eds, too,
the protection of all men against this one. But even if she could be
sure, as she is not, of the ever-present, all-protecting power of one
strong arm, that would be weak indeed compared with the subtle,
all-pervading influence of just and equal laws for all women. Hence
woman's need of the ballot, that she may hold in her own right hand
the weapon of self-protection and self-defense.

Again it is said: "The women who make the demand are few in number,
and their feelings and opinions are abnormal, and therefore of no
weight in considering the aggregate judgment on the question." The
number is larger than appears on the surface, for the fear of public
ridicule, and the loss of private favors from those who shelter, feed,
and clothe them, withhold many from declaring their opinions and
demanding their rights. The ignorance and indifference of the majority
of women, as to their status as citizens of a republic, is not
remarkable, for history shows that the masses of all oppressed
classes, in the most degraded conditions, have been stolid and
apathetic until partial success had crowned the faith and enthusiasm
of the few.

The insurrections on Southern plantations were always defeated by the
doubt and duplicity of the slaves themselves. That little band of
heroes who precipitated the American Revolution in 1776 were so
ostracised that they walked the streets with bowed heads, from a sense
of loneliness and apprehension. Woman's apathy to the wrongs of her
sex, instead of being a plea for her remaining in her present
condition, is the strongest argument against it. How completely
demoralized by her subjection must she be, who does not feel her
personal dignity assailed when all women are ranked in every State
Constitution with idiots, lunatics, criminals, and minors; when in the
name of Justice, man holds one scale for woman, another for himself;
when by the spirit and letter of the laws she is made responsible for
crimes committed against her, while the male criminal goes free; when
from altars where she worships no woman may preach; when in the
courts, where girls of tender age may be arraigned for the crime of
infanticide, she may not plead for the most miserable of her sex; when
colleges she is taxed to build and endow, deny her the right to share
in their advantages; when she finds that which should be her
glory--her possible motherhood--treated everywhere by man as a
disability and a crime! A woman insensib