than that which has been wrought in their departments. And that
which the family has long ago achieved--that, in more eminence
and more wondrous and surprising beauty, the world will achieve
for itself in public affairs, when man and woman co-operate
there, as now they are co-operating in all other spheres of
taste, intellection, and morality....

It is said, a "woman's place is at home." Well, now, since
compromises are coming into vogue again, will you compromise with
me, and agree that until a woman has a home she may vote?
[Laughter]. That is only fair. It is said, "She ought to stay at
home, and attend to home duty, and minister to the wants of
father, or husband, or brothers." Well, may all orphan women, and
unmarried women, and women that have no abiding place of
residence vote? If not, where is the argument? But, to look at it
seriously, what is the defect of this statement? It is the
impression that staying at home is incompatible with going
abroad. Never was there a more monstrous fallacy. I light my
candle, and it gives me all the light I want, and it gives all
the light you want to you, and to you, and to you, and to every
other one in the room; and there is not one single ray that you
get there which cheats me here; and a woman that is doing her
duty right in the family sheds a beneficent influence out upon
the village in which she dwells, without taking a moment's more
time. My cherry-trees are joyful in all their blossoms, and
thousands go by them and see them in their beauty day by day; but
I never mourn the happiness that they bestow on passers-by as
having been taken from me. I am not cheated by the perfume that
goes from my flowers into my neighbor's yard. And the character
of a true woman is such that it may shine everywhere without
making her any poorer. She is richer in proportion as she gives
away.... And it is just because woman is woman that she is
fitted, while she takes care of the household, to take care of
the village and the community around about her.

But it is said, "She ought to act through her father, or husband,
or brother, or son." Why ought she? Did you ever frame an
argument to show why the girl should use her father to vote for
her, and the boy who is younger, and not half so witty, should
vote