I come now to treat of the brighter and more hopeful side of the
picture, and of the means whereby redress of the wrong lately
perpetrated is to be obtained. De Lolme, after dwelling on the
privileges of a people who live under a just code of laws, speaks as
follows: “But all these privileges of the people, considered in
themselves, may be but feeble defences against the real strength of
those who govern: all these provisions, all these reciprocal rights,
necessarily suppose that things remain in their legal and settled
course.” And he goes on to suppose a case in which rulers, suddenly
throwing themselves, as it were, out of the Constitution, and no longer
respecting the person of the subject, should force upon the nation the
enactments of an arbitrary will. He asks, “What then would be the
people’s resource?” He answers, “It would be resistance.”
He observes that the question of the right of the people to resistance,
in certain cases, has been established by the laws of England, which
look upon it as the “ultimate and lawful resource against the violences
of power.”[94] He further adds: “It was resistance that gave birth to
the Great Charter, that lasting foundation of English liberty; and the
excesses of a power established by force were also restrained by force.
It has been by this same resistance that at different times the people
have procured the confirmation of the same charter.” Lastly, this
resource of resistance, which for some time continued to be an act of
force opposed to other acts of force was, at the era of our glorious
Revolution, expressly recognised by the law itself.
Judge Blackstone, in his chapter on “the rights of persons,” after
examining the absolute rights which pertain to every Englishman, says,
“But in vain would these rights be declared, ascertained, and protected
by the dead letter of the law, if the Constitution had provided no other
method to secure their actual enjoyment. It has therefore established
certain other auxiliary rights of the subject, which serve principally
as outworks or barriers to protect and maintain inviolate the three
great and primary rights of personal security, personal liberty, and
private property....
“To vindicate these rights when actually violated or attacked, the
subjects of England are entitled, in the first place, to the regular
administration and free course of justice in the courts of law.
“Next, to the right of petitioning the King and Parliament for redress
of grievances.
“And lastly, to the right of having and using arms for self-preservation
and defence.
“And all these rights and liberties it is our birthright to enjoy
entire.”[95]
Now this solemn right of resistance, carrying with it, as it does, great
responsibilities, would be in itself but a vain shadow, did there not
exist in the nation the means of effecting a general union, of bringing
about great and widely-spread co-operation, and, to use a French word,
that _solidarité_ which are the requisite conditions of success in any
national enterprise for the redress of national wrongs. Private
individuals—and most particularly is it the case in the instance of
which we are treating in this Essay—are forced to bear in silence
injuries in which they do not see other people take a concern. They
tremble in their solitude and weakness at the formidable power of those
who oppress them, and as the latter well know the advantages of their
own position, they think they may venture upon anything. But when, with
the suffering of one—even the meanest member—the sympathy of all the
other members of the body politic comes to be expressed, and finds an
organized utterance, then the throes of this agony begin at last to be
felt as a simultaneous resistance to the power that inflicted it.
Lest there should be lurking in the minds of any of my readers the
thought that Parliament is an authority which it is in vain to try to
resist, and that we are to endure now from Parliament invasions of our
rights more tyrannical than we should have endured formerly from a King,
and therefore that we ought to sit still in inaction, or in a
pusillanimous indifference and criminal submission to such invasions of
our rights, I venture to urge the people of this country, by the noble
examples of the past, to let no day pass over their head without some
effort to effect the purification of our country from the great evil
established in it by Parliament. And I cannot resist quoting here once
more the words of that venerable peer, who has set us an example, worthy
to be studied at this day, in resisting the encroachments of the
Legislature. These words were spoken under the pressure of ill-health,
and have in them a solemn pathos, to which the present crisis enables
those of us who recognise its gravity to respond:—
“The constitution of this country has been openly invaded, in fact, and
I have heard with horror and astonishment, that very invasion defended
upon principle.... My Lords, I thought the slavish doctrine of passive
obedience had long since been exploded.... No man respects the House of
Commons more than I do, or would contend more strenuously than I would
to preserve them their just and legal authority. Within the bounds
prescribed by the constitution, that authority is necessary to the
well-being of the people; beyond that line every exertion of power is
arbitrary, is illegal, it threatens tyranny to the people and
destruction to the State. Power without right is the most odious object
that can be offered to the human imagination. It is not only pernicious
to those who are subject to it, but tends to its own destruction....
Tyranny, my Lords, is detestable in every shape, but in none so
formidable as when it is assumed and exercised by a number of
tyrants....
