APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

APPENDIX.

BY AMELIA BLOOMER.

It is a principle of all free governments that the people rule. Each member of the community, in theory at least, is supposed to give assent to Constitution and laws to which he is subject; or, at least, it is assumed that these were made by a majority of the people. And this assent is given according to forms previously prescribed. The people vote directly upon the adoption of the Constitution, and by their representatives in making the laws. And since all the people must be subject to the Constitution and laws, so all the people should be consulted in their formation; that is, all who are of sufficient age and discretion to express an intelligent opinion. No one who claims to be a republican or lover of freedom at heart can dispute these positions. They are in substance the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, and they form the common basis upon which our national and state governments rest. When they shall cease to be recognized and respected by the people and by our lawmakers, then free institutions will cease to exist.But I presume their correctness, when applied to man, will be doubted by none; for man is willing enough to claim for himself the full recognition of all the high prerogatives I have shown him to be entitled to. But I hold more than this to be true. I hold that these rights belong, not to man alone, but to the race, and to each individual member of it, without regard to sex. I hold that woman has as good and rightful a claim to them as her brother, and that the man who denies this claim is not only no good democrat, and much less a good republican, but that in being guilty of this denial he commits an act of the grossest injustice and oppression. And I insist, not only that woman is entitled to the enjoyment of all these rights which God and nature have bestowed upon the race, but that she is entitled to the same means of enforcing those rights as man; and that therefore she should be heard in the formation of Constitutions, in the making of the laws, and in the selection of those by whom the laws are administered.In this country there is one great tribunal by which all theories must be tried, all principles tested, all measures settled: and that tribunal is the ballot-box. It is the medium through which public opinion finally makes itself heard. Deny to any class in the community the right to be heard at the ballot-box and that class sinks at once into a state of slavish dependence, of civil insignificance, which nothing can save from becoming subjugation, oppression and wrong.From what I have said you will of course understand that I hold, not only that the exclusion of womanfrom the ballot-box is grossly unjust, but that is her duty—so soon as she is permitted to do so—to go to it and cast her vote along with her husband and brother; and that, until she shall do so, we can never expect to have a perfectly just and upright government under which the rights of the people—of all the people—are respected and secured.It is objected that it does not belong to woman’s sphere to take part in the selection of her rulers, or the enactment of laws to which she is subject.This is mere matter of opinion. Woman’s sphere, like man’s sphere, varies according to the aspect under which we view it, or the circumstances in which she may be placed. A vast majority of the British nation would deny the assumption that Queen Victoria is out of her sphere in reigning over an empire of an hundred and fifty millions of souls! And if she is not out of her sphere in presiding over the destinies of a vast empire, why should any woman in this republic be denied her place among a nation of sovereigns? There is no positive rule by which to fix woman’s sphere, except that of capacity. It is to be found, I should say, wherever duty or interest may call her,—whether to the kitchen, the parlor, the nursery, the workshop or the public assembly. And, most certainly, no narrow contracted view of her sphere can suffice to deprive her of any of those rights which she has inherited with her being.Again, it is objected that it would be immodest and ‘unbecoming a lady’ for women to go to the ballot-box to vote, or to the halls of the capitol to legislate.This, too, is mere matter of opinion, and depends for its correctness upon the particular fashions or customs of the people. In deciding upon what is appropriate or inappropriate for individuals or classes the community is exceedingly capricious. In one country, or in one age, of the world, a particular act may be considered as entirely proper which in another age or country may be wholly condemned. But a few years ago it was thought very unladylike and improper for women to study medicine, and when Elizabeth Blackwell forced her way into the Geneva, N. Y., medical college people were amazed at the presumption. But she graduated with high honors, went to Europe to perfect her studies, and now stands high in her chosen profession. She let down the bars to a hitherto proscribed sphere. Others followed her lead, and now there are several colleges for the medical education of women, and women physicians without number; and the world applauds rather than condemns.It is not a great many years since women sculptors were unknown, because woman’s talent was not encouraged. Some years ago a match-girl of Boston fashioned a bust of Rufus Choate in plaster and placed it in a show window, hoping some benevolent lover of art might be so attracted by it as to aid her to educate herself in the profession of sculpture. A gentleman who saw great merit in it inquired who was the artist, and when told that it was a young girl, exclaimed, ‘What a pity she is not a boy!’ He saw that such talent in a boy would be likely to make him famous and enrich the world. But a girl had no right to suchgifts. It would be an unladylike profession for her, and so she must bury her God-given talent and keep to match selling and dish washing. A few years later Harriet Hosmer overleaped the obstacles that stood in her way and went to Rome to undertake the work of a sculptor. The world now rings with her praises and is enriched by her genius. She, too, removed barriers to a hitherto proscribed sphere and proved that the All-Father in committing a talent to woman’s trust gave along with it a right to use it. Vinnie Ream and others have followed in the way thus opened, and no one now questions the propriety of women working in plaster or marble.And so of many other departments of trade, profession and labor that within my recollection were not thought proper for woman, simply because she had not entered them. Women are debarred from voting and legislating, and therefore it is unfashionable for them to do either; but let their right to do so be once established, and all objections of that kind will vanish away.And I must say I can conceive of nothing so terrible within the precincts of the ballot-box as to exclude woman therefrom. Who go there now? Our fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. And do they act so badly while there that they dare not suffer us to go with them? If it is really so bad a place surely they should stay away from it themselves, for I hold that any place that is too corrupt for woman to go to is also too corrupt for man to go to. ‘An atmosphere that is too impure for woman to breathe cannot but be dangerous to hersires and sons.’ We mingle with our gentlemen friends elsewhere with safety and pleasure, and I cannot think it possible that the exercise of the right of franchise turns them at once into ruffians.Yet we are gravely told that woman would be treated with rudeness and insult should she go to the polls in the exercise of a right guaranteed to her by the laws of her country.And would you, sir objector, be the one to do this? Would you insult the wife or mother or sister of your neighbor? I think not. Then judge other men by yourself and believe that, as each man, the low as well as the high, would have some female relative or friend with him there, each would be equally careful for the safety of those belonging to him and careful also of his own language and deportment. And should one dare to offer insult would there not, think you, be a score of stout arms to fell the insulter to the earth?Men will behave as well I verily believe at the polls as at other public assemblies, if they will permit woman to go with them there; and if they have behaved badly heretofore, which from their continual asseverations we must believe to be the case, it is because woman has not always been there with them.The idea advanced that woman would become debased by participating in so important and sacred a duty as the selection of those who are to be placed in power, and to whom are to be committed the interests and happiness of the whole people, comes with a bad grace from men, who are ever claiming for her superior natural virtues. They should remember that God made herwoman, that He gave her equal dominion with man over the world and all that is therein, and endowed her with high moral faculties, keen perceptions of right, and a love of virtue and justice, and it is not easy to change her nature. Her delicacy and sensitiveness will take care of themselves, in any exposure, and she will be as safe at the polls as at political and other conventions, at state and county and church fairs, at railroad and Fourth of July celebrations, and the various other crowds in which she mingles freely with men. That virtue is little worth which cannot bear itself unharmed through a crowd, or awe and frown down impudence whenever it meets with it. The true woman will be woman still in whatever situation you place her; and man will become elevated just so far as he mingles in her society in the various relations of life.In fact this argument that it would be unsafe for woman to go to the polls is one that man, at least, should be ashamed to bring forward, inasmuch as it impeaches his own gallantry and instinctive regard for woman. But, if it be true that it would really be unsafe for us to go to the polls with our husbands and fathers, all danger could be avoided by our having separate places for voting apart from theirs.But here I am answered that it is notmenwhom we have to fear so much as the bad of our own sex, who will rush to the polls while the good women will stay away. To this I have to say that I have never yet met a woman that I was afraid of, or from whom I feared contamination. In the theatre and concert and festival halls, the Fourth of July gatherings, in the cars, on thefair grounds, and any day upon the street or in the stores we meet and pass by the coarse, the frail, the fallen of our sex. They have the same right to God’s pure air and sunshine as we, and we could not deprive them of it if we would and would not if we could. I see not how these are going to harm us any more at the polls than at all these other places.The good women will vote as soon as the exercise of the right is granted them, and they will outnumber the bad more than a hundred to one. Instead then of the pure woman being contaminated, the vile woman will be awed and silenced in her presence, and led by her example into the right paths. Even those called low and vile have hearts that can be touched, and they will gladly seize the aid which the ballot and good women will bestow to raise themselves from the degraded condition into which bad men, bad laws and bad customs have plunged them.This objection, then, which assumes such proportions in the minds of many, looks very small when viewed in the light of truth and Christian charity. I think no man would consider it good reason for depriving him of rights because a bad man also enjoyed the same rights.This arguing that all women would go to the bad if allowed to vote because some women are bad now when none of them vote is the most absurd logic ever conceived in the brain of man, and if those who use it could see their silly reasoning in the light that sensible men and women see it there would be less of it. If the ballot makes people bad, if it is corrupting in its tendenciesand destructive of virtue and goodness, then the sooner men are deprived of it the better.All men, good and bad, black and white, corrupt, debased, treacherous, criminal, may vote and make our laws, and we hear no word against it; but if one woman does or says aught that does not square with men’s ideas of what she should do and say, then she should not have the right of self-government, and all women everywhere must on that account be disfranchised and kept in subjection!Such reasoning might have answered once, but the intelligence of the present day rejects it, and women will not long be compelled to submit to its insults.But, again, one says votes would be unnecessarily multiplied, that women would vote just as the men do, therefore the man’s vote will answer for both. Sound logic, truly! But let us apply this rule to men. Votes are unnecessarily multiplied now by so many men voting; a few could do it all, as well as to take the mass of men from their business and their families to vote. My husband votes the republican ticket, and many other men vote just as he does; then why not let my husband’s vote suffice for all who think as he does, and send the rest about their business? What need of so many men voting when all vote just alike?Again, another says: ‘It has always been as now; women never have had equal rights, and that is proof that they should not have.’ Sound logic again! Worthy emanation from man’s superior brain! But whence did man derive his right of franchise, and how long has he enjoyed it?It is true that women never have had equal rights, because men have ever acted on the principle of oppressors that might makes right and have kept them in subjection, just as weaker nations are kept in subjection to the stronger.But must we ever continue to act on such principles? Must we continue to cling to old laws and customs because they are old? Why then did not our people remain subject to kings? How did they dare to do what was not thought of in the days of Moses and Abraham? How dared they set aside the commands of the Bible and the customs of all past ages and set up a government of their own?It is the boast of Americans that they know and do many things which their fathers neither knew nor did. Progress is the law of our nation and progress is written upon all its works. And while all else is progressing to perfection, while the lowest may attain to the position of the highest and noblest in the land, shall woman alone remain stationary? Shall she be kept in a state of vassalage because such was the condition of her sex six thousand years ago? Clearly, my friends, when the prejudice of custom is on the side of wrong and injustice in any matter we are not to be governed by it.But again it is objected that if women should be enfranchised it would lead to discord and strife in families. In other words, to come down to the simple meaning of this objection, if women would not vote just as their husbands wanted them to the husbands would quarrel with them about it! And who are themen who would do this? Surely, not those who consider and treat their wives as equals. Not those who recognize the individuality of the wife and accord to her the right to her own opinions, the right to think for herself, and to act as her own sense and judgment may dictate. With such there would be no cause for quarrels, nothing to contend about. In such families all is harmony.It would be only those who desire to rule in their families, only those who regard and treat their wives as inferiors and subjects who would get up contentions and discord; and it is only these who bring forward this objection. No man who honors woman as he should do would ever offer so flimsy a pretext for depriving her of rights and enslaving her thoughts. I believe the enfranchisement of woman will bring with it more happiness in the marriage relation, and greater respect from the husband for his wife, because men are always more respectful to their equals than to those they deem their inferiors and subjects.Another objection of which we hear much in these days, and to which men invariably resort when answered on every other point, is that women do not want to vote. They say whenallthe women ask for the right it will be granted them. Did these objectors take the same ground in regard to the negro? Did the colored men very generally petition for the right of franchise? No such petition was ever heard of and yet men forced the ballot unasked into their hands. Why then must woman sue and petition for her God-given right of self-government? If one humanbeing only claims that rights are unjustly withheld, such claim should receive the careful attention and consideration of this government and people. Yet tens of thousands of women, subjects of their government, have made such claims and set forth their grievances from time to time during the last thirty years. They have come as suppliants before the people asking for rights withheld, and they have been met with sneers and ridicule, and told that they must wait till all the women of the nation humbly sue for the same thing! Would such excuse ever be offered for withholding rights from men?Again, it is said that no considerable number of women would exercise the right if granted. This, if true, and men do not know it to be so, has nothing to do with the question. Give them the right and let them exercise it or not as they choose. If they do not want to vote, and will not vote, then surely there is no need of restrictions to prevent their voting, and no harm can come from removing the obstacles that now obstruct their way.Men are not required to give pledges that they will vote. There is no compulsion in their case. They are left free to do as they please, or as circumstances permit. The right is accorded and there the matter rests.There is no justice in requiring more from women. That thousands of women would vote is pretty certain. Ifalldo not avail themselves of such privileges, it will be of their own choice and right, and not because of its denial. The ballot is the symbol of freedom, ofequality; and because the right to use it would lift woman from a state of inferiority, subjection and powerlessness to one of equality and freedom and power we demand it for her. If properly educated, she will use it for the best interests of herself and of humanity.Another objection that carries great weight in the minds of many is that if women vote they must fight. Even some of our friends are puzzled how to settle this question. But a few days ago a lady friend asked me how we could get around it. I reply that all men have not earned their right to the ballot by firing the bullet in their country’s defense, and if only those who fight should vote there are many sick men, many weak little men, many deformed men, and many strong and able-bodied but cowardly men who should be disfranchised.These all vote but they do not fight, and fighting is not made a condition precedent to their right to the ballot. The law requires that only those of physical strength and endurance shall bear arms for their country, and I think not many women could be found to fill the law’s requirements. So they would have to be excused with the weak little men who are physically disqualified. If there are any great, strong women able to endure the marching and the fighting who want to go to the front in time of battle, I think they have a right to do so, and men should not dismiss them and send them home. But as there are other duties to be discharged, other interests to be cared for in time of war besides fighting, women will find it enough to look after these in the absence of their fighting men. They may enter the hospitals or the battlefields as nurses, orthey may care for the crops and the young soldiers at home. They may also do the voting, and look after the affairs of government, the same as do all the weak men who vote but do not fight.And further, as men do not think it right for woman to bear arms and fear it will be forced upon her with the ballot, they can easily make a law to excuse her; and doubtless, with her help, they will do so. There is great injustice, so long as the ballot is given to allmenwithout conditions, the weak as well as the strong, in denying to woman a voice in matters deeply affecting her happiness and welfare, and through her the happiness and welfare of mankind, because perchance there may come a time again in the history of our country when we shall be plunged into war and she not be qualified to shoulder a musket.This objection, like many others we hear, is too absurd to emanate from the brains of intelligent men, and I cannot think they seriously entertain the views they express. But give us a voice in the matter, gentlemen, and we will not only save ourselves from being sent to the battlefield, but will if possible keep you at home with us by averting the difficulties and dangers, and so compromising matters with foreign powers that peace shall be maintained and bloodshed avoided.In justification of the exclusion of woman from a voice in the government we are told that she is already represented by her fathers, husbands and sons. To this I might answer, so were our fathers represented in the parliament of King George. But were they satisfied with such representation? And why not? Becausetheir interests were not well cared for; because justice was not done them. They found they could not safely entrust their interests to the keeping of those who could not or would not understand them, and who legislated principally to promote their own selfish purposes. I wholly deny the position of these objectors. It is not possible for one human being to fully represent the wants and wishes of another, and much less can one class fully understand the desires and meet the requirements of a different class in society. And, especially, is this true as between man and woman. In the former, certain mental faculties as a general thing are said to predominate; while in the latter, the moral attain to a greater degree of perfection. Taken together, they make up what we understand by the generic termman. If we allow to the former, only, a full degree of development of their common nature one-half only enjoys the freedom of action designed for both. We then have the man, or male element, fully brought out; while the woman, or female element, is excluded and crushed.It should be remembered too that all rights have their origin in the moral nature of mankind, and that when woman is denied any guarantee which secures these rights to her, violence is done to a great moral law of our being. In assuming to vote and legislate for her, man commits a positive violation of the moral law and does that which he would not that others should do unto him. And, besides all these considerations, it is hard to understand the workings of this system of proxy-voting and proxy-representation. Howis it to work when our self-constituted representative happens to hold different opinions from us? There are various questions, such as intemperance, licentiousness, slavery, and war, the allowing men to control our property, our person, our earnings, our children, on which at times we might differ; and yet this representative of ours can cast but one vote for us both, however different our opinions may be. Whether that vote would be cast for his own interests, or for ours, all past legislation will show. Under this system, diversities of interest must of necessity arise; and the only way to remove all difficulty and secure full and exact justice to woman is to permit her to represent herself.One more point and I have done. Men say women cannot vote without neglecting their families and their duties as housekeepers. This, to our opponents, is a very serious objection. Who would urge a similar one to man’s voting and legislating, or holding office—that he would neglect his family or his business? And yet the objection would be about as reasonable in one case as in the other. In settling a question of natural and inherentright, we must not stop to consider conveniencies or inconveniencies. The right must be accorded, the field left clear, and the consequences will take care of themselves. Men argue as though if women were granted an equal voice in the government all our nurseries would be abandoned, the little ones left to take care of themselves, and the country become depopulated. They have frightened themselves with the belief that kitchens would be deserted and dinners left uncooked, and that men wouldhave to turn housekeepers and nurses. When the truth is, mothers have as much regard for the home and the welfare of the children as have the fathers; and they understand what their duties are as well as men do; and they are generally as careful for the interests of the one, and as faithful in the discharge of the other, as are these watchful guardians of theirs who tremble lest they should get out of their sphere. God and nature have implanted in woman’s heart a love of her offspring, and an instinctive knowledge of what is proper and what improper for her to do, and it needs no laws of man’s making to compel the one or teach the other. Give her freedom and her own good sense will direct her how to use it.Were the prohibition removed to-morrow, not more than one mother in a thousand would be required to leave her family to serve the state, and not one without her own consent. Even though all the offices in the country should be filled by women, which would never be likely to happen, it would take but a very small proportion of the whole away from their families; not more than now leave home each year for a stay of months at watering places, in the mountains, visiting friends, or crowding the galleries of legislative halls dispensing smiles on the members below. There would, then, be little danger of the terrible consequences so feelingly depicted by those who fear that the babies and their own stomachs would suffer.But I have no desire, nor does any advocate of the enfranchisement of woman desire, that mothers should neglect their duties to their families. Indeed, no greatersticklers for the faithful discharge of such duties can be found than among the prominent advocates of this cause; and no more exemplary mothers can be found than those who have taken the lead as earnest pleaders for woman’s emancipation. Undoubtedly, the highest and holiest duty of both father and mother is to their children; and neither the one nor the other, from any false ideas of patriotism, any love of display or ambition, any desire for fame or distinction, should leave a young family to engage in governmental affairs. A mother who has young children has her work at home, and she should stay at home with it, and care well for their education and physical wants. But having discharged this duty, having reared a well-developed and wisely-governed family, then let the state profit by her experience, and let the father and the mother sit down together in the councils of the nation.But all women are not mothers; all women have not home duties; so we shall never lack for enough to look after our interests at the ballot-box and in legislative halls. There are thousands of unmarried women, childless wives and widows, and it would always be easy to find enough to represent us without taking one mother with a baby in her arms. All women may vote without neglecting any duty, for the mere act of voting would take but little time; not more than shopping or making calls. Instead of woman being excluded from the elective franchise because she is a mother, that is the strongest reason that can be urged in favor of granting her that right. If she is responsible to society and to God for the moral and physical welfareof her son; if she is to bring him up as the future wise legislator, lawyer and jurist; if she is to keep him pure and prepare him to appear before the bar of the Most High,—then she should have unlimited control over his actions and the circumstances that surround him. She should have every facility for guarding his interests and for suppressing and removing all temptations and dangers that beset his path. If God has committed to her so sacred a charge He has, along with it, given the power and the right of protecting it from evil and for accomplishing the work He has given her to do; and no false modesty, no dread of ridicule, no fear of contamination will excuse her for shrinking from its discharge.Woman needs the elective franchise to destroy the prevalent idea of female inferiority. She needs it to make her the equal of her own sons, that they may not in a few years assume the power to rule over her, and make laws for her observance without her consent. The fact that she is the mother of mankind—‘the living providence under God who gives to every human being its mental, moral and physical organization, who stamps upon every human heart her seal for good or for evil’—is reason why she should occupy no inferior position in the world. In the words of Mrs. Stanton, ‘That woman who has no higher object of thought than the cooking a good dinner, compounding a good pudding, mending old clothes, or hemming dish-towels—or, to be a little more refined, whose thoughts centre on nothing more important than an elegantdress, beautiful embroidery, parties, dances, and genteel gossip concerning the domestic affairs of the Smiths and Browns—can never give to the world a Bacon or a Newton, a Milton or a Howard, a Buonaparte or a Washington.’ If we would have great men, we must first have great women. If we would have great statesmen and great philanthropists, we must have mothers whose thoughts soar above the trifling objects which now engage the attention of the mass of women, and who are capable of impressing those thoughts upon the minds of their offspring.In conclusion the enfranchisement of woman will be attended with the happiest results, not for her only, but the whole race. It will place society upon a higher moral and social elevation than it has ever yet attained. Hitherto, the variously devised agencies for the amelioration of the race have been designed mainly for the benefit of man. For him colleges have been established and universities endowed. For his advancement in science and the arts professorships have been founded and lecture rooms opened. And, above all, for securing to him the widest field for the fullest display of his abilities republican institutions have been proclaimed and sustained at a great sacrifice of toil, of bloodshed and of civil commotions. Although the doctrine of the innate equality of the race has been proclaimed yet, so far as relates to women, it has been a standing falsehood, We now ask that this principle may be applied practically in her case, also; we ask that the colleges and universities, the professorships and lecture rooms shall be opened to her, also; and, finally, we ask for theadmission to the ballot-box as the crowning right to which she is justly entitled.And when woman shall be thus recognized as an equal partner with man in the universe of God—equal in rights and duties—then will she for the first time, in truth, become what her Creator designed her to be, a helpmeet for man. With her mind and body fully developed, imbued with a full sense of her responsibilities, and living in the conscientious discharge of each and all of them, she will be fitted to share with her brother in all the duties of life; to aid and counsel him in his hours of trial; and to rejoice with him in the triumph of every good word and work.

