Such remarks as these are easily met. To the first objector, who declares, although the professed advocate of a republican government, that _there is no such thing_ as any abstract right to vote, we reply, that in this particular discussion we don't care about _abstract rights_: what we want is our _own share_ of the tangible acknowledged right which human governments confer. If in England this right depends on a property qualification, then we claim that there the property qualification shall endow woman as well as man with the right of suffrage. If in America it depends upon an inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, then we demand that our government recognize woman as so endowed, and receive her vote. To the reviewer we say also, If the grounds of suffrage are vague and undetermined in _theory_, they may remain so, so far as our interference is concerned. What we ask to share is the steady right to vote, which has been actually granted, and never disputed, since our government was founded; and sufficiently pressed, we might add, that, if there is ever any chance of limiting the right of suffrage, we shall do all we can to secure its dependence on a certain amount of education, in preference to a certain amount of wealth. As to the art critic, we thank him for calling us the "sad sisterhood." We should be sorry to be otherwise, when pleading for women _before_ men; sorry to find matter for jesting in those purlieus of St. Giles and Five Points and the Black Sea, beating up remorselessly against these very doors, which lie at the very heart of our effort. As to the matter of going to see the Horse Fair and the Highland Cattle, it will probably be found to be a fact, that, in every city where those great pictures have been exhibited, "_women's-rights women_" have been their _earliest_ visitors; and, standing before the canvas, have thanked God, with an earnestness the art critic never dreamt of, for that silent woman's hand, that glorious woman's life. It was not necessary for him to remind us of what Solomon had said so much better three thousand years ago; namely, that "speech is silvern, and silence is golden." Nathless, silver is still current in all markets; and, God willing, we are not ashamed to use it. We intend to claim, in words, the right of suffrage; and why? Turning from that wretched estimate of woman, and of man's duty toward woman, which the law-books have just offered us, we claim the right of suffrage, because only through its possession can women protect themselves; only through its exercise can both sexes have equality of right and power before the law. Whenever this happened, character would get its legitimate influence; and it is just possible that men might become rational and virtuous in private, if association with women compelled them to _seem so_ in public.