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 68 of 234 (29%)
page 68 of 234 (29%)
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Mr. EUSTIS. If it be right and proper to confer the right of suffrage
on women, I ask the Senator whether he does not think that women ought to be required to serve on juries? Mr. DOLPH. I can answer that very readily. It does not necessarily follow that because a woman is permitted to vote and thus have a voice in making the laws by which she is to be governed and by which her property rights are to be determined, she must perform such duty as service upon a jury. But I will inform the Senator that in Washington Territory she does serve upon juries, and with great satisfaction to the judges of the courts and to all parties who desire to see an honest and efficient administration of law. Mr. EUSTIS. I was aware of the fact that women are required to serve on juries in Washington Territory because they are allowed to vote. I understand that under all State laws those duties are considered correlative. Now, I ask the Senator whether he thinks it is a decent spectacle to take a mother away from her nursing infant and lock her up all night to sit on a jury? Mr. DOLPH. I intended to say before I reached this point of being interrogated that I not only do not believe that there is a single argument against woman suffrage that is tenable, and I may be prejudiced in the matter, but that there is not a single one that is really worthy of any serious consideration. The Senator from Louisiana is a lawyer, and he knows very well that under such circumstances, a mother with a nursing infant, that fact being made known to the court would be excused; that would be a sufficient excuse. He knows himself, and he has seen it done a hundred times, that for trivial excuses compared to that men have been excused from service on a jury. |
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