, agitating this question of female suffrage. While some of them
may, as is frequently charged, be courting notoriety, I have no
doubt they are generally earnestly engaged in a work which, in their
opinion, would better their condition and would do no injury to
society.

In all this, however, I believe they are mistaken.

I think the mental and physical structure of the sexes, of itself,
sufficiently demonstrates the fact that the sterner, more laborious,
and more difficult duties of society are to be performed by the male
sex; while the more delicate duties of life, which require less
physical strength, and the proper training of youth, with the proper
discharge of domestic duties, belong to the female sex. Nature has so
arranged it that the male sex can not attend properly to the duties
assigned by the law of nature to the female sex, and that the female
sex can not discharge the more rigorous duties required of the male
sex.

This movement is an attempt to reverse the very laws of our being,
and to drag woman into an arena for which she is not suited, and to
devolve upon her onerous duties which the Creator never intended that
she should perform.

While the husband discharges the laborious and fatiguing duties of
important official positions, and conducts political campaigns, and
discharges the duties connected with the ballot-box, or while he bears
arms in time of war, or discharges executive or judicial duties, or
the duties of juryman, requiring close confinement and many times
great mental fatigue; or while the husband in a different sphere of
life discharges the laborious duties of the plantation, the workshop,
or the machine shop, it devolves upon the wife to attend to the duties
connected with home life, to care for infant children, and to train
carefully and properly those who in the youthful period are further
advanced towards maturity.

The woman with the infant at the breast is in no condition to plow
on the farm, labor hard in the workshop, discharge the duties of a
juryman, conduct causes as an advocate in court, preside in important
cases as a judge, command armies as a general, or bear arms as a
private. These duties, and others of like character, belong to the
male sex; while the more important duties of home, to which I have
already referred, devolve upon the female sex. We can neither reverse
the physical nor the moral laws of our nature, and as this movement is
an attempt to reverse these la