ey did. The negro men go out in the hotels and upon the
railroad cars; they go to the cities and by attrition they wear
away the prejudice of race; but the women remain at home, and
their emotional natures aggregate and compound the
race-prejudice, and when suffrage is given them what must be the
result?

Mr. President, it is not my purpose to speak of the
inconveniences, for they are nothing more, of woman suffrage.[53]
I trust that as a gentleman I respect the feelings of the ladies
and their advocates. I am not here to ridicule. My purpose only
is to use legitimate argument as to a movement which commands
respectful consideration if for no other reason than because it
comes from women. But it is impossible to divest ourselves of a
certain degree of sentiment when considering this question. I
pity the man who can consider any question affecting the
influence of woman with the cold, dry logic of business. What man
can, without aversion, turn from the blessed memory of that dear
old grandmother, or the gentle words and caressing hand of that
blessed mother gone to the unknown world, to face in its stead
the idea of a female justice of the peace or township constable?
For my part I want when I go to my home--when I turn from the
arena where man contends with man for what we call the prizes of
this paltry world--I want to go back, not to be received in the
masculine embrace of some female ward politician, but to the
earnest, loving look and touch of a true woman. I want to go back
to the jurisdiction of the wife, the mother; and instead of a
lecture upon finance or the tariff or the construction of the
Constitution, I want those blessed, loving details of domestic
life and domestic love.

I have said I would not speak of the inconveniences to arise from
woman suffrage--when the mother is called upon to decide as a
juryman or jurywoman rights of property or rights of life, whilst
her baby is "mewling and puking" in solitary confinement at home.
There are other considerations more important, and one of them to
my mind is insuperable. I speak now respecting women as a sex. I
believe that they are better than men, but I do not believe they
are adapted to the political work of this world. I do not believe
that the Great Intelligence ever inten