It is a principle of all free governments that the people rule. Each
member of the community, in theory at least, is supposed to give assent
to Constitution and laws to which he is subject; or, at least, it is
assumed that these were made by a majority of the people. And this
assent is given according to forms previously prescribed. The people
vote directly upon the adoption of the Constitution, and by their
representatives in making the laws. And since all the people must be
subject to the Constitution and laws, so all the people should be
consulted in their formation; that is, all who are of sufficient age and
discretion to express an intelligent opinion. No one who claims to be a
republican or lover of freedom at heart can dispute these positions.
They are in substance the principles promulgated in the Declaration of
Independence, and they form the common basis upon which our national and
state governments rest. When they shall cease to be recognized and
respected by the people and by our lawmakers, then free institutions
will cease to exist.
But I presume their correctness, when applied to man, will be
doubted by none; for man is willing enough to claim for himself the full
recognition of all the high prerogatives I have shown him to be entitled
to. But I hold more than this to be true. I hold that these rights
belong, not to man alone, but to the race, and to each individual member
of it, without regard to sex. I hold that woman has as good and rightful
a claim to them as her brother, and that the man who denies this claim
is not only no good democrat, and much less a good republican, but that
in being guilty of this denial he commits an act of the grossest
injustice and oppression. And I insist, not only that woman is entitled
to the enjoyment of all these rights which God and nature have bestowed
upon the race, but that she is entitled to the same means of enforcing
those rights as man; and that therefore she should be heard in the
formation of Constitutions, in the making of the laws, and in the
selection of those by whom the laws are administered.
In this country there is one great tribunal by which all theories
must be tried, all principles tested, all measures settled: and that
tribunal is the ballot-box. It is the medium through which public
opinion finally makes itself heard. Deny to any class in the community
the right to be heard at the ballot-box and that class sinks at once
into a state of slavish dependence, of civil insignificance, which
nothing can save from becoming subjugation, oppression and wrong.
From what I have said you will of course understand that I hold,
not only that the exclusion of woman from the ballot-box is grossly
unjust, but that it is her duty - so soon as she is permitted to do so -
to go to it and cast her vote along with her husband and brother; and
that, until she shall do so, we can never expect to have a perfectly
just and upright government under which the rights of the people - of
all the people - are respected and secured.
It is objected that it does not belong to woman's sphere to take
part in the selection of her rulers, or the enactment of laws to which
she is subject.
This is mere matter of opinion. Woman's sphere, like man's
sphere, varies according to the aspect under which we view it, or the
circumstances in which she may be placed. A vast majority of the British
nation would deny the assumption that Queen Victoria is out of her
sphere in reigning over an empire of an hundred and fifty millions of
souls! And if she is not out of her sphere in presiding over the
destinies of a vast empire why should any woman in this republic be
denied her place among a nation of sovereigns? There is no positive rule
by which to fix woman's sphere, except that of capacity. It is to be
found, I should say, wherever duty or interest may call her, - whether
to the kitchen, the parlor, the nursery, the workshop or the public
assembly. And, most certainly, no narrow contracted view of her sphere
can suffice to deprive her of any of those rights which she has
inherited with her being.
Again, it is objected that it would be immodest and "unbecoming a
lady" for women to go to the ballot-box to vote, or to the halls of the
capitol to legislate.
This, too, is mere matter of opinion, and depends for its
correctness upon the particular fashions or customs of the people. In
deciding upon what is appropriate or inappropriate for individuals or
classes the community is exceedingly capricious. In one country, or in
one age, of the world, a particular act may be considered as entirely
proper which in another age or country may be wholly condemned. But a
few years ago it was thought very unladylike and improper for women to
study medicine, and when Elizabeth Blackwell forced her way into the
Geneva, N. Y., medical college people were amazed at the presumption.
But she graduated with high honors, went to Europe to perfect her
studies, and now stands high in her chosen profession. She let down the
bars to a hitherto proscribed sphere. Others followed her lead, and now
there are several colleges for the medical education of women, and women
physicians without number; and the world applauds rather than condemns.
