Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States, - 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, and January 25, 1887 by Various
page 118 of 234 (50%)
page 118 of 234 (50%)
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can no longer be done if we attempt the handling of political
machinery--the making of platforms, the judging of candidates, the measuring and disputation of party plans and issues, and all the tortuous following up of public and personal political history. Do you say, men have their individual work in the world, and all this beside and of it, and that therefore we may? Exactly here comes in again the law of the interior. Their work is "of it"--falls in the way. They rub against it as they go along. Men meet each other in the business thoroughfares, at the offices and the street corners; we are in the dear depths of home. We are with the little ones, of whom is not this kingdom, but the kingdom of heaven, which we, through them, may help to come. This is just where we must abandon our work, if we attempt the doing of theirs. And here is where our prestige will desert us, whenever great cause calls us to speak from out our seclusions, and show men, from our insights and our place, the occasion and desire that look unto their rule. They will not listen then; they will remand us to the ballot-box. "Inside politics" is a good word. That is just where woman ought to be, as she ought to be inside everything, insisting upon and implanting the truth and right that are to conquer. And she can not be inside and outside both. She can not do the mothering and the home-making, the watching and ministry, the earning and maintaining hold and privilege and motive influence behind and through the acts of men--and all the world-wide execution of act beside. Therefore, we say, do not give up the substance which you might seize, for the shadow which you could not hold fast if you were to seem to grasp it. Work on at the foundations. Insist on |
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