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
Further, because of what we have we ask for more. Because of the
duties that we are commanded to do, we ask for more. My friend has
said, and it is true in some respects, that men have always kept
us just a little below them where they could shower upon us
favors, and they have always done that generously. So they have,
but, gentlemen, has your sex been more generous in its favors
to women than women have been generous toward your sex in their
favors? Neither one can do without the other: neither can dispense
with the service of the other; neither can dispense with the
reverence of the other, with the aid of the other in domestic
life, in social life. The men of this nation are rapidly finding
that they can not dispense with the service of women in business
life. I know that they are also feeling the need of what they call
the moral support of women in their public life, and in their
political life.
I always feel that it is not for women alone that I appeal. As men
have long represented me, or assumed to do so, and as the men of
my own family always have done so justly and most chivalrously, I
feel that in my appeal for political recognition I represent them;
that I represent my husband and my brother and the interest of the
sex to which they belong, for you, gentlemen, by lifting the women
of the nation into political equality would simply place us where
we could lift you where you never yet have stood, upon a moral
equality with us. Gentlemen, that is true. You know it as well as
I. I do not speak to you as individuals; I speak to you as the
representatives of your sex, as I stand here the representative
of mine; and never until we are your equals politically will the
moral standard for men be what it now is for women, and it is
none too high. Let it grow the more elevated by our growth in
spirituality, by every aspiration which we receive from the God
whence we draw our life and whence we draw our impulses of life.
Let our standard remain where it is and be more elevated. Yours
must come up to match it, and never will it until we are your
equals politically. So it is for men, as well as for women, that I
make my appeal.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Elsewhere in the archive
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account