“My uncertain state of health must plead my excuse if I wander from my
argument; yet I thank God, my Lords, for having thus long preserved so
inconsiderable a being as I am to take a part upon this great occasion,
and to contribute my endeavours, such as they are, to restore, to save
the constitution. My Lords, I need not look abroad for grievances. The
grand capital mischief is fixed at home. It is corrupting the very
foundation of our political existence, and preying upon the vitals of
the State. The constitution has been grossly violated. THE CONSTITUTION
AT THIS MOMENT STANDS VIOLATED. Until that wound be healed, until the
grievance be redressed, it is in vain to recommend union to Parliament,
in vain to promote concord among the people. If we mean seriously to
unite the nation within itself, we must convince them that their
complaints are regarded, that their injuries shall be redressed. On
_that_ foundation I would take the lead in recommending peace and
harmony to the people. On any other I would never wish to see them
united again. If the breach in the constitution be effectually repaired,
the people will of themselves return to a state of tranquillity; if not,
MAY DISCORD PREVAIL FOR EVER! If the king’s servants will not permit the
constitutional question to be decided according to the forms and on the
principles of the constitution, it must then be decided in some other
manner; and rather than it should be given up, rather than the nation
should surrender their birthright to a despotic minister, I hope, my
Lords, old as I am, I shall see the question brought to issue, and
fairly tried between the people and the Government.”[96]
Such words as these, however, indicate the struggles of a people whose
representative government is so defective as not to offer a real
representation, and who therefore are under the necessity, when their
rulers do not represent them, of contemplating a violent resistance to
their authority. We, on the contrary, now more happily situated, can
contemplate a change by the ordinary course of elections of the
individuals who represent us. The due action of this system under which
we now live is well expressed in the words of De Lolme:—“When the rulers
see that all their actions are exposed to public view, that in
consequence of the celerity with which all things become communicated
the whole nation forms, as it were, one continued _irritable body_, no
part of which can be touched without exciting an universal _tremor_,
they become sensible that the cause of each individual is really the
cause of all, and that to attack the lowest among the people is to
attack the whole people.”[97]
Now it becomes of the greatest importance, seeing that the people are
possessed of the power of awing the Legislature, that they should use it
in the wisest and best manner; and in order to that end we must bear in
mind what has been so often proved to the glory of the people of
England, that power is often most effectually expressed by an attitude
of suspended determination. “Forming thus,[98] as it were, one body, the
people at every instant have it in their power to strike the decisive
blow which is to level everything. Like those mechanical powers the
greatest efficiency of which exists at the instant which precedes their
entering into action, it has an immense force just because it does not
yet exert any, and in this state of stillness, but of suspense, consists
its true momentum.”
Now it is this instant which precedes any direct forcible action on the
part of the people, which is the instant most favourable for the
conversion and enlightenment of those rulers who trespass upon the
Constitution. It is precisely at this instant that those who by virtue
of their commission from the people are intrusted with the solemn
responsibility of the more active part of government, behold themselves,
as it were, exposed to public view, and attentively observed by men, not
fiercely, but solemnly and religiously bent on the recovery of their
sacred rights; by men free from all party spirit, and combined as men
combine in a crisis of common danger, and who place in their rulers only
a conditional trust. These rulers, feeling themselves thus observed, are
afraid of exciting commotion, revolution, or rebellion, which, whatever
else it effected, would surely and certainly effect the destruction of
their own power, and be the close of their own tenure of office. Under
these circumstances, if they should have sacrificed public liberties or
been false to their trust, “they would no sooner lift up their eyes
towards that vast assembly which views them with this watchful
attention, than they would find their public virtue return upon them,
and would make haste to resume that plan of conduct out of the limits of
which they can expect nothing but ruin and perdition.”[99]
Therefore I trust you will pardon me, O patient and resolute people of
England, who have in former national dangers so nobly borne, so long
forborne, and so firmly acted, if I adjure you in the present crisis to
remember the spirit in which your ancestors fought the battles of
freedom, and to hold yourselves thoroughly prepared to _resist this
legislation to the uttermost_, while cherishing the spirit of dependence
on Divine aid, enjoined on the Hebrews of old in the words, “Stand
still, and see the salvation of God.” Remember that the great success
attending your former acts of resistance, success which has been dwelt
upon in wonder and admiration by our continental neighbours, is mainly
owing to the fact that you influence rather than interfere, that you are
able and prepared to strike, but refrain from striking.
“The power of the people is not when they strike, but when they keep
their rulers in awe. It is when they can overthrow everything that they
never need to move.”
I have said that we live under a system of just laws, and I have praised
our representative government. But we owe the existence of the Acts of
Parliament which we condemn, in a great measure to a grave fault in
these laws, and a grave inadequacy in that representative government. I
have already spoken of that fault in our laws. It cannot be expected
that due attention will ever be paid to the interests of any class which
is not duly represented in the government of the country. If women had
possessed the franchise, the Contagious Diseases Acts could not have
been passed. I have preferred in this Essay to treat these Acts as a
matter affecting the whole community rather than as one which concerns
women particularly, inasmuch as the claims which women and men have to
jury trial and to all constitutional rights are equal, and rest on the
same foundation, which cannot be destroyed for one sex only. I can never
view this question as fundamentally any more a woman’s question than it
is a man’s. These Acts secure the enslavement of women and the increased
immorality of men; and history and experience alike teach us that these
two results are never separated. Slavery and immorality lead to
degradation, political ruin, and intellectual decay, and therefore it is
that these Acts are a question for the whole nation at large. Yet we
cannot shut our eyes to the fact that these Acts of Parliament in the
first instance affect women only; it is by their necessary consequences,
not by their immediate action, that men also are affected.
