of the same sort, on the same street, with male clerks in one and female clerks in another, where the former work fewer hours and receive higher wages than the latter....  Moreover, the question of female clerkship is not yet settled.  There are conscientious, intelligent, and obliging shopkeepers, who say that female clerks are not satisfactory.  Their strength is not equal to the draughts made upon it.  They are not able to stand so long as clerks are required to stand.  They have not the patience, the civility, the tact that male clerks have....  All the voting in the world can never add a cubit to a woman’s stature.”

Woman is not naturally a law-maker.  Even in our homes she desires the head of the house to lay down the law.  Never shall I forget the influence exerted by the utterance in a convention of Sabbath school teachers.  A paper was read, complaining that in a certain Sabbath school there was a lady superintendent, because no man could be found to take the place.  In conclusion, the writer said, “We need a man in our town.  We have things that wear pantaloons, but we need a man, to give direction to the school, and to attract the nobler and better portion of community.”  It was an honest declaration, and voiced a truth.  Every town, every Sabbath school, every home, needs a man.  Women of talent have tried to figure in politics and in the pulpit, but a sorry figure they have made of it.

Think of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton in the train of George Francis Train, perambulating the country in favor of the ballot in Kansas.  These are the leaders; but let it not be forgotten that they sided against the ballot for the negro in hopes of getting it for themselves, and proved their utter worthlessness and untrustworthiness by trailing the banner committed to their keeping in the slime of a convention which went for the repudiation of the national debt, the defeat of the party of progress, and for the overthrow of republican liberty.  Had woman possessed the ballot, and had the course pursued by the leaders of this movement exercised an influence over the majority, this wonderful victory over the rebellious spirits of the land had not been achieved; but, in its stead, the stars and bars would have resumed their sway, and the stars and stripes, which now kiss the breeze, and greet the rising hopes of uncounted millions, would have been furled in gloom and night.

It is claimed that the ballot will secure for woman social respect.  The claim is not well founded.  Those who seek it lose social respect, because they step out of the path marked out for them by Providence and by Nature.  Woman, in her sphere, is man’s good angel and helpmeet; out of it, she is man’s bitterest foe and heaviest curse.

There is an instinctive respect for woman in her proper sphere, which is of itself a power superior to any merely conventional position that a woman can build up for herself by her own hands, even through the aid of the ballot.