ually
demand its extension to all adult women. If it be necessary for
men that each should have a share in the administration of
government for his security, and to exclude partiality, as
alleged by Godwin, it would seem to be equally, if not more,
necessary for women, on account of their inferior physical power;
and if, as is persistently alleged by those who sneer at their
claims, they are also inferior in mental power, that fact only
gives additional weight to the argument in their behalf, as one
of the primary objects of government, as acknowledged on all
hands, is the protection of the weak against the power of the
strong.

I can discover no ground consistent with the principle on which
the franchise has been given to all men, upon which it can be
denied to women. The principal argument against such extension,
so far as argument upon that side of the question has fallen
under my observation, is based upon the position that women are
represented in the government by men, and that their rights and
interests are better protected through that indirect
representation than they would be by giving them a direct voice
in the government. The teachings of history in regard to the
condition of women under the care of these self-constituted
protectors, to which I can only briefly allude, show the value of
this argument as applied to past ages; and in demonstration of
its value as applied to more recent times, even at the risk of
being tedious, I will give some examples from my own professional
experience. I do this because nothing adds more to the efficacy
of truth than the translation of the abstract into the concrete.
Withholding names, I will state the facts with fullness and
accuracy.

An educated and refined woman, who had been many years
before deserted by her drunken husband, was living in a
small village of Western New York, securing, by great
economy and intense labor in fine needlework, the means of
living, and of supporting her two daughters at an academy,
the object of her life being to give them such an education
as would enable them to become teachers, and thus secure to
them some degree of independence when she could no longer
provide for them. The daughters were good scholars a