The True Woman: A Series of Discourses, to Which Is Added Woman vs. BallotFulton, Justin D. (Justin Dewey)
Religion
The True Woman: A Series of Discourses, to Which Is Added Woman vs. Ballot
Fulton, Justin D. (Justin Dewey)
Husband and wife; Women -- Religious aspects -- Christianity; Women -- Suffrage
Woman is not naturally a law-maker. Even in our homes she desires
the head of the house to lay down the law. Never shall I forget the
influence exerted by the utterance in a convention of Sabbath school
teachers. A paper was read, complaining that in a certain Sabbath
school there was a lady superintendent, because no man could be found
to take the place. In conclusion, the writer said, "We need a man in
our town. We have things that wear pantaloons, but we need a man, to
give direction to the school, and to attract the nobler and better
portion of community." It was an honest declaration, and voiced a
truth. Every town, every Sabbath school, every home, needs a man.
Women of talent have tried to figure in politics and in the pulpit,
but a sorry figure they have made of it.
Think of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton in the train of George Francis
Train, perambulating the country in favor of the ballot in Kansas.
These are the leaders; but let it not be forgotten that they
sided against the ballot for the negro in hopes of getting it for
themselves, and proved their utter worthlessness and untrustworthiness
by trailing the banner committed to their keeping in the slime of a
convention which went for the repudiation of the national debt, the
defeat of the party of progress, and for the overthrow of republican
liberty. Had woman possessed the ballot, and had the course pursued by
the leaders of this movement exercised an influence over the majority,
this wonderful victory over the rebellious spirits of the land had
not been achieved; but, in its stead, the stars and bars would have
resumed their sway, and the stars and stripes, which now kiss the
breeze, and greet the rising hopes of uncounted millions, would have
been furled in gloom and night.
It is claimed that the ballot will secure for woman social respect.
The claim is not well founded. Those who seek it lose social respect,
because they step out of the path marked out for them by Providence
and by Nature. Woman, in her sphere, is man's good angel and helpmeet;
out of it, she is man's bitterest foe and heaviest curse.
There is an instinctive respect for woman in her proper sphere, which
is of itself a power superior to any merely conventional position that
a woman can build up for herself by her own hands, even through the
aid of the ballot.
How natural to see woman waited on by man! Sir Walter Raleigh was
praised because he cast his cloak into the mud to save the foot of his
Queen from being soiled. As noble acts have been performed by many
men, times without number. The uprising of gentlemen in the cars when
a tired woman enters with a child; the disposition to lighten her
cares and sweeten her joys, is everywhere considered manly.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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