Rutland weekly herald. [volume] (Rutland, Vt.) 1859-1877, 1870-02-24
Speeches By Mrs. Jal7ia Ward Aoaee, Vim.
Lloyd Garrison and Mrs.
Adz @. 30 ,tles.

Suffrage in Vermont
AT the appointed hour, 7.3O p. m, the
hall was we'll filed with an appreciative
audience, who had come to hear the words
of encouragement and counsel on this
subject which is so fast winning favor in
the hearts of the masses, and which ere
long must become one of the greatest pc.
lticnl issues which has ever agitated this
or any other country. Soon after 7.3O
the stage was occupied by Hon. S. M
Dorr, who presided at the meeting, as
well as William Lloyd Garrison and Julia
Ward Howe of Boston and Ada @. Bowles
of Cambridge, Mass, Rev. Addison Brown
of Brattleboro, and Rev. l.. w. Brigham
and Newman Weeks of this place.
Mr.. Dorr called the meeting to order
and made few preliminary remarks, sub.
stantially as follows:
Ladies and Gentlemen: - Not many
weeks since few friends of the
cause of Woman Suffrage assembled
at Montpelier and formed State Asso
citation, reaching out in its organization
into every county in the commonwealth
After the close of it's session he learned
for the first time, through the press, that
he had been selected as the Vice President
of the Association for Rutland county, a
fact which surprised him, as he had not
supposed he occupied so advanced u posi-
tion as AN advocate of the cause rs to en-
title hun to the honor The Council OF
Ccnsors had called convention of the
people to assemble in Montpelier in
June next, to approve or reject
amendments to the constitution which
that body, in its deliberations, had
proposed, the provision of the principal
one of which was that thereafter Women
shall be entitled to vote with no other re-
strictions than those imposed upon Men"
This proposition we are assembled to dis
russ. 1t is a new one, and we expect
oppostion but the people of Vermont
will listen to it, for they are an intelli-
gent aud reading people, and he thought
they would eventually decide in its favor.
He would now introduce to the audience
Mrs. Julia Ward Howe of Boston. Mrs.
Howe made An elaborate and scholarly
argument in favor of the theory of Wo-
man Suffrage, saying among other things:
o LddieS and Gentlemen We have been
iavited here to address you on the sub
ject Of Woman Suffrage, and come with
words OF peace. come TO advocate that
which is only supposable on the founda-
tious of ideal justice. Since the settle
nent of America, the sublime fact just
mentioned has ceased to be resident of
Utopia. Our institutions have labored to
give it local habitation and name to
be- known among men. And l., asking
the Acknowledgement of woman, have no
hattie TO wage against the true spirit of
our day and of our society. l have but
to bring that spirit more clearly into
cons2iousness. l have to indicate its true
direction Il little beyond the days march
with which we are all familiar | have
nothing to destroy Providence has
something TO fulfill. I have only to desire
and to pray that this fulfllnent may find
us willing and wakeful, not inert and
uuprovided.
I, though no apostle, have good news to
tell you, news that shall make beautiful
the feet Of him who brings it. And
my news is this The longest union, the
deepest diseord in the whole symphony of
the human race approaches solution The
new heavens and the new earth which
prophetic males have always diseerned,
are now to revealed to the people at large.
What may most astonish them will be
the discovery that this new world arises
out of the destruction of the world we
already know. Neither is it to be found
by long and tedious route of. sexplora-
ton. The new world will only be the
old one as patent to new sense. 1t is
by learning the value and insignifcance
OF the world we already possess that our
domain is to be doubled, and with it, our
resources and our responsibility.
The actual value of woman as now ex-
listing throughout the world need not here
be discussed. 1t exists in a crude, indie
terminate state, corresponding to what
would be the aggregate value of man, be-
fore trades and professions should have |
asserted their capacities, their offices and
their opinions. To woman the inevitable
functions of nature, and the offices near
est TO those functions, have been left. In
the higher departments of ideal duty and
production she has had to make her way,
il at ALL unbidden. In this country,
where the doors of culture are opened to
her so much more widely than elsewhere,
and where she enjoys her full share of
the money and leisure without which edu-
cation cannot be attained, singular care
seems to be taken in order that the most
serious studies should be followed by her
in a trifing manner, in order that the
noble tools of intellectual science should
become toys in her hands.
AS we will not have the man of pro-
perty vote to the exclusion of the man
without means, neither will we have the
woman of property exercise a sovereign
prerogative denied to her poorer sisters.
There is no power in vote. If it out
leaps possibilities and denies eternal prin-
ciples, it is powerless, dead letter, an
unrneaning fact. But there is instruction
In vote and opportunity, and sacred
duty to inquire for the best and choose u
A vote opens the widest door to practical ,
possibility. Dangerous and unjust in the
hands of one or of several, its exercise by
the community affords the stateliest COM
bination of opinions and interests. One
man may dread to will and twenty may
dread to vote, but the multitude may go
to the poles with clean hands and a pure
heart' Each exercises his own right, to
the exclusion OF none. The free act of
power has no victim. The father and the