The daily morning journal and courier., 1896-12-10
An unnrecedentnd Test.

To the Editor of the JOURNAL AND COURIER:
 From the time when Margaret Brent asked to vote in the Maryland assem- bly,, January 21 1647-4S, to the present day, the women of America have been asking for a voice in government. When all legitimate arguments against the granting of their reasonable re- quests have failed, they have been met with the insane apology that when a majority of women want to vote the suffrage will be conferred upon them
 Since the right of petition is the only political right which a disfranchised class enjoys, the inference is that the prerequisite to enfranchisement should be a petition signed by a majority of all the women of the State. .
 I deny the right of any person or power to demand such test as a ma jority petition. The Declaration of In dependence does not say, We hold these truths to be self-evident, that when all men, or majority of them, shall ask for their inalienable rights they shall receive them It says that all men are created equal and endow- ed by their creator with certain inalien- able rights, and that to secure these rights governments are instituted.
 If this time-honored instrument sets forth any one supreme proposition of which all others are but corollaries it is the statement that governments are instituted to secure rights.
 The theory seems to be growing alarmingly prevalent in these latter days that government should confer rights and that only when the demand is so strong that 1t can no longer safely withhold them. If this be true Colum- bia is no better than old King John In all the ages of history, ancient or modern, there is not recorded an in- stance where a determinant majority of unrecognized persons ever asked for an extension of rights or privileges.
 A volume would not contain the rec ord of instances in the worlds history where an active, aggressive minority has demanded an extension of rights and privileges and received them. The whole story of the evolution of liberty Is but an illustrated sequence of ex- amples where the few have asked and the many received. To confine our selves to our own country we should never have had Declaration of Inde- pendence if 1t had been necessary to have majority of the colonists de- clare for it. The majority, and espec- ially the wealthy people in colonial days thought 1t better to endure the ills they had than to run the risk of others which they knew not of. At one time during the Revolutionary war there were twice as many Americans in arms against the cause of independence as there were in the American army. The royalists in this country always claim ed that they were in the majority. In New York state originally only free holders voted. Did the poor man unan- imously petition for the franchise? Did the black man in the State of New York, in 1S46 unanimously, or in any determlnate majority. petition for the franchise? Did Abraham Lincoln in- sist upon majority petition from the slaves before signing the Emancipation proclamation? Did the negroes in the south in the days of the reconstruction circulate a petition to find out how many wanted to vote?
 If a majority test is to be required the logic of the situation demands that it be majority of citizens, both men and women
 MARTHA R. ALMY.
 Jamestown, N. Y, Nov. 15, 1S6.