POLITICAL RIGHTS AND DUTIES OF WOMEN. 81 



liable to have any domestic duties or relations which will disen- 

 able her from performance of all the employments which citizen- 

 ship might impose upon her. To require her to hold herself 

 liable to be drafted as a soldier in case of invasion or rebellion 

 might not seem in these times of peace necessary, but that she 

 could and would perform the duties of any office to which she 

 would be liable by the very franchise she had sought to obtain, 

 without pleading any exemption or disability due to her perma- 

 nent condition as woman, would seem a not unreasonable require- 

 ment. If, in the discretion of the judge, she should successfully 

 pass this preliminary examination, let her be admitted to full 

 citizenship, with the right to be an elector, and to be elected to 

 office on the same terms with men ; while women generally, who 

 do not desire even to vote, who are appalled at the thought of 

 competing for office, and for whom the duties of any office are 

 utterly incompatible with their fidelity as wives and mothers, 

 are left in the political status which they prefer. 



It is not assuming too much to anticipate that both these 

 alternative propositions, if submitted as a definite settlement of 

 the woman question to those persons of both sexes who, on either 

 side of the Atlantic, have by their zeal and devotion earned 

 the right to be considered as the leaders of what is called the 

 woman movement, would be listened to with disdainful satire 

 and scorn. It is avowed by all these persons, who speak frankly, 

 that women want the ballot in order that they may become can- 

 didates and officeholders, and so be able in the interest of their 

 own sex to affect local, State, and national legislation. We may, 

 therefore, lay on the table the specific question of giving the bal- 

 lot to women leave it unsettled conceding that, if it were only 

 that, the matter might be arranged to meet the wishes of the 

 petitioners, and confine ourselves in this discussion to the rights 

 and qualifications of women to be the administrators of political 

 power, and the effect which the exercise by women of those polit- 

 ical functions now performed exclusively by men would have 

 upon the welfare and character of women generally. 



I. To the complete performance of such political functions 

 there is this serious natural impediment : four fifths of the women 

 all the world over, between the ages of twenty and sixty, are 

 occupied with paramount domestic obligations quite incompatible 

 with that integrity of devotion to public duties which all the 

 great executive, judicial, and legislative offices demand of those 

 who fill them. Under this disability of Nature, or closely related 

 to it, all the objections to the exercise of political functions by 

 women may be classed, so that no other objection need be consid- 

 ered. If the mother of a family of young children should give 

 to the office of President, Governor, judge, or sheriff that entire 



YOL. XLIX. 8 



