IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC?
As the claim of woman to share the voting power is related to the
fundamental principles of government, the progress of government must be
studied in relation to that claim in order to learn its bearing upon them.
It is possible to suggest in one brief chapter only the barest outline of
such a far-reaching scrutiny, and wiser heads than mine must search to
conclusion; but some beginnings looking toward an answer to the inquiry I
have raised have occurred to me as not having entered into the newly-
opened controversy on woman suffrage.
I say, the newly-opened controversy, for, through these fifty years, the
Suffragists have done nearly all the talking. So persistently have they
laid claim to being in the line of progress for woman, that many of their
newly aroused opponents fancied that the anti-suffrage view might be the
ultra conservative one, and that democratic principles, strictly and
broadly applied, might at last lead to woman suffrage, though premature if
pushed to a conclusion now.
The first step in finding out how far that position is true is, to
ascertain what the Suffragists say about this noblest of democracies, our
own Government. In referring to the "The History of Woman Suffrage" for
the opinions of the leaders, I am not only using a book that on its
publication was considered a strong and full presentment of their
arguments, but one which they are today advertising and selling as "a
perfect arsenal of the work done by and for women during the last half
century." In it the editors say: "Woman's political equality with man is
the legitimate outgrowth of the fundamental principles of our government."
Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, writing in the New York Sun in April, 1894, says:
"Never, until the establishment of universal [male] suffrage, did it
happen that all the women in a community, no matter how well born, how
intelligent, how well educated, how virtuous, how wealthy, were counted
the political inferiors of all the men, no matter how base born, how
stupid, how ignorant, how brutal, how poverty-stricken. This anomaly is
the real innovation. Men have personally ruled the women of their
families; the law has annihilated the separate existence of women; but
women have never been subjected to the political sovereignty of all men
simply in virtue of their sex. Never, that is, since the days of the
ancient republics." Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick, who, as Secretary of the
New-England Suffrage Association, was put forward to meet all comers,
writing in July, 1895, said: "Shall we, as a people, be true to our
principles and enfranchise woman? or, shall we drift along in the meanest
form of oligarchy known among men--an oligarchy which exalts every sort of
a male into a ruler simply because he is a male, and debases every woman
into a subject simply because she is a woman?" Mrs. Fanny B. Ames,
speaking in Boston in 1896, said: "I believe woman suffrage to be the
final result of the evolution of a true democracy." Not only has every
woman speaker or writer in favor of suffrage presented this idea in some
form, but the men also who have taken that side have done likewise. One
among those who advocated the cause before the Committee in the
Constitutional Convention of New York, said: "Woman Suffrage is the
inevitable result of the logic of the situation of modern society. The
despot who first yielded an inch of power gave up the field. We are
standing in the light of the best interests of the State of New York when
we stand in the way of this forward movement."
All these writers charge the American Republic with being false to
democratic principles in excluding women from the franchise, while but one
of them alludes to the fact that in the ancient republics the same
"anomaly" was seen.
As I read political history, the facts go to show that the fundamental
principles of our Government are more opposed to the exercise of suffrage
by women than are those of monarchies. To me it seems that both despotism
and anarchy are more friendly to woman's political aspirations than is any
form of constitutional government, and that manhood suffrage, and not
womanhood suffrage, is the final result of the evolution of democracy.
The Suffragists repeatedly call attention to the fact that in the early
ages in Egypt, in Greece, and in Rome, women were of much greater
political consequence than later during the republics; but the moral they
have drawn has been that of the superiority of the ancient times. Mrs.
Dietrick says: "The ideal woman of Greece was Athena, patroness of all
household arts and industries, but equally patroness of all political
interests. The greatest city of Greece was believed to have been founded
by her, and Greek history recorded that, though the men citizens voted
solidly to have the city named for Neptune, yet the women citizens voted
solidly for Athena, beat them by one vote, and carried that political
matter. If physical force had been a governing power in Greece, and men
its manifestation, how could such a story have been published by Greek men
down to the second century before our era?"
