New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1869-05-29
MISS pLcKLNsoN,S LEcrrRE.

Miss Anna Dickinson is very charming young
lady, endowed by heaven with many of those
choicest graces which have made her sex such
m awful power in the world ever since Eve
gave an apple to Adam in the Garden of Eden.
And like most young ladies, she is never more
fascinating than in the absolute unreason with
which she insists upon having her own way
The ballot is the natural and nalenable right
Of all human beings; to withhold it from woman
is to keep her in state of slavery govern
ment is tyranny TO me if do not consent to it.
! want TO vote and go to Congress, and if you
don't let me, III make you,-hero you have the
logic of her argument. If she could prore
that suffrage was the natural right Of both
sexes, she might stop there; but bless her
heart! she has never thought of that 1t is
enough for her that woman, having resolved to
demand political equality with man, is not to
be put aside by "any paltry OppOsition;' and
10 our suggestion that the consent OF the
human race in all ages as to the proper position Of
women is an evidence of Divine purpose, her
answer is short and decisive-"Who cares :"
There is an authority higher than the con-
&" sent of the human race" she says" the
''Rightr Which, with all Difference let us
remark, is palpable begging of the question;
general consent being the criterion by which
we propose to find out what the right is.
Neither has Miss Dickinson made il clear
that society would gain anything if woman
obtained the ballot as privilege. Under the
government of men, she says, we have secured
rum, prisons, poverty, and war. IL women
had a share of power there would be a millen-
mum of temperance and peace There would
be no liquor shops, husbands would never come
home with erratic night-keys, and legislators,
in their little debates, would not go for one
another, and stop half way to give the SER
geant-at-arms time to interrupt them, as hap
pened the other day in Ohio. Well, if Miss
Dickinson had the ordering of affairs under the
new regime we dare say it might be as she
says certainly, if she event for" anybody,
she would not stop half way. But has it mover
occurred to her that Crosby-st. would send
more women to the polls than the Twenty
third-st. Bureaui Are there 80 few drunken
wives and dissolute viragos that the admission
of women to tho suffrage would be sure to
improve the average morality Of the voting
population Men Of all classes go to the polls
without annoyance but women of all classes
would not. Bridget would vote, and her mis-
tress would stay at home. Are there not
women in the whisky-ringf Are not women
the worst and most dangerous agents of the
lobbyP Was there never q woman pardon
brOkerf
The great trouble with ladies like Miss Dick
inson is their forgetfuness of the all important
fact that the basis of society is the family. In
that sacred circle woman is the guardian angel,
and when she abdiCates the high trusts COM
mitted TO her there In order TO assume the
harder labors and sterner duties Of the other
sex, she does not raise herself; she descends.
Men and women, we have our respective
parts to perform, and we need not try to up
set the world by changing characters. When
the wife goes to ward caucuses and comes
homo with an cratic night-key, the husband
must sew on buttons and wash the baby, and
we don't think there will be anything gained
by tho exchange