There is no she, or her, or hers, in the tax laws.

The statute of New York reads: 

“Every person shall be assessed in the town or ward where he resides when the assessment is made, for the lands owned by him, &c.”  “Every collector shall call at least once on the person taxed, or at his usual place of residence, and shall demand payment of the taxes charged on him.  If any one shall refuse to pay the tax imposed on him, the collector shall levy the same by distress and sale of his property.”

The same is true of all the criminal laws: 

     “No person shall be compelled to be a witness against himself,
     &c.”

The same with the law of May 31st, 1870, the 19th section of which I am charged with having violated; not only are all the pronouns in it masculine, but everybody knows that that particular section was intended expressly to hinder the rebels from voting.  It reads “If any person shall knowingly vote without his having a lawful right,” &c.  Precisely so with all the papers served on me—­the U.S.  Marshal’s warrant, the bail-bond, the petition for habeas corpus, the bill of indictment—­not one of them had a feminine pronoun printed in it; but, to make them applicable to me, the Clerk of the Court made a little carat at the left of “he” and placed an “s” over it, thus making she out of he.  Then the letters “is” were scratched out, the little carat under and “er” over, to make her out of his, and I insist if government officials may thus manipulate the pronouns to tax, fine, imprison and hang women, women may take the same liberty with them to secure to themselves their right to a voice in the government.

So long as any classes of men were denied their right to vote, the government made a show of consistency, by exempting them from taxation.  When a property qualification of $250 was required of black men in New York, they were not compelled to pay taxes, so long as they were content to report themselves worth less than that sum; but the moment the black man died, and his property fell to his widow or daughter, the black woman’s name would be put on the assessor’s list, and she be compelled to pay taxes on the same property exempted to her husband.  The same is true of ministers in New York.  So long as the minister lives, he is exempted from taxation on $1,500 of property, but the moment the breath goes out of his body, his widow’s name will go down on the assessor’s list, and she will have to pay taxes on the $1,500.  So much for the special legislation in favor of women.