Mrs. Dietrick's remarkably realistic version of the old myth does not tell
the tale as Greek men published it. Varro, who was educated at Athens,
goes on to say: "Thereupon, Neptune became enraged, and immediately the
sea flowed over all the land of Athens. To appease the god, the burgesses
were compelled to impose a threefold punishment upon their wives--they
were to lose their votes; the children were to receive no more the
mother's name; and they themselves were no longer to be called Athenians,
after the goddess." It seems to me this fable teaches that physical force
was indeed the governing power in Athens at that day, and that men were
its manifestation.
The legend is generally taken to indicate the time when the Greek gens
progressed to the family. In the ruder time, the legitimacy of the
chieftain might be traced, because the mother, though not always the
father, could be known with certainty. When the father became the
acknowledged head of the household, a distinct advance was made toward
that heroic age in which the vague but towering figures of men and women
move across the stage. Goddesses, queens, princesses, are powerful in love
and war. Sibyls unfold the meaning of the book of fate. Vestals feed the
fires upon the highest and lowest altars. Later, throughout most of the
states of Greece, something like the following order of political life is
seen: from kings to oligarchs, from oligarchs to tyrants or despots, from
them to some form of restricted constitutional liberty. In Sparta, all
change of government was controlled by the machinery of war, and the
soldiers were made forever free. Athens, separated from the rest of
Greece, was less agitated by outward conflict. In government she passed
from king to archon; from hereditary archon to archons chosen for ten
years, but always from one family, then to those elected for one year,
nine being chosen. At the time of the Areopagus there were four classes of
citizens. The first three paid taxes, had a right to share in the
government, and formed the defence of the state. If women were of
political importance in earlier times, and if a republic is more favorable
to the exercise by them of the elective franchise, we should expect to
find women reaching their highest power under the Areopagus. Exactly the
contrary appears to be true. Native and honorable Greek women retired to
domestic life as the liberty of their people grew. Grote, in his "History
of Greece," referring to the legendary period, says: "We find the wife
occupying a station of great dignity and influence, though it was the
practice of the husband to purchase her by valuable presents to her
parents. She even seems to live less secluded, and to enjoy a wider sphere
of action, than was allotted to her in historic Greece."
Lecky, in his "European Morals," says: "It is one of the most remarkable
and, to some writers, one of the most perplexing facts in the moral
history of Greece, that in the former and ruder period women had
undoubtedly the highest place, and their type exhibited the highest
perfection." What the "highest perfection" is, for her type, or for man's
type, is not here under discussion; but it is not out of place to say in
passing that if the final conquest of the spiritual over the material
forces of humanity is really the aim of civilization, these "facts in the
moral history of Greece" become less "perplexing."
The heroines of Homer's tales were all of noble birth--they were
goddesses, princesses, hereditary gentlewomen. In early historic times,
also, it was only royal or gentle blood that secured for woman political
power. Athena was, in gentle Athens, patroness of household arts; but in
Sparta, as Minerva, the same divinity was goddess, not of political
interests, as Mrs. Dietrick puts it, but of war. She sprang full-armed
from the head of Jove--rather a masculine origin, it must be owned. In
Sparta women became soldiers as the democratic idea advanced. Princess
Archidamia, marching at the head of her female troop to rebuke the
senators for the decree that the women and children be removed from the
city before the anticipated attack could come, is an example. In Etolia,
in Argos, and in other states, the same was true. Maria and Telesilla led
the women in battle and disciplined them in peace. But the world does not
turn to Sparta for its ideal of a pre-Christian republic, and the
Suffragists of our day do not propose to emulate the Spartan Amazon and
hew their way to political power with the sword.
In Athens, which does present the model, matters were far otherwise. In
the year 700 B. C., the Spartans called upon Athens for a commander to
lead them to the second Messenian war, and the Athenians sent them
Tyrtaeus, their martial poet. The Spartans were displeased at his youth
and gentle bearing; but when the battle was joined, his chanting of his
own war-songs so animated the troops that they won against heavy odds. The
following is a fragment translated from one of his lyrics:
"But be it ours to guard the hallowed spot,
To shield the tender offspring and the wife;
Here steadily await our destined lot,
And, for their sakes, resign the gift of life."
