which we
are governed.

While the woman does not discharge military duty, nor does she attend
courts and serve on juries, nor does she labor on the public streets,
bridges, or highways, nor does she engage actively and publicly in
the discussion of political affairs, nor does she enter the crowded
precincts of the ballot-box to deposit her suffrage, still the
intelligent, cultivated, noble woman is a power behind the throne. All
her influence is in favor of morality, justice, and fair dealing, all
her efforts and her counsel are in favor of good government, wise and
wholesome regulations, and a faithful administration of the laws. Such
a woman, by her gentleness, kindness, and Christian bearing, impresses
her views and her counsels upon her father, her husband, her brothers,
her sons, and her other male friends who imperceptibly yield to her
influence many times without even being conscious of it. She rules not
with a rod of iron, but with the queenly scepter; she binds not with
hooks of steel but with silken cords; she governs not by physical
efforts, but by moral suasion and feminine purity and delicacy. Her
dominion is one of love, not of arbitrary power.

We are satisfied, therefore, that the pure, cultivated, and pious
ladies of this country now exercise a very powerful, but quiet,
imperceptible influence in popular affairs, much greater than they
can ever again exercise if female suffrage should be enacted and they
should be compelled actively to take part in the affairs of state and
the corruptions of party politics.

It would be a gratification, and we are always glad to see the ladies
gratified, to many who have espoused the cause of woman suffrage if
they could take active part in political affairs, and go to the polls
and cast their votes alongside the male sex; but while this would be
a gratification to a large number of very worthy and excellent
ladies who take a different view of the question from that which we
entertain, we feel that it would be a great cruelty to a much larger
number of the cultivated, refined, delicate, and lovely women of
this country who seek no such distinction, who would enjoy no such
privilege, who would with woman-like delicacy shrink from the
discharge of any such obligation, and who would sincerely regret that,
what they consider the folly of the state, had imposed upon them any
such unpleasant duties.

But should female suffrage be once established it would become an
impe