ble opposition to a recasting of the status
of women by those men who have beheld no complete regeneration of
society through the extension of the franchise in four of our States.
Curiously oblivious of the fact that partial regeneration through the
instrumentality of women is something attained, they take this as a
working argument for the uselessness of extending the suffrage. They
point to other evils that have followed and tell you that if this is the
result of the emancipation of women, they will have none of it. For
example, there can be no doubt that one may see from time to time the
pseudo-intellectual woman. She affects an interest in literature,
attends lectures on Browning and Emerson, shows an academic interest in
slum work, and presents, on the whole, a selfishness or an egotism which
repels. There never has been a revolution in society, however beneficial
eventually, which did not bring at least some evil in its train. I
cannot do better in this connection than to quote Lord Macaulay's
splendid words (from the essay on Milton): "If it were possible that a
people, brought up under an intolerant and arbitrary system, could
subvert that system without acts of cruelty and folly, half the
objections to despotic power would be removed. We should, in that case,
be compelled to acknowledge that it at least produces no pernicious
effects on the intellectual and moral character of a people. We deplore
the outrages which accompany revolutions. But the more violent the
outrages, the more assured we feel that a revolution was necessary. The
violence of these outrages will always be proportioned to the ferocity
and ignorance of the people; and the ferocity and ignorance of the
people will be proportioned to the oppression and degradation under
which they have been accustomed to live. Thus it was in our civil war.
The rulers in the church and state reaped only what they had sown. They
had prohibited free discussion--they had done their best to keep the
people unacquainted with their duties and their rights. The retribution
was just and natural. If they suffered from popular ignorance, it was
because they had themselves taken away the key to knowledge. If they
were assailed with blind fury, it was because they had exacted an
equally blind submission.

"It is the character of such revolutions that we always see the worst of
them at first. Till men have been for some time free, they know not how
to use their freedom. The na