Aeschylus, poet and soldier, writing a hundred and fifty years later, in
his "Seven Against Thebes," puts into the mouth of the chieftain Eteocles
this address to the women:
"It is not to be borne, ye wayward race;
Is this your best, is this the aid you lend
The state, the fortitude with which you steel
The souls of the besieged, thus falling down
Before the images to wail, and shriek
With lamentations loud? Wisdom abhors you.
Nor in misfortune, nor in dear success,
Be woman my associate. If her power
Bears sway, her insolence exceeds all bounds;
But if she fears, woe to that house and city.
And now by holding counsel with weak fear,
You magnify the foe, and turn our men
To flight. Thus are we ruined by ourselves.
This ever will arise from suffering women
To intermix with men. But mark me well,
Whoe'er henceforth dares disobey my orders--
Be it man or woman, old or young--
Vengeance shall burst upon him, the decree
Stands irreversible, and he shall die.
War is no female province, but the scene
For men. Hence, home! nor spread your mischiefs here.
Hear you, or not? Or speak I to the deaf?"
Pericles, in his famous funeral oration over those who fell in the
Peloponnesian war, thus addresses the Athenian women: "To the wives who
will henceforth live in widowhood, I will speak, in one short sentence
only, of womanly virtue. She is the best woman who is most truly a woman,
and her reputation is the highest whose name is never in the mouths of men
for good or for evil."
Seclusion was the best thing that the most intellectual pre-Christian
republic could give to its honorable women. The freedom with which the
hetairse, who were foreigners or daughters of slaves, mingled with
statesmen and philosophers, brought them open political influence, but not
a hint of voting power or of office-holding.
For the sake of brevity, I will confine my reference to Roman custom to a
single pregnant sentence from Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Empire."
He says: "In every age and country the wiser, or at least the stronger of
the two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined the other
to the cares and pleasures of domestic life. In hereditary monarchies,
however, and especially in those of modern Europe, the gallant spirit of
chivalry, and the law of succession, have accustomed us to allow a
singular exception, and a woman is often acknowledged the absolute
sovereign of a great kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of
exercising the smallest employment, civil or military. But, as the Roman
Emperors were still considered as the generals and magistrates of the
Republic, their wives and mothers, although dignified by the name of
Augusta, were never associated to their personal honors; and a female
reign would have appeared an inexplicable prodigy in the eyes of those
primitive Romans, who married without love, or loved without delicacy or
respect."
The warlike states named republics in the Middle Ages had no woman Doge,
or Duke, although women rose to the semblance of political power with
empires and kingdoms, in Italy and Spain as well as in Germany and France,
Austria and Russia.
Let us turn to modern Europe, in which thrones have been occupied now and
again by queens. The progress of woman here, especially in Anglo-Saxon
countries, has been steady, true and inspiring. In the earliest recorded
councils of the race from which we sprang, we see freemen in full armor
casting equal votes. During the ages of feudalism, women who were land-
owners had the same rights as other nobles. They could raise soldiery,
coin money, and administer justice in both civil and criminal proceedings.
In proportion as the aristocratic power lost its hold, women were exempted
from these services and gained in moral influence. The Germanic races were
renowned for their respect for woman, and their love for home. As
constitutional liberty grew, and each Englishman's house became his castle
for defence against arbitrary power, the protection was not for himself
but for his family. A figure-head ruler in feminine attire sits on
England's throne to-day--the England that still unites its church and
state, and in which feudal customs still prevail to some extent. Widows
and spinsters who are property-owners can vote for all offices except the
one charged under the Constitution with the framing and execution of the
laws of the land. Aristocracy decrees that in the House of Lords the
Bishops shall have a voice; but in the House of Commons no clergyman can
hold a seat, and for members of Parliament no woman votes. Would any
Suffragist hold that a clergyman was the inferior of men who do sit in the
House of Commons? They are excluded for the same reason that woman has not
the parliamentary vote--they are looked upon as non-combatants.
