In some countries of Europe much of wrong is still done to woman, at
the present day, by old laws owing their existence to a past state of
things, and which have not yet been repealed or modified to suit
existing circumstances. But we are writing now to American women, and,
instead of the evils existing in the other hemisphere, we are looking
at a very different state of society. Let us confine ourselves,
therefore, to the subject as it affects ourselves.
To go into all the details which might be drawn together from the
statute books of the different States of the Union bearing on this
point, and to do them full justice, would require volumes. Such a
course is not necessary. The question can be decided with truth and
justice on general principles--on generally admitted facts. We admit,
then, that in some States--perhaps in all--there may be laws in which
the natural and acquired rights of woman have not been fairly
considered; that in some cases she has needed more legal protection and
more privileges than she has yet received. But while this admission is
made, attention is at the same time demanded for a fact inseparably
connected with it; namely, the marked and generous liberality which
American men have thus far shown in the considerate care and protection
they have, as a general rule, given to the interests of women. In no
country, whether of ancient or modern times, have women had less to
complain of in their treatment by man than in America. This is no
rhetorical declamation; it is the simple statement of an undeniable
fact. It is a matter of social history. Since the days of early
colonial life to the present hour--or, in other words, during the last
two hundred and fifty years--such has been the general course of things
in this country. The hardest tasks have been taken by man, and a
generous tenderness has been shown to women in many of the details of
social life, pervading all classes of society, to a degree beyond what
is customary even in the most civilized countries of Europe. Taking
these two facts together--that certain abuses still exist, that certain
laws and regulations need changing and that, as a general rule,
American women have thus far been treated by their countrymen with
especial consideration, in a legal and in a social sense--the inference
becomes perfectly plain. A formidable and very dangerous social
revolution is not needed to correct remaining abuses. Any revolution
aiming at upsetting the existing relations of the sexes--relations
going back to the earliest records and traditions of the race--can not
be called less than formidable and dangerous. Let women make full use
of the influences already at their command, and all really needed
changes may be effected by means both sure and safe--means already
thoroughly tried. Let them use all the good sense, all the information,
all the eloquence, and, if they please, all the wit, at their command
when talking over these abuses in society. Let them state their views,
their needs, their demands, in conscientiously written papers. Let them
appeal for aid to the best, the wisest, the most respected men of the
country, and the result is certain. Choose any one real, existing abuse
as a test of the honesty and the liberality of American men toward the
women of the country, and we all know before-hand what shall be the
result.[1]
{FOOTNOTE by SFC} [1] There is an injustice in the present law of
guardianship in the State of New York, which may be named as one of
those abuses which need reformation. A woman can not now, in the State
of New York, appoint a guardian for her child, even though its father
be dead. The authority for appointing a guardian otherwise than by the
courts is derived from the Revised statutes, p. 1, title 3, chapter 8,
part 2, and that passage gives the power to the father only. The mother
is not named. It has been decided in the courts that a mother can not
make this appointment--12 Howard's Practical Reports, 532. This is
certainly very unjust and very unwise. But let any dozen women of
respectability take the matter in hand, and, by the means already at
their command, from their own chimney-corners, they can readily procure
the insertion of the needful clause. And so with any other real abuse.
Men are now ready to listen, and ready to act, when additional
legislation is prudently and sensibly asked for by their wives and
mothers. How they may act when women stand before them, armed
CAP-A-PIE, and prepared to demand legislation at the point of the
bayonet, can not yet be known. {END FOOTNOTE}
If husbands, fathers, brothers, are ready any day to shed their heart's
blood for our personal defense in the hour of peril, we may feel
perfectly assured that they will also protect us, when appealed to, by
legislation. When they lay down their arms and refuse to fight for us,
it will then be time to ask them to give up legislation also. But until
that evil hour arrives let men make the laws, and let women be content
to fill worthily, to the very best of their abilities, the noble
position which the Heavenly Father has already marked out for them.
There is work to be done in that position reaching much higher, going
much farther, and penetrating far deeper, than any mere temporary
legislation can do. Of that work we shall speak more fully a moment
later.
