and good intention stored up in the minds and hearts of our wives
and sisters, how great the reinforcement would be for all that is
noble, patriotic and pure in public life! Who should fear the
result who desires the public welfare? From the stand-point of
better principles applied to the direction of public affairs and
the best individuals in office, the argument seems impregnable.

It is getting late to resist this measure on the ground that the
character of women themselves would be lowered by contact with
politics. That objection is identical with the motive which
causes the Turk to shut up his women in a harem and closely veil
them in public. He fears their delicacy will be tarnished if they
speak to any man but their proprietor. So prejudice feared woman
would be unsexed if she had equal education with man. The
professions were closed to women for the same consideration.
Women have vindicated their ability to endure the education and
engage in the dreaded pursuits, yet society is not dissolved, and
these fearful imaginings have proved idle dreams. As every
advance made by woman since the days when it was a mooted
law-point how large could be the stick with which her husband
could punish her, down to the day when congress opened to her the
bar of the United States Supreme Court, has been accompanied by
constantly refuted assertions that she and society were about to
be ruined. I think we can safely trust to her good sense, virtue
and delicacy to preserve for us the loved and venerated object we
have always known, even if society shall yield the still further
measure of complete enfranchisement, and thus add to her social
dignity, duties and responsibilities.

No class has ever been degraded by the ballot. All have rather
been elevated by it. We cannot rationally anticipate less
desirable personal consequences to those whose tendencies are
naturally good, than to those on whom the ballot has been
conferred belonging to a lower plane of being. But these
considerations go only to show the policy of granting suffrage to
women. From the stand-point of justice the argument is more
pressing. If woman asks for the ballot shall man deny it? By what
right? Certainly not by the right of a majority; for women are at
least as numerous. Certainly no