, on this ground alone, the proposed change in the
constitution should be made. Here, so far at least as the concluding
proposition goes, we must all agree. If it can be clearly proved that
this particular change in our institutions is one so fraught with
blessings, we are bound to make it at every cost. The true elevation of
the whole race: that is what we are all longing for, praying for. And
is it indeed true that this grand work can effectually be brought about
by the one step we are now urged to take? What says actual experience
on this point? The whole history of mankind shows clearly that, as yet,
no one legislative act has ever accomplished half of what is claimed by
the advocates of woman's suffrage as the inevitable result of the
change they propose. No one legislative act has ever been so widely
comprehensive in its results for good as they declare that this act
shall be. No one legislative act has ever raised the entire race even
within sight of the point of elevation predicted by the champions of
what is called the emancipation of woman. Hear them speak for
themselves: "It is hardly possible, with our present experience, to
raise our imaginations to the conception of so great a change for the
better as would be made by its removal"--the removal of the principle
of the subordination of the wife to the husband, and the establishment
of the entire independence of women, to be obtained by female suffrage.
These are not the words of some excited woman making a speech at a
public meeting. The quotation is from the writings of Mr. Stuart Mill.
The subordination of the wife to the husband is declared by Mr. Mill to
be "the citadel of the enemy." Storm the citadel, proclaim the entire
independence of the wife, and our feeble imaginations, we are told, are
utterly incapable of conceiving the glorious future of the race
consequent upon this one step. This is a very daring assertion. It is
so bold, indeed, as to require something of positive proof ere we can
yield to it our implicit belief. The citadel we are urged to storm was
built by the hand of God. The flag waving over that citadel is the flag
of the Cross. When the Creator made one entire sex so much more feeble
in physical powers than the other, a degree of subordination on the
part of the weaker sex became inevitable, unless it were counteracted
by increase of mental ability, strengthened by special precept. But the
mental ability, so far as there is a difference