Livingston wrote
from this city, that the proposition of a railroad, shod with
iron, to move heavy weights four miles an hour, was ingenious,
perhaps "theoretically defensible"; but, upon the whole, the road
would not be so cheap or convenient as a canal. In this country,
sir, the venerable traditions are used to being disturbed.
America was clearly designed to be a disturber of traditions, and
to leave nobler precedents than she found. So, a few months ago,
what the committee call a revolutionary innovation was proposed
by giving the ballot to the freedmen in the District of Columbia.
The awful results of such a revolution were duly set forth in one
of the myriad veto messages of the President of the United
States. But they have voted. If anybody proposed to disturb the
election, it was certainly not the new voters. The election was
perfectly peaceful, and not one of the presidential pangs has
been justified. So with this reform. It _is_ new in the extent
proposed. It is as new as the harvest after the sowing, and it is
as natural. The resumption of rights long denied or withheld
never made a social convulsion: that is produced by refusing
them. The West-Indian slaves received their liberty, praying upon
their knees; and the influence of the enfranchisement of women
will glide into society as noiselessly as the dawn increases into
day.

Or shall I be told that women, if not numerically counted at the
polls, do yet exert an immense influence upon politics, and do
not really need the ballot. If this argument was seriously urged,
I should suffer my eyes to rove through this chamber and they
would show me many honorable gentlemen of reputed political
influence. May they, therefore, be properly and justly
disfranchised? I ask the honorable Chairman of the Committee,
whether he thinks that a citizen should have no vote because he
has influence? What gives influence? Ability, intelligence,
honesty. Are these to be excluded from the polls? Is it only
stupidity, ignorance and rascality which ought to possess
political power?

Or, will it be said that women do not want the ballot and ought
to be asked? And upon what principle ought they to be asked? When
natural rights or their means of defense have been immemorially
denied to a large cla