Part 1 — CHAPTER III. MORALS OF POLITICS. (continued 2)

One compound fallacy is allowed daily to pass unexposed and unstigmatized. "You make no allowance," said a friend who was strangely bewildered by it,—"you make no allowance for the great number of excellent people who view the anomaly and the law as you do, but who keep quiet, because they sincerely believe that by speaking and acting they should endanger the Union." This explains the conduct of a crowd of "excellent people," neither merchants, nor the friends of slave-holders, nor approving slavery, or mobbing, or persecution for opinion; but who revile or satirize the abolitionists, and, for the rest, hold their tongues. But is it possible that such do not see that if slavery be wrong, and if it be indeed bound up with the Union, the Union must fall? Is it possible that they do not see that if the question be really this,—that if the laws of God and the arrangements of man are incompatible, man's arrangements must give way?—I regard it as a false and mischievous assumption that slavery is bound up with the Union: but if I believed the dictum, I should not be for "putting off the evil day." Every day which passes over the unredressed wrongs of any class which a republic holds in her bosom; every day which brings persecution on those who act out the principles which all profess; every day which adds a sanction to brute force, and impairs the sacredness of law; every day which prolongs impunity to the oppressor and discouragement to the oppressed, is a more evil day than that which should usher in the work of renovation.

But the dictum is not true. This bitter satire upon the constitution, and upon all who have complacently lived under it, is not true. The Union is not incompatible with freedom of speech. The Union does not forbid men to act according to their convictions. The Union has never depended for its existence on hypocrisy, insult, and injury; and it never will.

Let citizens but take heed individually to respect the law, and see that others do,—that no neighbour transgresses it, that no statesman despises it unrebuked, that no child grows up ignorant or careless of it; and the Union is as secure as the ground they tread upon. If this be not done, everything is in peril, for the season; not only the Union, but property, home, life and integrity.

SECTION V. SECTIONAL PREJUDICE.

It is the practice at Washington to pay the Members of Congress, not only a per diem allowance, but their travelling expenses; at so much per twenty miles. Two Members of Congress from Missouri made charges widely different in amount. Complaints were made that the Members were not confined to a mail route, and that the country had to pay for any digressions the honourable gentlemen might be in the humour to make. Upon this, a Member observed that, so far from wishing to confine the congressional travellers to a mail route, he would, if possible, prescribe the condition that they should travel, both in coming and going, through every State of the Union. Any money thus expended, would be, he considered, a cheap price to pay for the conquest of prejudices and dispersion of unfriendly feelings, which would be the consequence of the rambles he proposed.

The Members of Congress from the north like to revert to the day when there were only two universities, Harvard and Yale, to which all the youth of the Union repaired for education. The southern members love to boast of the increase of colleges, so that every State will soon be educating its own youth. The northern men miss the sweet sounds of acknowledgment which used to meet their ears, as often as past days were referred to—the grateful mention of the New England retreats where the years of preparation for active life were spent. The southern men are mortified at the supposition that everything intellectual must come out of New England. When they boast that Virginia has produced almost all their Presidents, they are met by the boast that New England has furnished almost all the school-masters, professors, and clergy of the country. While the north is still fostering a reverence for the Union, the south loses no opportunity of enlarging lovingly on the virtue of passionate attachment to one's native state.

There is much nature and much reason in all this. It is true that there is advantage in the youth of the whole country being brought together within college walls, at the age when warm friendships are formed. They can hardly quarrel very desperately in Congress, after having striven, and loved, and learned together, in their bright early days. The cadets at West Point spoke warmly to me of this. They told me that when a youth is coming from afar, the youths who have arrived from an opposite point of the compass prepare to look cold upon him and quiz him, and receive him frigidly enough; but the second Sunday seldom comes round before they wonder at him and themselves, and acknowledge that he might almost have been born in their own State. On the other hand, it is true that it would be an absurdity and a hardship to the dwellers in the south and west to have no means of educating their youth at home; but to be obliged to send them a thousand miles in pursuit of necessary learning. It is also true that medical colleges should abound; that peculiar diseases, incident to climate and locality, may be studied on the spot. In this, as in many other cases, some good must be sacrificed for the attainment of a greater good.

The question is, need sectional prejudices increase under the new arrangements? Are there no means of counteracting this great evil, except the ancient methods? Is West Point the last spot whereon common interests may rally, and whence state jealousies may be excluded?

I should be sorry if the answer were unfavourable; for this Sectional Prejudice, carried beyond the point of due political vigilance, is folly,—childish folly. Events prove it to be so. Deadly political enemies meet at Washington, and snarl and declaim at one another with mighty fierceness. They find themselves, some sunny day, lying on the grass under the shade of a tree, at the country-house of an acquaintance; they rise up cordial friends. They have actually discussed the question of questions, the American System and Nullification; and yet they rise up cordial friends. Again; a Boston gentleman and his lady travel for health through the south and west. They hear abuse of their State and city in abundance by the roadside; but their hearts are touched by the hospitality and friendliness they meet under every roof. Again; the planter carries his family to a Rhode Island bathing place, for the hot season: and there he finds some to whom he can open his heart about his domestic troubles, caused by slavery; he gains their sympathy, and carries away their esteem. The sectional hatred, if not an abstraction, is founded mainly on abstractions, and gives way at once when the parties are confronted. Does it not deserve to be called childish folly?

Yet "hatred" is not too strong a term for this sectional prejudice. Many a time in America have I been conscious of that pang and shudder which are felt only in the presence of hatred. I question whether the enmity between the British and the Americans, at the most exasperating crisis of the war, could ever have been more intense than some that I have seen flashing in the eyes, and heard from the lips, of Americans against fellow-citizens in distant sections of their country. I have scarcely known whether to laugh or to mourn when I have been told that the New England people are all pedlars or canting priests; that the people of the south are all heathens; and those of the west all barbarians. Nay, I was even told in New York that the Rhode Island people were all heathens, and the New Jersey folks no better. Some Baltimore ladies told me that the Philadelphia ladies say that no Baltimore lady knows how to put on a bonnet: but that the Philadelphians have something worse the matter with them than that; for that they do not know how to be hospitable to strangers. Without stopping to settle which is the gravest of these heavy charges, I am anxious to bear my testimony against the correctness of either. I saw some pretty bonnets, most becomingly worn, at Baltimore; and I can speak confidently to the hospitality of Philadelphia.

Trifling as some instances appear of the manifestation of this puerile spirit, it sometimes, it always, issues in results which are no trifle;—always, because the spirit of jealousy is a deadly curse to him who is possessed by it, whether it be founded on fact, or no. It cannot co-exist with a generous patriotism, one essential requisite of which is an enlarged faith in fellow-citizens. All republicans are patriotic, more or less frequently and loftily. If every American will look into himself at the moment he is glowing with patriotism, he will find his sectional prejudices melted away and gone, for the season. The Americans feel this in their travels abroad, when their country is attacked. They yearn towards the remotest dwellers in their country as if they were the nearest and dearest. Would they could always feel thus at home, and in the absence of provocation!

The most mortifying instance that I witnessed of this sectional prejudice was at Cincinnati. It was the most mortifying, on two accounts; because it did not give way before intercourse; and because its consequences are likely to be very serious to the city, and, if it spreads, to the whole west. One may laugh at the untravelled citizen of the south who declares that he knows the New Englanders very well. "How should you know the New Englanders?" "O, they drive about in our parts sometimes:"—"they" meaning the Yankee pedlars with wooden clocks for sale. One may laugh at the simple youth on board a steam-boat on Lake Erie, who warned me not to believe anything the Huron people might tell me against the Sandusky people, because he could tell me beforehand that it was all false, and that the Sandusky people are far better than the Huron people. One may laugh at the contemptuous amazement of the Boston lady at my declaration that I liked Cincinnati; that wild western place, where she believed people did not sit down to dinner like Christians. All mistakes of this kind, it is clear, might be rectified by a little travelling. But it is a serious matter to see the travelled gentlemen, the professional men of such a place as Cincinnati, setting up their sectional prejudices in one another's way.

