Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States,: 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, and January 25, 1887Various
History
Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States,: 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, and January 25, 1887
Various
Women -- Suffrage -- United States
It would be a vain attempt to undertake to enumerate the refining,
endearing, and ennobling influences exercised by the true woman in her
relations to the family and to society when she occupies the sphere
assigned to her by the laws of nature and the Divine inspiration,
which are our surest guide for the present and the future life. But
how can woman be expected to meet these heavy responsibilities, and to
discharge these delicate and most important duties of wife, Christian,
teacher, minister of mercy, friend of the suffering, and consoler of
the despondent and needy, if we impose upon her the grosser, rougher,
and harsher duties which nature has assigned to the male sex?
If the wife and the mother is required to leave the sacred precincts
of home, and to attempt to do military duty when the state is in
peril; or if she is to be required to leave her home from day to day
in attendance upon the court as a juror, and to be shut up in the jury
room from night to night with men who are strangers while a question
of life or property is being discussed; if she is to attend political
meetings, take part in political discussions, and mingle with the male
sex at political gatherings; if she is to become an active politician;
if she is to attend political caucuses at late hours of the night;
if she is to take part in all the unsavory work that may be deemed
necessary for the triumph of her party; and if on election day she is
to leave her home and go upon the streets electioneering for votes for
the candidates who receive her support, and mingling among the crowds
of men who gather round the polls, she is to press her way through
them to the precinct and deposit her ballot; if she is to take part
in the corporate struggles of the city or town in which she resides,
attend to the duties of his honor, the mayor, the councilman, or of
policeman, to say nothing of the many other like obligations which are
disagreeable even to the male sex, how is she, with all these heavy
duties of citizen, politician, and officeholder resting upon her
shoulders, to attend to the more sacred, delicate, and refining trust
to which we have already referred, and for which she is peculiarly
fitted by nature? If she is to discharge the duties last mentioned,
how is she, in connection with them, to discharge the more refining,
elevating, and ennobling duties of wife, mother, Christian, and
friend, which are found in the sphere where nature has placed her?
Who is to care for and train the children while she is absent in the
discharge of these masculine duties?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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