divided
between the sexes, the moral forces are stronger with women. It
was the women of the South, we are constantly and doubtless very
truly told, who sustained the rebellion, and certainly without
the women of the North the Government had not been saved. From
the first moment to the last, in all the roaring cities, in the
remote valleys, in the deep woods, on the country hill-sides, on
the open prairie, wherever there were wives, mothers, sisters,
lovers, there were the busy fingers which, by day and by night,
for four long years, like the great forces of spring-time and
harvest, never failed. The mother paused only to bless her sons,
eager for the battle; the wife to kiss her children's father, as
he went; the sister smiled upon her brother, and prayed for the
lover who marched away. Out of how many hundreds of thousands of
homes and hearts they went who never returned. But those homes
were both the inspiration and the consolation of the field. They
nerved the arm that struck for them. When the son and husband
fell in the wild storm of battle, the brave woman-heart broke in
silence, but the busy fingers did not falter. When the comely
brother and lover were tortured into idiocy and despair, that
woman-heart of love kept the man's faith steady, and her
unceasing toil repaired his wasted frame. It was not love of the
soldier only, great as that was; it was knowledge of the cause.
It was that supreme moral force operating through innumerable
channels like the sunshine in nature, without which successful
war would have been impossible. There are thousands and thousands
of these women who ask for a voice in the government they have so
defended. Shall we refuse them?

I appeal again to my honorable friend, the Chairman of the
Committee. He has made the land ring with his cry of universal
suffrage and universal amnesty. Suffrage and amnesty to whom? To
those who sought to smother the government in the blood of its
noblest citizens, to those who ruined the happy homes and broke
the faithful hearts of which I spoke. Sir, I am not condemning
his cry. I am not opposing his policy. I have no more thirst for
vengeance than he, and quite as anxiously as my honorable friend
do I wish to see the harvests of peace waving over the
battle-fields. But,