It is a principle of all free governments that the people rule. Each member of the community, in theory at least, is supposed to give assent to Constitution and laws to which he is subject; or, at least, it is assumed that these were made by a majority of the people. And this assent is given according to forms previously prescribed. The people vote directly upon the adoption of the Constitution, and by their representatives in making the laws. And since all the people must be subject to the Constitution and laws, so all the people should be consulted in their formation; that is, all who are of sufficient age and discretion to express an intelligent opinion. No one who claims to be a republican or lover of freedom at heart can dispute these positions. They are in substance the principles promulgated in the Declaration of Independence, and they form the common basis upon which our national and state governments rest. When they shall cease to be recognized and respected by the people and by our lawmakers, then free institutions will cease to exist.

But I presume their correctness, when applied to man, will be doubted by none; for man is willing enough to claim for himself the full recognition of all the high prerogatives I have shown him to be entitled to. But I hold more than this to be true. I hold that these rights belong, not to man alone, but to the race, and to each individual member of it, without regard to sex. I hold that woman has as good and rightful a claim to them as her brother, and that the man who denies this claim is not only no good democrat, and much less a good republican, but that in being guilty of this denial he commits an act of the grossest injustice and oppression. And I insist, not only that woman is entitled to the enjoyment of all these rights which God and nature have bestowed upon the race, but that she is entitled to the same means of enforcing those rights as man; and that therefore she should be heard in the formation of Constitutions, in the making of the laws, and in the selection of those by whom the laws are administered.

In this country there is one great tribunal by which all theories must be tried, all principles tested, all measures settled: and that tribunal is the ballot-box. It is the medium through which public opinion finally makes itself heard. Deny to any class in the community the right to be heard at the ballot-box and that class sinks at once into a state of slavish dependence, of civil insignificance, which nothing can save from becoming subjugation, oppression and wrong.

From what I have said you will of course understand that I hold, not only that the exclusion of womanfrom the ballot-box is grossly unjust, but that is her duty—so soon as she is permitted to do so—to go to it and cast her vote along with her husband and brother; and that, until she shall do so, we can never expect to have a perfectly just and upright government under which the rights of the people—of all the people—are respected and secured.

It is objected that it does not belong to woman’s sphere to take part in the selection of her rulers, or the enactment of laws to which she is subject.

This is mere matter of opinion. Woman’s sphere, like man’s sphere, varies according to the aspect under which we view it, or the circumstances in which she may be placed. A vast majority of the British nation would deny the assumption that Queen Victoria is out of her sphere in reigning over an empire of an hundred and fifty millions of souls! And if she is not out of her sphere in presiding over the destinies of a vast empire, why should any woman in this republic be denied her place among a nation of sovereigns? There is no positive rule by which to fix woman’s sphere, except that of capacity. It is to be found, I should say, wherever duty or interest may call her,—whether to the kitchen, the parlor, the nursery, the workshop or the public assembly. And, most certainly, no narrow contracted view of her sphere can suffice to deprive her of any of those rights which she has inherited with her being.

Again, it is objected that it would be immodest and ‘unbecoming a lady’ for women to go to the ballot-box to vote, or to the halls of the capitol to legislate.

This, too, is mere matter of opinion, and depends for its correctness upon the particular fashions or customs of the people. In deciding upon what is appropriate or inappropriate for individuals or classes the community is exceedingly capricious. In one country, or in one age, of the world, a particular act may be considered as entirely proper which in another age or country may be wholly condemned. But a few years ago it was thought very unladylike and improper for women to study medicine, and when Elizabeth Blackwell forced her way into the Geneva, N. Y., medical college people were amazed at the presumption. But she graduated with high honors, went to Europe to perfect her studies, and now stands high in her chosen profession. She let down the bars to a hitherto proscribed sphere. Others followed her lead, and now there are several colleges for the medical education of women, and women physicians without number; and the world applauds rather than condemns.

It is not a great many years since women sculptors were unknown, because woman’s talent was not encouraged. Some years ago a match-girl of Boston fashioned a bust of Rufus Choate in plaster and placed it in a show window, hoping some benevolent lover of art might be so attracted by it as to aid her to educate herself in the profession of sculpture. A gentleman who saw great merit in it inquired who was the artist, and when told that it was a young girl, exclaimed, ‘What a pity she is not a boy!’ He saw that such talent in a boy would be likely to make him famous and enrich the world. But a girl had no right to suchgifts. It would be an unladylike profession for her, and so she must bury her God-given talent and keep to match selling and dish washing. A few years later Harriet Hosmer overleaped the obstacles that stood in her way and went to Rome to undertake the work of a sculptor. The world now rings with her praises and is enriched by her genius. She, too, removed barriers to a hitherto proscribed sphere and proved that the All-Father in committing a talent to woman’s trust gave along with it a right to use it. Vinnie Ream and others have followed in the way thus opened, and no one now questions the propriety of women working in plaster or marble.

And so of many other departments of trade, profession and labor that within my recollection were not thought proper for woman, simply because she had not entered them. Women are debarred from voting and legislating, and therefore it is unfashionable for them to do either; but let their right to do so be once established, and all objections of that kind will vanish away.

And I must say I can conceive of nothing so terrible within the precincts of the ballot-box as to exclude woman therefrom. Who go there now? Our fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. And do they act so badly while there that they dare not suffer us to go with them? If it is really so bad a place surely they should stay away from it themselves, for I hold that any place that is too corrupt for woman to go to is also too corrupt for man to go to. ‘An atmosphere that is too impure for woman to breathe cannot but be dangerous to hersires and sons.’ We mingle with our gentlemen friends elsewhere with safety and pleasure, and I cannot think it possible that the exercise of the right of franchise turns them at once into ruffians.

Yet we are gravely told that woman would be treated with rudeness and insult should she go to the polls in the exercise of a right guaranteed to her by the laws of her country.

And would you, sir objector, be the one to do this? Would you insult the wife or mother or sister of your neighbor? I think not. Then judge other men by yourself and believe that, as each man, the low as well as the high, would have some female relative or friend with him there, each would be equally careful for the safety of those belonging to him and careful also of his own language and deportment. And should one dare to offer insult would there not, think you, be a score of stout arms to fell the insulter to the earth?

Men will behave as well I verily believe at the polls as at other public assemblies, if they will permit woman to go with them there; and if they have behaved badly heretofore, which from their continual asseverations we must believe to be the case, it is because woman has not always been there with them.

The idea advanced that woman would become debased by participating in so important and sacred a duty as the selection of those who are to be placed in power, and to whom are to be committed the interests and happiness of the whole people, comes with a bad grace from men, who are ever claiming for her superior natural virtues. They should remember that God made herwoman, that He gave her equal dominion with man over the world and all that is therein, and endowed her with high moral faculties, keen perceptions of right, and a love of virtue and justice, and it is not easy to change her nature. Her delicacy and sensitiveness will take care of themselves, in any exposure, and she will be as safe at the polls as at political and other conventions, at state and county and church fairs, at railroad and Fourth of July celebrations, and the various other crowds in which she mingles freely with men. That virtue is little worth which cannot bear itself unharmed through a crowd, or awe and frown down impudence whenever it meets with it. The true woman will be woman still in whatever situation you place her; and man will become elevated just so far as he mingles in her society in the various relations of life.

In fact this argument that it would be unsafe for woman to go to the polls is one that man, at least, should be ashamed to bring forward, inasmuch as it impeaches his own gallantry and instinctive regard for woman. But, if it be true that it would really be unsafe for us to go to the polls with our husbands and fathers, all danger could be avoided by our having separate places for voting apart from theirs.

But here I am answered that it is notmenwhom we have to fear so much as the bad of our own sex, who will rush to the polls while the good women will stay away. To this I have to say that I have never yet met a woman that I was afraid of, or from whom I feared contamination. In the theatre and concert and festival halls, the Fourth of July gatherings, in the cars, on thefair grounds, and any day upon the street or in the stores we meet and pass by the coarse, the frail, the fallen of our sex. They have the same right to God’s pure air and sunshine as we, and we could not deprive them of it if we would and would not if we could. I see not how these are going to harm us any more at the polls than at all these other places.

The good women will vote as soon as the exercise of the right is granted them, and they will outnumber the bad more than a hundred to one. Instead then of the pure woman being contaminated, the vile woman will be awed and silenced in her presence, and led by her example into the right paths. Even those called low and vile have hearts that can be touched, and they will gladly seize the aid which the ballot and good women will bestow to raise themselves from the degraded condition into which bad men, bad laws and bad customs have plunged them.

This objection, then, which assumes such proportions in the minds of many, looks very small when viewed in the light of truth and Christian charity. I think no man would consider it good reason for depriving him of rights because a bad man also enjoyed the same rights.

This arguing that all women would go to the bad if allowed to vote because some women are bad now when none of them vote is the most absurd logic ever conceived in the brain of man, and if those who use it could see their silly reasoning in the light that sensible men and women see it there would be less of it. If the ballot makes people bad, if it is corrupting in its tendenciesand destructive of virtue and goodness, then the sooner men are deprived of it the better.

All men, good and bad, black and white, corrupt, debased, treacherous, criminal, may vote and make our laws, and we hear no word against it; but if one woman does or says aught that does not square with men’s ideas of what she should do and say, then she should not have the right of self-government, and all women everywhere must on that account be disfranchised and kept in subjection!

Such reasoning might have answered once, but the intelligence of the present day rejects it, and women will not long be compelled to submit to its insults.

But, again, one says votes would be unnecessarily multiplied, that women would vote just as the men do, therefore the man’s vote will answer for both. Sound logic, truly! But let us apply this rule to men. Votes are unnecessarily multiplied now by so many men voting; a few could do it all, as well as to take the mass of men from their business and their families to vote. My husband votes the republican ticket, and many other men vote just as he does; then why not let my husband’s vote suffice for all who think as he does, and send the rest about their business? What need of so many men voting when all vote just alike?

Again, another says: ‘It has always been as now; women never have had equal rights, and that is proof that they should not have.’ Sound logic again! Worthy emanation from man’s superior brain! But whence did man derive his right of franchise, and how long has he enjoyed it?

It is true that women never have had equal rights, because men have ever acted on the principle of oppressors that might makes right and have kept them in subjection, just as weaker nations are kept in subjection to the stronger.

But must we ever continue to act on such principles? Must we continue to cling to old laws and customs because they are old? Why then did not our people remain subject to kings? How did they dare to do what was not thought of in the days of Moses and Abraham? How dared they set aside the commands of the Bible and the customs of all past ages and set up a government of their own?

It is the boast of Americans that they know and do many things which their fathers neither knew nor did. Progress is the law of our nation and progress is written upon all its works. And while all else is progressing to perfection, while the lowest may attain to the position of the highest and noblest in the land, shall woman alone remain stationary? Shall she be kept in a state of vassalage because such was the condition of her sex six thousand years ago? Clearly, my friends, when the prejudice of custom is on the side of wrong and injustice in any matter we are not to be governed by it.

But again it is objected that if women should be enfranchised it would lead to discord and strife in families. In other words, to come down to the simple meaning of this objection, if women would not vote just as their husbands wanted them to the husbands would quarrel with them about it! And who are themen who would do this? Surely, not those who consider and treat their wives as equals. Not those who recognize the individuality of the wife and accord to her the right to her own opinions, the right to think for herself, and to act as her own sense and judgment may dictate. With such there would be no cause for quarrels, nothing to contend about. In such families all is harmony.

It would be only those who desire to rule in their families, only those who regard and treat their wives as inferiors and subjects who would get up contentions and discord; and it is only these who bring forward this objection. No man who honors woman as he should do would ever offer so flimsy a pretext for depriving her of rights and enslaving her thoughts. I believe the enfranchisement of woman will bring with it more happiness in the marriage relation, and greater respect from the husband for his wife, because men are always more respectful to their equals than to those they deem their inferiors and subjects.