SECONDLY. THE INALIENABLE NATURAL RIGHT OF WOMAN TO VOTE; AND
IMPERATIVELY SO IN A COUNTRY WHERE UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE IS A GREAT
POLITICAL PRINCIPLE.
This second proposition of the advocates of female suffrage is of a
general character. It does not point to particular abuses, it claims
the right of woman to vote as one which she should demand, whether
practically needed or not. It is asserted that to disqualify half the
race from voting is an abuse entirely inconsistent with the first
principles of American politics. The answer to this is plain. The
elective franchise is not an end; it is only a means. A good government
is indeed an inalienable right. Just so far as the elective franchise
will conduce to this great end, to that point it becomes also a right,
but no farther. A male suffrage wisely free, including all capable of
justly appreciating its importance, and honestly discharging its
responsibilities, becomes a great advantage to a nation. But universal
suffrage, pushed to its extreme limits, including all men, all women,
all minors beyond the years of childhood, would inevitably be fraught
with evil. There have been limits to the suffrage of the freest
nations. Such limits have been found necessary by all past political
experience. In this country, at the present hour, there are
restrictions upon the suffrage in every State. Those restrictions vary
in character. They are either national, relating to color, political,
mental, educational, connected with a property qualification, connected
with sex, connected with minority of years, or they are moral in their
nature.[2]
(FOOTNOTE by SFC} [2] In connection with this point of moral
qualification we venture to ask a question. Why not enlarge the
criminal classes from whom the suffrage is now withheld? Why not
exclude every man convicted of any degrading legal crime, even petty
larceny? And why not exclude from the suffrage all habitual drunkards
judicially so declared? These are changes which would do vastly more of
good than admitting women to vote. {END FOOTNOTE}
This restriction connected with sex is, in fact, but one of many other
restrictions, considered more or less necessary even in a democracy.
Manhood suffrage is a very favorite term of the day. But, taken in the
plain meaning of those words, such fullness of suffrage has at the
present hour no actual existence in any independent nation, or in any
extensive province. It does not exist, as we have just seen, even among
the men of America. And, owing to the conditions of human life, we may
well believe that unrestricted fullness of manhood suffrage never can
exist in any great nation for any length of time. In those States of
the American Union which approach nearest to a practical manhood
suffrage, unnaturalized foreigners, minors, and certain classes of
criminals, are excluded from voting. And why so? What is the cause of
this exclusion? Here are men by tens of thousands--men of widely
different classes and conditions--peremptorily deprived of a privilege
asserted to be a positive inalienable right universal in its
application. There is manifestly some reason for this apparently
contradictory state of things. We know that reason to be the good of
society. It is for the good of society that the suffrage is withheld
from those classes of men. A certain fitness for the right use of the
suffrage is therefore deemed necessary before granting it. A criminal,
an unnaturalized foreigner, a minor, have not that fitness;
consequently the suffrage is withheld from them. The worthy use of the
vote is, then, a qualification not yet entirely overlooked by our
legislators. The State has had, thus far, no scruples in withholding
the suffrage even from men, whenever it has believed that the grant
would prove injurious to the nation.
Here we have the whole question clearly defined. The good of society is
the true object of all human government. To this principle suffrage
itself is subordinate. It can never be more than a means looking to the
attainment of good government, and not necessarily its corner-stone.
Just so far is it wise and right. Move one step beyond that point, and
instead of a benefit the suffrage may become a cruel injury. The
governing power of our own country--the most free of all great
nations--practically proclaims that it has no right to bestow the
suffrage wherever its effects are likely to become injurious to the
whole nation, by allotting different restrictions to the suffrage in
every State of the Union. The right of suffrage is, therefore, most
clearly not an absolutely inalienable right universal in its
application. It has its limits. These limits are marked out by plain
justice and common-sense. Women have thus far been excluded from the
suffrage precisely on the same principles--from the conviction that to
grant them this particular privilege would, in different ways, and
especially by withdrawing them from higher and more urgent duties, and
allotting to them other duties for which they are not so well fitted,
become injurious to the nation, and, we add, ultimately injurious to
themselves, also, as part of the nation. If it can be proved that this
conviction is sound and just, founded on truth, the assumed inalienable
right of suffrage, of which we have been hearing so much lately,
vanishes into the "baseless fabric of a vision." If the right were
indeed inalienable, it should be granted, without regard to
consequences, as an act of abstract justice. But, happily for us, none
but the very wildest theorists are prepared to take this view of the
question of suffrage. The advocates of female suffrage must, therefore,
abandon the claim of inalienable right. Such a claim can not logically
be maintained for one moment in the face of existing facts. We proceed
to the third point.