Cincinnati is a glorious place. Few things can be conceived finer than the situation of this magnificent city, and the beauty by which she is surrounded. She is enthroned upon a high platform,—one of the rich bottoms occurring on the Ohio, which expand the traveller's notions of what fertility is. Behind her are hills, opening and closing, receding and advancing; here glowing with the richest green pasturage, and there crested and ribbed by beeches which seem transplanted from some giant land. Wherever we went among these hills, we found them rounding away from us in some new form of beauty; in steep grassy slopes, with a running stream at the bottom; in shadowy precipices, bristling with trees; in quiet recesses, pierced by sunset lights, shining in among the beechen stems, which spring, unencumbered by undergrowth, from the rich elastic turf. These hill-sides reminded me of the Castle of Indolence, of the quiet paths of Eden, of the shades that Una trod, of Windsor Forest,—of all that my memory carried about undulating wood-lands: but nothing would do; no description that I am acquainted with is rich enough to answer to what I saw on the Ohio,—its slopes, and clumps, and groves. At the foot of these hills runs the river, broad and full, busy with the commerce of the wide West. A dozen steam-boats lie abreast at the wharf, and many more are constantly passing; some stealing along, unheard so far off, under the opposite bank; others puffing and ploughing along the middle of the stream. Fine, level turnpike-roads branch off from the city among the hills, which open so as to allow a free circulation of air over the entire platform. Cincinnati is the most healthy large city in the United States. The streets are wide; and the terraces afford fine situations for houses. The furnishing of the dwellings is as magnificent as the owners may choose to make it; for commerce with the whole world is carried on from their port. Their vineyards, their conservatories, their fruit and flower gardens delight the eye in the gorgeous month of June. They have a native artist of great genius who has adorned the walls of their houses with, perhaps, the best pictures I saw in the country. I saw their streets filled with their thousands of free-school children. "These," said a lady to me, "are our populace." I thought it a populace worthy of such a city. There is no need to speak of its long ranges of furnaces, of its shipping, of its incredible commerce in pork, of its wealth and prospects. Suffice it that one of its most respected inhabitants tells that when he landed in Ohio, less than fifty years ago, it contained fewer than a hundred whites; and buffalo lodged in a cane brake where the city now stands; while the State at present contains upwards of a million of inhabitants, the city between thirty and forty thousand; and Cincinnati has four daily, and five or six weekly, newspapers, besides a variety of other periodicals.

The most remarkable circumstance, and the most favourable, with regard to the peopling of Cincinnati is, that its population contains contributions of almost every element that goes to constitute society; and each in its utmost vigour. There are here few of the arbitrary associations which exist among the members of other societies. Young men come with their wives, in all directions, from afar; with no parents, cousins, sects, or parties about them. Here is an assemblage from almost every nation under heaven,—a contribution from the resources of almost every country; and all unburdened, and ready for natural association and vigorous action. Like takes to like, and friendships are formed from congeniality, and not from accident or worldly design. Yet is there a tempering of prejudices, a mutual enlightenment, from previous differences of education and habits,—difference even of country and language. Great force is thus given to any principle carried out into action by the common convictions of differing persons; and life is deep and rapid in its course. Such is the theory of society in Cincinnati; and such is, in some degree, its practice. But here it is that sectional prejudice interferes, to set up arbitrary associations where, of all places, they should be shunned.

