The Monitor. [volume] (Woodstown, N.J.) 1884-1892, 1889-12-27
queen. or the Republic.


At the recent ANIMAL meeting OF the
| Nebraska Woman Suffrage Association,
Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton said:
Would that | could awake in the minds
of my oountrywomen the dignity of this
demand for the right of suffrage: what it
is to be queens in their own right; instrust-
ed with the power of self gosernment, pos
sessed of all the privileges and immunities
of American citizens. The ballot is the
crown of honor and the seeptre of power
in a republic: by it our social, religious
and political relations are all regulated.
Are not the educated women Of America as
capable of welding this power as Victoria of
England, and IS not individual sovereignty
in a republic as exalted As in a monarchy?
What American woman would scOrn the
position of Britain's Queen? And yet the
position of an American citizen is prouder
far. if the duties of self government are full
ly discharged. Who ever heard of an heir
apparent to a throne in the Old World
Indicating his rights because some con-
servatiYe politician or austere bishop
doubted woman's capacity to govern: His
tory affords no such example. Those
who have had a right to a throne have in
variably taken possession oft, and against
intriguing cardinals, ambitious mobiles and
jealous kinsmen fought to the death even
to- maintain the royal prerogatiyes that by
Inheritance were theirs. When | hear
American women, descendants of Jeffer-
son, Hancock and Adams, say they do not
want to vote, | feel that the blood OF
revolutionary heroes must have long since
ceased to flow in their veins. When |
heard tina a body of Massachusetts, wom-
en- bad actully been before their Legislature
to beg that the women of the State might
not be enfranchised, | blushed for my sex.
Suppose when the day dawned for Vic
toria to be crowned Queen of England, she
had gone before the House of Commons
and begged that such terrible responsible
tiles might not be Land on her, declaring
that she had not the moral stamina nor in
telleetual ability for the position; that her
natural delicaey aud refinement shrank
from the encounter; that she was looking
forward to the all-absorbing duties of do
mestic life, to a husband, children, home,
to her influence in the social circle where
the Christian graces are best employed.
Suppose with a tremulons voice and a few
stray tears in her blue eyes, her head
dropping on one side, she had said she
knew nothing of the science of government;
that a crown did not befit a woman's brow;
| that she had not the physical strength to
even move her nations flag. and much less
to hold the sceptre of power over so vast
| an empire: that in case OF wal she could
not fight, and hence she could not reign,
as there must be force behind the throne,
and the force must be centred in the hand
| that governed. What would her Parlia-
ment have thought? What would other
nations have thought? All alike would
have been astounded and said: ''The girl
is demented the blood in the house of Han
over has run out" Instead, however, of
making such a pitifuI spectacle of herself,
she prepared herself by study and refiec-
ton for the exalted position she was to oc-
cupy, and when the hour for coronation ar
rived, though only seventeen years of age,
she walked down the spacious aisle
of Westminster Abbey, surrounded
by the dignitaries of CHI urc h
and state, lords and ladies and foreign dip
lomats, with a grace and dignity becoming
the grandeur of the occasion. And there
at the altar she took the oath ''to support
the civil laws, customs and statutes, the
laws of God, the Protestant reformed re-
ligion, the Church of England, and prom.
ised security for tine Church of Scotland"
the Archbishop of Canterbury administer
ing the oath, and placing the crown worn
by a long line of kings upon her brow.
Thus she accepted her high honors with
dignity, and the nation ran G with plaudits
Tor their youthful queen.
1he Cost of a Hue