care for and train the children while she is absent in the discharge of these masculine duties?[1]
But it has been said that the present law is unjust to woman; that she is often required to pay tax on the property she holds without being permitted to take part in framing or administering the laws by which her property is governed, and that she is taxed without representation. That is a great mistake. It may be very doubtful whether the male or female sex in the present state of things has more influence in the administration of the affairs of the government and the enactment of the laws by which we are governed.[2]
While the woman does not discharge military duty, nor does she attend courts and serve on juries, nor does she labor on the public streets, bridges or highways, nor does she engage actively and publicly in the discussion of political affairs, nor does she enter the crowded precincts of the ballot-box to deposit her suffrage, still the intelligent, cultivated, noble woman is a power behind the throne. All her influence is in favor of morality, justice and fair dealing, all her efforts and her counsel are in favor of good government, wise and wholesome regulations and a faithful administration of the laws.[3] ....
It would be a gratification, and we are always glad to see the ladies gratified, to many who have espoused the cause of woman suffrage if they could take active part in political affairs and go to the polls and cast their votes alongside the male sex; but while this would be a gratification to a large number of very worthy and excellent ladies who take a different view of the question from that which we entertain, we feel that it would be a great cruelty to a much larger number of the cultivated, refined, delicate and lovely women of this country who seek no such distinction, who would enjoy no such privilege, who would with womanlike delicacy shrink from the discharge of any such obligation, and who would sincerely regret that what they consider the folly of the State had imposed upon them any such unpleasant duties. But should female suffrage be once established it would become an imperative necessity that the very large class, indeed much the largest class, of the women of this country of the character last described should yield, contrary to their inclinations and wishes, to the necessity which would compel them to engage in political strife.
We apprehend no one who has properly considered this question will doubt, if female suffrage should be established, that the more ignorant and less refined portions of the female population, to say nothing of the baser class of females, laying aside feminine delicacy and disregarding the sacred duties devolving upon them, to which
- ↑ Senator Brown assumes that all women are wives and the mothers of young children, and that the mother's sense of duty would not hold her to the care of her children if she had a chance to go into politics.
- ↑ Would any man be willing to exchange his influence for that of a woman in the affairs of government?
- ↑ This would seem to be the very influence which ought to be enforced by a vote.
