shall we summon our wives and mothers to the
battle-field?" Women have led armies in all ages, have held positions
in the army and navy for years in disguise. Some fought, bled, and
died on the battle-field in our late war. They performed severe labors
in the hospitals and sanitary department. Wisdom would dictate a
division of labor in war as well as in peace, assigning each their
appropriate department.

Numerous classes of men who enjoy their political rights are exempt
from military duty. All men over forty-five, all who suffer mental or
physical disability, such as the loss of an eye or a forefinger;
clergymen, physicians, Quakers, school-teachers, professors, and
presidents of colleges, judges, legislators, congressmen, State prison
officials, and all county, State and National officers; fathers,
brothers, or sons having certain relatives dependent on them for
support,--all of these summed up in every State in the Union make
millions of voters thus exempted.

In view of this fact there is no force in the plea, that "if women
vote they must fight." Moreover, war is not the normal state of the
human family in its higher development, but merely a feature of
barbarism lasting on through the transition of the race, from the
savage to the scholar. When England and America settled the Alabama
Claims by the Geneva Arbitration, they pointed the way for the future
adjustment of all national difficulties.

Some fear, "If women assume all the duties political equality implies,
that the time and attention necessary to the duties of home life will
be absorbed in the affairs of State." The act of voting occupies but
little time in itself, and the vast majority of women will attend to
their family and social affairs to the neglect of the State, just as
men do to their individual interests. The virtue of patriotism is
subordinate in most souls to individual and family aggrandizement. As
to offices, it is not to be supposed that the class of men now
elected will resign to women their chances, and if they should to any
extent, the necessary number of women to fill the offices would make
no apparent change in our social circles. If, for example, the Senate
of the United States should be entirely composed of women, but two in
each State would be withdrawn from the pursuit of domestic happiness.
For many reasons, under all circumstances, a comparatively smaller
proportion of women than men would actively engage in politics.

As t