necessarily and really these inherent magical powers of rapid
education for individuals and for classes of men, fitting them, in
default of other qualifications, for the high responsibilities of
suffrage? Alas! we know only too well that when a man is not
already honest and just and wise and enlightened, the vote he holds
can not make him so. We know that if he is dishonest, he will sell
his vote; if he is dull and ignorant, he is misled, for selfish purposes
of their own, by designing men. As regards man, at least, the vote
can be too easily proved to be no talisman. It is very clear that for
man the ballot-box needs to be closely guarded on one side by
common-sense, on the other by honesty. A man must be endowed
with a certain amount of education and of principle, before he
receives the vote, to fit him for a worthy use of it. And if the vote be
really no infallible talisman for man, why should we expect it to work
magical wonders in the hands of woman?

But let us drop the play of metaphor, appropriate though it be when
facing the visions of political theorists. Let us look earnestly and
clearly at the positive facts before us. We are gravely told that to
grant the suffrage to woman would be a step inevitably beneficial
and elevating to the whole sex, and, through their influence, to the
entire race, and that, on this ground alone, the proposed change in
the constitution should be made. Here, so far at least as the
concluding proposition goes, we must all agree. If it can be clearly
proved that this particular change in our institutions is one so
fraught with blessings, we are bound to make it at every cost. The
true elevation of the whole race: that is what we are all longing for,
praying for. And is it indeed true that this grand work can effectually
be brought about by the one step we are now urged to take? What
says actual experience on this point? The whole history of mankind