THIRDLY. THE ELEVATION OF THE ENTIRE SEX, THE GENERAL PURIFICATION OF
POLITICS THROUGH THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN, AND THE CONSEQUENT ADVANCE OF
THE WHOLE RACE. Such, we are told, must be the inevitable results of
what is called the emancipation of woman, the entire independence of
woman through the suffrage.
Here we find ourselves in a peculiar position. While considering the
previous points of this question we have been guided by positive facts,
clearly indisputable in their character. Actual, practical experience,
with the manifold teachings at her command, has come to our aid. But we
are now called upon, by the advocates of this novel doctrine, to change
our course entirely. We are under orders to sail out into unknown seas,
beneath skies unfamiliar, with small light from the stars, without
chart, without pilot, the port to which we are bound being one as yet
unvisited by mortal man--or woman! Heavy mist, and dark cloud, and
threatening storm appear to us brooding over that doubtful sea. But
something of prophetic vision is required of us. We are told that all
perils which seem to threaten the first stages of our course are
entirely illusive--that they will vanish as we approach--that we shall
soon arrive in halcyon waters, and regions where wisdom, peace, and
purity reign supreme. If we cautiously inquire after some assurance of
such results, we are told that to those sailing under the flag of
progress triumph is inevitable, failure is impossible; and that many of
the direst evils hitherto known on earth must vanish at the touch of
the talisman in the hand of woman--and that talisman is the vote.
Now, to speak frankly--and being as yet untrammeled by political
aspirations, we fearlessly do so--as regards this flag of progress, we
know it to be a very popular bit of bunting; but to the eye of
common-sense it is grievously lacking in consistency. The flag of our
country means something positive. We all love it; we all honor it. It
represents to us the grand ideas by which the nation lives. It is the
symbol of constitutional government, of law and order, of union, of a
liberty which is not license. It is to us the symbol of all that may be
great and good and noble in the Christian republic. But this vaunted
flag of progress, so alluring to many restless minds, is vague in its
colors, unstable, too often illusive, in web and woof. Many of its most
prominent standard-bearers are clad in the motley garb of theorists.
Their flag may be seen wandering to and fro, hither and thither, up and
down, swayed by every breath of popular caprice; so it move to the mere
cry of "Progress!" its followers are content. To-day, in the hands of
the skeptical philosopher, it assaults the heavens. Tomorrow it may:
float over the mire of Mormonism, or depths still more vile. It was
under the flag of progress that, in the legislative halls of France,
the name of the Holy Lord God of Hosts, "who inhabiteth eternity," was
legally blasphemed. It was under the flag of progress that, on the 10th
of November, 1793, Therese Momoro, Goddess of Reason, and wife of the
printer Momoro, was borne in triumph, by throngs of worshipers, through
the streets of Paris, and enthroned in the house of God.
Beyond all doubt, there is now, as there ever has been, an onward
progress toward truth on earth. But that true progress is seldom rapid,
excepting perhaps in the final stages of some particular movement. It
is, indeed, often so slow, so gradual, as to be imperceptible at the
moment to common observation. It is often silent, wonderful,
mysterious, sublime. It is the grand movement toward the Divine Will,
working out all things for eventual good. In looking back, there are
for every generation way-marks by which the course of that progress may
be traced. In looking forward no mortal eye can foresee its immediate
course. The ultimate end we know, but the next step we can not
foretell. The mere temporary cry of progress from human lips has often
been raised in direct opposition to the true course of that grand,
mysterious movement. It is like the roar of the rapids in the midst of
the majestic stream, which, in the end, shall yield their own foaming
waters to the calm current moving onward to the sea. We ask, then, for
something higher, safer, more sure, to guide us than the mere popular
cry of "Progress!" We dare not blindly follow that cry, nor yield
thoughtless allegiance to every flag it upholds.
