ed to withdraw or change their report.

The parliamentary tactics and watchfulness of Senators
Doane, Coon, Smith, White, Dinsmore, Harrington and Tefft
carried the bill through the bluster of the minority to its
final vote; by twenty-two for to eight against.[469] When
Senator Howe's name was called he offered the following
explanation:

The question of submitting this proposition to a vote of the
people is not to be regarded as a pleasantry, as some
members seem to think. However mischievously the experiment
of giving the suffrage to women may operate, the power once
given cannot be recalled. I have endeavored to look at the
question conscientiously. I desire to keep abreast of all
legitimate reforms of the day. I would like to see the moral
influence of women at the polls, but I would not like to see
the immoral influence of politics in the home circle. The
Almighty has imposed upon woman the highest office to which
human nature is subject, that of bearing children. Her life
is almost necessarily a home life; it should be largely
occupied in rearing and training her children to be good men
and pure electors. Therein her influence is all-powerful.
Again, I incline to the belief that to strike out the word
'male' in the constitution would not change its meaning so
as to confer the suffrage upon women. I am not acquainted
with half a dozen ladies who would accept the suffrage if it
were offered to them. They are not prepared for so radical a
change. For these reasons, briefly stated, and others, I
vote _No_.

Mr. Turner explained his vote as follows:

Our wives, mothers and sisters having an equal interest with
us in the welfare of our commonwealth, and being equal to
ourselves in intelligence, there appears no good reason why
the right to vote should be withheld from them. The genius
of our institutions is opposed to taxation without
representation; opposed to government without the consent of
the governed, and therefore I vote _Aye_.

The act was then signed by the president of the Senate and
speaker of the House, and sent to Gov. Nance. The latter,