aithful
from their propriety. Henry B. Blackwell came to the rescue, and
ably answered the _Vermont Watchman_:

The _Vermont Watchman_ evades the discussion of the question
whether women shall be entitled to vote, by raising false issues.
The editor asserts that "many of the advocates of suffrage have
thrown scorn upon marriage and upon the Divine Word." That
assertion we denounced as an unfounded and wicked calumny. We
also objected to it as an evasion of the main question. Thereupon
the _Watchman_, instead of correcting its mistake and discussing
the question of suffrage, repeats the charge, and seeks to
sustain it by garbled quotations and groundless assertions, which
we stigmatized accordingly. The _Watchman_ now calls upon us to
retract the stigma. We prefer to prove that our censure is
deserved, and proceed to do so.

The first quotation of the _Watchman_ is from an editorial in the
_Woman's Journal_, entitled "Political Organization." The object
of which was to show the propriety of doing what the _Watchman_
refuses to do--viz.: of discussing woman suffrage upon its own
merits. It showed the unfairness of complicating the question
with other topics upon which friends of woman suffrage honestly
differ. It regretted that "many well-meaning people insist on
dragging in their peculiar views on theology, temperance,
marriage, race, dress, finance, labor, capital--it matters not
what." It condemned "a confusion of ideas which have no logical
connection," and protested "against loading the good ship, Woman
Suffrage, with a cargo of irrelevant opinions." The _Watchman_
cites this article as an admission that some of the friends of
suffrage advocate free-love. Not at all. The editor of the
_Watchman_ is himself one of the well-meaning people alluded to.
He insists on dragging in irrelevant theological and social
questions. He refuses to confine himself to the issue of
suffrage. The _Watchman_ quotes a single sentence of the
following statement:

The advocates of woman's equality differ utterly upon every
other topic. Some are abolitionists, others hostile to the
equality of races. Some are evangelical Christians; others
Catholics, Unitarians, Spiritualists, or Quakers. Some hold
the most rigid theories with regard to