uld be
sufficient to protect a delicate female from insult, and no lady
would venture to run the hazard of being subjected to the insults
that she would be almost certain to receive.

They do not want this privilege. As to protecting themselves, as
to taking a part in the Government in order to protect
themselves, if they govern those who govern, is not that
protection enough? And who does not know that they govern us?
Thank God they do. But what more right has a woman, as a mere
matter of right independent of all delicacy, to the suffrage than
a boy who is just one day short of twenty-one? You put him in
your military service when he is eighteen; you may put him in it
at a younger age if you think proper; but you will not let him
vote. Why? Only upon moral grounds; that is all; not because that
boy may not be able to exercise the right, but because, in the
language of Mr. Adams, there must be some general rule, which
must be observed, because in the absence of such general rule, if
you permit excepted cases you might as well abolish all rules,
and then where are we, as he properly asks.

I like to learn wisdom from the men of 1776. I know we have had
the advantage of living in an age which they did not witness. I
have lived a good many years and watched the public men of the
day, and I do not think, and I have never been able with all my
disposition to think that we are any better than were the men of
1776 and our predecessors on this floor, the men who participated
in the deliberations of the Convention which led to the adoption
of the Constitution of the United States, the men who were the
authors of the State papers which were issued during that period,
and which filled the world with admiration and amazement.

From the days of colonization down to the present hour no such
proposition as this has received, so far as I am aware, any
support, unless it was for a short time in the State of New
Jersey. It has nothing to do with the right of negroes to vote.
That is perfectly independent. If I desired because I am opposed
to that to defeat the bill, I might perhaps, as a mere party
scheme, as a measure known to party tactics which govern
occasionally some--I do not say that they have not governed me
heretofore--vote for this amendment w