It is not a great many years since women sculptors were unknown,
because woman's talent was not encouraged. Some years ago a match girl
of Boston fashioned a bust of Rufus Choate in plaster and placed it in a
show window, hoping some benevolent lover of art might be so attracted
by it as to aid her to educate herself in the profession of sculpture. A
gentleman who saw great merit in it inquired who was the artist, and
when told that it was a young girl, exclaimed, "What a pity she is not a
boy!" He saw that such talent in a boy would be likely to make him
famous and enrich the world. But a girl had no right to such gifts. It
would be an unladylike profession for her and so she must bury her
God-given talent and keep to match selling and dish washing. A few years
later Harriet Hosmer overleaped the obstacles that stood in her way and
went to Rome to undertake the work of a sculptor. The world now rings
with her praises and is enriched by her genius. She, too, removed
barriers to a hitherto proscribed sphere and proved that the All-Father
in committing a talent to woman's trust gave along with it a right to
use it. Vinnie Ream and others have followed in the way thus opened, and
no one now questions the propriety of women working in plaster or
marble.
And so of many other departments of trade, profession and labor
that within my recollection were not thought proper for woman, simply
because she had not entered them. Women are debarred from voting and
legislating, and therefore it is unfashionable for them to do either;
but let their right to do so be once established, and all objections of
that kind will vanish away.
And I must say I can conceive of nothing so terrible within the
precincts of the ballot-box as to exclude woman therefrom. Who go there
now? Our fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons. And do they act so badly
while there that they dare not suffer us to go with them? If it is
really so bad a place surely they should stay away from it themselves,
for I hold that any place that is too corrupt for woman to go to is also
too corrupt for man to go to. "An atmosphere that is too impure for
woman to breathe cannot but be dangerous to her sires and sons." We
mingle with our gentlemen friends elsewhere with safety and pleasure,
and I cannot think it possible that the exercise of the right of
franchise turns them at once into ruffians.
Yet we are gravely told that woman would be treated with rudeness
and insult should she go to the polls in the exercise of a right
guaranteed to her by the laws of her country.
And would you, sir objector, be the one to do this? Would you
insult the wife or mother or sister of your neighbor? I think not. Then
judge other men by yourself and believe that, as each man, the low as
well as the high, would have some female relative or friend with him
there, each would be equally careful for the safety of those belonging
to him and careful also of his own language and deportment. And should
one dare to offer insult would there not, think you, be a score of stout
arms to fell the insulter to the earth?
Men will behave as well I verily believe at the polls as at other
public assemblies, if they will permit woman to go with them there; and
if they have behaved badly heretofore, which from their continual
asseverations we must believe to be the case, it is because woman has
not always been there with them.
The idea advanced that woman would become debased by participating
in so important and sacred a duty as the selection of those who are to
be placed in power, and to whom are to be committed the interests and
happiness of the whole people, comes with a bad grace from men, who are
ever claiming for her superior natural virtues. They should remember
that God made her woman, that He gave her equal dominion with man over
the world and all that is therein, and endowed her with high moral
faculties, keen perceptions of right, and a love of virtue and justice,
and it is not easy to change her nature. Her delicacy and sensitiveness
will take care of themselves, in any exposure, and she will be as safe
at the polls as at political and other conventions, at state and county
and church fairs, at railroad and Fourth of July celebrations, and the
various other crowds in which she mingles freely with men. That virtue
is little worth which cannot bear itself unharmed through a crowd, or
awe and frown down impudence whenever it meets with it. The true woman
will be woman still in whatever situation you place her; and man will
become elevated just so far as he mingles in her society in the various
relations of life.
In fact this argument that it would be unsafe for woman to go to
the polls is one that man, at least, should be ashamed to bring forward,
inasmuch as it impeaches his own gallantry and instinctive regard for
woman. But, if it be true that it would really be unsafe for us to go to
the polls with our husbands and fathers, all danger could be avoided by
our having separate places for voting apart from theirs.
But here I am answered that it is not men whom we have to fear so
much as the bad of our own sex, who will rush to the polls while the
good women will stay away. To this I have to say that I have never yet
met a woman that I was afraid of, or from whom I feared contamination.
