f the right of female
suffrage, which, it is assumed, would overthrow Christianity,
defeat the ends of modern civilization, and upturn the world.

While I do not believe that female suffrage has been secured by
the existing amendments to the Constitution of the United States,
neither do I look upon that result as at all to be dreaded. It is
not, in my opinion, a question of woman's rights merely, but, in
a far greater degree, a question of man's rights. When God
created man, he announced the law of his being, that it was not
well for him to be alone, and so He created woman to be his
helpmate and companion. Commencing with the barbarism of the
East, and journeying through the nations toward the bright light
of civilization in the West, it will everywhere be found that,
just in proportion to the equality of women with men in the
enjoyment of social and civil rights and privileges, both sexes
are proportionately advanced in refinement and all that ennobles
human nature. In our own country, where women are received on an
equality with men, we find good order and good manners
prevailing. Because women frequent railroad cars and steamboats,
markets, shops, and post-offices, those places must be, and are,
conducted with order and decency. The only great resorts from
which woman is excluded by law are the election places; and the
violence, rowdyism, profanity, and obscenity of the gathering
there in our largest cities are sufficient to drive decent men,
even, away from the polls. If our wives, sisters, and daughters
were going to the polls, we should go with them, and good order
would be observed, or a row would follow, which would secure
order in the future. I have more faith in female suffrage, to
reform the abuses of our election system in the large cities,
than I have in the penal election laws to be enforced by soldiers
and marines. Who believes that, if ladies were admitted to seats
in Congress, or upon the bench, or were participating in
discussions at the bar, such proceedings would thereby be
rendered less refined, or that less regard would be paid to the
rights of all?

But whether women should be admitted to the right of suffrage, is
one thing; whether this end has already been accomplished, is
quite another. The XIV. Amendment forb