As the older arguments against woman suffrage are abandoned, we hear more
and more of the final objection, that the majority of women have not yet
expressed themselves on the subject. It is common for such reasoners to
make the remark, that if they knew a given number of women--say fifty, or a
hundred, or five hundred--who honestly wished to vote, they would favor it.
Produce that number of unimpeachable names, and they say that they have
reconsidered the matter, and must demand more,--perhaps ten thousand. Bring
ten thousand, and the demand again rises. "Prove that the majority of women
wish to vote, and they shall vote." "Precisely," we say: "give us a chance
to prove it by taking a vote;" and they answer, "By no means."
And, in a certain sense, they are right. It ought not to be settled that
way,--by dealing with woman as a class, and taking the vote. The agitators
do not merely claim the right of suffrage for her as a class: they claim it
for each individual woman, without reference to any other. If there is only
one woman in the nation who claims the right to vote, she ought to have it.
In Oriental countries all legislation is for classes, and in England it is
still mainly so. A man is expected to remain in the station in which he is
born; or, if he leaves it, it is by a distinct process, and he comes under
the influence, in various ways, of different laws. If the iniquities of the
"Contagious Diseases" act in England, for instance, had not been confined
in their legal application to the lower social grades, the act would never
have passed. It was easy for men of the higher classes to legislate away
the modesty of women of the lower classes; but if the daughter of an earl
could have been arrested, and submitted to a surgical examination at the
will of any policeman, as the daughter of a mechanic might be, the law
would not have stood a day. So, through all our slave States, there was
class legislation for every person of negro blood: the laws of crime, of
punishment, of testimony, were all adapted to classes, not individuals.
Emancipation swept this all away, in most cases: classes ceased to exist
before the law, so far as men at least were concerned; there were only
individuals. The more progress, the less class in legislation. We claim the
application of this principle as rapidly as possible to women.
Our community does not refuse permission for women to go unveiled till it
is proved that the majority of women desire it; it does not even ask that
question: if one woman wishes to show her face, it is allowed. If a woman
wishes to travel alone, to walk the streets alone, the police protects her
in that liberty. She is not thrust back into her house with the reproof,
"My dear madam, at this particular moment the overwhelming majority of
women are indoors: prove that they all wish to come out, and you shall
come." On the contrary, she comes forth at her own sweet will: the
policeman helps her tenderly across the street, and waves back with
imperial gesture the obtrusive coal-cart. Some of us claim for each
individual woman, in the same way, not merely the right to go shopping, but
to go voting; not merely to show her face, but to show her hand.
There will always be many women, as there are many men, who are indifferent
to voting. For a time, perhaps always, there will be a larger percentage of
this indifference among women. But the natural right to a share in the
government under which one lives, and to a voice in making the laws under
which one may be hanged,--this belongs to each woman as an individual; and
she is quite right to claim it as she needs it, even though the majority of
her sex still prefer to take their chance of the penalty, without
perplexing themselves about the law. The demand of every enlightened woman
who asks for the ballot--like the demand of every enlightened slave for
freedom--is an individual demand; and the question whether they represent
the majority of their class has nothing to do with it. For a republic like
ours does not profess to deal with classes, but with individuals; since
"the whole people covenants with each citizen, and each citizen with the
whole people, for the common good," as the constitution of Massachusetts
says.
And, fortunately, there is such power in an individual demand that it
appeals to thousands whom no abstract right touches. Five minutes with
Frederick Douglass settled the question, for any thoughtful person, of that
man's right to freedom. Let any woman of position desire to enter what is
called "the lecture-field," to support herself and her children, and at
once all abstract objections to women's speaking in public disappear: her
friends may be never so hostile to "the cause," but they espouse her
individual cause; the most conservative clergyman subscribes for tickets,
but begs that his name may not be mentioned. They do not admit that women,
as a class, should speak,--not they; but for this individual woman they
throng the hall. Mrs. Dahlgren abhors politics: a woman in Congress, a
woman in the committee-room,--what can be more objectionable? But I
observe that when Mrs. Dahlgren wishes to obtain more profit by her
husband's inventions all objections vanish: she can appeal to Congressmen,
she can address committees, she can, I hope, prevail. The individual ranks
first in our sympathy: we do not wait to take the census of the "class."
Make way for the individual, whether it be Mrs. Dahlgren pleading for the
rights of property, or Lucy Stone pleading for the rights of the mother to
her child.