Female Suffrage | Page 8

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 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