purpose.

That women, when they vote, will commit their full share of errors I have
always maintained. But that they will collectively misuse their power seems
to me out of the question; and that the good women are going to stay at
home, and let bad women do the voting, appears quite as incredible. In
fact, if they do thus, it is a fair question whether the epithets "good"
and "bad" ought not, politically speaking, to change places. For it
naturally occurs to every one, on election day, that the man who votes,
even if he votes wrong, is really a better man, so far as political duties
go, than the very loftiest saint who stays at home and prays that other
people may vote right And it is hard to see why it should be otherwise with
women.

HOW WOMEN WILL LEGISLATE

It is often said that when women vote their votes will make no difference
in the count, became they will merely duplicate the votes of their husbands
and brothers. Then these same objectors go on and predict all sorts of evil
things for which women will vote quite apart from their husbands and
brothers. Moreover, the evils thus predicted are apt to be diametrically
opposite. Thus Goldwin Smith predicts that women will be governed by
priests, and then goes on to predict that women will vote to abolish
marriage; not seeing that these two predictions destroy each other.

On the other hand, I think that the advocates of woman suffrage often err
by claiming too much,--as that all women will vote for peace, for total
abstinence, against slavery, and the rest. It seems better to rest the
argument on general principles, and not to seek to prophesy too closely.
The only thing which I feel safe in predicting is that woman suffrage will
be used, as it should be, for the protection of woman. Self-respect and
self-protection,--these are, as has been already said, the two great things
for which woman needs the ballot.

It is not in the nature of things, I take it, that a class politically
subject can obtain justice from the governing class. Not the least of the
benefits gained by political equality for the colored people of the South
is that the laws now generally make no difference of color in penalties for
crime. In slavery times there were dozens of crimes which were punished
more severely by the statute if committed by a slave or a free negro than
if done by a white. I feel very sure that under the reign of impartial
suffrage we should see fewer such announcem