It is the beneficent arrangement of God that the interests of men and of
women are identical; to this we owe it that women have not been more the
sufferers from the partial representative system of this country than
they have yet been. But let us not forget that the same great ordinance
of God holds equally of the interests of all mankind, in all lands, and
of all ranks; the interests of all are identical; yet there are
oppressions manifold among mankind. It is to the recognition which
necessarily follows sooner or later of that great law of God, that we
may, under Providence, attribute the fact that the world is not worse
than it is. For when men act in neglect of this great law, evils ensue
more or less immediately; if they continue so to act, their neglect of
this law brings eventually disturbance or decay, and an overturning of
the fabric of society.
The object of a complete representation of the people is to establish a
government which, by its own natural action, shall follow out and not
violate this great principle. Hence it is that a just representative
government—that is, one in which there is no class unrepresented—is the
only form of government which bears in itself the elements and means of
its own continuance or revival. All other governments bear in them the
necessary seeds of revolution; they must all be corrected from without;
it alone is able to correct itself from within. The possession of the
franchise by women is not only the pledge of security for women—the only
satisfactory pledge that the interests of women shall be duly
respected,—but it is also the pledge of security for the nation that it
shall not be in danger of violating the great principle, that the
interests of all are identical, and shall not therefore incur the evil
consequences of such a violation.
The object of representative government is to make the recognition of
the principle that the interests of all are identical, preventive rather
than remedial. What I mean by this will be best illustrated by the very
case with which we are dealing. The Contagious Diseases Acts are based
on the fundamental assumption that the interests of women, as a class,
can be neglected, while those of men can be cherished. It is an
erroneous basis on which to make any law, for it is a contradiction of
the law of God. Evil fruits must always follow for the whole nation
which permits its rulers to act on such an assumption. In the case in
point these evil fruits are easily detected, and the fatal operation of
the bad principle is easily traced; hence those who already possess the
franchise may be trusted to repeal these Acts. But though in this
instance the path of return from error may be short, still it is a path
of _return_. It is a retracing of our steps, the necessity of which has
been brought about by abnormal conditions; and there exists in our
representative government no guarantee against the repetition of such
errors in the future. The nation has to be recalled from error to
rectitude; it has to purge itself; to recover a great principle; and if
God grant that it returns to that principle from the expectation rather
than from the experience of the miseries of violating it, that result
will be one which does not flow naturally from our present partial
representative system, but which has been induced upon it from without.
The aim of representative government is to make the recognition of the
identity of the interests of all a continual and natural process; and
until women have votes, that which stands between this nation and the
evil consequences of violating this principle is only the precarious
barrier of “agitation.” Until women possess the franchise the system of
our government will be unstable and not self-corrective. And this is
much more evident in the present day than in former times, and is daily
becoming more evident. There are great social questions pressing for
consideration and for settlement; and so long as one sex undertakes to
consider these questions alone, we shall be hurried into errors similar
to the Contagious Diseases Acts, and into legislation based upon the
neglect of the interests of women—a neglect which in all instances will
prove, as in this it most emphatically proves, fatal to those imagined
interests on behalf of which these are neglected. Legislation can never
in these days, and at the stage of civilisation which we have reached,
be just and pure until women are represented. Do not let the reader here
for a moment suppose that I am attributing to men any intentional
injustice, or that I am supposing that they will be actuated in general
by anything but benevolent intentions towards women. But the safety and
stability of all that is done in the nation depends, not upon the
benevolent intentions of the enfranchised towards the unenfranchised,
but upon the just representation of all. Self-government is life, and
life cannot be lived at second hand.
“Unfinished questions have no pity for the repose of nations.” It is
only by means of the joint action of men and women that the great social
questions of the present day can ever be satisfactorily settled, and
when the iniquitous Contagious Diseases Acts—that huge retrograde step
in legislation—are done away with, the country will only fall into new
errors unless the voice of the women of the country, now raised from
without, receive that permanent means of expressing itself shortly,
easily, and effectually, which is given by the possession of the
franchise, and by that alone. Let it not be forgotten that the women of
England have had to come forth from the retirement of their own loved
homes, to do and to suffer what they never would have been required to
do and to suffer if they had possessed the franchise, and to wear their
lives out in protesting against an iniquity which—if their
unenfranchised voices be not powerful enough—will prove the ruin of
their country. Those fastidious gentlemen who querulously cry out
against the attitude lately assumed by patriotic and Christian women,
and who shudder lest the faintest echoes of this agitation should reach
the refined ears of their own wives and daughters, should remember that
agitations involving questions of deep domestic interest will again and
again be necessary, unless women are granted the power to influence
Parliament without such agitation. It would be well that such persons
should be fully alive to the fact also, that English women will be found
ready again and again to agitate, to give men no repose, to turn the
world upside down if need be, until impurity and injustice are expelled
from our laws. The interests of women are palpably identical with
morality; that the interests of men are equally so is not yet clearly
perceived by all men. While contending for justice to their sex, women
will therefore contend for morality. Let those who consider it an evil
that feminine voices should be heard, even in the cause of morality, in
such an agitation as the present, endeavour to prevent a recurrence of
the evil by putting it in the power of women to act for the good of the
country without raising their voice aloud.