assent which it apparently has received from the Senate of the
United States in the vote just recorded. The subject is too
broad, it is too deep, it is too serious to attempt to discuss it
unprepared and within the time which is allotted to me. I
sincerely hope that if this subject is to be acted upon, it will
be after long, serious, severe, close consideration. Let all
sides of the subject be viewed in all its vastness and
far-reaching consequences. Let Senators consider the results, and
let at least their aims in this matter be something higher than
mere political and partisan considerations, which I fear have
animated much of the discussion to which we have listened. Mr.
President, I trust sincerely that the vote just taken, indicating
the refusal of the Senate to lay this bill upon the table, may
not indicate the will of the Senate in respect of this Amendment.
We have no right to subject this or any other portion of our
fellow-citizens to so sad, so untoward, so unhappy an experiment
as is here proposed. I have sat in this Chamber, and seen laws
leveled with the most serious and cruel penalties against a class
of people practicing polygamy in our Territories. What will this
law do? Will it not in fact sever those relations to which I have
referred as being essential for the virtue and safety of a State?
What is your State unless it is founded upon virtuous and happy
homes? And where can there be a virtuous and happy home unless a
Christian marriage shall have consecrated it?

No, Mr. President, I trust that this Amendment will not be
adopted, that we shall not trifle in this way with the happiness
of a large portion of our fellow-citizens, that we shall not set
what I must consider this indecorous example of government; and I
trust that the vote of the Senate most emphatically will stop
here, and I trust stop permanently even the suggestion of
granting the political franchise of voting to the women of
America. They do not need it, sir. I can not, of course, speak
for all, but I know that I can speak the sentiment of many when I
say that to them the proposition is abhorrent to take them from
the retirement where their sway is so admitted, so beneficent, so
elevating, and to throw them into another sphere for which they
are totally unfitted