Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
It is seldom that particular measures of government are decided
by direct popular vote. They are more often discussed before the
people after they have taken effect, when the party responsible
for them is called to account. The great measures which go to
make up the history of nations are determined not by the voters,
but by their rulers, whether those rulers be hereditary or
elected. The plans of great campaigns are conceived by men of
great military genius and executed by great generals. Great
systems of finance come from the brain of statesmen who have made
finance a special study. The mass of the voters decide to which
party they will intrust power. They do not determine particulars.
But they give to parties their general tone and direction, and
hold them to their accountability. We believe that woman will
give to the political parties of the country a moral temperament
which will have a most beneficent and ennobling effect on
politics.
Woman, also, is specially fitted for the performance of that
function of legislative and executive government which, with the
growth of civilization, becomes yearly more and more
important--the wise and practical economic adjustment of the
details of public expenditures. It may be considered that it
would not be for the public interest to clothe with the suffrage
any class of persons who are so dependent that they will, as a
general rule, be governed by others in its exercise. But we do
not admit that this is true of women. We see no reason to believe
that women will not be as likely to retain their independence of
political judgment, as they now retain their independence of
opinion in regard to the questions which divide religious sects
from one another. These questions deeply excite the feelings of
mankind, yet experience shows that the influence of the wife is
at least as great as that of the husband in determining the
religious opinion of the household. The natural influence exerted
by members of the same family upon each other would doubtless
operate to bring about similarity of opinion on political
questions as on others. So far as this tends to increase the
influence of the family in the State, as compared with that of
unmarried men, we deem it an advantage. Upon all questions which
touch public morals, public education, all which concern the
interest of the household, such a united exertion of political
influence cannot be otherwise than beneficial.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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