n. The best judge of any woman is a woman. The
poorest judge of any woman is a man. Let any woman with defect or flaw
go amongst a community of men and she will be a successful impostor.
Let her go amongst a community of women and in one instant the
instinct, the atmosphere circumambient, will tell her story.

Mrs. Leonard gives us the result of her opinion and of her experience
as to whether this right of suffrage should be conferred upon her
own sex. The Senator from Massachusetts speaks of her evidence in a
political campaign in Massachusetts and that her unaided and single
evidence crushed down the governor of that great State. I thank the
Senator for that statement. If Mrs. Leonard had been an office-holder
and a voter not a single township would have believed the truth of
what she uttered.

Mr. HOAR. She was an office-holder, and the governor tried to put her
out.

Mr. VEST. Ah! but what sort of an office-holder? She held the office
delegated to her by God himself, a ministering angel to the sick, the
afflicted, and the insane. What man in his senses would take from
woman this sphere? What man would close to her the charitable
institutions and eleemosynary establishments of the country? That is
part of her kingdom; that is part of her undisputed sway and realm. Is
that the office to which woman suffragists of this country ask us now
to admit them? Is it to be the director of a hospital? Is it to the
presidency of a board of visitors of an eleemosynary institution? Oh,
no; they want to be Presidents, to be Senators, and Members of the
House of Representatives, and, God save the mark, ministerial and
executive officers, sheriffs, constables, and marshals.

Of course, this lady is found in this board of directors. Where else
should a true woman be found? Where else has she always been found but
by the fevered brow, the palsied hand, the erring intellect, ay, God
bless them, from the cradle to the grave the guide and support of the
faltering steps of childhood and the weakening steps of old age!

Oh, no, Mr. President; this will not do. If we are to tear down all
the blessed traditions, if we are to desolate our homes and firesides,
if we are to unsex our mothers and wives and sisters and turn our
blessed temples of domestic peace into ward political-assembly rooms,
pass this joint resolution. But for one I thank God that I am so
old-fashioned that I would not give one memory of my grandmother or my
mother for a