The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-06-23
MILL AND BUSHNELL ON FEMALE
SUFFRAGE

From, the N. Y Times.
1t is fortunate thing that the discussion of
one of the most serious questions of the age
has at length been taken out of the hands of
platform spouters and rather weak young
women, and has been carefully taken up by
two of the leading spirits of England and
America.
Stuart Mill is now confessedly the foremost
intellect in the field of both abstract and eco
nomic investigation in Great Britain. No
one has done more in Europe to clear up to
the popular mind the science of political eco
nomy, and no living writer has better
analyzed the proper functions of government.
His researches in philosophy and metaphysics
have aided to form a school of thought which
exerts now a prodigious influence over the
intellect of England His recent career as
practical legislator and reformer has increased
the popular interest in whatever he writes or
says; and his well-known profound sympathy
with our Union and with all that is first in
America makes him listened to even more at
tentively here than in his own country
He approaches, however, in his present
theme, ''The Subjection of Women" a sub
ject on which he has thus far contributed but
little to the thought of the age 1t is one,
also, not entirely adapted to his genius. 1t is
doubtful if he has studied the influence and
interplay of social and personal forces, as he
has economic or metaphysical principles. Nor
is the study of the historical derivation of the
institutions and customs of this day as much
his field as many other branches of investiga-
ton. He enters ON the matter, however, with
zest and fire which alone will make his book
read wherever the question of woman's posi-
ton and rights is even thought of, and he
treats it, it need not be said, with a style as
limpid and clear as is his usual csrrent of
thought. E.E ,E 'e III II
His opponent, Rev. DIR. Bushnell, is a cler-
gyman well known among religious thinkers
through both England and America. Though
not logician, like Mr.. Mill, he has the intui-
tion of genius, and often sees at once conclu-
sions which the slow reason of investigators
| is long in reaching. His field is especially
| the analysis and comprehension of personal
character, of the profound moral forces of
human life; his imagination is one of the
! highest and purest which has ever been shown
in theological and religious writing, and his
style, in our judgment, is unequaled by any
| American sermonizer. Fortunately for his
treatment of this subject he has wide and
liberal estimate, possessed by few clergymen
| of the social power which may be welded by
women, both in dress, art, literature, anc
society. He enters on the subject too, with
| profound interest; and his title is as bold as
his antagonists 'Women's Suffrage, or the
Reform against Nature.
Singularly enough, the logician does no
show as much art in the first presenting O
his case as the clergyman.
Mr.. Mill, who evidently writes under
strong personal fe cling, is too hot in the be
ginning and plum ges at once into his conclu
sion, calling women Immediately 'slaves,
and alluding to them as ''slaves' in repeated
instances, so as rather to offend the unbiased
reader, by being forced to a conclusion 70
which he is not at all prepared. DIR. Bush
nell, on the other hand, with more rhetorical
skill, admits the many wrongs and injustice
practised against women, avows his readiness
to give them under marriage all and entir
possession of their property, and protect then
in it, and is quite willing that they shoulC
enter many professions and pursuits nov
closed to them. But all this he allows, in orde
to give more force to his conclusion, of thu
great and terrible damage threatened
to society from admitting them t
the right of suffrage. We have moi
space here to give the points of his
argument. They are certainly most serious
and weighty; powerful, however, mainly a.
profound and deep-reaching statements rat he
than logical arguments. They rest mainly OF
the point which Mr.. Mill most contests. or a
least maintains is not proven, ''the subiec
nature OF women, not an inferior nature, bu
such a constitution as units her to govern
DR. Bushnell breads, most of all the unsex
ing woman by this reform, or stimulating he
unnaturally, SO as TO destroy her charm an,
tend to weaken marriage. Mr., Mill, on tn
other hand, maintains that no legislation cal
change nature, and that we do not know ye
what woman s nature is; and that her highe
intellectual and political position will tend X
make marriage what in the most civilize'
countries it now is rapidly approaching
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