Since 1848 an energetic suffrage movement has been carried on by the American women. To-day there is a "Woman's Suffrage Society" in every state, and all these organizations belong to a national woman's suffrage league. In recent years there has arisen a vigorous woman's suffrage movement within the numerous and influential woman's clubs (with almost a million members) and among college women the College Equal Suffrage League, the movement extending even into the secondary schools. The National Trades Union League, the American Federation of Labor, and nineteen state Federations of Labor have declared themselves in favor of woman's suffrage. The leaders of the movement have now established the fact that "the Constitution of the United States does not contain a word or a line, which, if interpreted in the spirit of the 'Declaration of Independence,' denies woman the right to vote in state and national elections." The preamble to the Constitution of the United States reads as follows: "We, the people of the United States ... do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Women are doubtlessly people. All the articles of the Constitution repeat this expression. The objects of the Constitution are: 1. The establishment of a more perfect union of the states among themselves, 2. The establishment of justice, 3. The insurance of domestic tranquillity, 4. The provision of common defense, 5. The promotion of the general welfare, 6. The securing of the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity. All of these six points concern and interest women as much as men. Supplementary to this is the "Declaration of Independence." Here are stated as self-evident truths: 1. "That all men are created equal," 2. "That they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness," 3. "That to secure [not to grant] these rights, Governments are instituted among men, _deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed_." On this last passage the Americans comment with especial emphasis: they say the right to vote is their right as human beings,--_they possess it as a natural right_; the government cannot justly take it from them, cannot even grant it to them justly. So long as the government does not ask the women for their consent, it is acting _illegally_ according to the Declaration of Independence. For it is nowhere stated that the consent of one half, the male half, will suffice to make a government _legal_. On the basis of this declaration of principles the American women have made it a point to oppose every individual argument against woman's suffrage. For this purpose they frequently use small four-page pamphlets, which are issued as the "Political Equality Series" by the American Woman's Suffrage Association. They say "It is generally held that: