Then, women render an equivalent to the State, and
risk their lives in doing it, quite as much as soldiers or sailors; not,
however, in destroying human life, but in perpetuating it. As recruiting
agents, therefore, and the first drill-masters or instructors of the
members of future battalions, they serve the Government as effectually
as any standing army.
It does not follow, then, that as a consequence of being permitted to
vote, or being admitted to other privileges, women must load the cannon
or wield the sword. We wonder if the originator of such an attempt at
intimidation ever heard of Joan of Arc or Margaret of Anjou.
It is claimed that women are unfit for public life because--another
unproved assertion--they are incapable of reasoning logically or
speaking fluently. Women have had but little opportunity afforded them
for public speaking; yet, even with the slight advantages which they
have possessed, they have proved themselves quite as capable of
arriving at a high standard of reasoning or oratory as the majority of
the opposite sex. Anna Dickinson will draw a full house in any city in
the United States; and disinterested listeners (men) have pronounced her
lectures unsurpassed, in close reasoning and power of fervid eloquence,
by any male lecturer in the Union. But, say some, all women are not
equally gifted; there are few endowed with the talents or voice of Miss
Dickinson.
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