But our friends say that suffrage is not a right; that it is a matter of grace only; that it is a privilege which is conferred upon or withheld from individual members of society by society at pleasure. Society as here used means man's government, and the proposition assumes the fact that men have a right to institute and control governments for themselves and for women. I admit that in the governments of the world, past and present, men as a rule have assumed to be the ruling classes; that they have instituted governments from participation in which they have excluded women; that they have made laws for themselves and for women, and as a rule have themselves administered them; but that the provisions conferring or regulating suffrage in the constitutions and laws of governments so constituted determined the question of the right of suffrage can not be maintained. Let us suppose, if we can, a community separated from all other communities, having no organized government, owing no allegiance to any existing governments, without any knowledge of the character of present or past governments, so that when they come to form a government for themselves they can do so free from the bias or prejudice of custom or education, composed of an equal number of men and women, having equal property rights to be defined and to be protected by law. When such community came to institute a government--and it would have an undoubted right to institute a government for itself, and the instinct of self-preservation would soon lead them to do so--will my friend from Georgia tell me by what right, human or divine, the male portion of that community could exclude the female portion, although equal in number and having equal property rights with the men, from participation in the formation of such government and in the enactment of laws for the government of the community? I understand the Senator, if he should answer, would say that he believes the Author of our existence, the Ruler of the universe, has given different spheres to man and woman. Admit that; and still neither in nature nor in the revealed will of God do I find anything to lead me to believe that the Creator did not intend that a woman should exercise the right of suffrage. During the consideration by this body at the last session of the bill to admit Washington Territory into the Union, referring to the fact that in that Territory woman had been enfranchised, I briefly submitted my views on this subject, which I ask the Secretary to read, so that it may be incorporated in my remarks. The Secretary read as follows: