Women are potential mothers, and so are inherent citizens.
Women are citizens by natural tendency.
Men are citizens by education.
The desire to co-operate is the natural desire of an evolving, sane people. Supremely selfish people, who care not at all for others, are either barbaric or insane.
A city was the result of the citizen instinct.
The mother’s brain was evolved through her desire to benefit her children. She then saw that what was good for her own was good for her neighbor’s family, and for all families. All manufactories, all industries, reforms and civic improvements have originated in woman’s brain, evolved because of the mother-instinct of love.
From the city, human interest extended into the state, from the state into the nation. From the limitation of belonging to a nation, we shall sometime become citizens of the world.
A stateswoman or statesman is one who is intelligently active in work that materially benefits the citizens of a state or nation.
The rights of citizenship naturally belong to all people who wish to and can contribute to the welfare of their fellow-man.
Formerly statesmen were businessmen of experience and ability who had prescience. They could see what was beneficial to their own interests, and from this their interest expanded, and they saw what was good for the well-being of many men. They were men, like Benjamin Franklin, who were able to project themselves into the lives of others. They were the first monists.