The writer comments on attitudes of the day on the supposed place of women in various fields, in language that today would be found offensively condescending, to his cousin Miss Bartlett:

           “You seem to be very much delighted my dear Coz with the letter you read from Mr. C. in which he said he thought a woman could govern as well as a man. I must say I do not agree with him. I think a woman would make a poor figure in the President’s chair, or in the field of battle. Place her over an army of men, what could she do, and as to governing an army of women the devil himself could not do that. Now if you will allow me I will examine woman’s claim to govern. We will place her in all the different situations in which man is placed. We will first go to the office of the lawyer – permit me to say that argument was never yet woman’s fort she would I fear make up like the vicar of Wakefield’s wife, make up in noise, what she wanted in argument. Go to the physician how could her trembling hand guide the lancet, nature has made her sensitive, she was made to watch by the sick couch, and in the chamber of suffering she is a ministering angel, there woman rises far above man. At the alter [sic] of religion she stands unmovable, suffering never yet made her forsake her master. In sculpture and poetry woman rarely excels. And to come down to the meaner offices of life, in tailoring and cooking man far surpasses woman. You must not be offended. I allow your power over the heart of man. I allow your eyes are bright and that you are all most bewitching creatures and that I should like to place you at the head of my table but never wish to see you at the head of the nation.

I am my dear coz your most ardent admirer.

S.J.M.”