In the theatre and concert and festival halls, the Fourth of July
gatherings, in the cars, on the fair grounds, and any day upon the
street or in the stores we meet and pass by the coarse, the frail, the
fallen of our sex. They have the same right to God's pure air and
sunshine as we, and we could not deprive them of it if we would and
would not if we could. I see not how these are going to harm us any more
at the polls than at all these other places.
The good women will vote as soon as the exercise of the right is
granted them, and they will outnumber the bad more than a hundred to
one. Instead then of the pure woman being contaminated, the vile woman
will be awed and silenced in her presence, and led by her example into
the right paths. Even those called low and vile have hearts that can be
touched, and they will gladly seize the aid which the ballot and good
women will bestow to raise themselves from the degraded condition into
which bad men, bad laws and bad customs have plunged them.
This objection, then, which assumes such proportions in the minds
of many, looks very small when viewed in the light of truth and
Christian charity. I think no man would consider it good reason for
depriving him of rights because a bad man also enjoyed the same rights.
This arguing that all women would go to the bad if allowed to vote
because some women are bad now when none of them vote is the most absurd
logic ever conceived in the brain of man, and if those who use it could
see their silly reasoning in the light that sensible men and women see
it there would be less of it. If the ballot makes people bad, if it is
corrupting in its tendencies and destructive of virtue and goodness,
then the sooner men are deprived of it the better.
All men, good and bad, black and white, corrupt, debased,
treacherous, criminal, may vote and make our laws, and we hear no word
against it; but if one woman does or says aught that does not square
with men's ideas of what she should do and say, then she should not have
the right of self-government, and all women everywhere must on that
account be disfranchised and kept in subjection!
Such reasoning might have answered once, but the intelligence of
the present day rejects it, and women will not long be compelled to
submit to its insults.
But, again, one says votes would be unnecessarily multiplied, that
women would vote just as the men do, therefore the man's vote will
answer for both. Sound logic, truly! But let us apply this rule to men.
Votes are unnecessarily multiplied now by so many men voting; a few
could do it all, as well as to take the mass of men from their business
and their families to vote. My husband votes the republican ticket, and
many other men vote just as he does; then why not let my husband's vote
suffice for all who think as he does, and send the rest about their
business? What need of so many men voting when all vote just alike?
Again, another says: "It has always been as now; women never have
had equal rights, and that is proof that they should not have." Sound
logic again! Worthy emanation from man's superior brain! But whence did
man derive his right of franchise, and how long has he enjoyed it?
It is true that women never have had equal rights, because men
have ever acted on the principle of oppressors that might makes right
and have kept them in subjection, just as weaker nations are kept in
subjection to the stronger.
But must we ever continue to act on such principles? Must we
continue to cling to old laws and customs because they are old? Why then
did not our people remain subject to kings? How did they dare to do what
was not thought of in the days of Moses and Abraham? How dared they set
aside the commands of the Bible and the customs of all past ages and set
up a government of their own?
It is the boast of Americans that they know and do many things
which their fathers neither knew nor did. Progress is the law of our
nation and progress is written upon all its works. And while all else is
progressing to perfection, while the lowest may attain to the position
of the highest and noblest in the land, shall woman alone remain
stationary? Shall she be kept in a state of vassalage because such was
the condition of her sex six thousand years ago? Clearly, my friends,
when the prejudice of custom is on the side of wrong and injustice in
any matter we are not to be governed by it.
But again it is objected that if women should be enfranchised it
would lead to discord and strife in families. In other words, to come
down to the simple meaning of this objection, if women would not vote
just as their husbands wanted them to the husbands would quarrel with
them about it! And who are the men who would do this? Surely, not those
who consider and treat their wives as equals. Not those who recognize
the individuality of the wife and accord to her the right to her own
opinions, the right to think for herself, and to act as her own sense
and judgment may dictate. With such there would be no cause for
quarrels, nothing to contend about. In such families all is harmony.