The Greek and Roman republics appear to have followed an instinct that was
unerring in the condition of society when they removed women from the
seats of power as the commonwealth gathered strength. Gibbon, in the
sentences quoted, attributes the fact that queens as well as kings have
occupied the thrones of modern Europe to the chivalry of men toward those
who would yet be incapable of exercising actual power except for the
backing of a standing army, or an hereditary nobility sworn to their
support, both of which are composed solely of men. If this be true, it
should be visible in the workings of the constitutional restrictions upon
monarchies that have developed in the past fifty years, during which the
principle of democratic government has advanced with enormous strides over
a great portion of the globe.
In the Austro-Hungarian monarchy there is restricted woman suffrage. The
kingdom of Italy has restricted municipal woman suffrage. The little
republic that separates those countries, the land of Tell and the Vaudois,
has direct manhood suffrage only.
Sweden and Norway are apparently parting company. Sweden chooses to keep
its king and its aristocracy, and it has restricted woman suffrage; but
Norway, which is working toward free institutions, and last year voted to
remove the insignia of union from the Norwegian flag, has no woman
suffrage. [Footnote: In the city of Berne, Switzerland, in 1852, a proxy
vote was given to independent women who paid a commercial tax, but they
made no effort to use it until 1885, when contending political factions
compelled them to do so in a measure. Norway's women have a local school
vote. Both these cases of exception serve to prove the rule that I am
trying to set forth.]
Autocratic Russia and its Asiatic colonies have more woman suffrage than
England. Finland, a constitutional monarchy, was ceded to the Emperor of
Russia in 1809. Women there have all except the parliamentary suffrage.
The Governor-General of the Senate is nominated by the Emperor, and is
chief of the military force. The National Assembly is convoked by the
Emperor whenever he sees fit. The duties of that Assembly are to consider
laws proposed by the Emperor and elaborated by the Committee of Affairs
and four members nominated by the Emperor, who sit in St. Petersburg. The
Emperor has the veto power over any act of theirs. That National Assembly
consists of representatives of the nobility, the clergy, the burghers, and
the peasantry, the consent of all of whom must be obtained to any measure
that makes a change in the constitution or imposes taxes. But the royal
veto can set aside any decision.
Iceland, a dependency of Denmark, has municipal woman suffrage, and women
are eligible to municipal office. It has its own legislature, which
governs jointly with the King, the executive power being in the hands of
the King alone.
In the great extensions of suffrage in England in 1848, an amendment for
the extension of suffrage to women was introduced in Parliament by Mr.
Disraeli. Lord Northcote, Lord John Manners, and other conservatives,
upheld it; but the liberal leaders opposed it, Gladstone and John Bright
among them. John Blight's family were strenuous for the movement, and he
had fancied himself its friend until the issue came; then the old champion
of freedom, proved true to the instinct that guards it in the nation. In
the constantly increasing liberty of the lower classes of England, an
essential principle which excludes women from the parliamentary vote has
been maintained. Lady Spencer Churchill and other Suffrage leaders look to
Viscount Templeton and Lord Salisbury for support to-day.
A woman-suffrage bill of many years' standing and absurd provisions, has
just passed to a second reading in the House of Commons. Although it was
treated as a joke by all parties, it served to emphasize the fact that Sir
Vernon Harcourt and the Liberals are opposed to any advance in this
direction.
In the late extension of suffrage in Canada, the movement for woman
suffrage had conservative support, while every liberal leader opposed it.
No South American Republic has woman suffrage. With the deposition of
Liliuokalani, woman's directs political power in the Hawaiian Islands
died. In France only the Anarchists "admit women" to public council, and
that party in Germany has here and there inscribed woman suffrage upon its
banners.
Not only England, Scotland and Wales, but Canada, definitely excepts the
vote for members of parliament in giving suffrage to woman, and only
widows and spinsters are admitted to the minor forms of franchise. As to
the other British colonies, what is the situation? Much stress has been
laid on what has been termed the progress of the Suffrage movement in
Australasia. There is but one Australian colony in which the legislative
assembly is elected; in the others it is appointed for life, or for short
terms. Where it is thus appointed, women vote on various matters. In
Victoria, which contains the capital city, Melbourne, and which is the
most progressive and democratic colony in Australia, the Legislative
Assembly is elected, and that body is chosen by unrestricted male suffrage
only, while, as with the House of Commons in the mother country, clergymen
are not allowed to sit in it. In West Australia, the newest colony, the
voting is done by men alone. In Cape Colony women have restricted
municipal suffrage; but the Assembly is elected by the vote of men who own
a certain amount of property.
