Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
I should like to hear my honorable friend from Maine [Mr.
Morrill], so apt, so pertinent, so eloquent on all questions,
discourse upon the title which the male derives in consequence of
the fact that he has been a fisher and a hunter and a warrior all
the time; and then I should like to know how he would
discriminate between that fisher and hunter and warrior, and
those Amazons who burnt their right breasts in order that they
might the more readily draw the bow and against whose onset no
troops of that day were able to stand. I should also like to know
from him how it was that the female veterans of the army of
Dahomey recently, within the last three or four years, in the
face of an escarpment that would have made European veterans,
aye, and I might say American veterans tremble, scrambled over
that escarpment and carried the city sword in hand.
Now, Mr. President, it is time that we look at these things; and
that we look them full in the face. I am always glad and willing
to stand upon institutions that have been established in the
past; that have been sanctified by time; that have given to men
liberty and protection with which they were satisfied. But, sir,
when the time comes that we are to make a step forward, then
another and different question arises. I am utterly astonished at
my honorable friend from Rhode Island who doubted my sincerity in
this movement. Why should I not be sincere? Have I not as many
interests at stake as he has?
My honorable friend from Oregon [Mr. Williams] thinks this is
entirely preposterous. I have no doubt he does, and I give him
all credit for honesty and sincerity in the remarks that he has
made; but the trouble with him is, and with a great many
others--perhaps it is with myself upon some subjects--is that he
directs his gaze too long upon a particular point. It is
remarkable that when a man who looks long and steadily upon one
subject to the exclusion of every other, that subject at last
becomes to him the universe itself. I have met
fellow-politicians fellow-Senators, and fellow-coworkers in the
great battle of life, who really had so long contemplated one
subject that it was not within their capacity to see any others.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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