will puzzle any gentleman to draw a line of demarkation between
the right of the male and the female on this subject. Both are
liable to all the laws you pass; their property, their persons,
and their lives are affected by the laws. Why, then, should not
the females have a right to participate in their construction as
well as the male part of the community? There is no argument that
I can conceive or that I have yet heard, that makes any
discrimination between the two on the question of right.

Why should there be any restriction? Is it because gentlemen
apprehend that the female portion of the community are not as
virtuous, that they are not as well-calculated to consider what
laws and principles of the Government will conduce to their
welfare as men are? The great mass of our educated females
understand all these great concerns of government infinitely
better than that great mass of ignorant population from other
countries which you admit to the polls without hesitation.

But, sir, the right of suffrage, in my judgment, has bearings
altogether beyond any rights of persons or property that are to
be vindicated by it. I lay it down that in any free community, if
any particular class of that community are excluded from this
right they can not maintain their dignity; it is a brand of Cain
upon their foreheads that will sink them into contempt, even in
their own estimation. My judgment is that if this right was
accorded to females, you would find that they would be elevated
in their minds and in their intellects. The best discipline you
can offer them would be to permit and to require them to
participate in these great concerns of Government, so that their
rights and the rights of their children should depend in a manner
upon the way in which they understand these great things.

What would be the effect upon their minds? Would it not be, I ask
you, sir, to lead them from that miserable amusement of reading
frivolous books and novels and romances that consume two-thirds
of their time now, from which they learn nothing, and draw their
attention to matters of more moment, more substance, better
calculated to well-discipline the mind? In my judgment it would.
I believe it would tend to educate them as well as the male part
of the population. Take