We believe that in that determining of public policies by the collective judgment of the State which constitutes self-government, the contribution of woman will be of great importance and value. To all questions into the determination of which considerations of justice or injustice enter, she will bring a more refined moral sense than that of man. The most important public function of the State is the provision for the education of youths. In those States in which the public school system has reached its highest excellence, more than ninety per cent. of the teachers are women. Certainly the vote of the women of the State should be counted in determining the policy that shall regulate the school system which they are called to administer.
It is seldom that particular measures of government are decided by direct popular vote. They are more often discussed before the people after they have taken effect, when the party responsible for them is called to account. The great measures which go to make up the history of nations are determined not by the voters, but by their rulers, whether those rulers be hereditary or elected. The plans of great campaigns are conceived by men of great military genius and executed by great generals. Great systems of finance come from the brain of statesmen who have made finance a special study. The mass of the voters decide to which party they will intrust power. They do not determine particulars. But they give to parties their general tone and direction, and hold them to their accountability. We believe that woman will give to the political parties of the country a moral temperament which will have a most beneficent and ennobling effect on politics.
Woman, also, is specially fitted for the performance of that function of legislative and executive government which, with the growth of civilization, becomes yearly more and more important—the wise and practical economic adjustment of the details of public expenditures. It may be considered that it would not be for the public interest to clothe with the suffrage any class of persons who are so dependent that they will, as a general rule, be governed by others in its exercise. But we do not admit that this is true of women. We see no reason to believe that women will not be as likely to retain their independence of political judgment, as they now retain their independence of opinion in regard to the questions which divide religious sects from one another. These questions deeply excite the feelings of mankind, yet experience shows that the influence of the wife is at least as great as that of the husband in determining the religious opinion of the household. The natural influence exerted by members of the same family upon each other would doubtless operate to bring about similarity of opinion on political questions as on others. So far as this tends to increase the influence of the family in the State, as compared with that of unmarried men, we deem it an advantage. Upon all questions which touch public morals, public education, all which concern the interest of the household, such a united exertion of political influence cannot be otherwise than beneficial.