per field of action and the
proper mode of employing the faculties which God has given them.
If I understand aright the principles of liberty, just here is
the point of controversy, between the despot and the champion of
human rights, in any department. Just when one human being
assumes to decide for another what is that other's sphere of
action, just then despotism begins. Everything else is but the
legitimate consequence of this.

I have said it is not so much a matter of controversy what woman
may do or may not do. Why, it would be a hard matter to say what
has been recognized by men themselves, as the legitimate sphere
of woman. We have a great deal of contradiction and opposition
nowadays when woman attempts to do this, that, or the other
thing, although that very thing has sometime or other, and
somewhere or other, been performed or attempted to be performed
by woman, with man's approval. If you talk about politics, why,
woman's participation in politics is no new thing, is no mere
assumption on her part, but has been recognized as right and
proper by men.

You have already been told of distinguished women who have borne
a very prominent part in politics, both in ancient and modern
times, and yet the multitude of men have believed and
acknowledged that it was all right; and are now acknowledging it
with all the enthusiasm of devoted loyalty. They are now
acknowledging it in the case of an Empire on which it has been
said that the sun never sets--an Empire, "The morning drumbeat of
whose military stations circles the earth with one continued peal
of the martial airs of England." It is recognized, too, not by
the ignorant and thoughtless only, or the radical and heretical
alone, but also by multitudes of educated and pious men. That
bench of Bishops, sitting in the House of Lords, receiving its
very warrant to act politically, from the hands of a woman,
listening to a speech from a woman on the throne, endorses every
day the doctrine that a woman may engage in politics.

If you seize the young tree, when it just begins to put forth to
the air and sunshine and dews, and bend it in all directions for
fear it will not grow in proper shape, do not hold the tree
accountable for its distortion. There is no danger that from
acorns p