It would be only those who desire to rule in their families, only
those who regard and treat their wives as inferiors and subjects who
would get up contentions and discord; and it is only these who bring
forward this objection. No man who honors woman as he should do would
ever offer so flimsy a pretext for depriving her of rights and enslaving
her thoughts. I believe the enfranchisement of woman will bring with it
more happiness in the marriage relation, and greater respect from the
husband for his wife, because men are always more respectful to their
equals than to those they deem their inferiors and subjects.
Another objection of which we hear much in these days, and to
which men invariably resort when answered on every other point, is that
women do not want to vote. They say when all the women ask for the right
it will be granted them. Did these objectors take the same ground in
regard to the negro? Did the colored men very generally petition for the
right of franchise? No such petition was ever heard of and yet men
forced the ballot unasked into their hands. Why then must woman sue and
petition for her God-giver right of self-government? If one human being
only claims that rights are unjustly withheld, such claim should receive
the careful attention and consideration of this government and people.
Yet tens of thousands of women, subjects of their government, have made
such claims and set forth their grievances from time to time during the
last thirty years. They have come as suppliants before the people asking
for rights withheld, and they have been met with sneers and ridicule,
and told that they must wait till all the women of the nation humbly sue
for the same thing! Would such excuse ever be offered for withholding
rights from men?
Again, it is said that no considerable number of women would
exercise the right it granted. This, if true, and men do not know it to
be so, has nothing to do with the question. Give them the right and let
them exercise it or not as they choose. If they do not want to vote, and
will not vote, then surely there is no need of restrictions to prevent
their voting, and no harm can come from removing the obstacles that now
obstruct their way.
Men are not required to give pledges that they will vote. There is
no compulsion in their case. They are left free to do as they please, or
as circumstances permit. The right is accorded and there the matter
rests.
There is no justice in requiring more from women. That thousands
of women would vote is pretty certain. If all do not avail themselves of
such privileges, it will be of their own choice and right, and not
because of its denial. The ballot is the symbol of freedom, of equality;
and because the right to use it would lift woman from a state of
inferiority, subjection and powerlessness to one of equality and freedom
and power we demand it for her. If properly educated, she will use it
for the best interests of herself and of humanity.
Another objection that carries great weight in the minds of many
is that if women vote they must fight. Even some of our friends are
puzzled how to settle this question. But a few days ago a lady friend
asked me how we could get around it. I reply that all men have not
earned their right to the ballot by firing the bullet in their country's
defense, and if only those who fight should vote there are many sick
men, many weak little men, many deformed men, and many strong and
able-bodied but cowardly men who should be disfranchised.
These all vote but they do not fight, and fighting is not made a
condition precedent to their right to the ballot. The law requires that
only those of physical strength and endurance shall bear arms for their
country, and I think not many women could be found to fill the law's
requirements. So they would have to be excused with the weak little men
who are physically disqualified. If there are any great, strong women
able to endure the marching and the fighting who want to go to the front
in time of battle, I think they have a right to do so, and men should
not dismiss them and send them home. But as there are other duties to be
discharged, other interests to be cared for in time of war besides
fighting, women will find it enough to look after these in the absence
of their fighting men. They may enter the hospitals or the battlefields
as nurses, or they may care for the crops and the young soldiers at
home. They may also do the voting, and look after the affairs of
government, the same as do all the weak men who vote but do not fight.
And further, as men do not think it right for woman to bear arms
and fear it will be forced upon her with the ballot, they can easily
make a law to excuse her; and doubtless, with her help, they will do so.
There is great injustice, so long as the ballot is given to all men
without conditions, the weak as well as the strong, in denying to woman
a voice in matters deeply affecting her happiness and welfare, and
through her the happiness and welfare of mankind, because perchance
there may come a time again in the history of our country when we shall
be plunged into war and she not be qualified to shoulder a musket.
This objection, like many others we hear, is too absurd to emanate
from the brains of intelligent men, and I cannot think they seriously
entertain the views they express. But give us a voice in the matter,
gentlemen, and we will not only save ourselves from being sent to the
battlefield, but will if possible keep you at home with us by averting
the difficulties and dangers, and so compromising matters with foreign
powers that peace shall be maintained and bloodshed avoided.
