it was no longer forced on their
consideration. And now when they have succeeded in killing their leader,
they begin to realize their loss. The question evolved through the
ferment of social opinions was concisely stated, thus: "Can a man be a
great leader, a statesman, a general, an admiral, a learned chief
justice, a trusted lawyer, or skillful physician, if he has ever broken
the Seventh Commandment?"

I expressed my opinion in the _Westminster Review_, at the time, in the
affirmative. Mrs. Jacob Bright, Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick of Boston,
Kate Field, in her _Washington_, agreed with me. Many other women spoke
out promptly in the negative, and with a bitterness against those who
took the opposite view that was lamentable.

The Jackson case was a profitable study, as it brought out other
questions of social ethics, as well as points of law which were ably
settled by the Lord Chancellor. It seems that immediately after Mr. and
Mrs. Jackson were married, the groom was compelled to go to Australia.
After two years he returned and claimed his bride, but in the interval
she felt a growing aversion and determined not to live with him. As she
would not even see him, with the assistance of friends he kidnaped her
one day as she was coming out of church, and carried her to his home,
where he kept her under surveillance until her friends, with a writ of
_habeas corpus_, compelled him to bring her into court. The popular idea
"based on the common law of England," was, that the husband had this
absolute right. The lower court, in harmony with this idea, maintained
the husband's right, and remanded her to his keeping, but the friends
appealed to the higher court and the Lord Chancellor reversed the
decision.

With regard to the right so frequently claimed, giving husbands the
power to seize, imprison, and chastise their wives, he said: "I am of
the opinion that no such right exists in law. I am of the opinion that
no such right ever did exist in law. I say that no English subject has
the right to imprison another English subject, whether his wife or not."
Through this decision the wife walked out of the court a free woman. The
passage of the Married Women's Property Bill in England in 1882 was the
first blow at the old idea of coverture, giving to wives their rights of
property, the full benefit of which they are yet to realize when
clearer-minded men administer the laws. The decision of the Lord
Chancellor, rendered March