The new Northwest. [volume] (Portland, Or.) 1871-1887, 1877-06-08
ARGUMENT
Made Before the OanyOnville Literary
Society by DR.. E. A. Jones.

| 1ue subject OF our ueOaJo Tonight is
one of much future Importance, and
! gives to the mind an abundance of fu-
ture thought, and from this school-room
will echo the terminating sequel in the
ballot-bOx. That suffrage to woman
per Sc is her right, no sane council of
men will undertake to dispute.
Shall we, as law-abiding citizens, re-
flute the laws we have made? Shall we,
as the supporters of the Constitution of
this grand Republic, dispute its prerog-
ative and trample under foot the very
essence of its language? In a word,
shall we permit taxation without rep
resentation? What does the COnstitu-
tion say upon this point? 1t says, "no
taxation without representation" and
what does this mean? 1t means that
men and women that pay taxes are en-
titled both alike to suffrage, and say,
strike this clause from the Declaration
of Independence, or let the women have
the right of suffrage.
But again, our opponents give US
many lucid and humorous reasons why
women should not vote. According to
this plan of argument, woman is only a
piece of machinery, and, like musical
box, must play to whatever tune he, the
lord of creation, may desire. Oh, men
are you not labOring under grand mis-
take, and are not your imaginations
vague and void of reason? Have you
read history or the daily columns of
your newspapers? ? Have you studied
Joan of Arc, a Lady Jane Gray,
| Nightingale, an Elizabeth, a Mary,
Queen of Scots, and Victoria, the pres
ent Queen of England, who has been on
the English throne forty years, and
governed it as it was never so we'll gov
erned? 1 could name thousands of
others as noble in the culture of the arts
and sciences. Let me ask you how
many women stand up to-day, aye, to-
night, as the only support of large
! family-women whose husbands have
died the death of the debauchee, leav-
ing them to battle against the world,
the flesh, and the devil. This is not
fiction, but facts too true, and if all this
be true, why not let woman have the
right to vote, that she may amend the
wrong by exercising the right to amend
the law that makes her to-day what she
ought not to be, serf to man, his slave,
his maid of all work.
As regards woman physically, must
admit medicO lego judicdtunl, that for
some of the pursuits of toll and labor,
she is not as well adapted as her brother
man. But shall the clay say to the
potter, "Why hast thou formed me
thus?" Her physical disability does
not incapacitate her any more than it
does the cripple or the 10000 pensioners
drawing aims from her pocket, and yet
these have the right of the franchise.
And, again, physically she has shown
strength fully equal to mans. Please
let me call your attention tdshhe stage,
to the farm, on the ocean, with trum-
pet in hand, commanding as never
commander was heard to command.
See her in the ship-building yards of
Boston, New York, Philadelphia, and
Baltimore, with adj and square in
hand, instructing the lords of creation
in this formidable work of ship building.
See her at the spinning wheel and weav-
ing mill, and 'loOk upon factor after
factor and feel abased," oh, shameless
man of cOwardly physique! And please
follow me still little further. Visit, if
you please, the larger cities of these
United States, and as you pass each
shop and store, she is there, not as pur-
chaser, but as seller. Go, if you please,
to the printing offices, and see her set
type. Stay little longer and look over
her composition, and scratch your head
for thought how you shall compete
with your rival. We must go further
still. Upon the battlefield she's there
enduring all the privations in the hos
pital on the tented ground, and you
who made this quarrel are not the only
men to fight. And for all this you
claim she is not entitled physically to
, the right of suffrage.
1 ask you, oh, pompous man, whose
! only light is the phosphoric gas you ex-
ude, do you call these and many others
f that 1 have not time or space to
enumerate, physically inferior to you ?
And would you still withhold from her
who has every right in this noble land
of her fathers the right of suffrage
Would you keep in bondage and usurr
authority over one whom you pretend
r to so worship? Are you willing to
l share your home with her, but set a
lock on her tongue, and place watch
upon her every movement? Her phys.
ical disqualifications are but poor rea.
: son why we, as men, should hinder hel
by legislative power from depositing
her ballot and participating with US
, fully in the right of suffrage.
We must now come to her mora
? character, and in this we find her mans
: superior in the broadest sense of the
term. And l must here say that, haC
t she the right of suffrage, there is nc
doubt in my mind that by her actions
i in the halls of our Legislature mer