In justification of the exclusion of woman from a voice in the
government we are told that she is already represented by her fathers,
husbands and sons. To this I might answer, so were our fathers
represented in the parliament of King George. But were they satisfied
with such representation? And why not? Because their interests were not
well cared for; because justice was not done them. They found they could
not safely entrust their interests to the keeping of those who could not
or would not understand them, and who legislated principally to promote
their own selfish purposes. I wholly deny the position of these
objectors. It is not possible for one human being to fully represent the
wants and wishes of another, and much less can one class fully
understand the desires and meet the requirements of a different class in
society. And, especially, is this true as between man and woman. In the
former certain mental faculties as a general thing are said to
predominate; while in the latter, the moral attain to a greater degree
of perfection. Taken together, they make up what we understand by the
generic term man. If we allow to the former, only, a full degree of
development of their common nature one-half only enjoys the freedom of
action designed for both. We then have the man, or male element, fully
brought out while the woman, or female element, is excluded and crushed.
It should be remembered too that all rights have their origin in
the moral nature of mankind, and that when woman is denied any guarantee
which secures these rights to her, violence is done to a great moral law
of our being. In assuming to vote and legislate for her, man commits a
positive violation of the moral law and does that which he would not
that others should do unto him. And, besides all these considerations,
it is hard to understand the workings of this system of proxy-voting and
proxy-representation. How is it to work when our self-constituted
representative happens to hold different opinions from us? There are
various questions, such as intemperance, licentiousness, slavery, and
war, the allowing men to control our property, our person, our earnings,
our children, on which at times we might differ; and yet this
representative of ours can cast but one vote for us both, however
different our opinions may be. Whether that vote would be cast for his
own interests, or for ours, all past legislation will show. Under this
system, diversities of interest must of necessity arise; and the only
way to remove all difficulty and secure full and exact justice to woman
is to permit her to represent herself.
One more point and I have done. Men say women cannot vote without
neglecting their families and their duties as housekeepers. This, to our
opponents, is a very serious objection. Who would urge a similar one to
man's voting and legislating, or holding office - that he would neglect
his family or his business? And yet the objection would be about as
reasonable in one case as in the other. In settling a question of
natural and inherent right, we must not stop to consider conveniencies
or inconveniencies. The right must be accorded, the field left clear,
and the consequences will take care of themselves. Men argue as though
if women were granted an equal voice in the government all our nurseries
would be abandoned, the little ones left to take care of themselves, and
the country become depopulated. They have frightened themselves with the
belief that kitchens would be deserted and dinners left uncooked, and
that men would have to turn housekeepers and nurses. When the truth is,
mothers have as much regard for the home and the welfare of the children
as have the fathers; and they understand what their duties are as well
as men do; and they are generally as careful for the interests of the
one, and as faithful in the discharge of the other, as are these
watchful guardians of theirs who tremble lest they should get out of
their sphere. God and nature have implanted in woman's heart a love of
her offspring, and an instinctive knowledge of what is proper and what
improper for her to do, and it needs no laws of man's making to compel
the one or teach the other. Give her freedom and her own good sense will
direct her how to use it.
Were the prohibition removed to-morrow, not more than one mother
in a thousand would be required to leave her family to serve the state,
and not one without her own consent. Even though all the offices in the
country should be filled by women, which would never be likely to
happen, it would take but a very small proportion of the whole away from
their families; not more than now leave home each year for a stay of
months at watering places, in the mountains, visiting friends, or
crowding the galleries of legislative halls dispensing smiles on the
members below. There would, then, be little danger of the terrible
consequences so feelingly depicted by those who fear that the babies and
their own stomachs would suffer.
But I have no desire, nor does any advocate of the enfranchisement
of woman desire, that mothers should neglect their duties to their
families. Indeed, no greater sticklers for the faithful discharge of
such duties can be found than among the prominent advocates of this
cause; and no more exemplary mothers can be found than those who have
taken the lead as earnest pleaders for woman's emancipation.
