Rensselaer Republican, Volume 16, Number 44, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 10 July 1884 — Wallace on Women's Rights. [ARTICLE]

Wallace on Women's Rights.

Extract from an oration delivered at Rensselaer, Ind., July 4th 1884: Has it never occured to you, fellow citizens, that our political system, if carried to its logical results and justly applied, would place the ballot in the hands of every woman in the laud? Why not ? They are a part of cur people. A part did Isay? They constitute a majority ot all our people. They are subject to the laws; they pay taxes; they aie as intellegent and patriotic as the men, and are vastly more conscientious. If I were asked today, „who are the most inconsistent of all inconsistent men and women, in America?” I would without a moment’s hesitation, an-swer,-“The opponents of Woman Suffrage. . Think of its They proclaim that man and woman have different natures, and yet maintain that man can represent woman better than woman can represent herself; admit that woman possesses intelligence and mental 'endorments equal to man, ancl yet maintain that she lacks business and political sense; they protest that virtue is the most essential qualification of the citizen voter, and yet maintain that women, who possesses this qualification in the highest degree, should be excluded from the polls; th§y admit to the ballot box the worst elements of society, and yet maintain that the best elements should be excluded from it; they believe that nature established the home, and yet maintain that a legislative enactment giving the ballot to women, will tear it down; they concede that woman is the best sculptor of human character, the grandest teacher of the citizen voter, and yet maintain that the product wrought is everything, the artist nothing,—-the pupil, a king, the teacher, a slave; they assert that all goverments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed, and maintain that governments should be established and laws enacted with the consent of less than one-half of the people; they declare that taxation of man without representation is tyranny, but that taxation of woman without representation is a blessing; they trust the Negro, the Chinaman, the Irishman, the German, the Hottentot and the South Sea Islander, if these choose to come to our shores, but they refuse to trust their own wives and mothers. They fear that if the latter should breathe the pure air of political freedom, it would poison their moral lungs; they fear that the flower of modesty, though watered by the dews of liberty, would wither in the sunshine of freedom; they fear that the cords of affection which break not at the drunkard’s strain, will snap asunder at the first touch of political difference; they fear that the love of the mother for her ehikh which as in the case of Ben Hur’s mother, chooses for herself misery and death to save her offspring, will be swallowed up iu the love of politics; in one word, they fear that Woman is, by nature, unfitted for freedom. Fellow citizens, I set niy foot upon this and I declar, here, on this Independence Day, that freedom—freedom intellectual, freedom moral, freedom civil, freedom political—is as truly the natural possession of woman as it is of man, and that it is as necessary to her highest and best development as it is to his.

After all, fellow citizens, is it not true, in spite of our principles, that our boasted Republic is, practically, but the go Vermont of a class, for a class, and by a class? But the times are auspicious! The word moves; and, walk my words the day is not tar distant, when our wives and daughters shall walk with us to the polls, us they now go with u» to political meetingsand h ourtu of J mycelebrations.