West Virginia freeman. (Parkersburg, W. Va.) 1881-1886, 1885-08-26

struggles anu CoullICCS! VI Gall
you give the history of, the great
emancipation and not mention
"Uncle Toms Cabin" one of its
most potent causes? In the face
of these facts and thousand more,
who can imagine now, while
the world is marching forward with
such rapid strides, that woman has
retired to the shades of private life
and her political influence has sud-
denly ceased? The fact is too plain
for argument. But what is the Sc
cret of this power? What is its
extent, and what are to be its re-
suits? These are questions of pro-
foundest interest to US as people.
I. The first fact is this: Woman,
IS deeply interested IN all that affects
the prosperity of Nation.
This, also, is a proposition too
plain for argument. Woman is not
myth. She is not an ethereal,
unsubstantial creature, wholly in
dependent of her environments.
She is cast, indeed, in finer mold
than her brother, man, but she is
flesh and blood. She may be ele-
waited or degraded, happy or miser-
able. Life may be burden or a
delight. She is doomed, as child,
or wife, or sister, or mother, to share
the lot of man. Do the chains of
slavery bind him, she also is fet-
tered. Does the storm beat upon
his head, she too, feels its merciless
peltings. Is his life of toll and
sorrow? So is hers. Every iron
that enters into his soul pierces
hers also. And, so, his elevation
can only be secured by her emo
Element. Whatever his destiny,
through all his wanderings, woman
is his companion, and keeps step
with him on all heights and thro'
all depths. What folly then is the
effort to Danish her from realm SO
intimately related to her veal or
woe? Can she look upon a sorrow
that eats like a vulture at the very
vitals of a nation and not be moved ?
Can she look upon the letters that
bind in hopeless bondage the fairest
of the land and be indifferent?
Can she look upon husband, broth
er, son, dragged to ruin and crushed
to powder by some monster wrong
and be silent? Nay, can she see
home blighted and desolate, sit in
the midst Of poverty and desolation
more dreary than the grave; look
out into starless, hopeless night,
and read across every wave of an
guish, and on ali that inky sky,
the sentence, This is in accord
ance with law" and not find every
fibre of her being aroused in oppo-
sition to that law? Of what avail
will be the weak and stale plati-
tudes that declare woman's place
to be at home, in the midst of this
tempest of holy indignation and
wrath which these wrongs arouse?
We have read the story of Mrs.
Partington, who, one day in her
zeal, attempted to sweep back the
sea- 1t was encroaching upon her
domain. She would have none of
it. But the sea arose. Billow af-
ter billow swept through her door,
until, in despair,she was compelled
to abandon her house to the oceans
revels. Let the political Mrs. Part
ingtons take warning. This sea
can never be stayed by mop and
broom. The ocean has its rights,
and it will neither be intimidated
by sheer nor restrained by pack
thread. The law that robs the wife
of the wages of the husband, that
impoverishes and degrades her, that
orphans and ostracises her chill
dren; that has no right but the
right of the seller to feed and feast
upon the hopes and happiness of
his victims, the right of the few to
be enriched by the hopeless power
ty of the many; law that has no
defenders but the appetite it has
created and fostered, and the poll
ticians who are willing to barter
their manhood to secure its intlu-
ence, can never be secure from the
rising tide of woman's Indignation.
The stale plea that she will be de-
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