In the Orange Free State every adult white male is a full burgher, having
a vote for the President, who is chosen for five years. The Transvaal
Republic has no woman suffrage amid its hand-to-hand struggles.
To comprehend the condition of European governmental affairs, one must
follow the condition of things produced by the struggle of socialistic and
anarchistic elements. Between the King on the one hand, and these forces
on the other, the true Liberal parties are slowly progressing toward free
institutions; both aristocratic and anarchistic movements being more
favorable than liberalism to woman-suffrage aspirations.
The countries where woman has full suffrage (save in the United States)
are all dependencies of royalty. They are: The Isle of Man, Pitcairn's
Island, New Zealand, and South Australia. The most important of these, New
Zealand, was once a promising colony, but it has been declining for a
quarter of a century. The men outnumber the women by forty thousand. The
act conferring the parliamentary franchise on both European and Maori
women received the royal sanction in 1892. At the session of Parliament
that passed the act a tax was put upon incomes and one upon land, so that
a desperate civilization seemed to be trying all the experiments at once.
Certainly, woman suffrage in New Zealand was not adopted because the
Government was so stable, so strong, so democratic, that these conditions
must thus find fit expression. [Footnote: The Australasian colonies are
taking steps toward the formation of a Federal Union. While this book is
in press news comes that the Federal Convention, by a vote of 23 to 12,
has refused to allow women to vote for members of the House of
Representatives.]
South Australia not only gives women full suffrage, but makes them
eligible to a seat in Parliament. The colony is a vast, mountainous,
largely unsettled region, with a high proportion of native and Chinese,
and, in 1894, had but 73,000 voters, including the women. The Socialistic
Labor movement, which has played a large part in Australasian politics,
here succeeded in dominating the government. There was an attempt to
establish communistic villages with public money, a proposal to divide the
public money _pro rata,_ and one to build up a system of state life-
insurance; and taxes were to be levied on salaries, and on all incomes
above a certain point. It was found that the sixty thousand women who were
authorized to vote throughout Australia assisted the socialistic schemes
that are hindering progress and that tend to anarchy and not to
republicanism. There is a royal Governor, and suffrage is based on
household and property qualifications. It is an aristocratic and social
combination, not a triumph of democratic ideas or principles. Dr. Jacobi,
in her "Common Sense applied to Woman Suffrage," says: "The refusal to
extend parliamentary suffrage to women who are possessed of municipal
suffrage, does not mean, as Americans are apt to suppose, that women are
counted able to judge about the small concerns of a town, but not about
imperial issues. It means that women are still not counted able to
exercise independent judgment at all, and, therefore, are to remain
counted out when this is called for; but that the property to which they
happen to belong, and which requires representation, must not be deprived
of this on account of an entangling female alliance. This is the very
antipodes of the democratic doctrine, perhaps also somewhat excessive,
that a man requires representation so much that he must not be deprived of
it on account of the accident of not being able to read or write!"
With Dr. Jacobi's interpretation, I will deal later. What I wish now to do
is, to call attention to her admission of the fact that woman suffrage in
England and in her colonies is not democratic, and to connect it with the
other fact that no republic, from that of Greece to our own, has
introduced it, although manhood suffrage has been universal in Switzerland
for many years, and in France since 1848.
So it would seem that under a monarchical system, with a standing army and
a hereditary nobility to support the throne, the royal mandate could be
issued by a woman. Any Queen, as well as the one that Alice met in
Wonderland, could say, "Off with his head!" But when freedom grew, and the
democratic idea began to prevail, and each individual man became a king,
and each home a castle, the law given by God and not by man came into
exercise, and upon each man was laid the duty of defending liberty and
those who were physically unfitted to defend themselves.