The adventurers who barbarize society in new places, have gone westward; and, of the full population that remains, above one-fifth are Germans. Their function seems to be, everywhere in the United States, to develope the material resources of the infant places in which they settle; and the intellectual ones at a more advanced stage. They are the farmers and market-gardeners here. There are many English, especially among the artizans. I saw two handsome white houses, on the side of a hill above the river, with rich ground lots, and extensive garden walls. These are the property of two English artizans, brothers, who emigrated a very few years ago. An Englishman, servant to a physician in Cincinnati in 1818, turned pork-butcher; was worth 10,000 dollars when I was there, and is rapidly growing rich. There are many New Englanders among the clergy, lawyers, and merchants; and this is the portion of society that will not freely mix with the westerners. It is no wonder if the earliest settlers of the place, westerners, are proud of it, and are careful to cherish its primitive emblems and customs. The New Englanders should not take this as an affront to themselves. It is also natural enough that the New Englanders should think and speak alike, and be fond of acting together; and the westerners should not complain of their being clannish. I was at a delightful party at the house of one of the oldest inhabitants, where a sprig of the distinctive buck-eye was hung up in the hall, and a buck-eye bowl of lemonade stood on the table. This was peevishly commented upon by some of eastern derivation: but I thought it would have been wiser to adopt the emblem than to find fault with it. Cincinnati has not gone to the eastern people: the eastern people have gone to her. If they have adopted her for their city, they may as well adopt her emblems too, and make themselves westerners at heart, as well as in presence. These discontents may appear trifling; but they are not so while they impede the furtherance of great objects. I was told on the spot that they would be very transient; but I fear it is not so. And yet they would be very transient if the spirited and choice inhabitants of that magnificent city could see their position as it is viewed by people at a distance. When I was one day expressing my admiration, and saying that it was a place for people of ambition, worldly or philanthropic, to live in, one of its noblest citizens said, "Yes, we have a new creation going on here; won't you come and dabble in the mud?" If they will but remember that it is a new creation that is going on, and not a fortuitous concourse of atoms; that the human will is, or may be, the presiding intelligence; that centuries hence, their posterity will either bless their memories with homage like that which is paid to the Pilgrim Fathers, or suffer the retribution which follows the indulgence of human passions, all petty jealousies will surely subside, in the prospect which lies before every good man. In a place like Cincinnati, where every man may gratify his virtuous will, and do, with his own hands, the deeds of a generation, feelings should be as grand as the occasion. If the merchants of Genoa were princes, the citizens of Cincinnati, as of every first city of a new region, are princes and prophets at once. They can foresee the future, if they please; and shape it, if they will: and petty personal regards are unworthy of such a destiny. It is melancholy to see how the crusading chiefs quarrelled for precedence on the soil of the Holy Land: it would be more so to see the leaders of this new enterprise desecrating their higher mission by a like contention.

SECTION VI. CITIZENSHIP OF PEOPLE OF COLOUR.

Before I entered New England, while I was ascending the Mississippi, I was told by a Boston gentleman that the people of colour in the New England States were perfectly well-treated; that the children were educated in schools provided for them; and that their fathers freely exercised the franchise. This gentleman certainly believed he was telling me the truth. That he, a busy citizen of Boston, should know no better, is now as striking an exemplification of the state of the case to me as a correct representation of the facts would have been. There are two causes for his mistake. He was not aware that the schools for the coloured children in New England are, unless they escape by their insignificance, shut up, or pulled down, or the school-house wheeled away upon rollers over the frontier of a pious State, which will not endure that its coloured citizens should be educated. He was not aware of a gentleman of colour, and his family, being locked out of their own hired pew in a church, because their white brethren will not Worship by their side. But I will not proceed with an enumeration of injuries, too familiar to Americans to excite any feeling but that of weariness; and too disgusting to all others to be endured. The other cause of this gentleman's mistake was, that he did not, from long custom, feel some things to be injuries, which he would call anything but good treatment, if he had to bear them himself. Would he think it good treatment to be forbidden to eat with fellow-citizens; to be assigned to a particular gallery in his church; to be excluded from college, from municipal office, from professions, from scientific and literary associations? If he felt himself excluded from every department of society, but its humiliations and its drudgery, would he declare himself to be "perfectly well-treated in Boston?" Not a word more of statement is needed.

