Some persons profess to
think it impossible to reason with a woman, and they certainly show no
disposition to try the experiment.
But we must remember that all our American institutions are based on
consistency, or on nothing; all claim to be founded on the principles of
natural right, and when they quit those, they are lost. In all European
monarchies, it is the theory, that the mass of the people are children,
to be governed, not mature beings, to govern themselves. This is clearly
stated, and consistently applied. In the free states of this Union, we
have formally abandoned this theory for one half of the human race,
while for the other half it still flourishes in full force. The moment
the claims of woman are broached, the democrat becomes a monarchist.
What Americans commonly criticize in English statesmen, namely, that
they habitually evade all arguments based on natural right, and defend
every legal wrong on the ground that it works well in practice, is the
precise characteristic of our habitual view of woman. The perplexity
must be resolved somehow. We seldom meet a legislator who pretends to
deny that strict adherence to our own principles would place both sexes
in precisely equal positions before law and constitution, as well as in
school and society. But each has his special quibble to apply, showing
that in this case we must abandon all the general maxims to which we
have pledged ourselves, and hold only by precedent.
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