Let us turn now to our own country. Technically, at least, women possessed
the suffrage in our first settlements. In New England, in the early days,
when church-membership as the basis of the franchise excluded three-
fourths of the male inhabitants from its exercise, women could vote. Under
the old Provincial charters, from 1691 to 1780, they could vote for all
elective offices. From 1780 to 1785, under the Articles of Confederation,
they could vote for all elective offices except the Governor, the Council,
and the Legislature. The comment made upon this by the Suffrage writers
is, that "the fact that woman exercised the right of suffrage amid so many
restrictions, is very significant of the belief in her right to the
ballot-box." My comment is, that the same lesson we have learned in Europe
is repeated here with wonderful emphasis. Under the transported
aristocracy of churchly power in the state, they shared the undemocratic
rule. When freedom broadened a little, and, under a system that still
acknowledged allegiance to the British Crown, all property-holders or
other "duly qualified" colonists could vote, they still had the voice that
England grants to-day, the voice of an estate. When liberty took another
step and a league was formed of "firm friendship" in which each Colony was
to be independent and yet banded for offensive and defensive aid, the
women were retired from the special vote on the result of which lay the
actual execution of the law. But this country was not yet a republic, or
even a nation. Washington himself said that the state of things under the
Articles of Confederation was hardly removed from anarchy. In 1789 a
constitution was adopted, which made the American people a nation. Its
preamble read: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a
more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure
the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and
establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Under this
Constitution the last vestiges of churchly political rule, and of
property-qualification for voting, have gradually disappeared. New Jersey
was the last State to repeal her property-qualification laws. In 1709 she
made "male freeholders" who held a certain amount of property the only
voters. In 1790 her Constitution, through an error in wording, admitted
"all inhabitants" with certain property to vote. This was in force until
1807, when an act was passed conferring the suffrage upon "free white male
citizens twenty-one years of age worth fifty pounds proclamation money,
clear estate," etc. From 1790 to 1807 a good many women, generally from
the Society of Friends, took part in elections. After 1807 they attempted
to do so, as owners of property. Finally, that qualification for the male
voter was done away with, and with it the woman-suffrage agitation
disappeared.
State after State, in carrying out the compact of the Federal Republic,
had inserted the word "male" into the Constitutions that embodied the
American conception of a more vital and enduring freedom.
But there are now four States of the Union where women have full suffrage,
a few where they have a measure of municipal suffrage, and many where they
have the school suffrage. What bearing do these facts have upon my claim
that woman suffrage is undemocratic?
The States where they have full suffrage are Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and
Idaho. How far was its introduction into these States the result of
advanced legislation in accord with true republicanism? Utah Territory was
the first spot in the country in which the measure gained a foothold, and
that was not believed by its introducers to be a part of the United
States. The Mormons who founded Salt Lake City supposed themselves to be
settling on Mexican territory, outside the jurisdiction of American law.
Woman suffrage was almost coincident with its beginnings, and it came as a
legitimate part of the union of state and church, of communism, of
polygamy. The dangers that especially threaten a republican form of
government are anarchy, communism, and religious bigotry; and two of these
found their fullest expression, in this country, in the Mormon creed and
practice. Fealty to Mormonism was disloyalty to the United States
Government. Thus, the introduction of woman suffrage within our borders
was not only undemocratic, it was anti-democratic.
Woman suffrage was secured in Wyoming by means that bring dishonor upon
democracy. Wyoming was organized as a Territory in 1868. Many of its
native settlers were from Utah. For its vast, mountainous extent of nearly
98,000 square miles, the census gave a population of only 9,118 persons.
Of these the native-born numbered 5,605, foreign-born, 3,513. The males
numbered 7,219; the females, 1,899. The "History of Woman Suffrage"
records the fact that the measure was secured in the first Territorial
legislature through the political trickery of an illiterate and
discredited man, who was in the chair. Mr. Bryce, in "The American
Commonwealth," alludes in a note to the same fact. Women voted in 1870. In
1871 a bill was passed repealing the suffrage act, but was vetoed by the
Governor, on the ground that, having been admitted, it must be given a
fair trial. An attempt to pass the repeal over his veto was lost by a
single vote. Certainly, the entrance of woman suffrage into Wyoming was
not a triumph of democratic progress and principle.
