and administer the laws. I believe that the casting of the ballot will be invested with a seriousness - I had almost said a sanctity-second only to a religious observance."

The great Liberal party of England, under the leadership of that man who will go down to history as the most profound statesman of the nineteenth century, William E. Gladstone, has brought forward in the British Parliament, within the past eight weeks, a bill which gives to the women of the three kingdoms a full and complete voice in the management of all local affairs.

From the rich mine of English jurisprudence our fathers gathered the principles of our Constitution; and ever since, in subsequent legislation, these two great kindred nations have together girdled the world with the principles of personal liberty, and the rights of the individual man and the individual woman. Shall we now part company with our Queen sister in the race for human progress and the development of mankind? I say no.

In closing, I have but this to say. I appeal to every member of this House. Who taught you the alphabet? To whose kind and constant instructions, more than all else in the world, do you owe the foundation and possibly the completion of your education? Who followed you with anxious and loving heart that you might be educated and fitted to go out and fight the battles of life and be a man

among men? And who is doing this same work for your children to-day but a woman?

Give the women what nature fitted them for, and what should be theirs by every law, human or divine, a voice in the control and management of

your schools and in the education of their children, and you will never regret it.

SPEECH

Delivered June 22, 1893, in favor of the Bill for a Constitutional Convention.

MR. SPEAKER AND MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF

REPRESENTATIVES:

I SHALL not attempt to weary this House to-day with a long list of statistics to prove the injustice of the Constitution under which we are living. You are all familiar with those facts. I shall simply attempt to put the arguments in favor of a Constitutional Convention, upon such broad and generous principles as will appeal to the intelligence and conscience of every member of this General Assembly, be he Republican or be he Democrat.

This question is no party question. It is simply a question between five hundred foolish men who think they see a political advantage to themselves in keeping matters as they are now, and eight hundred thousand people who are ready and willing to see the fair thing done.

The Puritan created his State after he had first established his Church, and every man who partook of the communion had an equal voice in all political matters. As time went on, As time went on, the Puritan,

otherwise known as the Congregational, church created towns of nearly equal inhabitants and territory, for the better management of the little local town affairs, the poor, the roads, the schools; but above all, for the support of the Congregational church and the dispensing of religious benefits. These little towns were simply missionary outposts. In order that there may be no misunderstanding about this matter, let me read from the most learned historian who has ever attempted to write the early history of New England:

"The Plymouth and Massachusetts Bay settlements were founded by Congregational pilgrims in 1620 and 1628, and others, a few years afterwards, in Massachusetts and Connecticut. Congregationalism gave New England the distinctive character it bears in history, and, in return, the development of the New England churches and the teaching of their pastors gave the State Congregationalism as its form. From the earliest settlement of New England there was a definite but peculiar relation between the churches and the State. It was neither that in which the State rules the Church, nor that in which the Church rules the State, but rather a peculiar blending of the two. Townships were incorporated with a view to ability to maintain a settled ministry, and to the convenience of the people in attending public worship. Provision was made by law for the support of the pastors and for all necessary church expenses."

The Congregational church-the first, the greatest, and the truest Democracy known in all history

for more than three thousand years, yea, since the early days of Roman and Grecian history, before those ancient people became powerful, corrupt, and monarchical never dreamed that these little territorial boundaries would be the basis of overthrowing the very principles upon which the Puritan built his Congregational church, the equality of man in every religious or political organization.

He would have no elders, no bishops, no presbytery, no superior class, no overruling authority, but he trusted everything to the individual man, and the humblest layman was as powerful as the most learned and eloquent preacher, and every little church, however humble, was a republic in itself.

The Puritan fled from the land where the few governed the many, and where all the honors of Church and State were monopolized by the few, to establish on these western shores a pure Democracy.

As time went on, great inequalities have arisen in the distribution of population and wealth, until we are called upon to take up the cause the Puritan battled so nobly for, and won, nearly three centuries ago.

Now, the very theory and foundation of this ancient Commonwealth were the equality of man in making laws, in bearing arms, and in everything that pertained to the management of political affairs.