Then, again, as regards that talisman, the vote, we have but one answer
to make. We do not believe in magic. We have a very firm and
unchangeable faith in free institutions, founded on just principles. We
entirely believe that a republican form of government in a Christian
country may be the highest, the noblest, and the happiest that the
world has yet seen. Still, we do not believe in magic. And we do not
believe in idolatry. We Americans are just as much given to idolatry as
any other people. Our idols may differ from those of other nations; but
they are, none the less, still idols. And it strikes the writer that
the ballot-box is rapidly becoming an object of idolatry with us. Is it
not so? From the vote alone we expect all things good. From the vote
alone we expect protection against all things evil. Of the vote
Americans can never have too much--of the vote they can never have
enough. The vote is expected by its very touch, suddenly and
instantaneously, to produce miraculous changes; it is expected to make
the foolish wise, the ignorant knowing, the weak strong, the fraudulent
honest. It is expected to turn dross into gold. It is held to be the
great educator, not only as regards races, and under the influence of
time, which is in a measure true, but as regards individuals and
classes of men, and that in the twinkling of an eye, with magical
rapidity. Were this theory practically sound, the vote would really
prove a talisman. In that case we should give ourselves no rest until
the vote were instantly placed in the hands of every Chinaman landing
in California, and of every Indian roving over the plains. But, in
opposition to this theory, what is the testimony of positive facts
known to us all? Are all voters wise? Are all voters honest? Are all
voters enlightened? Are all voters true to their high responsibilities?
Are all voters faithful servants of their country? Is it entirely true
that the vote has necessarily and really these inherent magical powers
of rapid education for individuals and for classes of men, fitting
them, in default of other qualifications, for the high responsibilities
of suffrage? Alas! we know only too well that when a man is not already
honest and just and wise and enlightened, the vote he holds can not
make him so. We know that if he is dishonest, he will sell his vote; if
he is dull and ignorant, he is misled, for selfish purposes of their
own, by designing men. As regards man, at least, the vote can be too
easily proved to be no talisman. It is very clear that for man the
ballot-box needs to be closely guarded on one side by common-sense, on
the other by honesty. A man must be endowed with a certain amount of
education and of principle, before he receives the vote, to fit him for
a worthy use of it. And if the vote be really no infallible talisman
for man, why should we expect it to work magical wonders in the hands
of woman?
But let us drop the play of metaphor, appropriate though it be when
facing the visions of political theorists. Let us look earnestly and
clearly at the positive facts before us. We are gravely told that to
grant the suffrage to woman would be a step inevitably beneficial and
elevating to the whole sex, and, through their influence, to the entire
race, and that, on this ground alone, the proposed change in the
constitution should be made. Here, so far at least as the concluding
proposition goes, we must all agree. If it can be clearly proved that
this particular change in our institutions is one so fraught with
blessings, we are bound to make it at every cost. The true elevation of
the whole race: that is what we are all longing for, praying for. And
is it indeed true that this grand work can effectually be brought about
by the one step we are now urged to take? What says actual experience
on this point? The whole history of mankind shows clearly that, as yet,
no one legislative act has ever accomplished half of what is claimed by
the advocates of woman's suffrage as the inevitable result of the
change they propose. No one legislative act has ever been so widely
comprehensive in its results for good as they declare that this act
shall be. No one legislative act has ever raised the entire race even
within sight of the point of elevation predicted by the champions of
what is called the emancipation of woman. Hear them speak for
themselves: "It is hardly possible, with our present experience, to
raise our imaginations to the conception of so great a change for the
better as would be made by its removal"--the removal of the principle
of the subordination of the wife to the husband, and the establishment
of the entire independence of women, to be obtained by female suffrage.
These are not the words of some excited woman making a speech at a
public meeting. The quotation is from the writings of Mr. Stuart Mill.
