man's degradation and total
depravity. I place man above all governments, all
institutions--ecclesiastical and civil--all constitutions and
laws. (Applause). It is a mistaken idea, that the same law that
oppresses the individual can promote the highest good of society.
The best interests of a community never can require the sacrifice
of one innocent being--of one sacred right. In the settlement,
then, of any question, we must simply consider the highest good
of the individual. It is the inalienable right of all to be
happy. It is the highest duty of all to seek those conditions in
life, those surroundings, which may develop what is noblest and
best, remembering that the lessons of these passing hours are not
for time alone, but for the ages of eternity. They tell us, in
that future home--the heavenly paradise--that the human family
shall be sifted out, and the good and pure shall dwell together
in peace. If that be the heavenly order, is it not our duty to
render earth as near like heaven as we may?

For years, there has been before the Legislature of this State a
variety of bills, asking for divorce in cases of drunkenness,
insanity, desertion, cruel and brutal treatment, endangering
life. My attention was called to this question very early in
life, by the sufferings of a friend of my girlhood, a victim of
one of those unfortunate unions, called marriage. What my great
love for that young girl, and my holy intuitions, then decided to
be right, has not been changed by years of experience,
observation, and reason. I have pondered well these things in my
heart, and ever felt the deepest interest in all that has been
written and said upon the subject, and the most profound respect
and loving sympathy for those heroic women, who, in the face of
law and public sentiment, have dared to sunder the unholy ties of
a joyless, loveless union.

If marriage is a human institution, about which man may
legislate, it seems but just that he should treat this branch of
his legislation with the same common-sense that he applies to all
others. If it is a mere legal contract, then should it be subject
to the restraints and privileges of all other contracts. A
contract, to be valid in law, must be formed between parties of
mature age, with an honest intenti