r themselves what every
nation has discovered--the truth that shakes England to-day, and
brings Disraeli and the Tory party to their knees, and has
already brought this country to blood--that there is no class of
citizens, and no single citizen, who can safely be intrusted with
the permanent and exclusive possession of political power. "There
is no instance on record," says Buckle, in his history of
civilization in England, "of any class possessing power without
abusing it." It is as true of men as a class as it is of an
hereditary nobility, or of a class of property-holders. Men are
not wise enough, nor generous enough, nor pure enough, to
legislate fairly for women. The laws of the most civilized
nations depress and degrade women. The legislation is in favor of
the legislating class. In the celebrated debate upon the Marriage
Amendment Act in England, Mr. Gladstone said that "when the
gospel came into the world woman was elevated to an equality with
her stronger companion." Yet, at the very time he was speaking,
the English law of divorce, made by men to regulate their
domestic relations with women, was denounced by the law lords
themselves as "disgusting and demoralizing" in its operation,
"barbarous," "indecent," "a disgrace to the country," and
"shocking to the sense of right." Now, if the equality of which
Mr. Gladstone spoke had been political as well as sentimental,
does he or any statesman suppose that the law of divorce would
have been what it then was, or that the law of England to-day
would give all the earnings of a married woman to her husband, or
that of France forbid a woman to receive any gift without her
husband's permission?

We ask women to confide in us, as having the same interests with
them. Did any despot ever say anything else? And, if it be safe
or proper for any intelligent part of the people to relinquish
exclusive political power to any class, I ask the Committee, who
proposed that women should be compelled to do this? To what
class, however rich, or intelligent, or honest, they would
themselves surrender _their_ power? and what they would do if any
class attempted to usurp that power? They know, as we all know,
as our own experience has taught us, that the only security of
natural right is the ballot. They k