Litchfield enquirer., 1870-07-28
MINORITY REPORT.
GENERAL ASSEMBLY,

The committee to whom was referred the petition of sundry persons asking for suf- frage for women in this state, beg leave to report that they have heard the petition CTS on this subject at great length, and among them some of its ablest advocates in the State. and after patient and care- full hearing, have arrived at the following conclusions:-- ... <. .....-.r s...--.
 That the change asked for by these pe- titioners, to wit:-The admission to the right of suffrage of the women of this state should not be granted unless it appears that majority of them are desirous of the privilege. No such evidence has been shown to your committee. On the contra ", we think facts will confirm what our observation teaches, that strong and de- cided opposition is felt and expressed to- wards this movement, by far the larger portion of the women of the state. Should the advocates of Woman Suffrage succeed in forcing the barriers, which usage, expe- diency, public opinion, and, we may add, nature itself, has raised, and should gain for themselves, and for women generally, the much coveted right of suffrage-by that act they would do moral violence to the convictions and deep rooted senti- ments of majority of the most Intelligent and thoughtful women in the state; fore ing them into the exercise of an undesired power in order to overbalance and over match the mischievous action of ignorant and misguided persons of their own sex, politicians aud plotting demagogues.
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 ter should not be made without good and sufficient reason. This change proposes giving the right of suffrage, and, to a cer- tain extent, the control of the great inter- ests of the State to thousands of females, many of them uneducated, without any ex- perience in public life, and very limited acquaintance with any of the political ques- tions of the day. And while we are free to confess that these objections may apply with equal force to as many men whom the ballot has never educated to intelligence and wisdom in public matters, still, the question arises, why duplicate this number, already quite too large for the safety of what we hold most valuable in the institu- tions of our commonwealth? We concede further that there are many women whose qualifications, and high toned character make them fully the peers of many men,. many who would exercise the ballot as in-. telligently, and with as clear an insight in- to the bearings of their action, as voters, on the great interest of the State and hu- manity. We contend, however, that al- though the power might safely and wisely be entrusted to such women, yet, in com. mon with other women, they labor under absolute disabilities for the functions and roughness of public life. These disabilities are not of mans devising. The Creator himself, when he placed upon woman the duty of wifehood and motherhood, by the very fact of those duties, and the attendant limitations of sex made her unfit for con- stant and continuous public life, unless she abstains from being either wife or mother. The boldest champion of female suffrage will scarcely claim but that there are dis abilities natural and inherent to women by the fact of her sex, which at times would prevent her from exercising the right of