ced the extension of the franchise to all adult
men, do not equally demand its extension to all adult women. If it be
necessary for men that each should have a share in the administration of
government for his security, and to exclude partiality, as alleged by
Godwin, it would seem to be equally, if not more, necessary for women,
on account of their inferior physical power: and if, as is persistently
alleged by those who sneer at their claims, they are also inferior in
mental power, that fact only gives additional weight to the argument in
their behalf, as one of the primary objects of government, as
acknowledged on all hands, is the protection of the weak against the
power of the strong.

I can discover no ground consistent with the principle on which the
franchise has been given to all men, upon which it can be denied to
women. The principal argument against such extension, so far as argument
upon that side of the question has fallen under my observation, is based
upon the position that women are represented in the government by men,
and that their rights and interests are better protected through that
indirect representation than they would be by giving them a direct voice
in the government.

The teachings of history in regard to the condition of women under the
care of these self-constituted protectors, to which I can only briefly
allude, show the value of this argument as applied to past ages; and in
demonstration of its value as applied to more recent times, even at the
risk of being tedious, I will give some examples from my own
professional experience. I do this because nothing adds more to the
efficacy of truth than the translation of the abstract into the
concrete. Withholding names, I will state the facts with fullness and
accuracy.

An educated and refined woman, who had been many years before deserted
by her drunken husband, was living in a small village of Western New
York, securing, by great economy and intense labor in fine needle work,
the means of living, and of supporting her two daughters at an academy,
the object of her life being to give them such an education as would
enable them to become teachers, and thus secure to them some degree of
independence when she could no longer provide for them. The daughters
were good scholars, and favorites in the school, so long as the mother
was able to maintain them there. A young man, the nephew and clerk of a
wealthy but miserly merchant, became acquainted