A Connecticut judge lately declared on the bench that he believed people of colour were not considered citizens in the laws. He was proved to be wrong. He was actually ignorant of the wording of the acts by which people of colour are termed citizens. Of course, no judge could have forgotten this who had seen them treated as citizens: nor could one of the most eminent statesmen and lawyers in the country have told me that it is still a doubt, in the minds of some high authorities, whether people of colour are citizens. He is as mistaken as the judge. There has been no such doubt since the Connecticut judge was corrected and enlightened. The error of the statesman arose from the same cause; he had never seen the coloured people treated as citizens. "In fact," said he, "these people hold an anomalous situation. They are protected as citizens when the public service requires their security; but not otherwise treated as such," Any comment would weaken this intrepid statement.

The common argument, about the inferiority of the coloured race, bears no relation whatever to this question. They are citizens. They stand, as such, in the law, and in the acknowledgment of every one who knows the law. They are citizens, yet their houses and schools are pulled down, and they can obtain no remedy at law. They are thrust out of offices, and excluded from the most honourable employments, and stripped of all the best benefits of society by fellow-citizens who, once a year, solemnly lay their hands on their hearts, and declare that all men are born free and equal, and that rulers derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.

This system of injury is not wearing out. Lafayette, on his last visit to the United States, expressed his astonishment at the increase of the prejudice against colour. He remembered, he said, how the black soldiers used to mess with the whites in the revolutionary war. The leaders of that war are gone where principles are all,—where prejudices are nothing. If their ghosts could arise, in majestic array, before the American nation, on their great anniversary, and hold up before them the mirror of their constitution, in the light of its first principles, where would the people hide themselves from the blasting radiance? They would call upon their holy soil to swallow them up, as unworthy to tread upon it. But not all. It should ever be remembered that America is the country of the best friends the coloured race has ever had. The more truth there is in the assertions of the oppressors of the blacks, the more heroism there is in their friends. The greater the excuse for the pharisees of the community, the more divine is the equity of the redeemers of the coloured race. If it be granted that the coloured race are naturally inferior, naturally depraved, disgusting, cursed,—it must be granted that it is a heavenly charity which descends among them to give such solace as it can to their incomprehensible existence. As long as the excuses of the one party go to enhance the merit of the other, the society is not to be despaired of, even with this poisonous anomaly at its heart.

Happily, however, the coloured race is not cursed by God, as it is by some factions of his children. The less clear-sighted of them are pardonable for so believing. Circumstances, for which no living man is answerable, have generated an erroneous conviction in the feeble mind of man, which sees not beyond the actual and immediate. No remedy could ever have been applied, unless stronger minds than ordinary had been brought into the case. But it so happens, wherever there is an anomaly, giant minds rise up to overthrow it: minds gigantic, not in understanding, but in faith. Wherever they arise, they are the salt of their earth, and its corruption is retrieved. So it is now in America. While the mass of common men and women are despising, and disliking, and fearing, and keeping down the coloured race, blinking the fact that they are citizens, the few of Nature's aristocracy are putting forth a strong hand to lift up this degraded race out of oppression, and their country from the reproach of it. If they were but one or two, trembling and toiling in solitary energy, the world afar would be confident of their success. But they number hundreds and thousands; and if ever they feel a passing doubt of their progress, it is only because they are pressed upon by the meaner multitude. Over the sea, no one doubts of their victory. It is as certain as that the risen sun will reach the meridian. Already are there overflowing colleges, where no distinction of colour is allowed;—overflowing, because no distinction of colour is allowed. Already have people of colour crossed the thresholds of many whites, as guests, not as drudges or beggars. Already are they admitted to worship, and to exercise charity, among the whites.

The world has heard and seen enough of the reproach incurred by America, on account of her coloured population. It is now time to look for the fairer side The crescent streak is brightening towards the full, to wane no more. Already is the world beyond the sea beginning to think of America, less as the country of the double-faced pretender to the name of Liberty, than as the home of the single-hearted, clear-eyed Presence which, under the name of Abolitionism, is majestically passing through the land which is soon to be her throne.

SECTION VII. POLITICAL NON-EXISTENCE OF WOMEN.

One of the fundamental principles announced in the Declaration of Independence is, that governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed. How can the political condition of women be reconciled with this?

Governments in the United States have power to tax women who hold property; to divorce them from their husbands; to fine, imprison, and execute them for certain offences. Whence do these governments derive their powers? They are not "just," as they are not derived from the consent of the women thus governed.

Governments in the United States have power to enslave certain women; and also to punish other women for inhuman treatment of such slaves. Neither of these powers are "just;" not being derived from the consent of the governed.

Governments decree to women in some States half their husbands' property; in others one-third. In some, a woman, on her marriage, is made to yield all her property to her husband; in others, to retain a portion, or the whole, in her own hands. Whence do governments derive the unjust power of thus disposing of property without the consent of the governed?

The democratic principle condemns all this as wrong; and requires the equal political representation of all rational beings. Children, idiots, and criminals, during the season of sequestration, are the only fair exceptions.

The case is so plain that I might close it here; but it is interesting to inquire how so obvious a decision has been so evaded as to leave to women no political rights whatever. The question has been asked, from time to time, in more countries than one, how obedience to the laws can be required of women, when no woman has, either actually or virtually, given any assent to any law. No plausible answer has, as far as I can discover, been offered; for the good reason, that no plausible answer can be devised. The most principled democratic writers on government have on this subject sunk into fallacies, as disgraceful as any advocate of despotism has adduced. In fact, they have thus sunk from being, for the moment, advocates of despotism. Jefferson in America, and James Mill at home, subside, for the occasion, to the level of the author of the Emperor of Russia's Catechism for the young Poles.

Jefferson says,[7] "Were our State a pure democracy, in which all the inhabitants should meet together to transact all their business, there would yet be excluded from their deliberations,

"1. Infants, until arrived at years of discretion;

"2. Women, who, to prevent depravation of morals, and ambiguity of issue, could not mix promiscuously in the public meetings of men;

"3. Slaves, from whom the unfortunate state of things with us takes away the rights of will and of property."

If the slave disqualification, here assigned, were shifted up under the head of Women, their case would be nearer the truth than as it now stands. Woman's lack of will and of property, is more like the true cause of her exclusion from the representation, than that which is actually set down against her. As if there could be no means of conducting public affairs but by promiscuous meetings! As if there would be more danger in promiscuous meetings for political business than in such meetings for worship, for oratory, for music, for dramatic entertainments,—for any of the thousand transactions of civilized life! The plea is not worth another word.

Mill says, with regard to representation, in his Essay on Government, "One thing is pretty clear; that all those individuals, whose interests are involved in those of other individuals, may be struck off without inconvenience.... In this light, women may be regarded, the interest of almost all of whom is involved, either in that of their fathers or in that of their husbands."

The true democratic principle is, that no person's interests can be, or can be ascertained to be, identical with those of any other person. This allows the exclusion of none but incapables.

The word "almost," in Mr. Mill's second sentence, rescues women from the exclusion he proposes. As long as there are women who have neither husbands nor fathers, his proposition remains an absurdity.

The interests of women who have fathers and husbands can never be identical with theirs, while there is a necessity for laws to protect women against their husbands and fathers. This statement is not worth another word.

Some who desire that there should be an equality of property between men and women, oppose representation, on the ground that political duties would be incompatible with the other duties which women have to discharge. The reply to this is, that women are the best judges here. God has given time and power for the discharge of all duties; and, if he had not, it would be for women to decide which they would take, and which they would leave. But their guardians follow the ancient fashion of deciding what is best for their wards. The Emperor of Russia discovers when a coat of arms and title do not agree with a subject prince. The King of France early perceives that the air of Paris does not agree with a free-thinking foreigner. The English Tories feel the hardship that it would be to impose the franchise on every artizan, busy as he is in getting his bread. The Georgian planter perceives the hardship that freedom would be to his slaves. And the best friends of half the human race peremptorily decide for them as to their rights, their duties, their feelings, their powers. In all these cases, the persons thus cared for feel that the abstract decision rests with themselves; that, though they may be compelled to submit, they need not acquiesce.

