The Portland daily press., 1868-07-23

1t is not necessary to be very strong par
tisan on either side of the woman's rights
question in order to have decided opinions in
respect to one collateral topic. Some of the
arguments against female suffrage are coward
ly, some of them absurd, some of them are
fnical and nearly all are illogical. The one
we now particularly refer to has all these ell
ements of weakness, the cowardice and sell
fishness largely predominating. Yet there is
not another that is so often resorted to with
an air OF triumph, as if the whole controversy
were thereby brought to an everlasting con-
clusion.
1t is exasperating beyond all measure even
to those who on other and more substantial
grounds would refuse to allow women to vote.
to hear the "narrow-minded blockheads" who
take up the discussion lay down the following
proposition: "If women must vote, very
likely we shall have to submit; but let them
remember that with the right comes CORE
spending duties. They must engage in all
the more laborious pursuits of manual indus
try; they must plow, follow the sea and be-
come bricklayers and porters; in times of
war they must bear arms and fight against
the public enemy; they must not expect gen.
tlemen to give up seats to them in public
places, but must take their chance with the
rest; any abuse that men choose to infict
upon them they must endure with the ut
most sweetness; they must not complain if
their fair names are slandered and traduced
in the heat of party politics; in short they
must become wholly masculine"
Now, gentlemen, what are you afraid Of?
Are you uncertain whether you can hold
you own against these feeble beings of whose
intellectual capacity you have so contemptu-
Gus an opinion? Are you afraid that you
cannot compete with them fairly in the vari-
Gus avocations of life and do you hope to
frighten them from the franchise by eneum-
bering it with such restrictions and obliga-
tions as were never heard of before?
These fellows call attention to their own
stupidity in this way and make it clear that
any intellectual qualification whatever would
prove fatal to their political rights. Is mill
tary service prescribed as condition of white
male suffrage? Does the aged or the infirm
man shoulder a musket in time of war or
suffer distranchisement as penalty? Seme
voters are required to serve the State in the
army in times of war, as some voters are re-
qured to pay taxes on their property. Others
are freed from any obligation to do either
These things have nothing to do with the
right to vote and it is an ineffable contempti-
BILE sophistry to attempt to connect them, in
the case of women, with grant of political
rights. If women have the right to vote,
concede it at once; if not deny them that
privilege on ground at least reasonable
enough to satisfy the logical requirements of
the intellect of South Sea savage.
Or if, chivalrous gentlemen, you mulishly
insist that woman, as recompense for re-
ceiving what she demands as right, shall
stand up in crowded horse-cars, put on the
blue uniform and go to the wars, furl top
sails and carry hods and be addressed in the
| turfy and obscene dialect which you use with
your male associates-if you insist on all this,
retribution will surely come for such incorri-
| gible wickedness. Perhaps it will come in
| this way: Have you heard of Nancy Lynch?
| She is an Amazon in armor, and leads the
cohorts of Lopez the autocrat OF Paraguay.
| Suppose the Woman's Rights Association
| should send to Nancy requisition for a
souad of her female soldiers and they should
come? A score of them would be sufficient
to sweep the whole pusillanimous race of you
from the face of the country in the course O.
ten secular days.