Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
Some fear, "If women assume all the duties political equality implies,
that the time and attention necessary to the duties of home life will
be absorbed in the affairs of State." The act of voting occupies but
little time in itself, and the vast majority of women will attend to
their family and social affairs to the neglect of the State, just as
men do to their individual interests. The virtue of patriotism is
subordinate in most souls to individual and family aggrandizement. As
to offices, it is not to be supposed that the class of men now
elected will resign to women their chances, and if they should to any
extent, the necessary number of women to fill the offices would make
no apparent change in our social circles. If, for example, the Senate
of the United States should be entirely composed of women, but two in
each State would be withdrawn from the pursuit of domestic happiness.
For many reasons, under all circumstances, a comparatively smaller
proportion of women than men would actively engage in politics.
As the power to extend or limit the suffrage rests now wholly in the
hands of man, he can commence the experiment with as small a number as
he sees fit, by requiring any lawful qualification. Men were admitted
on property and educational qualifications in most of the States, at
one time, and still are in some--so hard has it been for man to
understand the theory of self-government. Three-fourths of the women
would be thus disqualified, and the remaining fourth would be too
small a minority to precipitate a social revolution or defeat
masculine measures in the halls of legislation, even if women were a
unit on all questions and invariably voted together, which they would
not. In this view, the path of duty is plain for the prompt action of
those gentlemen who fear universal suffrage for women, but are willing
to grant it on property and educational qualifications. While those
who are governed by the law of expediency should give the measure of
justice they deem safe, let those who trust the absolute right
proclaim the higher principle in government, "equal rights to all."
Many seeming obstacles in the way of woman's enfranchisement will be
surmounted by reforms in many directions. Co-operative labor and
co-operative homes will remove many difficulties in the way of woman's
success as artisan and housekeeper, when admitted to the governing
power. The varied forms of progress, like parallel lines, move forward
simultaneously in the same direction. Each reform, at its inception,
seems out of joint with all its surroundings; but the discussion
changes the conditions, and brings them in line with the new idea.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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