gated without
delay--a result which woman's connection with them would speedily
bring about.

Who dares say, then, that such association would not be equally
beneficial, if in every sphere of activity opened to man, woman
could enter with him and be at his side? Are our politics, in
their practice, so exalted, so dignified, so pure, that we need
no new associations, no purer and healthier influences, than now
connected with them? Is our Government just what we would have
it; are our rulers just what we would have them; in short, have
we arrived at that happy summit where perfection in these
respects is found? Not so. On the contrary, there is an universal
prayer throughout the length and breadth of the land, for reform
in these respects; and where, let us ask, could we reasonably
look for a more powerful agent to effect this reform, than in the
renovating influences of woman? That which has done so much for
the fireside and social life generally, neither can nor will lose
its potent, beneficial effect when brought to bear upon other
relations of life.

To talk of confining woman to her proper sphere by legal
disabilities, is an insult to the divinity of her nature,
implying, as it does, the absence of instinctive virtue, modesty,
and sense on her part. It makes her the creature of law--of our
law--from which she is assumed to derive her ability to keep the
path of rectitude, and the withdrawal of which would leave her to
sink to the depths of folly and vice. Do we really think so badly
of our mothers, wives, sister, daughters? Is it really we only of
the race who are instinctively and innately so sensible, so
modest, so virtuous, as to be qualified, not only to take care of
ourselves, but to dispense all these exalted qualities to the
weaker, and, as we assume, inferior half of the race? If it be
so, it may be doubted whether Heaven's last gift was its best.
Kings, emperors, and dictators confine their subjects, by the
interposition of law, to what they consider their proper spheres;
and there is certainly as much propriety in it as in the
dictation, by one sex, of the sphere of a different sex. In the
assumption of our strength, we say woman must not have equal
rights with us, because she has a different nature. If so, by
what oc