“ We do not hail you, love you, as one who has made woman' s life easier, strewn it with more rose leaves of idleness, shielded it from more stress and storm, but as one who has taken the grander, truer view, that by equally sharing stress and storm, by equal effort and work, by equality in rights, privileges, powers and opportunities with her other self—man—woman will evolve and will reach her loftiest, loveliest development. ”

“ When I cross her boundary, I always feel that I am coming home. In my travels through the West I meet many men and women who give me a warmer hand-shake because they too are from Iowa. But this State no longer occupies the first place in my heart. There are four that I love better, and every woman here feels the same. The first is Wyoming. Many pass through that State and see only a barren plain covered with sage brush, but when I cross her border, I feel a thrill as sacred as ever the crusaders felt in visiting the Holy Land. The second State is Colorado, the third Utah, and the fourth Idaho. ”

“ What man can, without aversion, turn from the blessed memory of that dear old grandmother, or the gentle words and caressing hand of that blessed mother gone to the unknown world, to face in its stead the idea of a female justice of the peace or township constable? For my part I want when I go to my home—when I turn from the arena where man contends with man for what we call the prizes of this paltry world—I want to go back, not to be received in the masculine embrace of some female ward politician, but to the earnest, loving look and touch of a true woman. ”

“ The restraints and benedictions of this little white symbol are so silent and so gentle, so atmospheric, so like the snow-flakes that come down to guard the slumbering forces of the earth and prepare them for springing into bud, blossom, and fruit in due season, that few recognize the divine alchemy, and many impatient souls are saying we are on the wrong path—the Old World was right—the government of the few is safe; the wise, the rich, should rule; the ignorant, the poor, should serve. ”

“ Could we resurrect from the archives of this Capitol all the petitions and speeches presented here by women for human freedom during this century, they would reach above this dome and make a more fitting pedestal for the Goddess of Liberty than the crowning point of an edifice beneath which the mother of the race has so long pleaded in vain for her natural right of self-government—a right her sons should have secured to her long ago of their own free will by statutes carved indelibly on the corner-stones of the Republic. ”

“ The injustice and absurdity of allowing women in one State to be sovereign rulers, and across the line in every direction obliging them to occupy the position of a subject class, taxed without representation and governed without consent—and this in a nation which by its Constitution guarantees equal rights to all the States and equal protection to all their citizens—must soon be manifest even to the most conservative and prejudiced. We therefore congratulate the friends of woman suffrage everywhere that at last there is one spot under the American flag where equal justice is done to women. ”

“ Wherever the rule of power is substituted for the just and equitable principle that all who are subject to government should have a voice in controlling it, we are guilty under the form of law of the same violation of the just rights of others for which the corruptor of elections and the forger of tally-sheets is tried, convicted and incarcerated. Yet from the remotest times the world has done this thing, for equal rights have never been conceded to women, and so warped are our convictions by custom and prejudice that a denial of their political equality seems as natural as the breath we draw. ”

“ We are just beginning to learn that we are all children of one Father and members of one family; and when one member suffers or is benefited, all the members suffer or rejoice. So when Utah comes into the Union with every one free, it is not only that State which is benefited, but we and all the world. As the stars at night come out one by one, so will they come out one by one on our flag, till the whole blue field is a blaze of glory. We expected it of the men of Utah. ”

“ A dear and noble friend, one who aided our work most efficiently in the early days, said to me, "Why do you say the 'emancipation of women?'" I replied, "Because women are political slaves!" Is it not strange that men think that what to them would be degradation, slavery, is to women elevation, liberty? Men put the right of suffrage for themselves above all price, and count the denial of it the most severe punishment. ”

“ It took a hundred years and a Civil War to evolve the principle in our nation that all men were created free and equal. Will it require another century and another Civil War before there is secured to humanity the God-given inalienable right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" The most superficial observer can see elements at work, a confusion of forces, that can only be wiped out in blood, unless some new, unifying power is brought into Government. ”

