urt, know very well whether they are apt to suffer
wrong because their rights are determined wholly by men.[25]
There is just as little reason for suspicion that their rights
are not carefully guarded in legislation, and in every way where
legislation can operate.

There is another reason why I think this proposal to enlist the
women of the country as a part of its active political force, and
to cast upon them an equal duty in the political meetings,
campaigns and elections--to make them legislators, jurors, judges
and executive officers--is all wrong. I believe it to be utterly
inconsistent with the very nature and constitution of woman, and
wholly subversive of the sphere and function she was designed to
fill in the home and in society. The office and duty which nature
has devolved upon woman during _all the active and vigorous
portion_ of her life would often render it impossible, and still
more often indelicate, for her to appear and act in caucuses,
conventions or elections, or to act as a member of the
Legislature or as a juror or judge.

I can not bring myself to believe that any large portion of the
intelligent women of this country desire any such thing granted
them, or would perform any such duties if the chance were offered
them.

[To comment upon this would be "to gild refined gold, to paint the
lily, to throw a perfume on the violet." It would be positively
"indelicate."]

William Dorsheimer (N. Y.) agreed with the committee to table the
resolution, but did not endorse their arguments. He signed the
following statement: "I think it probable that the interests of
society will some time require that women should have the right of
suffrage, and I am not willing to say more than that the present is
not an opportune time for submission to the States of the proposed
amendment."

In this, it will be observed, there is no recognition of woman's right
to represent herself, no disposition to grant her petition for her own
sake, but simply the opinion that should there ever be a crisis when
her suffrage was needed it should be allowed as a matter of
expediency.

In the eyes of posterity the Judiciary Committee of this Forty-eighth
Congress will be redeemed from the disgrace of these reports by that
of the minority, signed by Thomas B. Reed, afterwards for many years
Speaker of the House; Ezra B. Taylor (O.