If women are legally competent to hold minor offices, I would be glad to
have the rule of law, or of propriety, shown which should exclude them
from higher offices, and which marks the line between those which they
may and those which they may not hold.
Another objection is that women cannot serve as soldiers. To this I
answer that capacity for military service has never been made a test of
the right to vote. If it were, young men from sixteen to twenty-one
would be entitled to vote, and old men from sixty and up-wards would
not. If that were the test, some women would present much stronger
claims than many of the male sex.
Another objection is that engaging in political controversies is not
consistent with the feminine character. Upon that subject, women
themselves are the best judges, and if political duties should be found
inconsistent with female delicacy, we may rest assured that women will
either effect a change in the character of political contests, or
decline to engage in them. This subject may be safely left to their
sense of delicacy and propriety.
If any difficulty on this account should occur, it may not be impossible
to receive the votes of women at their places of residence. This method
of voting was practiced in ancient Rome under the republic; and it will
be remembered that when the votes of the soldiers who were fighting our
battles in the Southern States were needed to sustain their friends at
home, no difficulty was found in the way of taking their votes at their
respective camps.
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