Judge Selden: I beg leave to state, in regard to my own testimony, Miss Anthony informs me that I used to be mistaken in the fact that my recommendation was before her registry. Miss Anthony, and people united along with her in demanding the best of suffrage, claim, and with a robust look of justice, that upon the rules upon which our Government is based, and which lie at the basis of all simply government, each citizen has a proper to take part, upon equal terms with each other citizen, in the formation and administration of government. This should be my excuse for what I design to say in regard to the propriety of feminine suffrage, as a result of with that propriety established there may be little or no difficulty find ample warrant in the Constitution for its train. I am aware, however, that we are right here to be governed by the Constitution and legal guidelines as they’re, and that if the defendant has been guilty of violating the law, she must undergo the penalty, nonetheless unjust or absurd the law could also be. Of this I need to give an account, that I may be condemned if I am discovered within the fallacious.
The teachings of history in regard to the situation of ladies beneath the care of those self-constituted protectors, to which I can only briefly allude, show the value of this argument as applied to past ages; and in demonstration of its value as applied to more moderen occasions, even at the risk of being tedious, I’ll give some examples from my very own skilled experience. And once more, To offer each man a voice in the public concerns comes nearest to that admirable concept of which we should by no means lose sight, the uncontrolled exercise of private judgment. But nonetheless which may be, no higher absurdity, to make use of no harsher term, may very well be introduced, than that of rewarding males and punishing girls, for the same act, without giving to women any voice within the question which should be rewarded, and which punished. The principal argument against such extension, as far as argument upon that side of the question has fallen under my remark, is predicated upon the place that ladies are represented in the government by men, and that their rights and interests are better protected via that oblique representation than they could be by giving them a direct voice in the federal government.
Without adopting this doctrine which bases the rightfulness of authorities upon the consent of the governed, I declare that there’s implied in it the narrower and unassailable precept that every one residents of a State, who are bound by its legal guidelines, are entitled to an equal voice in the making and execution of such laws. But courts usually are not required to so interpret legal guidelines or constitutions as to provide either absurdity or injustice, so lengthy as they are open to a more cheap interpretation. People of color might even have excessive dangers of intercourse trafficking because of lack of documentation, fear, distrust, and so forth. They usually have difficulties contacting authorities or others for help attributable to inabilities to understand the language or the laws of the area. The lawfulness of punishing such criminals (i.e., individuals offending merely in opposition to the legal guidelines of society) is founded upon this precept; that the regulation by which they endure was made by their very own consent; it is part of the original contract into which they entered when first they engaged in society; it was calculated for and has lengthy contributed to their very own security.
I imagine it furnishes the greatest security without spending a dime authorities, as it deprives the mass of the folks of all motive for revolution; and that government so primarily based is most secure, not because the entire persons are much less liable to make errors in government than a select few, but as a result of they haven’t any interest which might lead them to such mistakes, or to prevent their correction when made. Again, Government is a contrivance instituted for the safety of individuals; and it appears both affordable that each man ought to have a share in providing for his personal safety, and probable, that partiality and cabal ought to by this implies be most effectually excluded. If it’s essential for men that each should have a share in the administration of government for his safety, and to exclude partiality, as alleged by Godwin, it might seem to be equally, if no more, mandatory for girls, on account of their inferior physical power; and if, as is persistently alleged by those that sneer at their claims, they’re also inferior in psychological energy, that reality only provides further weight to the argument in their behalf, as one in all the primary objects of authorities, as acknowledged on all arms, is the protection of the weak against the power of the sturdy.