vindicate the share of Roman Catholic priests and laymen in the early
settlement of this continent, should have introduced this paragraph into
a serious discussion of what he himself recognizes as an important
question. Here is the case. One-half the citizens of every State are
unrepresented in the government: the ordinary means of republican
influence are withheld from them, as they are from idiots and criminals.
It is the rights and claims of these women, as women, that statesmanship
has to consider. Whether their enfranchisement will help the nation or
the race, as a whole, is legitimate matter for argument. Whether their
votes will temporarily tell for this or that party or sect, is a wholly
subordinate matter, that ought not to be obtruded into a serious debate.
If republican government is not strong enough to stand on its own
principles, if its fundamental theory must be interpreted and modified
so that it shall work for or against a particular church or class of
citizens, then it is a worse failure than even Mr. Parkman represents
it. The “woman question,” whenever it is settled, must be settled on its
own merits, with no more reference to Roman Catholics, as such, than to
Mormons or Chinese. Having said this before, when advocates of woman
suffrage were presenting the movement as an anti-Catholic movement, I
can consistently repeat it now, when the movement is charged with being
unconsciously pro-Catholic in its tendencies. It is not its business to
be for or against any religion: its business is with principles.
The paragraph throws needless odium on a large and an inseparable
portion of the community,—the Roman Catholics. “Aliens to our blood and
race!” cried indignantly the orator Shiel, in the House of Commons, when
some one had thus characterized the Irish. “Heavens! have I not, upon
the battle-field, seen those aliens do their duty to England?” It is too
soon after the great civil war to stigmatize, even by implication, a
class on whom we were then glad to call. Whole regiments of Roman
Catholics were then called into the service; Roman Catholic chaplains
were commissioned, than whom none did their duty better, or in a less
sectarian spirit. In case of another war, all these would be summoned to
duty again. We have no right, in reasoning on American institutions, to
treat this religious element as something by itself, an alien member,
not to be assimilated, virtually antagonistic to republican government.
It has never proved to be so in Switzerland, where about half the
cantons are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, and yet the federal union is
preserved, and the republican feeling is as strong in these cantons as
in any other.
No doubt there would be great objections to the domination of any single
religious body, and the more thorough its organization the worse; but
this is an event in the last degree improbable in any State of the
Union. It is doubtful if even the Roman Catholic Church will ever again
be relatively so powerful as in the early years of our government, when
it probably had a majority of the population in three States,—Maryland,
Louisiana, and Kentucky,—whereas now it has lost it in all. It may be
many years before we again see, as we saw for a quarter of a century, a
Roman Catholic chief justice of the United States (Taney). If we ever
see this church come into greater power, it will be because it shows, as
in England, such tact and discretion and moderation as to disarm
opposition, and earn the right to influence. The common feeling and
prejudice of American people is, and is likely to remain, overwhelmingly
against it; and none know this better than the Roman Catholic priests
themselves. They know very well that nothing would more exasperate this
feeling than to marshal women to the polls like sheep; and this alone
would prevent their doing it, were there no other obstacle.
The abolitionists used to say that the instinct of any class of
oppressors was infallible, and that if the slaveholders, for instance,
dreaded a certain policy, that policy was the wise one for the slaves.
If the priests are such oppressors as Mr. Parkman thinks, they must have
the instinct of that class; and their present unanimous opposition to
woman suffrage is sufficient proof that it promises no good to them. How
easy it is to misinterpret their policy, has been shown in the school
suffrage matter. It was confidently stated that a certain priest in the
city where I live, had demanded from the pulpit a certain sum—two
thousand dollars—to pay the poll-taxes for women voters. Most people
believed it; yet, when it came to the point, not a Roman Catholic woman
applied for assessment. It will be thus with Mr. Parkman’s fears. Women
will ultimately vote,—as indeed, he seems rather to expect; and the
effect will be to make them more intelligent, and therefore less likely
to obey the will of any man. Roman Catholic men are learning to think
for themselves; and the best way to make women do so is to treat them as
intelligent and responsible beings.
CI.
DANGEROUS VOTERS.
