XXXII. MARIA THERESA. OUGHT women to vote ? This is one of the questions of the day. Many men would be disposed to favor the admission of women to the ballot but for one objection. If, say they, women can vote for President, why should they not be eligible to the office of President ? Very well ; suppose they were. When we consider that the two greatest empires of modern times have been governed by women, and when we consider also how many of the nations of the earth have been governed badly by men, why should we think it so terrible a thing to have a woman at the head of this Republic ? It is true, we are not likely to witness such an event, but if it should occur, the nation would probably survive it. Let us see in what manner the great Maria Theresa ruled for forty years the extensive and ill-assorted empire of Austria. Born in 1717, the eldest daughter of the Emperor, Charles VI, she married in her nineteenth year, Francis, the Duke of Lorraine, and in her twenty-third year, upon the death of her father, was proclaimed Empress of the sixteen different states and territories which made up the Austrian empire. Her father was a man of limited capacity, though of respectable character, and left to his daughter an empty treasury, a small, disorganized army, and a disputed succession. Although all the great pow- ers, during the lifetime of the Emperor, had solemnly engaged to recognize his daughter as the legitimate heir, (399)
