Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
Now, for my part, I very much prefer, if the franchise is to be
widened, if more people are to be admitted to the exercise of it,
to allow females to participate than I would negroes; but
certainly I shall never give my consent to the disfranchisement
of females who live in society, who pay taxes, who are governed
by the laws, and who have a right, I think, even in that respect,
at times to throw their weight in the balance for the purpose of
correcting the corruptions and the viciousness to which the male
portions of the family tend. I think they have a right to throw
their influence into the scale; and I should like to hear any
reason to be offered why this should not be. Taxation and
representation ought to go hand in hand. That we have heard here
until all ears have been wearied with it. If taxation and
representation are to go hand in hand, why should they not go
hand in hand with regard to the female as well as the male? Is
there any reason why Mrs. Smith should be governed by a goat-head
of a mayor any more than John Smith, if he could correct it? He
is paid by taxes levied and assessed on her property just in the
same way as he is paid out of taxes levied on the property of
John. If she commits an offense she is subjected to be tried,
convicted, and punished by the other sex alone; and she has no
protection whatever in any way either as to her property, her
person, or to her liberty very often. There is another thing,
too. A great many reflections have been made upon the white race
keeping the black in slavery. I should like to know whether we
have not partially kept the female sex in a condition of slavery,
particularly that part of them who labor for a living? I do not
know of any reason in the world why a woman should be confined to
two dollars a week when a man gets two dollars a day and does not
do any more work than she does, and does not do that which he
does do quite so well at all times.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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