And her first major book, Some Ethical Gains through Legislation articulated ethical arguments in favor of state interventions in the labor place. The book argued that when the strong exploited the weak, the community experienced an ethical loss, and when the strong protected the weak, the community experienced an ethical gain. This argument directly countered Darwinian notions about the survival of the fittest, although it never mentioned that competing ethic. There is nothing more moralizing going on at the present in the United States than this shifting of responsibility from the weaker to the stronger. The chief enemy of such moral or ethical gains was economic competition, which forced ethical employers to adopt unethical practices in order to stay in business.
Leisure never comes to young girls and children employed in manufacturing and commerce . . .
For this reason, legislation served as the community's chief means of achieving ethical gains. Kelley depicted women readers as solidly with her on this score. So much so, that in her analysis woman suffrage was by definition an ethical gain. The chief difference between the two reflects the difference in Protestant religious discourse in the two eras. Grimke was in direct touch with a personal God.