); Moses A. McCoid (Ia.);
Thomas M. Browne (Ind.). The question of woman suffrage never has been
and never can be more concisely and logically stated.

No one who listens to the reasons given by the superior class for
the continuance of any system of subjection can fail to be
impressed with the noble disinterestedness of mankind. When the
subjection of persons of African descent was to be maintained,
the good of those persons was always the main object. When it was
the fashion to beat children, to regard them as little animals
who had no rights, it was always for their good that they were
treated with severity, and never on account of the bad temper of
their parents. Hence, when it is proposed to give to the women of
this country an opportunity to present their case to the various
State Legislatures to demand equality of political rights, it is
not surprising to find that the reasons on which the continuance
of the inferiority of women is urged are drawn almost entirely
from a tender consideration of their own good. The anxiety felt
lest they should thereby deteriorate would be an honor to human
nature were it not an historical fact that the same sweet
solicitude has been put up as a barrier against all the progress
which women have made since civilization began.

There is no doubt that if to-day in Turkey or Algiers, countries
where woman's sphere is most thoroughly confined to the home
circle, it was proposed to admit them to social life, to remove
the veil from their faces and permit them to converse in open day
with the friends of their husbands and brothers, the conservative
and judicious Turk or Algerine of the period, if he could be
brought even to consider such a horrible proposition, would point
out that the sphere of woman was to make home happy by those
gentle insipidities which education would destroy; that by
participating in conversation with men they would debase their
natures, and men would thereby lose that ameliorating influence
which still leaves them unfit to associate with women. He would
point out that "nature" had determined that women should be
secluded; that their sphere was to raise and educate the
man-child, and that any change would be a violation of the divine
law which, in the opinion of all conservative men, ordains the