The point I wish plainly to bring before you on this occasion is the individuality of each human soul–our Protestant idea, the right of individual conscience and judgment–our republican idea, individual citizenship. In discussing the rights of woman, we are to consider, first, what belongs to her as an individual, in a world of her own, the arbiter of her own destiny, an imaginary Robinson Crusoe with her woman Friday on a solitary island. Her rights under such circumstances are to use all her faculties for her own safety and happiness.
