Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/132

102 tation Our reasons of dissent to this dangerous inroad upon all precedent, lie deeper and strike higher. They are based upon that which in all Christian nations must be recognized as the higher law, the fundamental law upon which Christian society in its very construction must rest; and that law, as defined by the Almighty, is immutable. Through it the women of this Christian land, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, have distinct duties to perform of the most complex order, yet of the very highest and most sacred nature.

If in addition to all these responsibilities, others, appertaining to the domain assigned to men, are allotted to us, we shall be made the victims of an oppression not intended by a kind and wise Providence, and from which the refining influences of Christian civilization have emancipated us. We have but to look at the condition of our Indian sister, upon whose bended back the heavy pack is laid by her lord and master; who treads in subjection the beaten pathway of equal rights, and compare her situation with our own, to thank the God of Christian nations who has placed us above that plane, where right is might, and might is tyranny. We cannot without prayer and protest see our cherished privileges endangered, and have granted us only in exchange the so-called equal rights. We need more, and we claim, through our physical weakness and your courtesy as Christian gentlemen, that protection which we need for the proper discharge of those sacred and inalienable functions and rights conferred upon us by God. To these the vote, which is not a natural right (otherwise why not confer it upon idiots, lunatics, and adult boys) would be adverse.

When women ask for a distinct political life, a separate vote, they forget or they willfully ignore the higher law, whose logic may be thus condensed: Marriage is a sacred unity. The family, through it, is the foundation of the State. Each family is represented by its head, just as the State ultimately finds the same unity, through a series of representations. Out of this come peace, concord, proper representation, and adjustment—union.

Gentlemen, we cannot displace the corner-stone without destruction to the edifice itself! The subject is so vast, has so many side issues, that a volume might as readily be laid before your honorable committee as these few words hastily written with an aching woman's heart. Personally, if any woman in this vast land has a grievance by not having a vote, I may claim that grievance to be mine. With father, brother, husband, son, taken away by death, I stand utterly alone, with minor children to educate and considerable property interests to guard. But I would deem it unpatriotic to ask for a general law which must prove disastrous to my country, in order to meet that exceptional position in which, by the adorable will of God, I am placed. I prefer, indeed, to trust to that moral influence over men which intelligence never fails to exercise, and which is