Another objection of which we hear much in these days, and to which men invariably resort when answered on every other point, is that women do not want to vote. They say whenallthe women ask for the right it will be granted them. Did these objectors take the same ground in regard to the negro? Did the colored men very generally petition for the right of franchise? No such petition was ever heard of and yet men forced the ballot unasked into their hands. Why then must woman sue and petition for her God-given right of self-government? If one humanbeing only claims that rights are unjustly withheld, such claim should receive the careful attention and consideration of this government and people. Yet tens of thousands of women, subjects of their government, have made such claims and set forth their grievances from time to time during the last thirty years. They have come as suppliants before the people asking for rights withheld, and they have been met with sneers and ridicule, and told that they must wait till all the women of the nation humbly sue for the same thing! Would such excuse ever be offered for withholding rights from men?

Again, it is said that no considerable number of women would exercise the right if granted. This, if true, and men do not know it to be so, has nothing to do with the question. Give them the right and let them exercise it or not as they choose. If they do not want to vote, and will not vote, then surely there is no need of restrictions to prevent their voting, and no harm can come from removing the obstacles that now obstruct their way.

Men are not required to give pledges that they will vote. There is no compulsion in their case. They are left free to do as they please, or as circumstances permit. The right is accorded and there the matter rests.

There is no justice in requiring more from women. That thousands of women would vote is pretty certain. Ifalldo not avail themselves of such privileges, it will be of their own choice and right, and not because of its denial. The ballot is the symbol of freedom, ofequality; and because the right to use it would lift woman from a state of inferiority, subjection and powerlessness to one of equality and freedom and power we demand it for her. If properly educated, she will use it for the best interests of herself and of humanity.

Another objection that carries great weight in the minds of many is that if women vote they must fight. Even some of our friends are puzzled how to settle this question. But a few days ago a lady friend asked me how we could get around it. I reply that all men have not earned their right to the ballot by firing the bullet in their country’s defense, and if only those who fight should vote there are many sick men, many weak little men, many deformed men, and many strong and able-bodied but cowardly men who should be disfranchised.

These all vote but they do not fight, and fighting is not made a condition precedent to their right to the ballot. The law requires that only those of physical strength and endurance shall bear arms for their country, and I think not many women could be found to fill the law’s requirements. So they would have to be excused with the weak little men who are physically disqualified. If there are any great, strong women able to endure the marching and the fighting who want to go to the front in time of battle, I think they have a right to do so, and men should not dismiss them and send them home. But as there are other duties to be discharged, other interests to be cared for in time of war besides fighting, women will find it enough to look after these in the absence of their fighting men. They may enter the hospitals or the battlefields as nurses, orthey may care for the crops and the young soldiers at home. They may also do the voting, and look after the affairs of government, the same as do all the weak men who vote but do not fight.

And further, as men do not think it right for woman to bear arms and fear it will be forced upon her with the ballot, they can easily make a law to excuse her; and doubtless, with her help, they will do so. There is great injustice, so long as the ballot is given to allmenwithout conditions, the weak as well as the strong, in denying to woman a voice in matters deeply affecting her happiness and welfare, and through her the happiness and welfare of mankind, because perchance there may come a time again in the history of our country when we shall be plunged into war and she not be qualified to shoulder a musket.

This objection, like many others we hear, is too absurd to emanate from the brains of intelligent men, and I cannot think they seriously entertain the views they express. But give us a voice in the matter, gentlemen, and we will not only save ourselves from being sent to the battlefield, but will if possible keep you at home with us by averting the difficulties and dangers, and so compromising matters with foreign powers that peace shall be maintained and bloodshed avoided.

In justification of the exclusion of woman from a voice in the government we are told that she is already represented by her fathers, husbands and sons. To this I might answer, so were our fathers represented in the parliament of King George. But were they satisfied with such representation? And why not? Becausetheir interests were not well cared for; because justice was not done them. They found they could not safely entrust their interests to the keeping of those who could not or would not understand them, and who legislated principally to promote their own selfish purposes. I wholly deny the position of these objectors. It is not possible for one human being to fully represent the wants and wishes of another, and much less can one class fully understand the desires and meet the requirements of a different class in society. And, especially, is this true as between man and woman. In the former, certain mental faculties as a general thing are said to predominate; while in the latter, the moral attain to a greater degree of perfection. Taken together, they make up what we understand by the generic termman. If we allow to the former, only, a full degree of development of their common nature one-half only enjoys the freedom of action designed for both. We then have the man, or male element, fully brought out; while the woman, or female element, is excluded and crushed.

It should be remembered too that all rights have their origin in the moral nature of mankind, and that when woman is denied any guarantee which secures these rights to her, violence is done to a great moral law of our being. In assuming to vote and legislate for her, man commits a positive violation of the moral law and does that which he would not that others should do unto him. And, besides all these considerations, it is hard to understand the workings of this system of proxy-voting and proxy-representation. Howis it to work when our self-constituted representative happens to hold different opinions from us? There are various questions, such as intemperance, licentiousness, slavery, and war, the allowing men to control our property, our person, our earnings, our children, on which at times we might differ; and yet this representative of ours can cast but one vote for us both, however different our opinions may be. Whether that vote would be cast for his own interests, or for ours, all past legislation will show. Under this system, diversities of interest must of necessity arise; and the only way to remove all difficulty and secure full and exact justice to woman is to permit her to represent herself.

One more point and I have done. Men say women cannot vote without neglecting their families and their duties as housekeepers. This, to our opponents, is a very serious objection. Who would urge a similar one to man’s voting and legislating, or holding office—that he would neglect his family or his business? And yet the objection would be about as reasonable in one case as in the other. In settling a question of natural and inherentright, we must not stop to consider conveniencies or inconveniencies. The right must be accorded, the field left clear, and the consequences will take care of themselves. Men argue as though if women were granted an equal voice in the government all our nurseries would be abandoned, the little ones left to take care of themselves, and the country become depopulated. They have frightened themselves with the belief that kitchens would be deserted and dinners left uncooked, and that men wouldhave to turn housekeepers and nurses. When the truth is, mothers have as much regard for the home and the welfare of the children as have the fathers; and they understand what their duties are as well as men do; and they are generally as careful for the interests of the one, and as faithful in the discharge of the other, as are these watchful guardians of theirs who tremble lest they should get out of their sphere. God and nature have implanted in woman’s heart a love of her offspring, and an instinctive knowledge of what is proper and what improper for her to do, and it needs no laws of man’s making to compel the one or teach the other. Give her freedom and her own good sense will direct her how to use it.

Were the prohibition removed to-morrow, not more than one mother in a thousand would be required to leave her family to serve the state, and not one without her own consent. Even though all the offices in the country should be filled by women, which would never be likely to happen, it would take but a very small proportion of the whole away from their families; not more than now leave home each year for a stay of months at watering places, in the mountains, visiting friends, or crowding the galleries of legislative halls dispensing smiles on the members below. There would, then, be little danger of the terrible consequences so feelingly depicted by those who fear that the babies and their own stomachs would suffer.

But I have no desire, nor does any advocate of the enfranchisement of woman desire, that mothers should neglect their duties to their families. Indeed, no greatersticklers for the faithful discharge of such duties can be found than among the prominent advocates of this cause; and no more exemplary mothers can be found than those who have taken the lead as earnest pleaders for woman’s emancipation. Undoubtedly, the highest and holiest duty of both father and mother is to their children; and neither the one nor the other, from any false ideas of patriotism, any love of display or ambition, any desire for fame or distinction, should leave a young family to engage in governmental affairs. A mother who has young children has her work at home, and she should stay at home with it, and care well for their education and physical wants. But having discharged this duty, having reared a well-developed and wisely-governed family, then let the state profit by her experience, and let the father and the mother sit down together in the councils of the nation.

But all women are not mothers; all women have not home duties; so we shall never lack for enough to look after our interests at the ballot-box and in legislative halls. There are thousands of unmarried women, childless wives and widows, and it would always be easy to find enough to represent us without taking one mother with a baby in her arms. All women may vote without neglecting any duty, for the mere act of voting would take but little time; not more than shopping or making calls. Instead of woman being excluded from the elective franchise because she is a mother, that is the strongest reason that can be urged in favor of granting her that right. If she is responsible to society and to God for the moral and physical welfareof her son; if she is to bring him up as the future wise legislator, lawyer and jurist; if she is to keep him pure and prepare him to appear before the bar of the Most High,—then she should have unlimited control over his actions and the circumstances that surround him. She should have every facility for guarding his interests and for suppressing and removing all temptations and dangers that beset his path. If God has committed to her so sacred a charge He has, along with it, given the power and the right of protecting it from evil and for accomplishing the work He has given her to do; and no false modesty, no dread of ridicule, no fear of contamination will excuse her for shrinking from its discharge.

Woman needs the elective franchise to destroy the prevalent idea of female inferiority. She needs it to make her the equal of her own sons, that they may not in a few years assume the power to rule over her, and make laws for her observance without her consent. The fact that she is the mother of mankind—‘the living providence under God who gives to every human being its mental, moral and physical organization, who stamps upon every human heart her seal for good or for evil’—is reason why she should occupy no inferior position in the world. In the words of Mrs. Stanton, ‘That woman who has no higher object of thought than the cooking a good dinner, compounding a good pudding, mending old clothes, or hemming dish-towels—or, to be a little more refined, whose thoughts centre on nothing more important than an elegantdress, beautiful embroidery, parties, dances, and genteel gossip concerning the domestic affairs of the Smiths and Browns—can never give to the world a Bacon or a Newton, a Milton or a Howard, a Buonaparte or a Washington.’ If we would have great men, we must first have great women. If we would have great statesmen and great philanthropists, we must have mothers whose thoughts soar above the trifling objects which now engage the attention of the mass of women, and who are capable of impressing those thoughts upon the minds of their offspring.

In conclusion the enfranchisement of woman will be attended with the happiest results, not for her only, but the whole race. It will place society upon a higher moral and social elevation than it has ever yet attained. Hitherto, the variously devised agencies for the amelioration of the race have been designed mainly for the benefit of man. For him colleges have been established and universities endowed. For his advancement in science and the arts professorships have been founded and lecture rooms opened. And, above all, for securing to him the widest field for the fullest display of his abilities republican institutions have been proclaimed and sustained at a great sacrifice of toil, of bloodshed and of civil commotions. Although the doctrine of the innate equality of the race has been proclaimed yet, so far as relates to women, it has been a standing falsehood, We now ask that this principle may be applied practically in her case, also; we ask that the colleges and universities, the professorships and lecture rooms shall be opened to her, also; and, finally, we ask for theadmission to the ballot-box as the crowning right to which she is justly entitled.

And when woman shall be thus recognized as an equal partner with man in the universe of God—equal in rights and duties—then will she for the first time, in truth, become what her Creator designed her to be, a helpmeet for man. With her mind and body fully developed, imbued with a full sense of her responsibilities, and living in the conscientious discharge of each and all of them, she will be fitted to share with her brother in all the duties of life; to aid and counsel him in his hours of trial; and to rejoice with him in the triumph of every good word and work.

