government than a select few, but because they have no interest which can lead them to such mistakes, or to prevent their correction when made.  On the contrary, the world has never seen an aristocracy, whether composed of few or many, powerful enough to control a government, who did not honestly believe that their interest was identical with the public interest, and who did not act persistently in accordance with such belief; and, unfortunately, an aristocracy of sex has not proved an exception to the rule.  The only method yet discovered of overcoming this tendency to the selfish use of power, whether consciously or unconsciously, by those possessing it, is the distribution of the power among all who are its subjects.  Short of this the name free government is a misnomer.

This principle, after long strife, not yet entirely ended has been, practically at least, very generally recognized on this side of the Atlantic, as far as relates to men; but when the attempt is made to extend it to women, political philosophers and practical politicians, those “inside of politics,” two classes not often found acting in concert, join in denouncing it.  It remains to be determined whether the reasons which have produced the extension of the franchise to all adult men, do not equally demand its extension to all adult women.  If it be necessary for men that each should have a share in the administration of government for his security, and to exclude partiality, as alleged by Godwin, it would seem to be equally, if not more, necessary for women, on account of their inferior physical power:  and if, as is persistently alleged by those who sneer at their claims, they are also inferior in mental power, that fact only gives additional weight to the argument in their behalf, as one of the primary objects of government, as acknowledged on all hands, is the protection of the weak against the power of the strong.