Colorado was admitted into the Union in 1876, and great efforts were made
by Suffragists to secure the "Centennial" State. This resulted in a
submission of the question to the people, who rejected it by a majority of
7,443 in a total vote of 20,665. From the first of the agitation for the
free coinage of silver, Colorado has been enthusiastically in favor of
that measure. In 1892 her devotion to it caused all parties to unite on
that issue and gave the vote of the State to General Weaver, Populist
candidate for President, and to David H. Waite, Populist candidate for
Governor. The question of woman suffrage was resubmitted to the people at
this election, and the constitutional amendment concerning it was carried
by a majority of only 5,000 in a total vote of 200,000. Neither that
movement nor its results present triumphant democracy.
In 1894 the Populist party of Idaho put a plank in its platform favoring
the submission of a woman-suffrage amendment to the people. In 1896 the
Free Silver Populist movement swept the State. A majority of the votes
cast on the Suffrage question were cast in its favor, but not a majority
of all the votes cast at the election. The supreme courts have generally
held that, in so important a matter, a complete majority vote was
required, but the Supreme Court of Idaho did not so hold, and woman
suffrage is now established in that State. This, also, is hardly a success
of sound democracy.
The subject of woman suffrage has lately been dealt with by two States
that represent republican progress at its best. They are New York and
Massachusetts. In the former State a Constitutional Convention in 1894
gave an impartial hearing to the subject, and decided not to submit to the
people an amendment striking the word "male" from the State Constitution.
Massachusetts at its State election in 1895 asked the people to vote upon
the question of extending municipal suffrage to women, and the answer was
given in a heavy adverse majority. Fewer than four in one hundred women
qualified to vote on the subject voted in its favor, and half a million
women declined to vote at all. A majority of over 100,000 votes was cast
against it by men. Utah and New York, Wyoming and Massachusetts, which
States do Americans hold up as nearest their model? In which have women
made most progress, and showed themselves most likely to understand their
rights, privileges and duties?
During the late Presidential election the issues passed the boundary that
separates party politics from patriotic faith. For months preceding that
struggle the Suffrage body had conducted the most efficient campaign in
its history. When the test came, California voted for sound money against
repudiation, for authority against anarchy, by a small majority, and threw
its ballots heavily against woman suffrage. With the enthusiastic help of
its woman voters, Colorado gave its electoral voice 16 to 1 against sound
money and sound Americanism. Which State can claim that its action rings
truest to the stroke of honest metal in finance and in defence of national
honor?
A few States have extended municipal suffrage to woman. It is generally
local and restricted Only in Kansas is there full municipal suffrage. Dr.
Jacobi, in her "Common Sense," says: "Municipal suffrage in Kansas demands
no property qualification, and its exercise therefore does not differ in
the least from that required in a Presidential election." This is a
mistake, for the difference is essential and illustrates the undemocratic
character of woman suffrage. Municipal suffrage in Kansas, like the
Territorial suffrage in Wyoming, was given by legislative act, and could
be done away with by another legislative act without appeal to the people,
or any change of the Constitution. It did not touch the vital question
whether women, in a democracy, could form a component part of the
government. Mrs. Stanton well understood that difference. Kansas had long
possessed local municipal suffrage when, in 1894, the question of granting
full suffrage, by constitutional amendment, was submitted to the people.
Mrs. Stanton then wrote: "My hope now rests with Kansas. If that fails
too, we must trust no longer to the Republican and Democratic parties, but
henceforth give our money, our eloquence, our enthusiasm to a People's
party that will recognize woman as an equal factor in a new civilization."
There was enough leaven of republicanism working then to cause the old
fighting-ground, the free-soil State, to reject the amendment by a popular
majority of 35,000. To the "People's Party" in Kansas woman suffrage may
look for the most striking illustration of its results. Where municipal
suffrage could be secured only by constitutional enactment, and was so
secured, it would differ merely in degree from presidential suffrage; but
it never has been so secured in any State except those that give full
constitutional suffrage. It is on a par with school suffrage, except that
legislative enactment extends the vote to town and city matters.
