I remember to have read, many years ago, the life of Sir Samuel Romilly,
the English philanthropist. He was the author of more beneficent legal
reforms than any man of his day, and there was in that very book a long
list of the changes he still meant to bring about. It struck me very much,
that among these proposed reforms not one of any importance referred to the
laws about women.
It shows--what all experience has shown--that no class or race or sex can
safely trust its protection in any hands but its own. The laws of England
in regard to woman were then so bad that Lord Brougham afterwards said they
needed total reconstruction, if they were to be touched at all. Yet it is
only since woman suffrage began to be talked about, that the work of
law-reform has really taken firm hold. In many cases in America the
beneficent measures are directly to be traced to some appeal from feminine
advocates. Even in Canada, as was once stated by Dr. Cameron of Toronto,
the bill protecting the property of married women was passed under the
immediate pressure of Lucy Stone's eloquence. And even where this direct
agency could not be traced, the general fact that the atmosphere was full
of the agitation had much to do with all the reforms that took place.
Legislatures, unwilling to give woman the ballot, were shamed into giving
her something. The chairman of the judiciary committee in Rhode Island told
me that until he heard women argue before the committee he had not
reflected upon their legal disabilities, or thought how unjust these were.
While the matter was left to the other sex only, even men like Sir Samuel
Romilly forgot the wrongs of woman. When she began to advocate her own
cause men also waked up.
But now that they are awake they ask, Is not this sufficient? Not at all If
an agent who has cheated you surrenders reluctantly one half your stolen
goods, you do not stop there and say, "It is enough. Your intention is
honorable. Please continue my agent with increased pay." On the contrary,
you say, "Your admission of wrong is a plea of guilty. Give me the rest of
what is mine." There is no defence like self-defence, no protection like
self-protection.
All theories of chivalry and generosity and vicarious representation fall
before the fact that woman has been grossly wronged by man. That being the
case, the only modest and honest thing for man to do is to say,
"Henceforward have a voice in making your own laws." Till this is done, she
has no sure safeguard, since otherwise the same men who made the old
barbarous laws may at any time restore them.
It is common to say that woman suffrage will make no great difference; that
women will think very much as men do, and it will simply double the vote
without varying the result. About many matters this may be true. To be
sure, it is probable that on questions of conscience, like slavery and
temperance, the woman's vote would by no means coincide with man's. But
grant that it would. The fact remains,--and all history shows it,--that on
all that concerns her own protection a woman needs her own vote. Would a
woman vote to give her husband the power of bequeathing her children to the
control and guardianship of somebody else? Would a woman vote to sustain
the law by which a Massachusetts chief justice bade the police take those
crying children from their mother's side in the Boston court-room a few
years ago, and hand them over to a comparative stranger, because that
mother had married again? You might as well ask whether the colored vote
would sustain the Dred Scott decision. Tariffs or banks may come or go the
same, whether the voters be white or black, male or female; but when the
wrongs of an oppressed class or sex are to be righted the ballot is the
only guaranty. After they have gained a potential voice for themselves, the
Sir Samuel Romillys will remember them.