The subordination of the wife to the husband is declared by Mr. Mill to
be "the citadel of the enemy." Storm the citadel, proclaim the entire
independence of the wife, and our feeble imaginations, we are told, are
utterly incapable of conceiving the glorious future of the race
consequent upon this one step. This is a very daring assertion. It is
so bold, indeed, as to require something of positive proof ere we can
yield to it our implicit belief. The citadel we are urged to storm was
built by the hand of God. The flag waving over that citadel is the flag
of the Cross. When the Creator made one entire sex so much more feeble
in physical powers than the other, a degree of subordination on the
part of the weaker sex became inevitable, unless it were counteracted
by increase of mental ability, strengthened by special precept. But the
mental ability, so far as there is a difference, and the precept, are
both on the side of the stronger sex. The whole past history of the
race coincides so clearly with these facts that we should suppose that
even those who are little under the influence of Christian faith might
pause era they attacked that citadel. Common-sense might teach them
something of caution, something of humility, when running counter to
the whole past experience of the race. As for those who have a living
belief in the doctrines of Christianity, when they find that revealed
religion, from the first of the Prophets to the last of the Apostles,
allots a subordinate position to the wife, they are compelled to
believe Moses and St. Paul in the right, and the philosophers of the
present day, whether male or female, in the wrong. To speak frankly,
the excessive boldness of these new theories, the incalculable and
inconceivable benefits promised us from this revolution from the
natural condition of things in Christendom--and throughout the world
indeed--would lead us to suspicion. Guides who appeal to the
imagination when discussing practical questions are not generally
considered the safest. And the champions of female suffrage are
necessarily compelled to take this course. They have no positive
foundation to rest on. Mr. Stuart Mill has said in Parliament, in
connection with this subject, that "the tyranny of established custom
has entirely passed away." Nothing can be more true than this
assertion. As a rule, the past is now looked upon with doubt, with
suspicion, often with a certain sort of contempt, very far from being
always consistent with sound reason. The tyranny of the present
day--and it may be just as much a tyranny as the other--is radically
opposite in character. It is the tyranny of novelty to which we are
most exposed at present. The dangers lie chiefly in that direction.
There will be little to fear from the old until the hour of reaction
arrives, as it inevitably must, if the human mind be strained too far
in a new direction. At present the more startling an assertion, the
farther it wanders from all past experience, the greater are its
chances of attracting attention, of gaining adherents, of achieving at
least a partial and temporary success. In the age and in the country
which has seen the development of Mormonism as a successful religious,
social, and political system, nothing should surprise us. Such is the
restlessness of human nature that it will often, from mere weak
hankering after change, hug to its bosom the wildest theories, and
yield them a temporary allegiance.
Let us suppose that to-day the proposed revolution were effected; all
women, without restriction, even the most vile, would be summoned to
vote in accordance with their favorite theory of inalienable right.
That class of women, and other degraded classes of the ignorant and
unprincipled, will always be ready to sell their votes many times
over--to either party, to both parties, to the highest bidder, in
short. They will sell their vote much more readily than the lowest
classes of men now do. They will hold it with greater levity. They will
trifle with it. They will sell their vote any day for a yard of ribbon
or a tinsel brooch--unless they are offered two yards of ribbon or two
brooches. They will vote over again every hour of every election day,
by cunning disguises and trickery. And thus, so far as women are
concerned, the most degraded element in society will, in fact,
represent the whole sex. Nay, they will probably not unfrequently
command the elections, as three colored women are said once to have
done in New Jersey. A hundred honest and intelligent women can have but
one vote each, and at least fifty of these will generally stay at home.
If, which God forbid, it actually comes to female voting, a very small
proportion of the sex will, at common elections, appear at the polls.
Avocations more urgent, more natural to them, and in which they are
more deeply interested, will keep them away. The degraded women will be
there by the scores, as tools of men, enjoying both the importance of
the hour, the fun, and THE PAY. Fifty women, known to be thieves and
prostitutes, will hold, at a moderate calculation, say two hundred
votes. And, as women form the majority of the resident population in
some States, that wretched element of society will, in fact, govern
those States, or those who bribe them will do so. Massachusetts, very
favorable to female suffrage now, will probably come round to the
opinion of New Jersey in former days. Great will be the consumption of
cheap ribbons, and laces, and artificial flowers, and feathers, and
tinsel jewelry, in every town and village about election time, after
emancipation is achieved. We are compelled to believe so, judging from
our knowledge of human nature, and of the use already made of bribery
at many elections. The demagogues will be more powerful than ever.