One of the few plausible objections brought against women’s voting is
this: that it would demoralize the suffrage by letting in very dangerous
voters; that virtuous women would not vote, and vicious women would. It
is a very unfounded alarm.
For, in the first place, our institutions rest—if they have any basis at
all—on this principle, that good is stronger than evil, that the
majority of men really wish to vote rightly, and that only time and
patience are needed to get the worst abuses righted. How any one can
doubt this, who watches the course of our politics, I do not see. In
spite of the great disadvantage of having masses of ignorant foreign
voters to deal with,—and of native black voters, who have been purposely
kept in ignorance,—we certainly see wrongs gradually righted, and the
truth by degrees prevail. Even the one great, exceptional case of New
York City has been reached at last; and the very extent of the evil has
brought its own cure. Now, why should this triumph of good over evil be
practicable among men, and not apply to women also?
It must be either because women, as a class, are worse than men,—which
will hardly be asserted,—or because, for some special reason, bad women
have an advantage over good women such as has no parallel in the other
sex. But I do not see how this can be. Let us consider.
It is certain that good women are not less faithful and conscientious
than good men. It is generally admitted that those most opposed to
suffrage will very soon, on being fully enfranchised, feel it their duty
to vote. They may at first misuse the right through ignorance, but they
certainly will not shirk it. It is this conscientious habit on which I
rely without fear. Never yet, when public duty required, have American
women failed to meet the emergency; and I am not afraid of it now.
Moreover, when they are once enfranchised and their votes are needed,
all the men who now oppose or ridicule the demand for suffrage will
begin to help them to exercise it. When the wives are once enfranchised,
you may be sure that the husbands will not neglect those of their own
household: they will provide them with ballots, vehicles, and policemen,
and will contrive to make the voting-places pleasanter than many
parlors, and quieter than some churches.
On the other hand, it seems altogether probable that the very worst
women, so far from being ostentatious in their wickedness upon
election-day, will, on the contrary, so disguise and conceal themselves
as to deceive the very elect, and, if it were possible, the very
policemen. For whatever party they may vote, they will contribute to
make the voting-places as orderly as railway-stations. These covert ways
are the very habit of their lives, at least by daylight; and the women
who have of late done the most conspicuous and open mischief in our
community have done it, not in their true character as evil, but, on the
contrary, under a mask of elevated purpose.
That women, when they vote, will commit their full share of errors, I
have always maintained. But that they will collectively misuse their
power, seems to me out of the question; and that the good women are
going to stay at home, and let bad women do the voting, appears quite as
incredible. In fact, if they do thus, it is a fair question whether the
epithets “good” and “bad” ought not, politically speaking, to change
places. For it naturally occurs to every one, on election-day, that the
man who votes, even if he votes wrong, is really a better man, so far as
political duties go, than the very loftiest saint who stays at home and
prays that other people may vote right. And it is hard to see why it
should be otherwise with women.
CII.
HOW WOMEN WILL LEGISLATE.
It is often said, that, when women vote, their votes will make no
difference in the count, because they will merely duplicate the votes of
their husbands and brothers. Then these same objectors go on and predict
all sorts of evil things, for which women will vote, quite apart from
their husbands and brothers. Moreover, the evils thus predicted are apt
to be diametrically opposite. Thus Goldwin Smith predicts that women
will be governed by priests, and then goes on to predict that women will
vote to abolish marriage; not seeing, that, as Professor Cairnes has
pointed out, these two predictions destroy each other.
On the other hand, I think that the advocates of woman suffrage often
err by claiming too much,—as that all women will vote for peace, for
total abstinence, against slavery, and the rest. It seems better to rest
the argument on general principles, and not to seek to prophesy too
closely. The only thing which I feel safe in predicting is, that woman
suffrage will be used, as it should be, for the protection of woman.
Self-respect and self-protection,—these are, as has been already said,
the two great things for which woman needs the ballot.
