who desires to change it. The marriage relation will therefore always be more to woman than to man, and we, who would give her the right to vote, have no fear to trust to her the sanctity and purity of that relation. It is the opponents of woman suffrage who distrust the fidelity of woman to her divine instincts and dare not let her vote. Our little State has been two hundred years under male legislation, and yet a long memorial from hundreds of clergymen and other Christian men went up to our legislature two years ago, representing our legislation on divorce as demoralizing and as fatal to the best interests of the marriage relation. It really seems as if the incompetency for the management of public affairs which by mere assumption is charged in advance upon women, has been proved with regard to men by an actual experience of many years. The true idea is for man and woman to share together the responsibilities and duties of legislation, and until this is done I have no hope for any real progress towards purity in the administration of our public affairs. We who favor woman suffrage speak confidently on this subject because the reform works so well wherever it has been tried, in England, Sweden, Austria and Wyoming Territory.
No rational man can suppose for a moment that with woman suffrage established in England and on the continent of Europe, we in this country, which so specially stands on equal representation, are going to refuse it. It must be set down as one of the certain things of the future. And when it has come, and women vote, it will excite no more attention or comment than the voting of our colored people.
Now if woman suffrage is to come, is it worth while to be making the impression that the women of our country are not to be trusted with it, and that the marriage relation is to be imperiled by it? Above all, is it manly or just to be charging corrupt motives on nine-tenths of those who advocate the reform? The notoriety which to some extent its advocates must get is almost universally painful to the women who are the subjects of it. One noble woman, whose whole soul is in this cause, and the purity of whose motives in this, as in everything else, I have had good opportunity to learn, said to me, on reading Dr. Bushnell's remark in his book on woman suffrage, that these women were only trying to make themselves men: "Cruel, cruel words! If so noble a man as Dr. Bushnell so utterly fails to comprehend a woman's nature, shall not she be allowed to speak for herself, and no testimony be taken but hers?"[1]
Much might be said in regard to the most famous women of Connecticut, the historic "Maids of Glastonbury," celebrated for their resistance to taxation. After the death of Abby, July 23, 1878, Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, in a beautiful tribute to the sisters, said:
- ↑ See Appendix for Mr. Hooker's article, "Is the Family the Basis of the State?"