Their work will be made easy for them. It seems, indeed, probable that
under the new era our great elections shall become a sort of grand
national gift concerns, of which the most active demagogues of all
parties will be the managers. Not that women are more mercenary, or
more unprincipled than men. God forbid! That would be saying too much.
We entirely believe the reverse to be true. But the great mass of women
can never be made to take a deep, a sincere, a discriminating, a
lasting interest in the thousand political questions ever arising to be
settled by the vote. They very soon weary of such questions. On great
occasions they can work themselves up to a state of frenzied excitement
over some one political question. At such times they can parade a
degree of unreasoning prejudice, of passionate hatred, of blind fury,
even beyond what man can boast of. But, in their natural condition, in
everyday life, they do not take instinctively to politics as men do.
Men are born politicians; just as they are born masons, and carpenters,
and soldiers, and sailors. Not so women. Their thoughts and feelings
are given to other matters. The current of their chosen avocations runs
in another channel than that of politics--a channel generally quite out
of sight of politics; it is an effort for them to turn from one to the
other. With men, on the contrary, politics, either directly or
indirectly, are closely, palpably, inevitably blended with their
regular work in life. They give their attention unconsciously,
spontaneously; to politics. Look at a family of children, half boys,
half girls; the boys take instinctively to whips and guns and balls and
bats and horses, to fighting and wrestling and riding; the girls fondle
their dolls, beg for a needle and thread, play at housekeeping, at
giving tea-parties, at nursing the sick baby, at teaching school. That
difference lasts through life. Give your son, as he grows up, a gun and
a vote; he will delight in both. Give your daughter, as she grows up, a
gun and a vote, and, unless she be an exceptional woman, she will make
a really good use of neither. Your son may be dull; but he will make a
good soldier, and a very tolerable voter. Your daughter may be very
clever; but she would certainly run away on the battle-held, and very
probably draw a caricature on the election ticket. There is the making
of an admirable wife and mother, and a valuable member of society, in
that clever young woman. She is highly intelligent, thoroughly well
educated, reads Greek and Latin, and has a wider range of knowledge and
thought than ninety-nine in a hundred of the voters in the same
district; but there is nothing of the politician in her nature. She
would rather any day read a fine poem than the best political speech of
the hour. What she does know of politics reaches her through that dull
but worthy brother of hers. It is only occasionally that we meet women
with an inherent bias for politics; and those are not, as a rule, the
highest type of the sex--it is only occasionally that they are so. The
interest most women feel in politics is secondary, factitious,
engrafted on them by the men nearest to them. Women are not abortive
men; they are a distinct creation. The eye and the ear, though both
belonging to the same body, are each, in a certain sense, a distinct
creation. A body endowed with four ears might hear remarkably well; but
without eyes it would be of little use in the world. A body with four
eyes would have a fourfold power of vision, and would consequently
become nearly as sharp-sighted as a spider; but without hearing its
powers of sight would avail little. In both cases, half the functions
of the human being, whether physical or mental, would be very
imperfectly performed. Thus it is with men and women; each has a
distinct position to fill in the great social body, and is especially
qualified for it. These distinct positions are each highly important.
And it is reasonable to believe that, by filling their own peculiar
position thoroughly well, women can best serve their Creator, their
fellow-creatures, and themselves. No doubt you may, if you choose, by
especial education from childhood upward, make your girls very
respectable politicians, as much so as the majority of your sons. But
in that case you must give up your womanly daughters--you must be
content with manly daughters. This essential difference between the
sexes is a very striking fact; yet the advocates of female suffrage
constantly lose sight of it; they talk and write as if it had no
existence. It is not lack of intellect on the part of women, but
difference of intellect, or rather a difference of organization and
affinities giving a different bias to the intellect, which is the cause
of their distinct mental character as a sex. And, owing to this
essential difference, the great majority of women are naturally
disinclined to politics, and partially unfitted for action in that
field.