Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/608

576 on the amendment of the Senator from California [Mr. ], upon which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. .—Mr. President, it would seem scarcely credible that in the Senate of the United States an abrupt and sudden change in so fundamental a relation as that borne by the two sexes to our system of Government should be proposed as an "experiment," and that it should be gravely recommended that a newly organized Territory under act of Congress should be set aside for this "experiment," which is in direct, grossly irreverent disregard of all that we have known as a rule, our great fundamental rule, in organizing a government of laws, whether colonial, State, or Federal, in this country.

I frankly say, Mr. President, that which strikes me most forcibly is the gross irreverence of this proposition, its utter disregard of that Divine will by which man and woman were created different, physically, intellectually, and morally, and in defiance of which we are now to have this poor, weak, futile attempt of man to set up his schemes of amelioration in defiance of every tradition, of every revelation, of all human experience, enlightened as it has been by Divine permission. It seems to me that to introduce so grave a subject as this, to spring it here upon the Senate without notice in the shape of an amendment to a pending measure, to propose thus to experiment with the great laws that lie at the very foundation of human society, and to do it for the most part in the trivial tone which we have witnessed during this debate, is not only mortifying, but it renders one almost hopeless of the permanence of our Government if this is to be the example set by one of the Houses of Congress, that which claims to be more sedate and deliberate, if it proposes in this light and perfunctory way to deal with questions of this grave nature and import. Sir, there is no time at present for that preparation which such a subject demands at the hands of any sensible man, mindful of his responsibilities, who seeks to deal with it.

This is an attempt to disregard laws promulgated by the Almighty Himself. It is irreverent legislation in the simplest and strongest sense of the word. Nay, sir, not only so, but it is a step in defiance of the laws of revealed religion as given to men. If there be one institution which it seems to me has affected the character of this country, which has affected the whole character of modern civilization, the results of which we can but imperfectly trace and but partly recognize, it is the effect of the institution of Christian marriage, the mysterious tie uniting the one man and the one woman until they shall become one and not two persons. It is an institution which is mysterious, which is beyond the reach and the understanding of man, but he certainly can best exhibit his sense of duty and proper obligation when he reverently shall submit to and recognize its wisdom. All such laws as proposed by this amendment are stumbling-blocks, and are meant to be stumbling-blocks in the way of that perfect union of the sexes which was intended by the law of Christian marriage. Suffrage is a political franchise; it is not a right; because the word "right" is used in reference to voting in the XIV. Amendment to the Constitution, that does not make it a right. It is in the very nature of government a political privilege confided, according to the exigency, the expediency,