those halls, and the rest of the women come after her. If she was
there, she might perhaps be met by the old objection, that,
whatever her words may be, she did not have the physical force to
sustain them. The composition of our delegates in both houses of
Congress is not, as a general rule, so formidable as to lead one
to suppose that they were particularly sent there for their
muscle. Bring before you the array of the men whom you send to
represent the nation. See how absurd it is to suppose that they
were chosen for anything but their intellect. Hear this lady
talk, and when you compare what you have heard with the debates
in Congress, it does not seem to me that even intellect was the
main consideration.

I believe that no man ever made use of that hackneyed argument,
that women couldn't vote because they couldn't discharge military
duty, unless there was in that man something that needed the
teaching of womanhood to make him do his military duty, and do it
well. I never heard that argument made that I do not suspect that
there is something amiss in that man's lungs, or his liver, or at
any rate his brain. The military duties of the nation have
nothing to do with the elective franchise. Every soldier who
comes back from military service finds the way to the polls
blocked up by dozens of men who, at the time of the draft,
suddenly developed lamenesses, either of limbs, or of excuses;
men who wanted to see if there wasn't some wound or trouble by
which they could be relieved from the obvious necessity. You
recollect the man that Mr. Clarke spoke to you of this morning,
who, at the sacking of Lawrence, hid himself in the cellar, while
his wife guided with a lantern the border ruffians who were in
search of him. She relied apparently upon the ingenuity of the
husband to hide himself effectively--a reliance in which she was
not disappointed. Not having found him, they decided to set fire
to the house, and then she asked permission to bring out her
household furniture and save it from the flames. To finish up she
dragged out a great roll of carpet. Had anybody sat down on that
roll of carpet they would have heard the ready scream of her
brave but suffering husband. If that man was like multitudes of
men, if he were a man like Horace Greeley in h