nees slowly crawling up the stairs? Behold him in her
chamber--in her bed! The fairy tale of "Beauty and the Beast" is
far too often realized in life. Gentlemen, such scenes as woman
has witnessed at her own fireside, where no eye save Omnipotence
could pity, no strong arm could help, can never be realized at
the polls, never equaled elsewhere, this side the bottomless pit.
No, woman has not hitherto lived in the clouds, surrounded by an
atmosphere of purity and peace--but she has been the companion of
man in health, in sickness, and in death, in his highest and in
his lowest moments. She has worshiped him as a saint and an
orator, and pitied him as madman or a fool. In Paradise, man and
woman were placed together, and so they must ever be. They must
sink or rise together. If man is low and wretched and vile, woman
can not escape the contagion, and any atmosphere that is unfit
for woman to breathe is not fit for man. Verily, the sins of the
fathers shall be visited upon the children to the third and
fourth generation. You, by your unwise legislation, have crippled
and dwarfed womanhood, by closing to her all honorable and
lucrative means of employment, have driven her into the garrets
and dens of our cities, where she now revenges herself on your
innocent sons, sapping the very foundations of national virtue
and strength. Alas! for the young men just coming on the stage of
action, who soon shall fill your vacant places--our future
Senators, our Presidents, the expounders of our constitutional
law! Terrible are the penalties we are now suffering for the ages
of injustice done to woman.

Again, it is said that the majority of women do not ask for any
change in the laws; that it is time enough to give them the
elective franchise when they, as a class, demand it.

Wise statesmen legislate for the best interests of the nation;
the State, for the highest good of its citizens; the Christian,
for the conversion of the world. Where would have been our
railroads, our telegraphs, our ocean steamers, our canals and
harbors, our arts and sciences, if government had withheld the
means from the far-seeing minority? This State established our
present system of common schools, fully believing that educated
men and women would make better citizens than ignoran