A lecture entitled, “Woman’s Sphere, Woman’s Work and Woman Suffrage Discussed,” was delivered at the Central Presbyterian church, Des Moines, on the evening of December 25th, 1870, by the Rev. T. O. Rice. The address was published in the Des MoinesRegisterof January 1st, 1871, and Mrs. Bloomer replied to it through the columns of the same paper January 21st, 1871, as follows:

Editor of the Register: A friend has placed in my hand a copy ofThe Registerof January 1, containing a sermon by the Rev. T. O. Rice on ‘Woman’s sphere, woman’s work, woman suffrage,’ etc.After carefully reading this sermon, I find nothingnew or original in it. It is but a rehash of what has before been served up to us by the Reverends Todd, Bushnell, Fulton and others, who are alarmed lest woman should get the start of the Creator and overleap the bounds He has set to her sphere. It throws no new light on the vexed question of woman suffrage, brings to view no passages of Scripture hitherto hidden from our sight, and gives no arguments which have not already been met and refuted again and again. In much that he says the advocates of woman suffrage fully agree with him. A mother’s first duty is at home with her children, and nothing can excuse her for neglect of those entrusted to her care. Home is the happiest spot on earth when it is atrue home—a home where love and harmony abide, where each regards the rights, the feelings, the interest, the happiness of the other, where ruling and obeying are unknown, where two heads are acknowledged better than one, and true confidence and esteem bind together the wedded pair. And I know of no happier homes, no better trained and better cared for children, than among the prominent advocates of woman suffrage. Whatever may be thought to the contrary, Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a model housekeeper, wife and mother; and nowhere can greater sticklers be found for the full discharge of all wifely duties than those who are pleading for woman’s enfranchisement. So far, then, as relates to home and children your divine has given us nothing but what we can subscribe to, and what we have preached for a score of years, at least, before he awakened to the necessity of giving the women of his congregation a sermonon their domestic duties. If they were ignorant on those matters, his words have not come to them an hour too soon.After quoting familiar passages from both the Old and New Testament referring to woman, your divine opens by saying: ‘The general drift of these passages is obvious. Woman was designed to be a helpmeet for man.’ To this we have nothing to object. We, too, say that God made woman a helpmeet for man, finding it not good for him to be alone. But God said nothing of her being inferior, or subordinate, when he brought her to Adam—nothing of her being intended to fill an inferior position or discharge particular or inferior duties. She was made a helpmeet for man, not his subject and servant, but his assistant, companion and counselor. Not a helper in any particular sphere or duty, but in all the varied relations of life. Not to be always the frail, clinging, dependent vine, which falls helpless with the oak when it is riven by the thunderbolt, but to take the place,if need be, of the sturdy oak at her side when so riven, and bear upon her shoulders all the burdens which as true helpmeet and companion fall to her lot. Not to be an idle drone in the hive, but a sharer with him in all his head and his hands find to do. Not a helpmeet in the domestic relation merely, but also in the government of the earth and in the councils of the nation. It was not tohimbut tothemthat God gave power and dominion over the whole earth.He next goes on to show why woman was to occupy a subordinate position, and of all the argumentsbrought forward by our opponents I never read a more weak and flimsy one than this. Because Adam was first formed and then Eve, she was therefore to be subordinate. But where is the proof of this? Do we find in all nature that the things last formed were inferior and subordinate to those first created? Again, that ‘Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.’ Now, will the reverend gentleman tell us which he deems the greater sin, to commit a wrong after being misled and deceived by promises of great good to follow, or to commit the same wrong without such promises or deception, and with the eyes wide open to the wrong? In any court of the present day, the extenuating circumstances would be considered and the former held the less guilty of the two.How any unprejudiced and unbiased mind can read the original account of the creation and fall, and gather therefrom that the woman committed the greater sin, I cannot understand. When Eve was first asked to eat of the forbidden fruit she refused, and it was only after her scruples were overcome by promises of great knowledge that she gave way to sin. But how was it with Adam, who was with her? He took and ate what she had offered him without any scruples of conscience, or promises on her part of great things to follow—certainly showing no superiority of goodness, or intellect, or strength of character fitting him for the headship. The command not to eat of the Tree of Life was given to him before her creation, and he was doubly bound to keep it; yet he not only permittedher to partake of the fruit without remonstrating against it, and warning her of the wrong, but ate of it himself without objection or hesitation. And then, when inquired of by God concerning what he had done, instead of standing up like an honorable man and confessing the wrong he weakly tried to shield himself by throwing the blame on the woman. As the account stands, he showed the greater ‘feebleness of resistance, and evinced a pliancy of character, and a readiness to yield to temptation,’ that cannot justly be charged to the woman. As the account stands, man has more to blush for than to boast of.While we are willing to accept this original account of the creation and fall, we are not willing that men should add tenfold to woman’s share of sin, and put a construction upon the whole matter that we believe was never intended by the Creator. Eve had no more to do with bringing sin into the world than had Adam, nor does the Creator charge any more upon her. The punishment inflicted upon them for their transgression was as heavy upon him as upon her. Her sorrows were to be multiplied, but so too was he to eat his bread in sorrow, and to earn it in the sweat of his face amid thorns and thistles. To her no injunction to labor was given, upon her no toil imposed, no ground cursed for her sake.But now we come to the consideration of a passage which seems to bear more heavily upon woman, and which men have used as a warrant to humble and crush her through all the ages that have passed since our first parents were driven from the Garden of Eden:‘Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’This Mr. Rice regards as a command binding upon every woman for all time. Because Eve sinned, every woman must be ruled over by some man as long as the world stands. It is a little strange that the Creator did not tell us this. When talking to the serpent, He put enmity between his seed and the seed of the woman; but to the woman He said not a word of this law of subordination following her seed; and to Adam he gave no command, or even license, to rule over his wife.Will the Rev. Rice please explain to us the meaning of a like passage in the chapter following? ‘The Lord said unto Cain, the desire of thy brother shall be unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him.’ Was this, too, a command for all time? Did God command Cain to rule over Abel? And if so, to whom does it now apply? The language is the same in both instances, except that in the latter case it was addressed directly to the party who was to rule, and in the former to the one who was to be ruled.Clearly, the passage quoted should be regarded in the light of prophecy or prediction, and not of command. Substitutewiltforshalt, which I am told the original fully permits, and then all is clear. The prophecy has been fulfilled to the very letter. There are other passages that I think clearly show that the wordshallhas been wrongly translated. For instance, Cain says, ‘Whosoever findeth meshallslay me,’ taking the form of command rather than prediction.Having done with the Old Testament, our reverend lecturer proceeds to give us what, in his opinion, was the idea and full meaning of the Apostle Paul in his rules and injunctions to the women of the churches he was addressing, and he wonders how there can be any opinion but his own on the subject. He makes the apostle go a long way beyond the Creator or the Saviour in his condemnation and subordination of women, and then thinks it strange that all do not take his version of the whole matter. Yet there are vast numbers of good, Christian men and women who cannot read with his eyes and who have presumed to differ from him. He quotes from some of the early Fathers on the subject, and proves that they entertained the same opinions and had the same fear of women getting into authority the Todds, Rices and Fultons of the present day suffer from. And the opinion of one party goes for as much as that of the other. The women of those early days, as all know, were ignorant and degraded and regarded as absolutely inferior to men. Custom had assigned them an inferior place and, instead of being treated as companions and equals, they were little better than servants and slaves. None but dissolute women, or women of loose character, sought for knowledge, and education was wholly denied to those who were virtuous. They were expected to remain at home in ignorant subjection to their masters. What wonder then if any, moved by the spirit, dared raise their voice in the presence of men they were instantly silenced, and told that it was not permitted them to speak? The early Fathers, like St. Paul, but conformedto the customs and shared the prejudices of the day in which they lived, and under the circumstances no doubt their injunctions were entirely proper and right.We have no account on record of these ancient clergy disgracing themselves over a woman speaking as did the Rev. John Chambers, and other reverends of his stamp—and as we suppose the Rev. Rice would have done had he been there—a few years ago at the World’s Temperance Convention, in New York, when by their violent stamping, shouting, scolding and other uproarious conduct they succeeded in drowning the voice and driving from the stand a lovely, refined and highly educated Christian woman whom the president had invited to the platform. They carried their ends at that time; but that did not awe all women back into silence, or do themselves or the church any good. So all the warnings, and quotations from St. Paul, by all the reverends since his day, have not succeeded in keeping women in that state of ignorance and subjection they occupied two thousand years ago. The world moves, and it is God’s will that women move with it. He is no respecter of persons, but regards His people as all one in Christ Jesus.But what have we next? After putting women down as low as possible our divine throws them a sop by telling them, if they will not usurp authority over men in the pulpit they may speak, and pray, and teach in Sunday schools, and in conference and covenant meeting. And where, pray, does he get his authority for this? Not in the Bible, surely. Paul says, ‘I suffernot a woman to teach.’ Teach what? The scriptures—the gospel, to be sure. This is direct and explicit. How can she teach the gospel in the Sunday school and elsewhere, without violation of St. Paul’s law? ‘Let women keep silence in the church,’ says the apostle. Then how can they talk, and pray, and teach in the conference meeting, the covenant meeting and other kindred places? St. Paul gives them no such liberty. Plainly your divine is willing the women of his church should do almost anything, so they do not interfere with his place, or usurp authority over him.Poormenext comes in for a severe castigation from your reverend lawgiver because I dared say that, while I supposed St. Paul’s injunctions to women were right and proper at the time and under the circumstances of their utterance, I did not believe they were the rule for the educated Christian women of this enlightened day and age, the circumstances surrounding them having greatly changed since the introduction of Christianity. That I believed women were no more bound by the laws and customs of that time than men were bound to observe all the laws and customs of the same period; and further, that the church,by its practice, teaches the same thing, to a great extent. And, still further, that the words of St. Paul had nothing to do with woman’s political rights. The reverend gentleman puts words in my mouth I never uttered, thoughts in my head that I never conceived, places me in a position I never occupied and then, having attributed all manner of bad things to me, wipes me out with a sweep of his pen. Well, I do not feel a bit bad over all this. I have theconsolation of knowing that I am in good company, and cannot be so easily annihilated as he supposed. There are scores of divines as able, as learned, as eloquent and as orthodox as T. O. Rice, of Des Moines, who take the same view of the matter as I do, and any number of good Christian people who subscribe to the same doctrine. I ‘have no painful solicitude as to which side will ultimately triumph.’ I am no more ‘squarely and openly at variance with God’s Word’ than is our reverend lecturer, who has set himself up as God’s oracle, and hopes to intimidate all women, and strengthen the rule of all men to whom the sound of his voice may come.I do not question his right to think as he pleases, and lecture women on proprieties and improprieties; but I must say, I consider women quite as capable of judging for themselves what is proper and what is improper for them to do as any man can be; and I think if our reverends would turn their attention to their own sex, search out passages and rules of conduct applicable to them, and lecture them on their duty to their families and society, they would be much better employed than in trying to subordinate women.God has implanted in woman’s nature an instinctive knowledge of what is proper and what improper for her to do, and it needs no laws of man to teach the one or compel the other.Our lecturer assumes that ‘God did not design that woman’s sphere and woman’s work should be identical with that of man, but distinct and subordinate.’ That ‘woman is happiest in subordination, as well as moreattractive,’ etc. This is, of course, only a picture of his imagination—only an expression of his own feelings and wishes. He can find no warrant for it in the Bible; for, as we have shown, God did not assign her to any particular sphere or work, but made her an helpmeet to stand side by side and walk hand in hand with man through the journey of life.‘When aspiring, insubordinate, overtopping and turbulent woman loses all the attraction and fascination of her sex.’ Very true! and so do men of the same character lose all that commands our love and respect, and there are many more of the latter than of the former class! I know no such woman, but if there are any, every advocate of woman’s enfranchisement will do all they can to prevent her ever becoming so ‘restless, troubled, muddy, and bereft of beauty.’ So far as she has been admitted to the society of men they have not yet made her that terrible being they fear and dread. She has not proved herself coarse, vulgar, turbulent and corrupting in any society to which she has been admitted; and we would bid the reverend calm his excited mind, and remember that God made her woman, and under no change that has come to her has she proved untrue to the nature He implanted within her. So let him trust that the good God who is leading her forward into broader fields of usefulness will take care that she goes not beyond, in any respect, the limit He has fixed to her sphere.Having settled the question that the sexes are to move in spheres distinct from each other to his own satisfaction, and having dismissed the apostle from the witnessstand, we are told what, in the judgment of the speaker, is the proper and appropriate sphere of woman. In much of what follows we agree with him; but not altogether. ‘By analyzing any persons,’ men or women, ‘physically, mentally and morally, we can ascertain what station they are fitted to fill—what work they are fitted to do.’ And whatever either man or woman has capacity for doing, that is right and proper in and of itself; that thing it is right and proper for both, or either of them, to do. If God has given them a talent, He has along with it given them a right to its use, whether it be in the direction of the home, the workshop, the public assembly, or the Legislative Hall.And if woman has hitherto neglected to improve all her God-given talents, it is because men have only permitted her to get glimpses of the world ‘from the little elevation in her own garden,’ where they have fenced her in. But let them invite her to the ‘loftier eminence’ where they stand, with the world for her sphere, as it was at the beginning, and then they can better judge of the qualities of her mind, and her capacity to fill any station.In talking of man’s strength of body and mind fitting him for certain places, and woman’s weakness consigning her to other places, he forgets that intellectually, at least, a great many women are stronger than a great many men, and therefore better fitted for places where brains, instead of muscle, are needed. It is no more true that every woman was made to be a cook and a washer of dishes and clothes, than that every man was made to be a wood sawyer and a ditch digger. Whilesome are content, in either case, to fill those stations, others are not content, and never will be, and will aspire to something better and higher. To what place the weak little men are to be consigned our speaker fails to tell us.The home picture in the sermon is all very beautiful. Would that all homes were a realization of the picture! Woman is told great things of her duties, her influence, her glories and her responsibilities, but not a word have we of man’s duty to the home, the wife, the children. Woman is told that it is hers to make her children great and good, as though they were like a blank sheet of white paper and would take any impress she chose to give; when, in fact, they are stamped before they see the light of the world with the gross and vicious natures of their tobacco-chewing and wine-bibbing fathers, as well as with the weaknesses of the mothers, and it is often impossible for the best of mothers to so train their children that they may safely pass the pitfalls that men have everywhere placed to lead them into temptation and destruction. We protest against the mothers being held alone responsible for the children, so long as fathers wholly neglect their duties and set such examples and such temptations before their children as to corrupt their young lives and destroy the good influence the mother might otherwise exert. Not till mothers have a voice in saying what influences and temptations shall surround their children when they go beyond the nursery walls, can they justly be held accountable to society or to God for their conduct. The woman who only takes a narrow view oflife from the little eminence in her garden can never give to the world very good or very great children. She must be permitted to take in a wider range from a loftier eminence, before she can form those great characters and inscribe upon the immortal mind the great things that are expected and demanded of her. If we would have great men, we must first have great women. If we would have noble men, we must first have noble mothers. A woman whose whole thought is occupied in cooking a good dinner and mending old clothes—or (a little more refined) whose thoughts center on a beautiful dress, elegant embroidery, the fashionable party, the latest novel or the latest fashion—can never give to the world a Bacon or a Newton, a Howard or a Wesley, a Buonaparte or a Washington. Our preacher lays a heavy responsibility on woman, but all his talk about her influence, her duty and her subordination is not going to give her that wisdom, strength and moral material out of which to properly construct the fabric of the Church and the Commonwealth.We would by no means undervalue the home, or the mother’s duty and influence; but we would ennoble and purify the one, and enlarge the duties and extend the influence and power of the other. Our divine thinks that, because woman is mother, daughter, sister and wife, it is enough for her and she should desire nothing more. Man is father, husband, son and brother, and why is he not therefore content? What can he desire or ask for more? Let men realize that they, too, have duties to the home beyond merely supplying the money to satisfy the physical wants of thefamily; let them throw down the wall they have built up around the woman’s garden and invite her to survey with them the wider range from the loftier eminence, and many homes would be made glad that are now anything but Gardens of Eden, and many women would be strengthened for the full and faithful discharge of all their duties.‘Woman is not a mechanic.’ Yes, she is. All men are not mechanics. I know women who have more mechanical genius than their husbands; and I believe there are few of the mechanical arts that women could not master and perform successfully, if custom permitted and necessity required. They are naturally ingenious, and fashion many things as difficult to learn as to saw a board or drive a nail, to make a watch or a shoe, a saddle or a harness. My next-door neighbor is a natural mechanic, and has manufactured various articles in wood, from a foot to two feet in size, such as tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, frames, brackets, etc., with only a penknife and a bit of sandpaper for tools, which are perfect specimens of workmanship, and are so acknowledged by first-class cabinetmakers. She has taken premiums on these articles for the best woodcutting and carving at our agricultural fairs. This work has only been done for pastime, and the lady is equally ingenious with the needle, as well as a good housekeeper, wife and mother. There are many women engaged in various kinds of mechanism.There are many inventions by women; but how many have been patented, can only be known by inquiry at the Patent Office. And even then it would bedifficult to ascertain facts, since the patent is generally obtained in the name of the husband. I have a lady friend who invented patterns for parlor stoves. Her husband had them patented in his own name, and entered upon the manufacture and sale of them.The ‘natural difference in the turn of mind in the sexes’ is not so great as is supposed. The seeming difference is more owing to education and custom, than to nature. It is a very common thing to hear a young girl wish she was a boy, or a man, that she might be free to do what she lists in this world of work—to make use of the powers which she feels burning within her. The girl envies the boy his freedom and his privileges. In ‘earliest childhood,’ if let alone, there is little difference between the boy and the girl. The girl likes to ride the horse and blow the trumpet, as well as the boy; and the boy loves a doll and a needle and thread, as well as the girl. It is not the child that selects, but the parent that selects for him. From the very first (the whip, the horse, the trumpet) the boy is taught that it is not right or manly for him to play with dolls, or girls; and the girl, that little girls must not play with boys, or with boys’ playthings, because it is not ladylike, and will make a tom-boy of her. And so education does what nature has not done, and was never intended to do.‘Those who would curse our race have ever attempted, in imitation of the great progenitor, to poison all our fountains and wither and blast all our budding hopes by directing their artful attacks and deadly shafts against the breast of woman.’Alas! this is but too true. Ever since Satan, who was a man, struck the first blow at her happiness, men have directed their deadly shafts against her, by first subjugating her to their will, and then using their power to ‘poison the fountain of her happiness and wither and blast her budding hopes.’ She has been made their sport and their victim, with no power to avert the evil, or protect herself, or those entrusted to her care, from their artful and brutal attacks.But what have we here? After telling women that home is their sphere, and that God placed them in it, and they should not go beyond it, the reverend lecturer turns right about and supposes a case where a woman is called upon to devote her time, or her energies, to home duties and family cares, or of one who voluntarily chooses to do something else; and, strange as it may seem after all that has gone before, he says ‘she may follow a trade, teach, lecture, practise law and medicine, and fill a clerkship.’ This is good woman’s-rights doctrine! The bars are let down that separated the spheres, and woman is permitted to leave the ‘distinct and subordinate’ one allotted to her, and enter upon a sphere and work ‘identical with that of man.’ Here we can join hands with our divine, and be thankful that light has so far dawned upon him. And he farther ‘demands that all the sources of learning, all the avenues of business which they are competent to fill shall be thrown open to the whole sex, and that they shall be fairly and fully rewarded for all they do’! These good words go far to atone for all he has said before, and we will not ask why this change, orconcession. Enough that he comes thus far upon our platform. But can he stop here? After giving her so wide a sphere, and educating her mind to the fullest extent, can he again put up the bar and say ‘thus far and no farther shalt thou go’? Indeed, no! God himself has in these latter days broken down the bounds that men had set to woman’s sphere, and they cannot, by opposition or Bible argument, remand her back into the state of silent subjection whence she came. The ministers of the church for years set themselves up against the anti-slavery cause, and proved conclusively, to themselves, from the Bible, that slavery was right and God-ordained; that the Africans were, and were to be, a subjugated race, and that to teach differently was in plain violation of the teachings of the Bible. They held themselves aloof from that cause, in the days of its weakness, at least, and cried out against those who were pleading for the emancipation of the slave. But God proved their mistake by setting that people free, and endowing them with all the rights of citizenship. So, too, the Bible is brought forward to prove the subordination of woman, and to show that because St. Paul told the ignorant women of his time that they must keep silent in the church the educated, intelligent women of these times must not only occupy the same position in the church and the family but must not aspire to the rights of citizenship. But the same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of woman, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was at the beginning.The divine uses the column and a half that remains of the space allotted to him to show why, in his opinion, women should not vote—after telling us there is nothing against their voting in the Bible, and omitting to tell us what the passages quoted at the head of his discourse have to do with politics or political rights. One of these reasons is that women will want to hold office; and in proof of this he tells us that the office of deaconess, which existed in the church till the middle of the fifth century, was abolished because the women ‘became troublesome aspirants after the prerogatives of office.’ It is ever thus. Men are willing women should be subordinate—do thedrudgeryin the church and elsewhere; but let them aspire to something higher and then, if there is no other way to silence them, abolish the office.Menwant all the offices, and it is a crying shame for a woman to think of taking one from them, thus setting them all aquake with fear!Men argue as though, if women had the right to vote, they would all abandon their homes and their babies, and stand at the polls from year’s end to year’s end and do nothing but vote. When the fact is men do not vote but twice a year; are detained from their business but a few minutes to deposit their ballots; and then go their way, none the worse for the vote. I regret that Rev. Rice thinks so badly of the advocates of woman’s cause. So far as I know them, his charges are unfair and sometimes untrue. A better personal acquaintance would disarm him of much of his prejudice. The women are all good sisters, wives and mothers, living in love and harmony with their husbands,to whom they are true helpmeets, and whom they have no thought of deserting. Not half of them ever expect to hold office—certainly not, unless the offices are greatly multiplied—nor to have any part in turning the world upside down. On the contrary they will continue to care for the babies, cook the dinners, and sew on the buttons the same as ever.Another reason why woman should not vote is that he thinks ‘God has not fitted her for government, that He never made her to manage the affairs of state, that very few women would make good stateswomen,’ etc. And yet God did at the Creation give her an equal share in the government of the earth, and our divine imposes upon her all the government of the family! God called Deborah to manage the affairs of state, and approved of her management, never once telling her she was out of her sphere, or neglecting her domestic duties. And the queens of the Bible are nowhere reproved for being in authority and ruling over men. Many women have shown a fitness for government in all ages of the world. There are few able statesmen among men, and the world is suffering sadly for want of woman’s help and woman’s counsel in the affairs of state.But I cannot ask you to allow me space to follow the reverend gentleman through all that follows on the question of woman suffrage. His arguments are very stale, and many of them absurd. I doubt not he is honest in his convictions; but all do not see with his eyes, or judge with his judgment. As able minds as his own among men take a different view of the matter,and believe that at the polls, as elsewhere, woman will have a refining moral influence upon men, and that she will herself be benefited and ennobled by the enlarged sphere of action.I cannot better close than with the words of Bronson Alcott, at a recent ‘conversation’ in Chicago: ‘There is no friend of woman who does not believe that, if the ballot were extended to her, not one would ever vote for an impure man. To give woman the ballot would purify legislation, plant liberty and purity in our families, our churches, our institutions, our State.’Amelia Bloomer.Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Editor of the Register: A friend has placed in my hand a copy ofThe Registerof January 1, containing a sermon by the Rev. T. O. Rice on ‘Woman’s sphere, woman’s work, woman suffrage,’ etc.

After carefully reading this sermon, I find nothingnew or original in it. It is but a rehash of what has before been served up to us by the Reverends Todd, Bushnell, Fulton and others, who are alarmed lest woman should get the start of the Creator and overleap the bounds He has set to her sphere. It throws no new light on the vexed question of woman suffrage, brings to view no passages of Scripture hitherto hidden from our sight, and gives no arguments which have not already been met and refuted again and again. In much that he says the advocates of woman suffrage fully agree with him. A mother’s first duty is at home with her children, and nothing can excuse her for neglect of those entrusted to her care. Home is the happiest spot on earth when it is atrue home—a home where love and harmony abide, where each regards the rights, the feelings, the interest, the happiness of the other, where ruling and obeying are unknown, where two heads are acknowledged better than one, and true confidence and esteem bind together the wedded pair. And I know of no happier homes, no better trained and better cared for children, than among the prominent advocates of woman suffrage. Whatever may be thought to the contrary, Elizabeth Cady Stanton is a model housekeeper, wife and mother; and nowhere can greater sticklers be found for the full discharge of all wifely duties than those who are pleading for woman’s enfranchisement. So far, then, as relates to home and children your divine has given us nothing but what we can subscribe to, and what we have preached for a score of years, at least, before he awakened to the necessity of giving the women of his congregation a sermonon their domestic duties. If they were ignorant on those matters, his words have not come to them an hour too soon.

After quoting familiar passages from both the Old and New Testament referring to woman, your divine opens by saying: ‘The general drift of these passages is obvious. Woman was designed to be a helpmeet for man.’ To this we have nothing to object. We, too, say that God made woman a helpmeet for man, finding it not good for him to be alone. But God said nothing of her being inferior, or subordinate, when he brought her to Adam—nothing of her being intended to fill an inferior position or discharge particular or inferior duties. She was made a helpmeet for man, not his subject and servant, but his assistant, companion and counselor. Not a helper in any particular sphere or duty, but in all the varied relations of life. Not to be always the frail, clinging, dependent vine, which falls helpless with the oak when it is riven by the thunderbolt, but to take the place,if need be, of the sturdy oak at her side when so riven, and bear upon her shoulders all the burdens which as true helpmeet and companion fall to her lot. Not to be an idle drone in the hive, but a sharer with him in all his head and his hands find to do. Not a helpmeet in the domestic relation merely, but also in the government of the earth and in the councils of the nation. It was not tohimbut tothemthat God gave power and dominion over the whole earth.

He next goes on to show why woman was to occupy a subordinate position, and of all the argumentsbrought forward by our opponents I never read a more weak and flimsy one than this. Because Adam was first formed and then Eve, she was therefore to be subordinate. But where is the proof of this? Do we find in all nature that the things last formed were inferior and subordinate to those first created? Again, that ‘Adam was not deceived, but the woman being deceived was in the transgression.’ Now, will the reverend gentleman tell us which he deems the greater sin, to commit a wrong after being misled and deceived by promises of great good to follow, or to commit the same wrong without such promises or deception, and with the eyes wide open to the wrong? In any court of the present day, the extenuating circumstances would be considered and the former held the less guilty of the two.

How any unprejudiced and unbiased mind can read the original account of the creation and fall, and gather therefrom that the woman committed the greater sin, I cannot understand. When Eve was first asked to eat of the forbidden fruit she refused, and it was only after her scruples were overcome by promises of great knowledge that she gave way to sin. But how was it with Adam, who was with her? He took and ate what she had offered him without any scruples of conscience, or promises on her part of great things to follow—certainly showing no superiority of goodness, or intellect, or strength of character fitting him for the headship. The command not to eat of the Tree of Life was given to him before her creation, and he was doubly bound to keep it; yet he not only permittedher to partake of the fruit without remonstrating against it, and warning her of the wrong, but ate of it himself without objection or hesitation. And then, when inquired of by God concerning what he had done, instead of standing up like an honorable man and confessing the wrong he weakly tried to shield himself by throwing the blame on the woman. As the account stands, he showed the greater ‘feebleness of resistance, and evinced a pliancy of character, and a readiness to yield to temptation,’ that cannot justly be charged to the woman. As the account stands, man has more to blush for than to boast of.

While we are willing to accept this original account of the creation and fall, we are not willing that men should add tenfold to woman’s share of sin, and put a construction upon the whole matter that we believe was never intended by the Creator. Eve had no more to do with bringing sin into the world than had Adam, nor does the Creator charge any more upon her. The punishment inflicted upon them for their transgression was as heavy upon him as upon her. Her sorrows were to be multiplied, but so too was he to eat his bread in sorrow, and to earn it in the sweat of his face amid thorns and thistles. To her no injunction to labor was given, upon her no toil imposed, no ground cursed for her sake.

But now we come to the consideration of a passage which seems to bear more heavily upon woman, and which men have used as a warrant to humble and crush her through all the ages that have passed since our first parents were driven from the Garden of Eden:‘Thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.’

This Mr. Rice regards as a command binding upon every woman for all time. Because Eve sinned, every woman must be ruled over by some man as long as the world stands. It is a little strange that the Creator did not tell us this. When talking to the serpent, He put enmity between his seed and the seed of the woman; but to the woman He said not a word of this law of subordination following her seed; and to Adam he gave no command, or even license, to rule over his wife.

Will the Rev. Rice please explain to us the meaning of a like passage in the chapter following? ‘The Lord said unto Cain, the desire of thy brother shall be unto thee, and thou shalt rule over him.’ Was this, too, a command for all time? Did God command Cain to rule over Abel? And if so, to whom does it now apply? The language is the same in both instances, except that in the latter case it was addressed directly to the party who was to rule, and in the former to the one who was to be ruled.

Clearly, the passage quoted should be regarded in the light of prophecy or prediction, and not of command. Substitutewiltforshalt, which I am told the original fully permits, and then all is clear. The prophecy has been fulfilled to the very letter. There are other passages that I think clearly show that the wordshallhas been wrongly translated. For instance, Cain says, ‘Whosoever findeth meshallslay me,’ taking the form of command rather than prediction.

Having done with the Old Testament, our reverend lecturer proceeds to give us what, in his opinion, was the idea and full meaning of the Apostle Paul in his rules and injunctions to the women of the churches he was addressing, and he wonders how there can be any opinion but his own on the subject. He makes the apostle go a long way beyond the Creator or the Saviour in his condemnation and subordination of women, and then thinks it strange that all do not take his version of the whole matter. Yet there are vast numbers of good, Christian men and women who cannot read with his eyes and who have presumed to differ from him. He quotes from some of the early Fathers on the subject, and proves that they entertained the same opinions and had the same fear of women getting into authority the Todds, Rices and Fultons of the present day suffer from. And the opinion of one party goes for as much as that of the other. The women of those early days, as all know, were ignorant and degraded and regarded as absolutely inferior to men. Custom had assigned them an inferior place and, instead of being treated as companions and equals, they were little better than servants and slaves. None but dissolute women, or women of loose character, sought for knowledge, and education was wholly denied to those who were virtuous. They were expected to remain at home in ignorant subjection to their masters. What wonder then if any, moved by the spirit, dared raise their voice in the presence of men they were instantly silenced, and told that it was not permitted them to speak? The early Fathers, like St. Paul, but conformedto the customs and shared the prejudices of the day in which they lived, and under the circumstances no doubt their injunctions were entirely proper and right.

We have no account on record of these ancient clergy disgracing themselves over a woman speaking as did the Rev. John Chambers, and other reverends of his stamp—and as we suppose the Rev. Rice would have done had he been there—a few years ago at the World’s Temperance Convention, in New York, when by their violent stamping, shouting, scolding and other uproarious conduct they succeeded in drowning the voice and driving from the stand a lovely, refined and highly educated Christian woman whom the president had invited to the platform. They carried their ends at that time; but that did not awe all women back into silence, or do themselves or the church any good. So all the warnings, and quotations from St. Paul, by all the reverends since his day, have not succeeded in keeping women in that state of ignorance and subjection they occupied two thousand years ago. The world moves, and it is God’s will that women move with it. He is no respecter of persons, but regards His people as all one in Christ Jesus.

But what have we next? After putting women down as low as possible our divine throws them a sop by telling them, if they will not usurp authority over men in the pulpit they may speak, and pray, and teach in Sunday schools, and in conference and covenant meeting. And where, pray, does he get his authority for this? Not in the Bible, surely. Paul says, ‘I suffernot a woman to teach.’ Teach what? The scriptures—the gospel, to be sure. This is direct and explicit. How can she teach the gospel in the Sunday school and elsewhere, without violation of St. Paul’s law? ‘Let women keep silence in the church,’ says the apostle. Then how can they talk, and pray, and teach in the conference meeting, the covenant meeting and other kindred places? St. Paul gives them no such liberty. Plainly your divine is willing the women of his church should do almost anything, so they do not interfere with his place, or usurp authority over him.

Poormenext comes in for a severe castigation from your reverend lawgiver because I dared say that, while I supposed St. Paul’s injunctions to women were right and proper at the time and under the circumstances of their utterance, I did not believe they were the rule for the educated Christian women of this enlightened day and age, the circumstances surrounding them having greatly changed since the introduction of Christianity. That I believed women were no more bound by the laws and customs of that time than men were bound to observe all the laws and customs of the same period; and further, that the church,by its practice, teaches the same thing, to a great extent. And, still further, that the words of St. Paul had nothing to do with woman’s political rights. The reverend gentleman puts words in my mouth I never uttered, thoughts in my head that I never conceived, places me in a position I never occupied and then, having attributed all manner of bad things to me, wipes me out with a sweep of his pen. Well, I do not feel a bit bad over all this. I have theconsolation of knowing that I am in good company, and cannot be so easily annihilated as he supposed. There are scores of divines as able, as learned, as eloquent and as orthodox as T. O. Rice, of Des Moines, who take the same view of the matter as I do, and any number of good Christian people who subscribe to the same doctrine. I ‘have no painful solicitude as to which side will ultimately triumph.’ I am no more ‘squarely and openly at variance with God’s Word’ than is our reverend lecturer, who has set himself up as God’s oracle, and hopes to intimidate all women, and strengthen the rule of all men to whom the sound of his voice may come.

I do not question his right to think as he pleases, and lecture women on proprieties and improprieties; but I must say, I consider women quite as capable of judging for themselves what is proper and what is improper for them to do as any man can be; and I think if our reverends would turn their attention to their own sex, search out passages and rules of conduct applicable to them, and lecture them on their duty to their families and society, they would be much better employed than in trying to subordinate women.

God has implanted in woman’s nature an instinctive knowledge of what is proper and what improper for her to do, and it needs no laws of man to teach the one or compel the other.

Our lecturer assumes that ‘God did not design that woman’s sphere and woman’s work should be identical with that of man, but distinct and subordinate.’ That ‘woman is happiest in subordination, as well as moreattractive,’ etc. This is, of course, only a picture of his imagination—only an expression of his own feelings and wishes. He can find no warrant for it in the Bible; for, as we have shown, God did not assign her to any particular sphere or work, but made her an helpmeet to stand side by side and walk hand in hand with man through the journey of life.

‘When aspiring, insubordinate, overtopping and turbulent woman loses all the attraction and fascination of her sex.’ Very true! and so do men of the same character lose all that commands our love and respect, and there are many more of the latter than of the former class! I know no such woman, but if there are any, every advocate of woman’s enfranchisement will do all they can to prevent her ever becoming so ‘restless, troubled, muddy, and bereft of beauty.’ So far as she has been admitted to the society of men they have not yet made her that terrible being they fear and dread. She has not proved herself coarse, vulgar, turbulent and corrupting in any society to which she has been admitted; and we would bid the reverend calm his excited mind, and remember that God made her woman, and under no change that has come to her has she proved untrue to the nature He implanted within her. So let him trust that the good God who is leading her forward into broader fields of usefulness will take care that she goes not beyond, in any respect, the limit He has fixed to her sphere.

Having settled the question that the sexes are to move in spheres distinct from each other to his own satisfaction, and having dismissed the apostle from the witnessstand, we are told what, in the judgment of the speaker, is the proper and appropriate sphere of woman. In much of what follows we agree with him; but not altogether. ‘By analyzing any persons,’ men or women, ‘physically, mentally and morally, we can ascertain what station they are fitted to fill—what work they are fitted to do.’ And whatever either man or woman has capacity for doing, that is right and proper in and of itself; that thing it is right and proper for both, or either of them, to do. If God has given them a talent, He has along with it given them a right to its use, whether it be in the direction of the home, the workshop, the public assembly, or the Legislative Hall.

And if woman has hitherto neglected to improve all her God-given talents, it is because men have only permitted her to get glimpses of the world ‘from the little elevation in her own garden,’ where they have fenced her in. But let them invite her to the ‘loftier eminence’ where they stand, with the world for her sphere, as it was at the beginning, and then they can better judge of the qualities of her mind, and her capacity to fill any station.

In talking of man’s strength of body and mind fitting him for certain places, and woman’s weakness consigning her to other places, he forgets that intellectually, at least, a great many women are stronger than a great many men, and therefore better fitted for places where brains, instead of muscle, are needed. It is no more true that every woman was made to be a cook and a washer of dishes and clothes, than that every man was made to be a wood sawyer and a ditch digger. Whilesome are content, in either case, to fill those stations, others are not content, and never will be, and will aspire to something better and higher. To what place the weak little men are to be consigned our speaker fails to tell us.

The home picture in the sermon is all very beautiful. Would that all homes were a realization of the picture! Woman is told great things of her duties, her influence, her glories and her responsibilities, but not a word have we of man’s duty to the home, the wife, the children. Woman is told that it is hers to make her children great and good, as though they were like a blank sheet of white paper and would take any impress she chose to give; when, in fact, they are stamped before they see the light of the world with the gross and vicious natures of their tobacco-chewing and wine-bibbing fathers, as well as with the weaknesses of the mothers, and it is often impossible for the best of mothers to so train their children that they may safely pass the pitfalls that men have everywhere placed to lead them into temptation and destruction. We protest against the mothers being held alone responsible for the children, so long as fathers wholly neglect their duties and set such examples and such temptations before their children as to corrupt their young lives and destroy the good influence the mother might otherwise exert. Not till mothers have a voice in saying what influences and temptations shall surround their children when they go beyond the nursery walls, can they justly be held accountable to society or to God for their conduct. The woman who only takes a narrow view oflife from the little eminence in her garden can never give to the world very good or very great children. She must be permitted to take in a wider range from a loftier eminence, before she can form those great characters and inscribe upon the immortal mind the great things that are expected and demanded of her. If we would have great men, we must first have great women. If we would have noble men, we must first have noble mothers. A woman whose whole thought is occupied in cooking a good dinner and mending old clothes—or (a little more refined) whose thoughts center on a beautiful dress, elegant embroidery, the fashionable party, the latest novel or the latest fashion—can never give to the world a Bacon or a Newton, a Howard or a Wesley, a Buonaparte or a Washington. Our preacher lays a heavy responsibility on woman, but all his talk about her influence, her duty and her subordination is not going to give her that wisdom, strength and moral material out of which to properly construct the fabric of the Church and the Commonwealth.

We would by no means undervalue the home, or the mother’s duty and influence; but we would ennoble and purify the one, and enlarge the duties and extend the influence and power of the other. Our divine thinks that, because woman is mother, daughter, sister and wife, it is enough for her and she should desire nothing more. Man is father, husband, son and brother, and why is he not therefore content? What can he desire or ask for more? Let men realize that they, too, have duties to the home beyond merely supplying the money to satisfy the physical wants of thefamily; let them throw down the wall they have built up around the woman’s garden and invite her to survey with them the wider range from the loftier eminence, and many homes would be made glad that are now anything but Gardens of Eden, and many women would be strengthened for the full and faithful discharge of all their duties.

‘Woman is not a mechanic.’ Yes, she is. All men are not mechanics. I know women who have more mechanical genius than their husbands; and I believe there are few of the mechanical arts that women could not master and perform successfully, if custom permitted and necessity required. They are naturally ingenious, and fashion many things as difficult to learn as to saw a board or drive a nail, to make a watch or a shoe, a saddle or a harness. My next-door neighbor is a natural mechanic, and has manufactured various articles in wood, from a foot to two feet in size, such as tables, chairs, bedsteads, wardrobes, frames, brackets, etc., with only a penknife and a bit of sandpaper for tools, which are perfect specimens of workmanship, and are so acknowledged by first-class cabinetmakers. She has taken premiums on these articles for the best woodcutting and carving at our agricultural fairs. This work has only been done for pastime, and the lady is equally ingenious with the needle, as well as a good housekeeper, wife and mother. There are many women engaged in various kinds of mechanism.

There are many inventions by women; but how many have been patented, can only be known by inquiry at the Patent Office. And even then it would bedifficult to ascertain facts, since the patent is generally obtained in the name of the husband. I have a lady friend who invented patterns for parlor stoves. Her husband had them patented in his own name, and entered upon the manufacture and sale of them.

The ‘natural difference in the turn of mind in the sexes’ is not so great as is supposed. The seeming difference is more owing to education and custom, than to nature. It is a very common thing to hear a young girl wish she was a boy, or a man, that she might be free to do what she lists in this world of work—to make use of the powers which she feels burning within her. The girl envies the boy his freedom and his privileges. In ‘earliest childhood,’ if let alone, there is little difference between the boy and the girl. The girl likes to ride the horse and blow the trumpet, as well as the boy; and the boy loves a doll and a needle and thread, as well as the girl. It is not the child that selects, but the parent that selects for him. From the very first (the whip, the horse, the trumpet) the boy is taught that it is not right or manly for him to play with dolls, or girls; and the girl, that little girls must not play with boys, or with boys’ playthings, because it is not ladylike, and will make a tom-boy of her. And so education does what nature has not done, and was never intended to do.

‘Those who would curse our race have ever attempted, in imitation of the great progenitor, to poison all our fountains and wither and blast all our budding hopes by directing their artful attacks and deadly shafts against the breast of woman.’

Alas! this is but too true. Ever since Satan, who was a man, struck the first blow at her happiness, men have directed their deadly shafts against her, by first subjugating her to their will, and then using their power to ‘poison the fountain of her happiness and wither and blast her budding hopes.’ She has been made their sport and their victim, with no power to avert the evil, or protect herself, or those entrusted to her care, from their artful and brutal attacks.

But what have we here? After telling women that home is their sphere, and that God placed them in it, and they should not go beyond it, the reverend lecturer turns right about and supposes a case where a woman is called upon to devote her time, or her energies, to home duties and family cares, or of one who voluntarily chooses to do something else; and, strange as it may seem after all that has gone before, he says ‘she may follow a trade, teach, lecture, practise law and medicine, and fill a clerkship.’ This is good woman’s-rights doctrine! The bars are let down that separated the spheres, and woman is permitted to leave the ‘distinct and subordinate’ one allotted to her, and enter upon a sphere and work ‘identical with that of man.’ Here we can join hands with our divine, and be thankful that light has so far dawned upon him. And he farther ‘demands that all the sources of learning, all the avenues of business which they are competent to fill shall be thrown open to the whole sex, and that they shall be fairly and fully rewarded for all they do’! These good words go far to atone for all he has said before, and we will not ask why this change, orconcession. Enough that he comes thus far upon our platform. But can he stop here? After giving her so wide a sphere, and educating her mind to the fullest extent, can he again put up the bar and say ‘thus far and no farther shalt thou go’? Indeed, no! God himself has in these latter days broken down the bounds that men had set to woman’s sphere, and they cannot, by opposition or Bible argument, remand her back into the state of silent subjection whence she came. The ministers of the church for years set themselves up against the anti-slavery cause, and proved conclusively, to themselves, from the Bible, that slavery was right and God-ordained; that the Africans were, and were to be, a subjugated race, and that to teach differently was in plain violation of the teachings of the Bible. They held themselves aloof from that cause, in the days of its weakness, at least, and cried out against those who were pleading for the emancipation of the slave. But God proved their mistake by setting that people free, and endowing them with all the rights of citizenship. So, too, the Bible is brought forward to prove the subordination of woman, and to show that because St. Paul told the ignorant women of his time that they must keep silent in the church the educated, intelligent women of these times must not only occupy the same position in the church and the family but must not aspire to the rights of citizenship. But the same Power that brought the slave out of bondage will, in His own good time and way, bring about the emancipation of woman, and make her the equal in power and dominion that she was at the beginning.

The divine uses the column and a half that remains of the space allotted to him to show why, in his opinion, women should not vote—after telling us there is nothing against their voting in the Bible, and omitting to tell us what the passages quoted at the head of his discourse have to do with politics or political rights. One of these reasons is that women will want to hold office; and in proof of this he tells us that the office of deaconess, which existed in the church till the middle of the fifth century, was abolished because the women ‘became troublesome aspirants after the prerogatives of office.’ It is ever thus. Men are willing women should be subordinate—do thedrudgeryin the church and elsewhere; but let them aspire to something higher and then, if there is no other way to silence them, abolish the office.Menwant all the offices, and it is a crying shame for a woman to think of taking one from them, thus setting them all aquake with fear!

Men argue as though, if women had the right to vote, they would all abandon their homes and their babies, and stand at the polls from year’s end to year’s end and do nothing but vote. When the fact is men do not vote but twice a year; are detained from their business but a few minutes to deposit their ballots; and then go their way, none the worse for the vote. I regret that Rev. Rice thinks so badly of the advocates of woman’s cause. So far as I know them, his charges are unfair and sometimes untrue. A better personal acquaintance would disarm him of much of his prejudice. The women are all good sisters, wives and mothers, living in love and harmony with their husbands,to whom they are true helpmeets, and whom they have no thought of deserting. Not half of them ever expect to hold office—certainly not, unless the offices are greatly multiplied—nor to have any part in turning the world upside down. On the contrary they will continue to care for the babies, cook the dinners, and sew on the buttons the same as ever.

Another reason why woman should not vote is that he thinks ‘God has not fitted her for government, that He never made her to manage the affairs of state, that very few women would make good stateswomen,’ etc. And yet God did at the Creation give her an equal share in the government of the earth, and our divine imposes upon her all the government of the family! God called Deborah to manage the affairs of state, and approved of her management, never once telling her she was out of her sphere, or neglecting her domestic duties. And the queens of the Bible are nowhere reproved for being in authority and ruling over men. Many women have shown a fitness for government in all ages of the world. There are few able statesmen among men, and the world is suffering sadly for want of woman’s help and woman’s counsel in the affairs of state.

But I cannot ask you to allow me space to follow the reverend gentleman through all that follows on the question of woman suffrage. His arguments are very stale, and many of them absurd. I doubt not he is honest in his convictions; but all do not see with his eyes, or judge with his judgment. As able minds as his own among men take a different view of the matter,and believe that at the polls, as elsewhere, woman will have a refining moral influence upon men, and that she will herself be benefited and ennobled by the enlarged sphere of action.

I cannot better close than with the words of Bronson Alcott, at a recent ‘conversation’ in Chicago: ‘There is no friend of woman who does not believe that, if the ballot were extended to her, not one would ever vote for an impure man. To give woman the ballot would purify legislation, plant liberty and purity in our families, our churches, our institutions, our State.’

Amelia Bloomer.

Council Bluffs, Iowa.

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