Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/475

Rh from the old parties. Just as the distinguished Senator (Senator Nye) will recollect the present Republican party was formed, and against which the two old fossil parties united, as they always do. Now, this new great idea, if rejected, will disintegrate these old parties; take that which is fit, proper, and deserving for its own great mission, leaving the residuum to unite, and crumble and pulverize together under the feet of the new.

The right of self-government, as I have said, is a natural right pertaining to all alike, and is to be exercised by the ballot. And the right to that is therefore a natural right, as is the right to wear clothes. Decency and comfort require that clothes should be worn; but they are artificial wholly. Just so is the right to vote a natural right, though the vote, or the mode of voting at least, is an artificial means. This logic can not be caviled with or gainsaid. The young man and the young woman outside of political considerations, in every other point of view, stand before the law on an equality, and what one may do, so may the other, each may govern him or herself. But not so politically; when the youth reaches the age of twenty-one the ballot comes to his hands by due course of law, protecting his natural right, he having grown to it. Why do you give him the ballot, pray, or permit him to take it for himself? Simply because it is the means by which he governs and protects himself. Nobody would start I suppose the terribly heterodox idea that it is not necessary for the young man to govern himself with the ballot. It would be one of those unheard-of atrocities that nobody would have the hardihood to promulgate in the presence of masculine associates at all. He is entitled to the right for the purpose of governing himself. Nobody was born to govern anybody else—man or woman. It is only because in political associations people become so united, that a man in order to govern himself is obliged to govern others, that we get the right to govern others at all. It grows out of our effort to govern ourselves. As an essential necessity we are obliged to govern others and to be governed by them. This is our only warrant for the government of others.

Now, I pray to know why a young maiden, when she approaches the same age, may not have accorded to her the same protection of her natural right that is accorded to the youth, and for the same purpose. In the name of all womanhood, and of all manhood, I beg to know why this may not be so? In the name of my own daughters whose whispered words haunt the chambers of my soul, asking to know why, if it is necessary for their brother to exercise this right, it is not necessary for them? Nobody need to argue to a father that his daughters are not the equals of his sons. I will never tolerate hearing it said, that my son is born to empire and sovereignty, while his sisters are born to be hidden away and yarded up in some solitary desert place, as their proper sphere. [Applause.] I do not propose to raise and educate my daughters to keep them cooped up with their feet tied until some masculine purveyor comes along with his market basket.

Oh! ye opponents of the rights of woman, why not be consistent. If, as you say, she has not the capacity to choose or exercise the elective franchise, why not choose for her in everything, and impose upon her the husband of your choice? Don't you represent her? You concede that the young woman has abundance of capacity to choose her lord and master to whom she shall be delivered, and yet she is not fit to vote for a constable. (Laughter.)