Were there no such thing as sexual difference, the wrong done to woman by disfranchisement would be far less.  It is precisely because her traits, habits, needs, and probable demands are distinct from those of man, that she is not, never was, never can, and never will be, justly represented by him.  It is not merely that a vast number of human individuals are disfranchised; it is not even because in many of our States the disfranchisement extends to a majority, that the evil is so great; it is not merely that we disfranchise so many units and tens:  but we exclude a special element, a peculiar power, a distinct interest,—­in a word, a sex.

Whether this sex is more or less wise, more or less important, than the other sex, does not affect the argument:  it is a sex, and, being such, is more absolutely distinct from the other than is any mere race from any other race.  The more you emphasize the fact of sex, the more you strengthen our argument.  If the white man cannot justly represent the negro,—­ although the two races are now so amalgamated that not even the microscope can always decide to which race one belongs,—­how impossible that one sex should stand in legislation for the other sex!

This is so clear that, so soon as it is stated, there is a shifting of the ground.  “But consider the danger of introducing the sexual influence into legislation!” ...  Then we are sure to be confronted with the case of Miss Vinnie Ream, the sculptor.  See how that beguiling damsel cajoled all Congress into buying poor statues! they say.  If one woman could do so much, how would it be with one hundred?  Precisely the Irishman’s argument against the use of pillows:  he had put one feather on a rock, and found it a very uncomfortable support.  Grant, for the sake of argument, that Miss Ream gave us poor art; but what gave her so much power?  Plainly that she was but a single feather.  Congress being composed exclusively of men, the mere fact of her sex gave her an exceptional and dangerous influence.  Fill a dozen of the seats in Congress with women, and that danger at least will be cancelled.  The taste in art may be no better; but an artist will no more be selected for being a pretty girl than now for being a pretty boy.  So in all such cases.  Here, as everywhere, it is the advocate of woman suffrage who wishes to recognize the fact of sex, and guard against its perils.

It is precisely so in education.  Believing boys and girls to be unlike, and yet seeing them to be placed by the Creator on the same planet and in the same family, we hold it safer to follow his method.  As they are born to interest each other, to stimulate each other, to excite each other, it seems better to let this impulse work itself off in a natural way,—­to let in upon it the fresh air and the daylight, instead of attempting to suppress and destroy it.  In a mixed school, as in a family, the fact of sex presents itself as an unconscious, healthy, mutual stimulus.