That we have heard here
until all ears have been wearied with it. If taxation and
representation are to go hand in hand, why should they not go
hand in hand with regard to the female as well as the male? Is
there any reason why Mrs. Smith should be governed by a goat-head
of a mayor any more than John Smith, if he could correct it? He
is paid by taxes levied and assessed on her property just in the
same way as he is paid out of taxes levied on the property of
John. If she commits an offense she is subjected to be tried,
convicted, and punished by the other sex alone; and she has no
protection whatever in any way either as to her property, her
person, or to her liberty very often. There is another thing,
too. A great many reflections have been made upon the white race
keeping the black in slavery. I should like to know whether we
have not partially kept the female sex in a condition of slavery,
particularly that part of them who labor for a living? I do not
know of any reason in the world why a woman should be confined to
two dollars a week when a man gets two dollars a day and does not
do any more work than she does, and does not do that which he
does do quite so well at all times.

Mr. President, if we are to venture upon this wide sea of
universal suffrage, I object to manhood suffrage. I do not know
anything specially about manhood which dedicates it to this
purpose more than exists about womanhood. Womanhood to me is
rather the more exalted of the two. It is purer; it is higher; it
is holier; and it is not purchasable at the same price that the
other is, in my judgment. If you want to widen the franchise so
as to purify your ballot-box, throw the virtue of the country
into it; throw the temperance of the country into it; throw the
purity of the country into it; throw the angel element, if I may
so express myself, into it. [Laughter]. Let there be as little
diabolism as possible, but as much of the divinity as you can
get. Therefore, Mr. President, I put this as a serious question
for the consideration of this body. In the presence of the
tendencies of the age and in recognition of this movement, which
my honorable friend from Massachusetts is always talking about,
and of which he seems to have had premonition long before it came
to a