ur boundaries now embrace. I see no
evidence in what has been published on this question, of late, by
statesmen, ecclesiastics, lawyers, and judges, that any of them
have thought sufficiently on the subject to prepare a well-digested
code, or a comprehensive amendment to the national Constitution.
Some view it as a civil contract, though not governed by the laws
of other contracts; some view it as a religious ordinance--a
sacrament; some think it a relation to be regulated by the State,
others by the Church, and still others think it should be left
wholly to the individual. With this wide divergence of opinion
among our leading minds, it is quite evident that we are not
prepared for a national law.

"Moreover, as woman is the most important factor in the marriage
relation, her enfranchisement is the primal step in deciding the
basis of family life. Before public opinion on this question
crystallizes into an amendment to the national Constitution, the
wife and mother must have a voice in the governing power and must
be heard, on this great problem, in the halls of legislation.

"There are many advantages in leaving all these questions, as now,
to the States. Local self-government more readily permits of
experiments on mooted questions, which are the outcome of the needs
and convictions of the community. The smaller the area over which
legislation extends, the more pliable are the laws. By leaving the
States free to experiment in their local affairs, we can judge of
the working of different laws under varying circumstances, and thus
learn their comparative merits. The progress education has achieved
in America is due to the fact that we have left our system of
public instruction in the hands of local authorities. How
different would be the solution of the great educational question
of manual labor in the schools, if the matter had to be settled at
Washington!

"The whole nation might find itself pledged to a scheme that a few
years would prove wholly impracticable. Not only is the town
meeting, as Emerson says, 'the cradle of American liberties,' but
it is the nursery of Yankee experiment and wisdom. England, with
its clumsy national code of education, making one inflexible
standard of scholarship for the bright children of the
manufactu