It is not the nature of things, I take it, that a class politically
subject can obtain justice from the governing class. Not the least of
the benefits gained by political equality for the colored people of the
South is, that the laws now generally make no difference of color in
penalties for crime. In slavery times, there were dozens of crimes which
were punished more severely by the statute if committed by a slave or a
free negro, than if done by a white. I feel very sure that under the
reign of impartial suffrage we should see fewer such announcements as
this, which I cut from a late New York “Evening Express:”—
“Last night Capt. Lowery, of the Twenty-seventh Precinct, made a
descent upon the dance-house in the basement of 96 Greenwich Street,
and arrested fifty-two men and eight women. The entire batch was
brought before Justice Flammer, at the Tombs Police Court, this
morning. Louise Maud, the proprietress, was held in five hundred
dollars bail to answer at the Court of General Sessions. _The
fifty-two men were fined three dollars each, all but twelve paying
at once; and the eight women were fined ten dollars each, and sent
to the Island for one month._”
The Italics are my own. When we reflect that this dance-house, whatever
it was, was unquestionably sustained for the gratification of men,
rather than of women; when we consider that every one of these fifty-two
men came there, in all probability, by his own free will, and to spend
money, not to earn it; and that the undoubted majority of the women were
driven there by necessity or betrayal, or force or despair,—it would
seem that even an equal punishment would have been cruel injustice to
the women. But when we observe how trifling a penalty was three dollars
each to these men, whose money was sure to go for riotous living in some
form, and forty of whom had the amount of the fine in their pockets; and
how hopelessly large an amount was ten dollars each to women who did
not, probably, own even the clothes they wore, and who were to be sent
to prison for a month in addition,—we see a kind of injustice which
would stand a fair chance of being righted, I suspect, if women came
into power. Not that they would punish their own sex less severely;
probably they would not: but they would put men more on a level as to
the penalty.
It may be said that no such justice is to be expected from women;
because women in what is called “society” condemn women for mere
imprudence, and excuse men for guilt. But it must be remembered, that in
“society” guilt is rarely a matter of open proof and conviction, in case
of men: it is usually a matter of surmise; and it is easy for either
love or ambition to set the surmise aside, and to assume that the worst
reprobate is “only a little wild.” In fact, as Margaret Fuller pointed
out years ago, how little conception has a virtuous woman as to what a
dissipated young man really is! But let that same woman be a Portia, in
the judgment-seat, or even a legislator or a voter, and let her have the
unmistakable and actual offender before her, and I do not believe that
she will excuse him for a paltry fine, and give the less guilty woman a
penalty more than quadruple.
Women will also be sure to bring special sympathy and intelligent
attention to the wrongs of children. Who can read without shame and
indignation this report from “The New York Herald”?
THE CHILD-SELLING CASE.
Peter Hallock, committed on a charge of abducting Lena Dinser, a
young girl thirteen years old, whom, it was alleged, her father,
George Dinser, had sold to Hallock for purposes of prostitution, was
again brought yesterday before Judge Westbrook in the Supreme Court
Chambers, on the writ of habeas-corpus previously obtained by Mr.
William F. Howe, the prisoner’s counsel. Mr. Howe claimed that
Hallock could not be held on either section of the statute for
abduction. Under the first section the complaint, he insisted,
should set forth that the child was taken contrary to the wish and
against the consent of her parents. On the contrary, the evidence,
he urged, showed that the father was a willing party. Under the
second section, it was contended that the prisoner could not be
held, as there was no averment that the girl was of previous chaste
character. Judge Westbrook, a brief counter argument having been
made by Mr. Dana, held that the points of Mr. Howe were well taken,
and ordered the prisoner’s discharge.
Here was a father, who, as the newspapers allege, had previously sold
two other daughters, body and soul, and against whom the evidence seemed
to be in this case clear. Yet through the defectiveness of the statute,
or the remissness of the prosecuting attorney, he goes free, without
even a trial, to carry on his infamous traffic for other children. Grant
that the points were technically well taken and irresistible,—though
this is by no means certain,—it is very sure that there should be laws
that should reach such atrocities with punishment, whether the father
does or does not consent to his child’s ruin; and that public sentiment
should compel prosecuting officers to be as careful in framing their
indictments where human souls are at stake as where the question is of
dollars only. It is upon such matters that the influence of women will
make itself felt in legislation.
CIII.
WARNED IN TIME.
As a reform advances, it draws in more and more people who are not
immaculate. Such people are often found, indeed, among the very pioneers
of reform; and their number naturally increases as the reform grows
popular. The larger a coral island grows, the more driftwood attaches
itself; and the coral insects might as well stipulate that every
floating log should be sound and stanch, as a reform that all its
converts should be in the highest degree reputable. We expect, sooner or
later, to be in the majority. But we certainly do not expect to find all
that majority saints.
Yet many good people are constantly distressing themselves, and writing
letters of remonstrance, public or private, to editors, because this or
that unscrupulous person chooses to join our army. If we select that
person for a general, we are doubtless to be held responsible; but for
nothing else. People may indeed say—and justly—that every such ally
brings suspicion upon us. Very likely; then we must work harder to avert
suspicion. People may urge that no reform was ever watched so anxiously
as this, for its effect on female character especially, and that a
single discreditable instance may do incalculable harm. No doubt. And
yet, after all, we are to work with human means and under human
limitations; and God accomplishes much good in this world through rather
poor instruments—such as you and me.
I have no manner of doubt that the great majority of those who take up
this movement will do it from tolerably pure motives, and will, on the
whole, do credit to it by their personal demeanor. But of course there
will be exceptions,—hypocrites, self-seekers, and black sheep generally.
Horace Mann used to say that the clergy were, on the whole, pure men;
but that some of the worst men in every age and place were always found
among the clergy also,—taking that disguise as a cloak for wickedness.
For “clergy” in this case read “reformers.”
And there is this special good done, in a reform, by the sinners who
take hold of it, that they warn us in time that all reform is limited by
the imperfections of average humanity. The theory of the Roman Catholic
Church is a sublime one,—that every pope should be a saint; but it is
limited by the practical difficulty of securing a sufficient supply of
the article. So it is with the woman suffrage movement. “Would it not be
desirable,” write enthusiastic correspondents, “that every woman in this
sacred enterprise should have a heart free from guile?” Perhaps not. The
plan looks attractive certainly; but would there not be this objection,
that, could you enlist this regiment of perfect beings, they would give
a very false impression of the sex for which they stand? If women are
not all saints,—if they are capable, like men, of selfishness and
ambition, malice and falsehood,—it is of great importance that we should
be warned in time. Better see their faults now, and enfranchise them
with our eyes open, than enfranchise them as angels, and then be
dismayed when they turn out to be human beings.
There is no use in carrying this reform, or any other, on mistaken
expectations. Multitudes of persons are looking to woman suffrage,
mainly as a means of elevating politics. Every woman who awakens
distrust or contempt damps the ardor of these persons. It is a
misfortune that they should be discouraged; but, if they have idealized
woman too much, they may as well be disenchanted first as last. Woman
does not need the ballot chiefly that she may take it in her hands, and
elevate man; but she needs it primarily for her own defence, just as men
need it. Which will use it best, who can say? Women are doubtless less
sensual than men; but the sensual vices are the very least of the vices
that corrupt our politics. Selfishness, envy, jealousy, vanity,
cowardice, bigotry, caste-prejudice, recklessness of assertion,—these
are the traits that demoralize our public men. Is there any reason to
believe that women are, on the whole, more free from these? If not, we
may as well know it by visible, though painful, examples. Knowing it, we
may take a reasonable view of woman, and legislate for her as she is. I
do not believe with Mrs. Croly, that “women are nearly all treacherous
and cruel to each other;” but I believe that they are, as Gen. Saxton
described the negroes, “intensely human,” and that we may as well be
warned of this in time.
CIV.
INDIVIDUALS _vs._ CLASSES.
As the older arguments against woman suffrage are abandoned, we hear
more and more of the final objection, that the majority of women have
not yet expressed themselves on the subject. It is common for such
reasoners to make the remark, that if they knew a given number of
women—say fifty, or a hundred, or five hundred—who honestly wished to
vote, they would favor it. Produce that number of unimpeachable names,
and they say that they have reconsidered the matter, and must demand
more,—perhaps ten thousand. Bring ten thousand, and the demand again
rises. “Prove that the majority of women wish to vote, and they shall
vote.”—“Precisely,” we say: “give us a chance to prove it by taking a
vote;” and they answer, “By no means.”
