A provision thus limited by public opinion and prejudice would probably have very little force. I have understood that such a provision has taken effect in some parts of Michigan, and it has also been recommended to the State of Massachusetts. Very early in the history of our government, its inconsistencies became a matter of comment among women themselves. How could it be otherwise? How can she be said to have a right to _life_, who has never consented to the laws which may deprive her of it, who is steadily refused a trial by her peers, who has no voice in the election of her judges? How can she be said to have a right to _liberty_, whose person, if not yet in custody, almost inevitably becomes so on her maturity, who does not own her earnings, who can make no valid contract, and is taxed without representation? How can that woman be said to possess either the right or the reality of _happiness_, who is deprived of the custody of her own person, of the guardianship of her children, of the right to devise or share her property? The government is tyrannical which leaves a single citizen in this predicament. What is to be said of a government which enforces it upon half its subjects? It is not strange then, that, half in jest, half in earnest, the wife of John Adams wrote to him in 1776 to ask if it "were generous in American men to claim absolute power over wives at a moment when they were emancipating the whole earth." Nor was it strange, that, in a more serious mood, Hannah Corbin of Virginia should write to her brother, Richard Henry Lee, on the same subject. The American Colonies were struggling against the mother-country, on the ground that taxation and representation should be inseparable. The "National Intelligencer" has to confess, when it tells the story, that it was not strange if "strong-minded" women of that era, finding themselves _taxed_, should wonder why they could not vote. Mr. Lee wrote from Chantilly in reply, March 17, 1778:-- "I do not see," he says, "that any thing prevents widows, having large property, from voting, notwithstanding it has never been the case either here or in England. Perhaps it was thought unbecoming for women to press into tumultuous assemblies.... Perhaps it was thought, that, as all those who vote for taxes must bear the tax, none would be imposed, except for the public good. "For both the widow and the single woman," he continues, "I have the highest respect; and would, at any time, give my consent to secure to them the franchise, though I do not think it would increase their security. "The Committee of Taxation," he adds, "are regularly chosen by the freeholders and housekeepers; and, in the choice of them, you have as legal a right to vote as any person." Mr. Lee thinks, that, in a few minutes' conversation, he could "content" his sister upon the subject; but eighty years have passed away, and the question is still unsettled.