The tendency of modern society is not to concentrate power in the hands of
the few, but to give a greater and greater share to the many. Read
Froissart's Chronicles, and Scott's novels of chivalry, and you will see
how thoroughly the difference between patrician and plebeian was then a
difference of physical strength. The knight, being better nourished and
better trained, was apt to be the bodily superior of the peasant, to begin
with; and this strength was reinforced by armor, weapons, horse, castle,
and all the resources of feudal warfare. With this greater strength went
naturally the assumption of greater political power. To the heroes of
"Ivanhoe," or "The Fair Maid of Perth," it would have seemed as absurd that
yeomen and lackeys should have any share in the government, as it would
seem to the members in an American legislature that women should have any
such share. In a contest of mailed knights, any number of unarmed men were
but so many women. As Sir Philip Sidney said, "The wolf asketh not how many
the sheep may be."
But time and advancing civilization have tended steadily in one direction.
"He giveth power to the weak, and to them who have no might He increaseth
strength." Every step in the extension of political rights has consisted in
opening them to a class hitherto humbler. From kings to nobles, from nobles
to burghers, from burghers to yeomen; in short, from strong to weak, from
high to low, from rich to poor. All this is but the unconscious following
out of one sure principle,--that legislation is mainly for the protection
of the weak against the strong, and that for this purpose the weak must be
directly represented. The strong are already protected by their strength:
it is the weak who need all the vantage-ground that votes and legislatures
can give them. The feudal chiefs were stronger without laws than with them.
"Take care of yourselves in Sutherland," was the anxious message of the old
Highlander: "the law has come as far as Tain." It was the peaceful citizen
who needed the guaranty of law against brute force.
But can laws be executed without brute force? Not without a certain amount
of it, but that amount under civilization grows less and less. Just in
proportion as the masses are enfranchised, statutes execute themselves
without crossing bayonets. "In a republic," said De Tocqueville, "if laws
are not always respectable, they are always respected." If every step in
freedom has brought about a more peaceable state of society, why should
that process stop at this precise point? Besides, there is no possibility
in nature of a political division in which all the men shall be on one side
and all the women on the other. The mutual influence of the sexes forbids
it. The very persons who hint at such a fear refute themselves at other
times, by arguing that "women will always be sufficiently represented by
men," or that "every woman will vote as her husband thinks, and it will
merely double the numbers." As a matter of fact, the law will prevail in
all English-speaking nations: a few men fighting for it will be stronger
than many fighting against it; and if those few have both the law and the
women on their side, there will be no trouble.
The truth is that in this age _cedant arma togae:_ it is the civilian who
rules on the throne or behind it, and who makes the fighting-men his mere
agents. Yonder policeman at the corner looks big and formidable: he
protects the women and overawes the boys. But away in some corner of the
City Hill there is some quiet man, out of uniform, perhaps a consumptive or
a dyspeptic or a cripple, who can overawe the burliest policeman by his
authority as city marshal or as mayor. So an army is but a larger police;
and its official head is that plain man at the White House, who makes or
unmakes, not merely brevet-brigadiers, but major-generals in command,--who
can by the stroke of the pen convert the most powerful man of the army into
the most powerless. Take away the occupant of the position, and put in a
woman, and will she become impotent because her name is Elizabeth or Maria
Theresa? It is brains that more and more govern the world; and whether
those brains be on the throne, or at the ballot-box, they will soon make
the owner's sex a subordinate affair. If woman is also strong in the
affections, so much the better. "Win the hearts of your subjects," said
Lord Burleigh to Queen Elizabeth, "and you will have their hands and
purses."
War is the last appeal, and happily in these days the rarest appeal, of
statesmanship. In the multifarious other duties that make up statesmanship
we cannot spare the brains, the self-devotion, and the enthusiasm of woman.
One of the most important treaties of modern history, the peace of Cambray,
in 1529, was negotiated, after previous attempts had failed, by two
women,--Margaret, aunt of Charles V., and Louisa, mother of Francis I.
Voltaire said that Christina of Sweden was the only sovereign of her time
who maintained the dignity of the throne against Mazarin and Richelieu.
Frederick the Great said that the Seven Years' War was waged against three
women,--Elizabeth of Russia, Maria Theresa, and Mme. Pompadour. There is
nothing impotent in the statesmanship of women when they are admitted to
exercise it: they are only powerless for good when they are obliged to
obtain by wheedling and flattery a sway that should be recognized,
responsible, and limited.