Undoubtedly, the highest and holiest duty of both father and mother is
to their children; and neither the one nor the other, from many false
ideas of patriotism, any love of display or ambition, any desire for
fame or distinction, should leave a young family to engage in
governmental affairs. A mother who has young children has her work at
home, and she should stay at home with it, and care well for their
education and physical wants. But having discharged this duty, having
reared a well-developed and wisely-governed family, then let the state
profit by her experience, and let the father and the mother sit down
together in the councils of the nation.
But all women are not mothers; all women have not home duties; so
we shall never lack for enough to look after our interests at the
ballot-box and in legislative halls. There are thousands of unmarried
women, childless wives and widows, and it would always be easy to find
enough to represent us without taking one mother with a baby in her
arms. All women may vote without neglecting any duty, for the mere act
of voting would take but little time; not more than shopping or making
calls. Instead of woman being excluded from the elective franchise
because she is a mother, that is the strongest reason that can be urged
in favor of granting her that right. If she is responsible to society
and to God for the moral and physical welfare of her son; if she is to
bring him up as the future wise legislator, lawyer and jurist; if she is
to keep trim pure and prepare him to appear before the bar of the Most
High, - then she should have unlimited control over his actions and the
circumstances that surround him. She should have every facility for
guarding his interests and for suppressing and removing all temptations
and dangers that beset his path. If God has committed to her so sacred a
charge He has, along with it, given the power and the right of
protecting it from evil and for accomplishing the work He has given her
to do; and no false modesty, no dread of ridicule, no fear of
contamination will excuse her for shrinking from its discharge.
Woman needs the elective franchise to destroy the prevalent idea
of female inferiority. She needs it to make her the equal of her own
sons, that they may not in a few years assume the power to rule over
her, and make laws for her observance without her consent. The fact that
she is the mother of mankind - "the living providence under God who
gives to every human being its mental, moral and physical organization,
who stamps upon every human heart her seal for good or for evil" - is
reason why she should occupy no inferior position in the world. In the
words of Mrs. Stanton, "That woman who has no higher object of thought
than the cooking a good dinner, compounding a good pudding, mending old
clothes, or hemming dish-towels - or, to be a little more refined, whose
thoughts centre on nothing more important than an elegant dress,
beautiful embroidery, parties, dances, and genteel gossip concerning the
domestic affairs of the Smiths and Browns - can never give to the world
a Bacon or a Newton, a Milton or a Howard, a Buonaparte or a
Washington." If we would have great men, we must first have great women.
If we would have great statesmen and great philanthropists, we must have
mothers whose thoughts soar above the trifling objects which now engage
the attention of the mass of women, and who are capable of impressing
those thoughts upon the minds of their offspring.
In conclusion the enfranchisement of woman will be attended with
the happiest results, not for her only, but the whole race. It will
place society upon a higher moral and social elevation than it has ever
yet attained. Hitherto, the variously devised agencies for the
amelioration of the race have been designed mainly for the benefit of
man. For him colleges have been established and universities endowed.
For his advancement in science and the arts professorships have been
founded and lecture rooms opened. And, above all, for securing to him
the widest field for the fullest display of his abilities republican
institutions have been proclaimed and sustained at a great sacrifice of
toil, of bloodshed and of civil commotions. Although the doctrine of the
innate equality of the race has been proclaimed yet, so far as relates
to women, it has been a standing falsehood. We now ask that this
principle may be applied practically in her case, also; we ask that the
colleges and universities, the professorships and lecture rooms shall be
opened to her, also; and, finally, we ask for the admission to the
ballot-box as the crowning right to which she is justly entitled.
And when woman shall be thus recognized as an equal partner with
man in the universe of God - equal in rights and duties - then will she
for the first time, in truth, become what her Creator designed her to
be, a helpmeet for man. With her mind and body fully developed, imbued
with a full sense of her responsibilities, and living in the
conscientious discharge of each and all of them, she will be fitted to
share with her brother in all the duties of life; to aid and counsel him
in his hours of trial; and to rejoice with him in the triumph of every
good word and work.
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