of any
sensible man, mindful of his responsibilities, who seeks to deal
with it.

This is an attempt to disregard laws promulgated by the Almighty
Himself. It is irreverent legislation in the simplest and
strongest sense of the word. Nay, sir, not only so, but it is a
step in defiance of the laws of revealed religion as given to
men. If there be one institution which it seems to me has
affected the character of this country, which has affected the
whole character of modern civilization, the results of which we
can but imperfectly trace and but partly recognize, it is the
effect of the institution of Christian marriage, the mysterious
tie uniting the one man and the one woman until they shall become
one and not two persons. It is an institution which is
mysterious, which is beyond the reach and the understanding of
man, but he certainly can best exhibit his sense of duty and
proper obligation when he reverently shall submit to and
recognize its wisdom. All such laws as proposed by this amendment
are stumbling-blocks, and are meant to be stumbling-blocks in the
way of that perfect union of the sexes which was intended by the
law of Christian marriage.

Suffrage is a political franchise; it is not a right; because the
word "right" is used in reference to voting in the XIV. Amendment
to the Constitution, that does not make it a right. It is in the
very nature of government a political privilege confided,
according to the exigency, the expediency, by the wisdom of
those who control the government, to a certain class. If this
right to vote be what the Senator from Indiana declares it to be,
a natural and inalienable right, then you have no more right to
deny it to a person who is under the age of twenty-one than you
have to deny it to a person who is over the age of twenty-one
years. Sir, the difference is radical. Voting is no right; it is
a privilege granted, a franchise which is granted to certain
classes, more or less extended according to the supposed
expediency which shall control the minds of those who frame the
constitution of government for a people. There is no wrong done,
so far as the abnegation of a right is involved, by denying this
to certain classes of a community, whether on account of age or
sex or any other supposed