it on account of the accident of not being able to read or write!" With Dr. Jacobi's interpretation, I will deal later. What I wish now to do is, to call attention to her admission of the fact that woman suffrage in England and in her colonies is not democratic, and to connect it with the other fact that no republic, from that of Greece to our own, has introduced it, although manhood suffrage has been universal in Switzerland for many years, and in France since 1848. So it would seem that under a monarchical system, with a standing army and a hereditary nobility to support the throne, the royal mandate could be issued by a woman. Any Queen, as well as the one that Alice met in Wonderland, could say, "Off with his head!" But when freedom grew, and the democratic idea began to prevail, and each individual man became a king, and each home a castle, the law given by God and not by man came into exercise, and upon each man was laid the duty of defending liberty and those who were physically unfitted to defend themselves. Let us turn now to our own country. Technically, at least, women possessed the suffrage in our first settlements. In New England, in the early days, when church-membership as the basis of the franchise excluded three- fourths of the male inhabitants from its exercise, women could vote. Under the old Provincial charters, from 1691 to 1780, they could vote for all elective offices. From 1780 to 1785, under the Articles of Confederation, they could vote for all elective offices except the Governor, the Council, and the Legislature. The comment made upon this by the Suffrage writers is, that "the fact that woman exercised the right of suffrage amid so many restrictions, is very significant of the belief in her right to the ballot-box." My comment is, that the same lesson we have learned in Europe is repeated here with wonderful emphasis. Under the transported aristocracy of churchly power in the state, they shared the undemocratic rule. When freedom broadened a little, and, under a system that still acknowledged allegiance to the British Crown, all property-holders or other "duly qualified" colonists could vote, they still had the voice that England grants to-day, the voice of an estate. When liberty took another step and a league was formed of "firm friendship" in which each Colony was to be independent and yet banded for offensive and defensive aid, the women were retired from the special vote on the result of which lay the actual execution of the law. But this country was not yet a republic, or even a nation. Washington himself said that the state of things under the Articles of Confederation was hardly removed from anarchy. In 1789 a constitution was adopted, which made the American people a nation. Its preamble read: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure