Spirit Of Jefferson

Female Suffrage.

The following is an extract from one of Gov. Foote's essays in the St. Louis Democrat, in favor of female suffrage:

No one will presume to deny that quite as many of those females who have been called to wield the monarchical sceptre over great nations, in proportion to their number, have evinced the highest ability for government, as can be found on the huge roll of male sovereigns, the hideous crimes, and shameful blunders of whom overspread the pages of such numerous and nauseating volumes which it is now fashionable to call history. I am prepared to maintain against any adversary that a majority of our fair country women are quite as well qualified to choose a President or Vice President of the United States, a Senator or Representative in Congress, a Governor or a member of any State Legislature, judges and ministerial officers of any kind, as those who now so often elevate to the highest places of civic rule the drunken, the corrupt, the imbecile and the profligate. The truth is, that it is evidently high time that a little more care should be paid to the morals of the aspirants to official station than our male voters would seem to have exercised of late, if we wish to escape the deepest national dishonor and the most irretrievable ruin.
The influence of the gentler and purer sex is wanting to keep our country exempt from the horrors of war, either foreign or domestic, to heal the deep wounds which have been recently inflicted upon the national heart, to suppress violence and injustice of every kind; to quiet resentment; to extinguish the hellish spirit of revenge; to counteract fraud and trickery of every description and degree; to restore the ancient feelings of brotherhood and affection everywhere: and to bring back that golden age once more to our country, when to hold a high public station was to have an assured claim to general recognition as a gentleman; when dishonesty in a place of high official trust was not suspected even to be possible; when sobriety, and industry, and inflexible uprightness were to be found wheresoever official authority was held and official duty was to be performed.