Whatever rights may be given
to them, and whatever duties may be charged upon them by human laws,
their general character will remain unchanged. Their modesty, their
delicacy, and intuitive sense of propriety, will never desert them, into
whatever new positions their added rights or duties may carry them.
So far as women, without change of character as women, are qualified to
discharge the duties of citizenship, they will discharge them if called
upon to do so, and beyond that they will not go. Nature has put barriers
in the way of any excessive devotion of women to public affairs, and it
is not necessary that nature's work in that respect should be
supplemented by additional barriers invented by men. Such offices as
women are qualified to fill will be sought by those who do not find
other employment, and others they will not seek, or if they do, will
seek in vain. To aid in removing as far as possible the disheartening
difficulties which women dependent upon their own exertions encounter,
it is, I think, desirable that such official positions as they can fill
should be thrown open to them, and that they should be given the same
power that men have to aid each other by their votes. I would say,
remove all legal barriers that stand in the way of their finding
employment, official or unofficial, and leave them as men are left, to
depend for success upon their character and their abilities.
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