t if it be true that public sentiment is not
prepared for this just and beneficent measure, then it is the
duty of our leaders, instead of stereotyping the ignorant
prejudices of the people into statutes and constitutions, to
educate this public sentiment, by the utterance of sound ideas,
by the example of honest action. When God gives new truths to the
few, it is that they may win the response of the many. There is
no blunder more constantly made by politicians than the
assumption that the people are never ready for an onward step.

The people were ready for emancipation so long before the
Government declared it that, when it did come, the measure called
forth but little enthusiasm. It is not so much the will of the
people that troubles the politician as the safety of the party in
power. This committee denies the ballot to woman, and gives it to
the black man, for the same reason--party success; not because
they think public sentiment is ready for either, for in their
uncertainty they dare not submit the question of the black man
separately to a vote of the people. "But the measure is so
revolutionary and sweeping." When we abjured King George, and
declared all men equal, we inaugurated a very revolutionary
measure, undermined kingdoms and empires, deranged the political,
commercial, and social interests of two continents, and upset
innumerable family relations, by crowding husbands and fathers
into untimely graves. Had the Honorable Suffrage Committee been
in Boston Harbor, they would have objected to throwing the tea
overboard as too revolutionary a measure; they would have scouted
Jefferson's radical declaration as absurd, in view of the royal
facts on every throne in Europe, and the divine command, "Honor
the king." After revolutionizing, as we have just done, the
entire system of labor at the South, the social and political
status of a race, and in pressing a measure for which public
sentiment seemed unprepared, deluging the land in blood, how
futile is such reasoning as the above in the mouths of those who
inaugurated this second revolution.

Again, "The enfranchisement of woman is at war with the
distribution of duties and functions between the sexes." The plea
of tyrants in all ages. Says the English peer, "I'll make laws
and g