ith a view to defeat the
bill: but I have lived to be too old and have become too well
satisfied of what I think is my duty to the country to give any
vote which I do not believe, if it should be supported by the
votes of a sufficient number to carry the measure into operation,
would redound to the interests and safety and honor of the
country.

Mr. WADE: The gentleman seems to suppose that the only reason
females should have the right to vote is that they might defend
themselves with a cowhide against those who insult them. I do not
suppose that giving them the right to vote will add anything to
their physical strength or courage. That is the argument of the
Senator, and the whole of his argument: but I did not propose
that they should vote on such hypothesis or with any view that it
should have any such effect. But I do know that as the law stood
until very recently in many of the States a husband was not the
best guardian for his wife in many cases, and frequently the
greatest hardships that I have ever known in the community have
arisen from the fact that a good-for-nothing, drunken, miserable
man had married a respectable lady with property, and your law
turned the whole of it right over to him and left her a pauper at
his will. While I was at the bar I was more conversant with the
manner in which these domestic affairs were transacted than I am
now; and I knew instances of the greatest hardship arising from
the fact that the law permitted such things to be done. I have
known a drunken, miserable wretch of a husband take possession of
a large property of a virtuous, excellent woman, who had a family
of small children depending upon her, and turn her out to support
her family by sewing and by manual labor; and it is not an
uncommon case. The legislators, the males having the law-making
power in their hands, especially were not very prompt to correct
these evils; they were very slow in doing so. They continued from
the old common law, when the memory of man did not run to the
contrary, down to a time that is within the recollection of us
all; and I do not know but that in some of the States this absurd
rule prevails even now. It would not have prevailed if ladies had
been permitted to vote for their legislators. They would have
instru