"Seek not to proticipate," says Mrs. Gamp, the venerable nurse in "Martin
Chuzzlewit"--"but take 'em as they come, and as they go." I am persuaded
that our woman-suffrage arguments would be improved by this sage counsel,
and that at present we indulge in too many bold anticipations.
Is there not altogether too much tendency to predict what women will do
when they vote? Could that good time come to-morrow, we should be startled
to find to how many different opinions and "causes" the new voters were
already pledged. One speaker wishes that women should be emancipated,
because of the fidelity with which they are sure to support certain
desirable measures, as peace, order, freedom, temperance, righteousness,
and judgment to come. Then the next speaker has his or her schedule of
political virtues and is equally confident that women, if once
enfranchised, will guarantee clear majorities for them all. The trouble is
that we thus mortgage this new party of the future, past relief, beyond
possibility of payment, and incur the ridicule of the unsanctified by
committing our cause to a great many contradictory pledges.
I know an able and high-minded woman of foreign birth, who courageously,
but as I think mistakenly, calls herself an atheist, and who has for years
advocated woman suffrage as the only antidote to the rule of the clergy. On
the other hand, an able speaker in a Boston convention soon after advocated
the same thing as the best way of defeating atheism, and securing the
positive assertion of religion by the community. Both cannot be correct:
neither is entitled to speak for woman. That being the case, would it not
be better to keep clear of this dangerous ground of prediction, and keep to
the argument based on rights and needs? If our theory of government be
worth anything, woman has the same right to the ballot that man has: she
certainly needs it as much for self-defence. How she will use it, when she
gets it, is her own affair. It may be that she will use it more wisely than
her brothers; but I am satisfied to believe that she will use it as well.
Let us not attribute infallible wisdom and virtue, even to women; for, as
dear Mrs. Poyser says in "Adam Bede," "God Almighty made some of 'em
foolish, to match the men."
It is common to assume, for instance, that all women by nature favor peace;
and that, even if they do not always seem to promote it in their social
walk and conversation, they certainly will in their political. When we
consider how all the pleasing excitements, achievements, and glories of
war, such as they are, accrue to men only, and how large a part of the
miseries are brought home to women, it might seem that their vote on this
matter, at least, would be a sure thing. Thus far the theory: the fact
being that we have been through a civil war which convulsed the nation, and
cost half a million lives; and which was, from the very beginning,
fomented, stimulated, and applauded, at least on one side, by the united
voice of the women. It will be generally admitted by those who know, that,
but for the women of the seceding States, the war of the Rebellion would
have been waged more feebly, been sooner ended, and far more easily
forgotten. Nay, I was told a few days since by an able Southern lawyer, who
was long the mayor of one of the largest Southern cities, that in his
opinion the practice of duelling--which is an epitome of war--owes its
continued existence at the South to a sustaining public sentiment among the
fair sex.
Again, where the sympathy of women is wholly on the side of right, it is by
no means safe to assume that their mode of enforcing that sentiment will be
equally judicious. Take, for instance, the temperance cause. It is quite
common to assume that women are a unit on that question. When we look at
the two extremes of society,--the fine lady pressing wine upon her
visitors, and the Irishwoman laying in a family supply of whiskey to last
over Sunday,--the assumption seems hasty. But grant it. Is it equally sure,
that when woman takes hold of that most difficult of all legislation, the
license and prohibitory laws, she will handle them more wisely than men
have done? Will her more ardent zeal solve the problem on which so much
zeal has already been lavished in vain? In large cities, for instance,
where there is already more law than is enforced, will her additional
ballots afford the means to enforce it? It may be so; but it seems wiser
not to predict nor to anticipate, but to wait and hope.
It is no reproach on woman to say that she is not infallible on particular
questions. There is much reason to suppose that in politics, as in every
other sphere, the joint action of the sexes will be better and wiser than
that of either singly. It seems obvious that the experiment of republican
government will be more fairly tried when one half the race is no longer
disfranchised. It is quite certain, at any rate, that no class can trust
its rights to the mercy and chivalry of any other, but that, the weaker it
is, the more it needs all political aids and securities for
self-protection. Thus far we are on safe ground; and here, as it seems to
me, the claim for suffrage may securely rest. To go farther in our
assertions seems to me unsafe, although many of our wisest and most
eloquent may differ from me; and the nearer we approach success, the more
important it is to look to our weapons. It is a plausible and tempting
argument, to claim suffrage for woman on the ground that she is an angel;
but I think it will prove wiser, in the end, to claim it for her as
being human.