[383] to crowd the polls while those of the better sort would stay away from them?Mr. Garrison, rising, said in reply, ‘Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that the question just propounded is answered by the present occasion. Here are education, character, intelligence, asking for suffrage, and here are ignorance and vulgarity protesting against it.’ This crushing sentence was uttered by Mr. Garrison in a tone of such bland simplicity that it did not even appear unkind. On a later occasion a lady of excellent character and position appeared among the remonstrants, and when asked whether she represented any association replied rather haughtily, ‘I think that I represent the educated women of Massachusetts,’ a goodly number of whom were present in behalf of the petition. The remonstrants had hearings of their own, at one of which I happened to be present. On this occasion one of their number, after depicting at some length the moral turpitude which she considered her sex likely to evince under political promise, concluded by saying: ‘No woman should be allowed the right of suffrage until every woman shall be perfectly wise, perfectly pure, and perfectly good.’ This dictum, pronounced in a most authoritative manner, at once brought to my mind the
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