“ At last, in the mute agony of despair, she lifted her eyes above the earth to heaven and away from the jarring strifes which surrounded her, and that which dawned upon her gaze was so full of wonder that her soul burst its prison-house of bondage as she beheld the vision of true womanhood. She knew then it was not the purpose of the Divine that she should crouch beneath the bonds of custom and ignorance. She learned that she was created not from the side of man, but rather by the side of man. ”

“ We place the ballot in the hands of the foreigner who can not read or speak our language, and who knows nothing of our government; we enfranchised a slave race, most of whom can not read; and yet we deny to the women of America the ballot, which in their hands would be the strongest protection of this republic against the ignorance and vice of the great centers of our population. Give to woman the ballot, and you give her equal pay with men for the same work; you break down prejudice and open to her every vocation in which she is competent to engage ”

“ It is urged that woman does not desire the privilege. If the right exist at all it is an individual right, and not one which belongs to a class or to the sex as such. Yet men tell us that they will vote to give the suffrage to women whenever the majority of women desire it. What would we say if it were seriously proposed to recall the suffrage from all colored or from all white men because a majority of either class should decline or for any cause fail to vote? If one or many choose not to claim their right it is no argument for depriving me of mine or one woman of hers. ”

“ Who would have dreamed, when at that great anti-slavery meeting in London, some years ago, the arrogance and pride of men excluded the women whom God had moved to lift up their voices in behalf of the baby that was sold by the pound—who would have dreamed that that very exclusion would be the keynote of woman's freedom? That out of the prejudice of that hour God should be able to flash upon the crushed hearts of those excluded the grand vision which we see manifested here to-day? ”

“ If there are any who do not wish to vote, that is the strongest reason for their enfranchisement. If all love of liberty has been quenched in their souls by their degraded condition, the duties of citizenship and the responsibility of self-government should be laid upon them at once, for their pitiful indifference is merely the result of their disfranchisement. Would that I could awake in the minds of my countrywomen the full significance of this demand for the right of suffrage ”

“ The Dome of this Capitol is surmounted by a magnificent statue representing the genius of American freedom. How is this mighty power embodied? As a majestic woman, full-armed and panoplied to protect the liberty of the republic. Is not this symbol a mockery while the women of the country are held in political slavery? We ask you to insist that the pledges of the republic shall be redeemed, that its promises shall be fulfilled, and that American womanhood shall be enfranchised. ”

“ To throw obstacles in the way of a complete education is ‘like putting out the eyes; to deny the rights of property is like cutting off the hands. To refuse political equality is to rob the ostracized of all self-respect, of credit in the market place, of recompense in the world of work, of a voice in choosing those who make and administer the law, a choice in the jury before whom they are tried, and in the judge who decides their punishment. ”

“ Where did man get the authority which he now exercises to govern one-half of humanity; from what power the right to place woman, his help-meet in life, in an inferior position? Came it from nature? Nature made woman his superior when it made her his mother—his equal when it fitted her to hold the sacred position of wife. Did women meet in council and voluntarily give up all their right to be their own law-makers? The power of the strong over the weak makes man the master. ”

“ No man there could have stood by the side of his mother and heard her tell of all that the pioneers endured, and then have refused to grant her the same right of liberty he wanted for himself, without being unworthy of such a mother. They are the crown of our Union, those three States on the crest of the Rockies, above all the others. In the name of the National American Woman Suffrage Association, we extend our welcome, our thanks and our congratulations to Utah, as one of the three so dear to the heart of every woman who loves liberty in these United States. ”

“ In the Old World I have seen venerable men, strong men, and women kneeling together at the shrine of Mary pouring out their sufferings into the mother heart of the Virgin and rising refreshed and solaced. What Catholicism has done for its church, Protestantism must do for Christianity everywhere, by revealing the mother-life and the mother-spirit of divine nature. In the lesson of life there is not only a father but a mother-love. ”

“ While the grand motto, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God," has echoed and re-echoed around the globe, electrifying the lovers of liberty in every latitude and making crowned heads tremble on their thrones; while every right achieved by the oppressed has been wrung from tyrants by force; while the darkest page on human history is the outrages on women—shall men still tell us to be patient, persuasive, womanly? ”