A few only demand their rights, you say; but is it in accordance with principle or with numbers that you judge of the justice of a cause?
Did you wait until all the male population demanded their right of universal suffrage in order to decree it to them?
Did you wait for the revendication of all the slaves of your colonies before emancipating them?
Yes, it is true, gentlemen, that many women are opposed to the emancipation of their sex. What does this prove? That there are human beings abased enough to have lost all sentiment of dignity; but not that right is not right.
Among the blacks, there are many who hate, denounce, and deliver up to the scourge and to death those among them who are meditating how to break their chains; which is right, which has the sentiment of human dignity, the latter or the former?
We demand our place at your side, gentlemen, because identity of species gives us the right to occupy it.
We demand our right, because the inferiority inwhich we are kept is one of the most active causes of the decay of morals.
We demand our right, because we are persuaded that woman has to set her stamp on Science, Philosophy, Justice and Politics.
We demand our right, lastly, because we are convinced that the general questions, the lack of solution of which threatens our modern civilization with ruin, can only be resolved by the co-operation of woman delivered from her fetters and left free in her genius.
Is it not a great proof of our insanity, our impurity, gentlemen, that we feel this ardent desire to check the corruption of morals, and to labor for the triumph of Justice, the coming of the reign of Duty and Reason, the establishment of an order of things in which humanity, worthier and happier, shall pursue its glorious destinies without the accompaniment of cannon or the shedding of blood?