by votes of men who saw that this work might be in great part best
done by them; if women had asked and offered for the place without
the jostle of the town-meeting, or putting in that wedge for
the ballot--the thing might have been as readily done, and the
objection, or political precedent, avoided.

It is not the real opportunity, when that arises or shows itself
in the line of her life-law, that is to be refused for woman. It
is the taking from internal power to add to external complication
of machinery and to the friction of strife. Let us just touch
upon some of the current arguments concerning these external
impositions which one set is demanding and the other entreating
against.

If voting is to be the chief power in woman's hands, or even a
power of half the moment that is contended for it, it will grow to
be the motive and end, the all-absorbing object, with women that
it is with men.

The gubernatorial canvass, the presidential year, these will
interrupt and clog all home business, suspend decisions, paralyze
plans, as they do with men, or else we shall not be much, as
thorough politicians, after all. And if we talk of mending all
that, of putting politics in their right place, and governing
by pure principle instead of party trick, and stumping and
electioneering, we go back in effect to the acknowledgment that
only in the interior work, and behind politics, can women do
better things at all; which, precisely, was to be demonstrated.

Think, simply, of election day for women.