Multiple Choice. Read the quotation from a speech delivered by Susan B.
Anthony and answer the question.
"It was we, the people; not we, the white male citizens; nor yet we, the male
citizens; but we, the whole people, who formed the Union. And we formed it,
not to give the blessings of liberty, but to secure them; not to the half of
ourselves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people - women as well
as men. And it is a downright mockery to talk to women of their enjoyment of
the blessings of liberty while they are denied the use of the only means of
securing them provided by this democratic-republican government . . . For any
state to make sex a qualification that must ever result in the disfranchisement
of one entire half of the people, is to pass a bill of attainder, or, an ex post facto
law. . . By it the blessings of liberty are forever withheld from women and their
female posterity. To them this government has no just powers derived from the
consent of the governed."
Susan B. Anthony, 1873
What was Anthony's main argument?
A) The only way to bring an end to government corruption is through increased
civic participation among women.
B) Addressing the issue of gender inequality will resolve economic concerns
facing the country and lead to growth.
C) Denying women the right to vote represents a violation of the basic principles
on which the nation was founded.
D) Federal efforts to infringe on states' rights have limited the progress of the
women's suffrage movement.