It is pleaded that half of the human race does acquiesce in the decision of the other half, as to their rights and duties. And some instances, not only of submission, but of acquiescence, there are. Forty years ago, the women of New Jersey went to the poll, and voted, at state elections. The general term, "inhabitants," stood unqualified;—as it will again, when the true democratic principle comes to be fully understood. A motion was made to correct the inadvertence; and it was done, as a matter of course; without any appeal, as far as I could learn, from the persons about to be injured. Such acquiescence proves nothing but the degradation of the injured party. It inspires the same emotions of pity as the supplication of the freed slave who kneels to his master to restore him to slavery, that he may have his animal wants supplied, without being troubled with human rights and duties. Acquiescence like this is an argument which cuts the wrong way for those who use it.

But this acquiescence is only partial; and, to give any semblance of strength to the plea, the acquiescence must be complete. I, for one, do not acquiesce. I declare that whatever obedience I yield to the laws of the society in which I live is a matter between, not the community and myself, but my judgment and my will. Any punishment inflicted on me for the breach of the laws, I should regard as so much gratuitous injury: for to those laws I have never, actually or virtually, assented. I know that there are women in England who agree with me in this—I know that there are women in America who agree with me in this. The plea of acquiescence is invalidated by us.

It is pleaded that, by enjoying the protection of some laws, women give their assent to all. This needs but a brief answer. Any protection thus conferred is, under woman's circumstances, a boon bestowed at the pleasure of those in whose power she is. A boon of any sort is no compensation for the privation of something else; nor can the enjoyment of it bind to the performance of anything to which it bears no relation. Because I, by favour, may procure the imprisonment of the thief who robs my house, am I, unrepresented, therefore bound not to smuggle French ribbons? The obligation not to smuggle has a widely different derivation.

I cannot enter upon the commonest order of pleas of all;—those which relate to the virtual influence of woman; her swaying the judgment and will of man through the heart; and so forth. One might as well try to dissect the morning mist. I knew a gentleman in America who told me how much rather he had be a woman than the man he is;—a professional man, a father, a citizen. He would give up all this for a woman's influence. I thought he was mated too soon. He should have married a lady, also of my acquaintance, who would not at all object to being a slave, if ever the blacks should have the upper hand; "it is so right that the one race should be subservient to the other!" Or rather,—I thought it a pity that the one could not be a woman, and the other a slave; so that an injured individual of each class might be exalted into their places, to fulfil and enjoy the duties and privileges which they despise, and, in despising, disgrace.

The truth is, that while there is much said about "the sphere of woman," two widely different notions are entertained of what is meant by the phrase. The narrow, and, to the ruling party, the more convenient notion is that sphere appointed by men, and bounded by their ideas of propriety;—a notion from which any and every woman may fairly dissent. The broad and true conception is of the sphere appointed by God, and bounded by the powers which he has bestowed. This commands the assent of man and woman; and only the question of powers remains to be proved.

That woman has power to represent her own interests, no one can deny till she has been tried. The modes need not be discussed here: they must vary with circumstances. The fearful and absurd images which are perpetually called up to perplex the question,—images of women on wool-sacks in England, and under canopies in America, have nothing to do with the matter. The principle being once established, the methods will follow, easily, naturally, and under a remarkable transmutation of the ludicrous into the sublime. The kings of Europe would have laughed mightily, two centuries ago, at the idea of a commoner, without robes, crown, or sceptre, stepping into the throne of a strong nation. Yet who dared to laugh when Washington's super-royal voice greeted the New World from the presidential chair, and the old world stood still to catch the echo?

The principle of the equal rights of both halves of the human race is all we have to do with here. It is the true democratic principle which can never be seriously controverted, and only for a short time evaded. Governments can derive their just powers only from the consent of the governed.

FOOTNOTE: