Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 1.djvu/678

648 He knew many enlightened and refined districts which had never heard the principles of this society, much less felt them. They were not popular anywhere in the age in which they were inaugurated. Therefore they were not founded in nature, and the claim of naturalism must fall to the ground. The taste for the beautiful, and the love of right, were innate faculties of the mind, because they existed everywhere; not so with the recognition of the claim of Woman's Rights. Again, the claim was not based on revelation, which he would prove in this way: Revelation is never inconsistent with itself. The claim for woman of the right to vote, inasmuch as she would of necessity vote as she pleased, and therefore sometimes contrary to her husband, involved a disobedience of her husband, which was directly antagonistic to the injunction of the Scriptures requiring wives to obey their husbands.

in the body of the audience rose, and told the gentleman from the Old Dominion that if he wished to do any good he must come on the platform where he could be heard. The gentleman declined.

said that men had rights as well as women, and she would not insist on the gentleman coming to the platform if he chose to remain where he was, but it would be more convenient if he would come.

still declined, and proceeded to quote Scripture against the Woman's Rights movement.

again started up, and told him he had got hold of the letter of the Bible, but not the spirit.

desired that each speaker would take his or her turn, "in due order, so that all might be edified."

proceeded. Referring to a remark of Mr. Phillips on the preceding evening, in connection with a quotation from Tacitus, "that this movement was Paul against the Anglo-Saxon blood," he stood by the apostle to the Gentiles, and Mr. Phillips might stand by the corrupted Saxon blood.

rose and requested him to go upon the platform, as half the audience were breaking their necks by trying to listen to him. Still the gentleman declined.

argued that woman was not fitted for the pulpit, the rostrum, or the law court, because her voice was not powerful enough. God gave her a mild, sweet voice, fitted for the parlor and the chamber, for the places for which He had designed her. God has not given her a constitution to sustain fatigue, to endure as man endures, to brave the dangers which man can brave. She was too frail, too slender—too delicate a flower for rough blasts and tempests. In her whole physical organization there was proof that she was not capable of what man was capable. Hers was a more beautiful mission than man's—a pure atmosphere was hers to breathe. Surrounded by all gentle influences, let her be content with the holy and beautiful position assigned to her by her Maker. He did not rise to make a speech. He was urged into it by the desultory, erratic, shallow, superficial reasonings of the gentleman who in one breath invited them to free discussion, and in the next defamed and scandalized the editor of The Times, because he took the liberty to discuss this question freely in his paper.

Mr. came forward promptly to reply. He thanked the gentleman for his speech. Such speeches were just what the Convention wanted.