Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States,: 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, and January 25, 1887Various
History
Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States,: 2d Session, 49th Congress, December 8, 1886, and January 25, 1887
Various
Women -- Suffrage -- United States
I have said I would not speak of the inconveniences to arise from
woman suffrage--I care not--whether the mother is called upon to
decide as a juryman or jury-woman rights of property or rights of
life, whilst her baby is "mewling and puking" in solitary confinement
at home. There are other considerations more important, and one of
them to my mind is insuperable. I speak now respecting women as a sex.
I believe that they are better than men, but I do not believe they are
adapted to the political work of this world. I do not believe that the
Great Intelligence ever intended them to invade the sphere of work
given to men, tearing down and destroying all the best influences for
which God has intended them.
The great evil in this country to-day is in emotional suffrage. The
great danger to-day is in excitable suffrage. If the voters of this
country could think always coolly, and if they could deliberate, if
they could go by judgment and not by passion, our institutions would
survive forever, eternal as the foundations of the continent itself;
but massed together, subject to the excitements of mobs and of these
terrible political contests that come upon us from year to year under
the autonomy of our Government, what would be the result if suffrage
were given to the women of the United States?
Women are essentially emotional. It is no disparagement to them they
are so. It is no more insulting to say that women are emotional than
to say that they are delicately constructed physically and unfitted to
become soldiers or workmen under the sterner, harder pursuits of life.
What we want in this country is to avoid emotional suffrage, and what
we need is to put more logic into public affairs and less feeling.
There are spheres in which feeling should be paramount. There are
kingdoms in which the heart should reign supreme. That kingdom belongs
to woman. The realm of sentiment, the realm of love, the realm of the
gentler and the holier and kindlier attributes that make the name of
wife, mother, and sister next to that of God himself.
I would not, and I say it deliberately, degrade woman by giving her
the right of suffrage. I mean the word in its full signification,
because I believe that woman as she is to-day, the queen of home and
of hearts, is above the political collisions of this world, and should
always be kept above them.
Sir, if it be said to us that this is a natural right belonging to
women, I deny it. The right of suffrage is one to be determined by
expediency and by policy, and given by the State to whom it pleases.
It is not a natural right; it is a right that comes from the state.
It is claimed that if the suffrage be given to women it is to protect
them. Protect them from whom? The brute that would invade their rights
would coerce the suffrage of his wife, or sister, or mother as he
would wring from her the hard earnings of her toil to gratify his own
beastly appetites and passions.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
Reviews
Reviews
No reviews yet
Be the first to share your thoughts on this work.
Join the Discussion
Join the discussion
Sign in to leave a comment or review.
Sign InorCreate an account