rect means to control him, and in most cases developed
the very characteristics both in him and herself that needed
repression. And now man himself stands appalled at the results of
his own excesses, and mourns in bitterness that falsehood,
selfishness and violence are the law of life. The need of this
hour is not territory, gold mines, railroads, or specie payments,
but a new evangel of womanhood, to exalt purity, virtue,
morality, true religion, to lift man up into the higher realms of
thought and action.

We ask woman's enfranchisement, as the first step toward the
recognition of that essential element in government that can only
secure the health, strength, and prosperity of the nation.
Whatever is done to lift woman to her true position will help to
usher in a new day of peace and perfection for the race. In
speaking of the masculine element, I do not wish to be understood
to say that all men are hard, selfish, and brutal, for many of
the most beautiful spirits the world has known have been clothed
with manhood; but I refer to those characteristics, though often
marked in woman, that distinguish what is called the stronger
sex. For example, the love of acquisition and conquest, the very
pioneers of civilization, when expended on the earth, the sea,
the elements, the riches and forces of Nature, are powers of
destruction when used to subjugate one man to another or to
sacrifice nations to ambition. Here that great conservator of
woman's love, if permitted to assert itself, as it naturally
would in freedom against oppression, violence, and war, would
hold all these destructive forces in check, for woman knows the
cost of life better than man does, and not with her consent would
one drop of blood ever be shed, one life sacrificed in vain. With
violence and disturbance in the natural world, we see a constant
effort to maintain an equilibrium of forces. Nature, like a
loving mother, is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and
valley, each in its place, to hush the angry winds and waves,
balance the extremes of heat and cold, of rain and drought, that
peace, harmony, and beauty may reign supreme. There is a striking
analogy between matter and mind, and the present disorganization
of society warns us, that in the dethronement of woman we h