Female Suffrage | Page 8

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.*
{FOOTNOTE by SFC} * 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
442 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.*
[FOOTNOTE by SFC} *In connection with this point of