r of fact, the law will prevail in
all English-speaking nations: a few men fighting for it will be stronger
than many fighting against it; and if those few have both the law and the
women on their side, there will be no trouble.

The truth is that in this age _cedant arma togae:_ it is the civilian who
rules on the throne or behind it, and who makes the fighting-men his mere
agents. Yonder policeman at the corner looks big and formidable: he
protects the women and overawes the boys. But away in some corner of the
City Hill there is some quiet man, out of uniform, perhaps a consumptive or
a dyspeptic or a cripple, who can overawe the burliest policeman by his
authority as city marshal or as mayor. So an army is but a larger police;
and its official head is that plain man at the White House, who makes or
unmakes, not merely brevet-brigadiers, but major-generals in command,--who
can by the stroke of the pen convert the most powerful man of the army into
the most powerless. Take away the occupant of the position, and put in a
woman, and will she become impotent because her name is Elizabeth or Maria
Theresa? It is brains that more and more govern the world; and whether
those brains be on the throne, or at the ballot-box, they will soon make
the owner's sex a subordinate affair. If woman is also strong in the
affections, so much the better. "Win the hearts of your subjects," said
Lord Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, "and you will have their hands and
purses."

War is the last appeal, and happily in these days the rarest appeal, of
statesmanship. In the multifarious other duties that make up statesmanship
we cannot spare the brains, the self-devotion, and the enthusiasm of woman.
One of the most important treaties of modern history, the peace of Cambray,
in 1529, was negotiated, after previous attempts had failed, by two
women,--Margaret, aunt of Charles V., and Louisa, mother of Francis I.
Voltaire said that Christina of Sweden was the only sovereign of her time
who maintained the dignity of the throne against Mazarin and Richelieu.
Frederick the Great said that the Seven Years' War was waged against three
women,--Elizabeth of Russia, Maria Theresa, and Mme. Pompadour. There is
nothing impotent in the statesmanship of women when they are admitted to
exercise it: they are only powerless for good when they are obliged to
obtain by wheedling and flattery a sway that should be recognized,
responsible, and limited.

MANNERS