The Portland daily press., 1869-01-20

Dol-What shall women do, after they are
allowed to vote, when case of irreconcilable
difference of opinion or interest oceurs2, An
swe1: just what they do noe in sueh case,i
it happens: keep their own counsel as
they do in the church-hold their tongues and
mind their own business, maintain their own
opinions y-yied-separate-or go to
Chicago. Do as sons do with fathers now:
os ,ohorors -clarka.--,-S. nruen 40 Win
.,-.vmpIoyers. Use argument and persua-
sion against despotism and authority.
But Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe overlooks
the unmarried altogether-the widows and
spinsters. What is to become of them? Why
must they give up Are they and their irrecon-
cilable opinions to De smothered, much as if
they were all afflicted with hydrophobia, be-
tween two feather beds?
Can it be possible that this exceedingly
clever woman, who is so much in earnest, and
laboring so conscientiously for the help of
women, does not know that ballots, to be
worth having must be secret9 What need
then, if she be reasonably discreet, and that
irreconcilable difference Of opinion exists, what
need that her husband or father should know
how she votes? Can she not keep her own
counsel? 1t is said that women can keep a
secret as well as men-but it takes more of
them to do it. Can this be true?
But she does not stop here. "Why should
we tease men for the right of Suffrage" she
asks, when they do not want to give it to US,
and when, If we had it perhaps, we could not
use 1t any better than we can lift the sledge
hammers which yet, they WELD so easily?"
AS if casting vote were like forging an
chors. Yet women do swing sledge hammers,
grub oaks, empty mines, load ships, and pillow,
yokel with cattle and led by mules and asses,
| and carry huge baskets of manure on their
backs, while their loving husbands and fathers
and sons carry the whip, and saunter along by
their sides, with pipe in their mouth.
NEUTRALITY-SUSPICIOUS. suffrage" she says,
that is, the regulation Of our own afairs"-cap-
| ital!-"the expression of our united opinion,
and the preferring of our united request. aoe
haze rao,c, aoitbout asking anyone for it," In
deed! But since when, pray you? And
where? To ask is one thing: to have is an.
other. And what is meant by a united opin-
ion? How many must unite before they are
listened to? And how many more to obtain a
favorable answer?
AT any moment, she adds, with bewitch-
ing simplicity, "We can select some town for
our headquarters, elect our delegates and send
them there with our instructions, as to the ia
vor, or petition, or remonstrance we wished
them to frame for presentation to the law
making power; and believe with "Gail Ham
ilton'-another of these warm headed, heroic,
dangerous women, who but half informed on
such grave questions, undertake to deal with
them authoritatively, as if womanly instinct
were demonstration; as if indeed they were ia
miliar with the great problem in all its bear
ings-"l believe that if the request were at all
wise or reasonable"-Wise or reasonable.
But who are to be the judges? Were the
women of New Jersey unwise or unreasona-
BILE when they asked TO be restored to their an
Gent constitutional right? Or the women of
England, who were lately thrown out of
Court, when they asked to be considered as
human beings? "And" she continues, off the
request were to come from the numerical ma
jority Of aconaen.' A pretty condition to be
surel But numerical majority of what
women? the women of neighborhood, city,
or commonwealth? or of the whole country d
Preposterous! Do men rely upon such a ma
Jorlty for themselves? And why shoul Id wom-
en-suppose it possible that they should ever
be OF one accord, or in one place. "The Leg
lslature would no more think of refusing it,
than just man would think of refusing wife
whom he trusted" And this in the teeth of
all history and all experience, if the phrase
numerical majority" has any meaning, or any
such meaning as men have, when, without an
nexing an imposs ible condition, they ask for
a redress of grievances. If numerical major
"y were insisted upon by our lawgivers, in any
case, there would be no hope for anybody; for
how could it ever be known, unless indeed,
women were allowed to vote and their names
were registered? But enongh-the ballot for
woman would be certificate of emancipation
-oftentimes comfortable support, and some
times an independence, as it now is with men,
who are only worth a vote. JOHN NEAL