Women -- Massachusetts; Women -- Suffrage -- United States; Women's Anti-Suffrage Association of Massachusetts
Woman suffrage must ultimately fail. It is based upon a fallacy, and no
fallacy has ever made a permanent conquest over mankind.
The fallacy of woman suffrage lies in the belief that there is in our
social order a definite sex division of interests, and that the security
of woman's interests depends upon her possession of the elective
franchise.
"The history of mankind," declared the founders of the suffrage
movement, "is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations on the part
of man toward woman, having as the indirect object the establishment of
an absolute tyranny over her." "Man has endeavored in every way he
could," continues this arraignment of the fathers, husbands, and sons of
these self-styled _Mothers of the Revolution_, "to destroy her
confidence in her own powers, to lessen her self-respect and to make her
willing to lead a dependent and abject life."
On this false foundation was built the votes-for-women temple. How shall
it endure? The sexes do not stand in the position of master and slave,
of tyrant and victim. In a healthy state of society there is no rivalry
between men and women; they were created different, and in the economy
of life have different duties, but their interests are the common
interests of humanity. Women are not a class, they are a sex; and the
women of every social group are represented in a well-ordered
government, automatically and inevitably, by the men of that group. It
would be a fatal day for the race when women could obtain their rights
only by a victory wrested at the polls from reluctant men. These truths
are elementary and self-evident, yet all are negatived by the
votes-for-women movement.
That the vote is not an inalienable right is affirmed by Supreme Court
decisions, the practice of nations, and the dictates of common sense. No
state can enfranchise all its citizens, and since the stability of
government rests ultimately upon a relentless enforcement of law, the
maintenance of a sound fiscal policy, and such adjustment of the
delicate interweaving of international relations as makes for peace and
prosperity, it is right that the state should place the responsibility
of government upon those who are best equipped to perform its manifold
duties.
Woman's citizenship is as real as man's, and no reflection upon her
abilities is involved in the assertion that woman is not fitted for
government either by nature or by contact in daily experience with
affairs akin to government. She is weak along the lines where the
lawmaker must be strong. In all departments where the law is to be
applied and enforced, woman's nature forbids her entrance. The casting
of a ballot is the last step in a long process of political
organization; it is the signing of a contract to undertake vast
responsibilities, since it is the following of the ballot to its
conclusion which makes the body politic sound. Otherwise political power
without political responsibility threatens disaster to all.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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