Ashtabula weekly telegraph. [volume] (Ashtabula, Ohio) 1853-1873, 1869-09-25
From the Cincinnati Commercial.
Obstacle to Female Suffrage,

Obstacle to Female Suffrage.
The most impressive fact in connection
with the movement for female suffrage is
the serious earnestness of those who
have undertaken its accomplishment.
No one who has attended the sessions of
the convention, held in Pixies Hall, can
have failed to observe that all the speak
ers were influenced in what they said by
the nest profound convictions and ex-
hibited personal solioitude for the con-
vietion of others so intense as to be al
most painful This was especially mani
tested in their appeals to their own sex,
indifference to the cause they have so
much at heart is the great obstacle which
they have to overcome. They say, and,
no doubt, truly, that if their sex were
United in the demand Tor the ballot it
would not be long withheld, and they
appeal to the sisterhood to throw off the
lethargy, see for themselves in what
wretched plight they are, and unite in
petitioning for privilege that is not
withhold from men, drunk or sober, wise
or foolish, learned or illiterate.
1t would be discouraging fact for
the reformers were it established that
the majority Of women are Indifferent as
to the ballot because they are satisfied
with the use made of it by their hus-
bands, and brothers, and fathers; and
yet we are puzzled to attribute the un-
questioned indifference existing to any
other adequate cause. The women of
America, we mean nine-tenths of them
at least, are conscious of no such wrong
or injustice in their personal experience
as to render them discontented with the
present distribution of political rights
and franchises.
This, however, docs not affect the alb
stract question of the right of woman to
the ballot When it comes to that, Mrs.
Livermore and Mrs. Stanton have the
best of the argument, and no man who
has regard for his reputation as a logician
will undertake to break lance with
them, unless he is prepared TO do as DIR.
Bushnell in his "Reform against Nature"
has done deny the doctrine enunciated
in the preamble of the declaration, and
take refuge behind the ample robes of
that venerable bachelor and apostle, st.
Paul.
The eloquent assurances of Mrs. Liv-
ermore and Mrs. Stanton, that they are
in an unspeakably miserable and forlorn
condition without the ballot, and several
degrees beneath the enfranchised blacks,
will not work conviction in the hearts of
women, unless they have at least dim
consciousness of degradation, and feel
something of the inferiority which they
are told attaches to their position. The
monstrous males, with cunning of which
they hardly have knowledge them
selves, have so hedged the women round
with domestic and social pleasures, and
persist in personally paying them such
tributes of admiration and respect, that
the maj iority of women can not make up
their foolish little minds that they are
not the equals of the men, or that there
is any right, privilege or immunity worth
having that they do not possess already.
To be sure, the deeply penetrating, the
thinking, the sagacious women see
through their weak devices, and de-
nounce man for the monster that he is.
They insist upon equality in all things,
and refuse TO be happy till it is granted.
This is well. And now the men who
monopolize ballots and offices stand re-
spectfnlly before them and make answer
to their cry. Whenever it is the sense,
clearly expressed, of majority OF your
sex that their welfare and happiness will
be promoted by the franchise, it shall not
be withheld; only of this we must be
first assured. Thus the mission of the
retormers is simplitied. They have but
one sex to convert to their way Of think
ing, and that is their own.