Anti-slavery bugle. [volume] (New-Lisbon, Ohio) 1845-1861, 1852-06-12
REPORT OF A. BROOKE,
Ok THE CIVIL AND POLITICAL FUNoTroNs Of
WOMEN, IS TIE U. s.

Ok THE Civil AND POLITICAL FUNoTroNs OF
WOMEN, IS THE U. S.
at the request of your Standing Committee,
submit the following Report 1t will of ne.
ccssity be brief, since the Civil and Political
Functions, which it is permitted to females 90
exercise, are so few, and so scantily claimed
and possessed. In but one department of the
general government. it is believed. arc Nl-sse
services brought into requision. The post office
register, by hasty examination, appears to
contain the names of ono hundred and eleven
females, who occupy the position of post-mas-
ters. This is, perhaps, only an approximation
to the true number, since in many Of the names
registered only the initials OF the given name
is supplied All of these were rejected in
the count, and no means Of arriving at the ox-
act number are known to exist. Tho number
of post offices in tho United States at tho time
OF printing the last register, was about nno-
teen thousand three hundred and fifty four,
so that tho proportion Of females to that of males
employed, will be found to be one, to one hun
drcd and seventy four, Tho number employed,
however, is quite sufficient to prove that in tho
opinion of the appointing power, woman is fully
competent to tho performance of the duties
cxactcd from such an officer, aud the dispro-
portion between the employees of the different
| sexes, must be accounted for some other way,
/ than by the assumption of her incapacity or
unftncss.
These one hundred and eleven are very un-
equally distributed through the different states.
Thirty three, or nearly one third, are in Penn
sylvania nine in Virginia, nine in Indiana nine
in Missouri, six in Illinois, five in Maryland
five in Ohio, and four in North Carolina and
New Jersey each, three in New York, South
Carolina, Mississippi, Maine, and Connecticut
two in Louisiana, Kentucky, and Vermont, and
orc each in Massachusetts,, New Hampshire,
Tennessee, Alabama, Georgia, and Texas. The
name of no female appears in this connection
in eight states of this eonfederacy. 1t is not
improbable that occasionally females arc not
| appointed to the performance of official duties
in other departments of the government, through
neglect of their own, in applying for these
stations. The writer is acquainted with a
clerk in one of tho public offices at Washington,
who, by the infrmity of age, is incNpaciated
for the performance of duty, but who retains
his place and salary through the excrtions Of
his wife, woman comparatively young, and
by whom all the duties pertaining to the situa-
ton are satisfactorily executed. Whilst woman
possesses no vote, and of course has but limited
political influence, it is not to be supposed that
her appointments to lucrative official stations
will bo frequent, since the appointing power
must be expected to employ its authority in such
n way as will best secure its own advancement
and perpetuation, yet the effort to obtain it, by
those females who are inclined to such employ
ment, and adapted to it, would be worth the
making.
In civil functions created or permitted by the
municipal laws of the several state governments
the only one known to the writer to have been
exersised by females, is the right to vote as o
householder" at the annual or other school
meetings, and this in very limited extent
In the school district in which live, this right
has been claimed, persisted in against some OPP
position, and exercised by a widow, the mother
of large family, and also by young lady.
The newspapers have also chronicled simi'
lar concession to the exersise of an obvious