for fifteen million women. At first view the proposition can
scarcely be met with denial, yet reasons "thick as blackberries"
and strong as truth itself may be urged in favor of the ballot in
the one case, which can not be urged in the other.

Mr. SAULSBURY: I rise to a point of order. My point of order is,
that a man who has lived an old bachelor as long as the Senator
from Missouri has, has no right to talk about women's rights.
[Laughter].

The PRESIDENT _pro tem._: The chair moves that is not a point of
order; and the Senator from Missouri will proceed.

Mr. HENDERSON: I had no idea that that was a point of order, sir.
Whatever may be said theoretically about the elective franchise
as a natural right, in practice at least, it has always been
denied in the most liberal States to more than half the
population. It is withheld from those whose crimes prove them
devoid of respect for social order, and generally from those
whose ignorance or imbecility unfits them for an intelligent
appreciation of the duties of citizens and the blessings of good
government. To women the suffrage has been denied in almost all
Governments, not for the reasons just stated, but because it is
wholly unnecessary as a means of their protection. In the
government of nature the weaker animals and insects, dependent on
themselves for safety and life, are provided with means of
defense. The bee has its sting and the despised serpent its
deadly poison. So, in the Governments of men, the weak must be
provided with power to inspire fear at least in the strong, if
not to command their respect. Political power was claimed
originally by the people as a means of protecting themselves
against the usurpations of those in power, whose interests or
caprices might lead to their oppression. Hence came the
republican system. But it was never thought the interests or
caprices of men could lead to a denial of the civil rights or
social supremacy of woman. People of one race have always been
unjust to those of another. The ignorant and sordid Jew despised
the Samaritan and scoffed at the idea of his equality. To him the
learned and accomplished Greek was a barbarian, and all rights
were denied him except those simple rights accorded to the most
degraded Gentile. Chinamen, to-day,