And, in a certain sense, they are right. It ought not to be settled that
way,—by dealing with woman as a class, and taking the vote. The
agitators do not merely claim the right of suffrage for her as a class:
they claim it for each individual woman, without reference to any other.
Class legislation—as Mary Ann in Bret Harte’s “Lothaw” says of Brook
Farm—“is a thing of the past.” If there is only one woman in the nation
who claims the right to vote, she ought to have it.
In Oriental countries all legislation is for classes, and in England it
is still mainly so. A man is expected to remain in the station in which
he is born; or, if he leaves it, it is by a distinct process, and he
comes under the influence, in various ways, of different laws. If the
iniquities of the “Contagious Diseases” act in England, for instance,
had not been confined in their legal application to the lower social
grades, the act would never have passed. It was easy for men of the
higher classes to legislate away the modesty of women of the lower
classes; but if the daughter of an earl could have been arrested, and
submitted to a surgical examination at the will of any policeman, as the
daughter of a mechanic now can, the law would not have stood a day. So,
through all our slave States, there was class legislation for every
person of negro blood: the laws of crime, of punishment, of testimony,
were all adapted to classes, not individuals. Emancipation swept this
all away, in most cases: classes ceased to exist before the law, so far
as men at least were concerned; there were only individuals. The more
progress, the less class in legislation. We claim the application of
this principle as rapidly as possible to women.
Our community does not refuse permission for women to go unveiled till
it is proved that the majority of women desire it; it does not even ask
that question: if one woman wishes to show her face, it is allowed. If a
woman wishes to travel alone, to walk the streets alone, the police
protects her in that liberty. She is not thrust back into her house with
the reproof, “My dear madam, at this particular moment the overwhelming
majority of women are indoors: prove that they all wish to come out, and
you shall come.” On the contrary, she comes forth at her own sweet will:
the policeman helps her tenderly across the street, and waves back with
imperial gesture the obtrusive coal-cart. Some of us claim for each
individual woman, in the same way, not merely the right to go shopping,
but to go voting; not merely to show her face, but to show her hand.
There will always be many women, as there are many men, who are
indifferent to voting. For a time, perhaps always, there will be a
larger percentage of this indifference among women. But the natural
right to a share in the government under which one lives, and to a voice
in making the laws under which one may be hanged,—this belongs to each
woman as an individual; and she is quite right to claim it as she needs
it, even though the majority of her sex still prefer to take their
chance of the penalty, without perplexing themselves about the law. The
demand of every enlightened woman who asks for the ballot—like the
demand of every enlightened slave for freedom—is an individual demand;
and the question whether they represent the majority of their class has
nothing to do with it. For a republic like ours does not profess to deal
with classes, but with individuals; since “the whole people covenants
with each citizen, and each citizen with the whole people, for the
common good,” as the constitution of Massachusetts says.
And, fortunately, there is such power in an individual demand that it
appeals to thousands whom no abstract right touches. Five minutes with
Frederick Douglass settled the question, for any thoughtful person, of
that man’s right to freedom. Let any woman of position desire to enter
what is called “the lecture-field,” to support herself and her children,
and at once all abstract objections to women’s speaking in public
disappear: her friends may be never so hostile to “the cause,” but they
espouse her individual cause; the most conservative clergyman subscribes
for tickets, but begs that his name may not be mentioned. They do not
admit that women, as a class, should speak,—not they; but for this
individual woman they throng the hall. Mrs. Dahlgren abhors politics: a
woman in Congress, a woman in the committee-room,—what can be more
objectionable? But I observe, that, when Mrs. Dahlgren wishes to obtain
more profit by her husband’s inventions, all objections vanish: she can
appeal to Congressmen, she can address committees, she can, I hope,
prevail. The individual ranks first in our sympathy: we do not wait to
take the census of the “class.” Make way for the individual, whether it
be Mrs. Dahlgren pleading for the rights of property, or Lucy Stone
pleading for the rights of the mother to her child.
CV.
DEFEATS BEFORE VICTORIES.