And what is this family impediment which is thus set up as a female disability? The family obligation is just as strong in man as in woman. It is much stronger, for the manners which compel woman to be the passive waiter on the male providence leave to him the real responsibility. Yet many men forego marriage and homes and children, and nobody imagines that it disqualifies them for public duties. Nobody challenges them as jurors, and demands if they have discharged the family obligation. Rather it is held wise in them to give themselves wholly to their pursuits, without the distraction of conjugal joys, until they have achieved success. Why should the family requirement, which man throws off so easily, be made a yoke for woman? There is something more fundamental than nursing babies or coddling the appetites of husbands. The sentiment, "Give me liberty, or give me death," is the American instinct. Breathes there a woman with soul so dead that she would bring forth slaves? Babes had better not be born if they are not to have their rights. It is the duty of women to first provide the state of freedom for their progeny. Then they may consent to become wives and mothers. Liberty and the exercise of all political rights are so bound together, that to neglect one is to abandon all. Trial by a jury of one's peers is the essential principle of the administration of justice. To be a peer on a jury involves the whole principle of equal rights. To abandon this to man, is to accept subjection to man.
For women to neglect jury duty is to give men the exclusive privilege to judge women, and to abandon the right to be tried by a jury of their peers. How can men justly judge a woman? They cannot have that knowledge of her peculiar physical and mental organization which is requisite to the judgment of motives and temptations. They cannot comprehend the variable moods and emotions, nor the power of her impulses. It is monstrous injustice to judge women by the same rules as men. And men lack that intuitive charity and tender sympathy which women always feel for an exposed, erring sister. Furthermore, many of the crimes of men are against women. How can men appreciate their injury? That which is her ruin, they call, as Anna Dickinson says, sowing their wild oats. How can justice be expected from those who instinctively combine to preserve their privilege to abuse women? For the administration of justice to women who are accused, and to men who have wronged women, judges and jurors of their own sex are indispensable.
As long as Judge Howe remained on the bench he had women on his juries.[1] His first term at Cheyenne, after the law was passed, several women were among the jurors, and they did fully as well, and exerted quite as good an influence there, as the women had recently at Laramie City.
The first election under the woman suffrage law was held in September 1870, for the election of a delegate in congress, and county officers. There was an exciting canvass, and both parties applied to the whisky shops, as before, supposing they would wield the political power of the territory, and that not enough women would vote to influence the result. The morning of election came, but did not bring the usual scenes around the polls. A few women came out early to vote, and the crowd kept entirely out of sight. There was plenty of drinking and noise at the saloons, but the men would not remain, after voting, around the polls. It seemed more like Sunday than election day. Even the negro men and women voted without objection or disturbance. Quite a number of women voted during the day, at least in all the larger towns, but apprehension of a re-
- ↑ The following is the list of the first grand jury at Laramie City, composed of nine men and six women, as impanneled and sworn: C. H. Bussard, foreman; Mrs. Jane E. Hilton, T. W. DeKay, Jeremiah Boies, Mrs. H. C. Swain. Joseph DeMars, M. N. Merrill, Mrs. M. A. Pierce, Mrs. C. Blake, Richard Turpin, G. W. Cardwell, Mrs. S. L. Larimer, N. C. Worth, Mrs. Jane Mackle, W. H. Mitchell