The history of the school suffrage affords another proof of the
incompatibility of republicanism and constitutional suffrage for woman.
Dr. Jacobi recognizes the difference between constitutional and school
suffrage when she says: "Women continually sign petitions for this
privilege, till startled by the discovery that it also means something
else. It means, however, in the State of New York, according to the
decision of the Supreme Court, that woman can only enjoy this privilege
thoroughly if empowered by constitutional amendment to vote for all
officers as well as for school commissioners." The States that have
refused to comply with the Suffragists' demand for the elective franchise,
the most progressive States, have been first to grant school suffrage,
under constitutional limits. The twenty-seven odd States that grant school
suffrage have had different methods of dealing with the question, because
their laws differ, but both the positive proof of its being granted, and
the negative proof of its being withheld, tell the same story in regard to
the fundamental principle involved. This is shown strikingly in the
situation in Kansas. Women have full municipal suffrage, and the Supreme
Court of that State decided that they could vote for school treasurer,
which was a charter office, but could not vote for County Superintendent
of Schools, because that office was provided for in the Constitution. The
school suffrage may or may not have a property qualification attached.
That makes no difference. The difference is the essential one between
delegated power and sovereign power. The States differ so widely in their
methods of dealing with municipal as well as school legislation, that only
a study of the laws of each State will reveal the situation. In Ohio, in
1895, for instance, the Legislature passed a bill enabling women to vote
on a municipal tax-levy, which the courts held was unconstitutional, while
they granted votes on license and other local questions.
In answer to the question whether, in Massachusetts, a woman could be a
member of a school committee, the Supreme Court returned the following
decision in 1874: "The Constitution contains nothing relating to school
committees; the office is created and regulated by statute; and the
Constitution confers upon the General Court full power and authority to
name and settle annually, or provide by fixed laws for naming and
settling, all civil officers within the Commonwealth the election and
constitution of whom are not in the Constitution otherwise provided for.
The question is therefore answered in the affirmative." The Supreme Court
of New York, in 1892, held that "School Commissioners are constitutional
officers within Article II. part 1 of the Constitution, and consequently
the law of 1892 giving women the right to vote for them is void." The case
was that of Matilda Joslyn Gage. The office of School Commissioner was
created after the adoption of the Constitution, and it was therefore urged
that the Constitution did not bear upon it; but the Supreme Court further
decided that the law gave the Legislature the right to appoint or to elect
the Commissioner; and as they had decided that the office should be
elective, the women could not vote for that office. They vote for
district-school officers under various local permissions or limitations.
In a case brought to decide the right of women to vote for County
Superintendent of Schools the Supreme Court of Illinois, in 1893, held
that, as the office was designated in the Constitution as elective, women
could not vote for it. The decision further said. "The votes for State
Superintendent of Instruction, and County Superintendent, are provided for
by law, and the Legislature cannot change the law. It may be that it is
competent for the Legislature to provide that women who are citizens of
the United States and over twenty-one may vote at elections held for
school directors and other school officers not mentioned in the
Constitution." Later, the Supreme Court held that women were entitled to
vote for school trustees, as "no officer of the school district is
mentioned in the State Constitution."
The Supreme Court of Ohio, in 1894, held that the provision of the act of
April 24, 1894, conferring upon women the right to vote at elections of
certain school officers, is valid, such right being within the legislative
power to provide for the establishment and maintenance of public schools,
and not within Article V. part 1, of the Constitution, which limits the
right to male citizens. Judge Shauck says: "The whole subject of the
public schools is delegated to the Assembly. As the common-school
organization is wholly a creation of the Legislature, it is in the power
of the Legislature to determine the qualifications of an elector and
office-holder in it." In upholding his ruling, he cited similar decisions
from the Supreme Courts of Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Massachusetts,
Michigan, and Iowa.
This rapid survey suggests, it seems to me, that, instead of being "a
legitimate outgrowth of the fundamental principles of our government,"
woman suffrage is really incompatible with true republican forms. Pre-
civilized conditions, aristocratic tendencies, the forces that would
destroy government--these appear to be its natural allies. We must study
more closely its connection with representative government the better to
comprehend this portentous truth.