Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
_Tenth_--Women now have the sympathy of judges and juries
"to an extent which would warrant loud complaint on the part
of their adversaries of the sterner sex."
_Eleventh_--Such a change should be made, if at all, by the
States. Three-fourths of the States should not force it on
the others. In any State in which "any considerable part of
the women wish for the right to vote, it will be granted
without the intervention of congress."
The first objection of the committee is to the large increase of
the number of the voting population. We believe on the other
hand, that to double the numbers of the constituent body, and to
compose one-half that body of women, would tend to elevate the
standard of the representative both for ability and manly
character. Macaulay in one of his speeches on the Reform bill
refers to the quality of the men who had for half a century been
members for the five most numerous constituencies in
England--Westminster, Southwark, Liverpool, Bristol and Norwich.
Among them were Burke, Fox, Sheridan, Romilly, Windham, Tierney,
Canning, Huskisson. Eight of the nine greatest men who had sat in
parliament for forty years sat for the five largest represented
towns. To increase the numbers of constituencies diminishes the
opportunity for corruption. Size is itself a conservative force
in a republic. As a permanent general rule the people will desire
their own best interest. Disturbing forces, evil and selfish
passions, personal ambitions, are necessarily restricted in their
operation. The larger the field of operation, the more likely are
such influences to neutralize each other.
The objection of inexperience in public affairs applies, of
course, alike to every voter when he first votes. If it be valid,
it would have prevented any extension of the suffrage, and would
exclude from the franchise a very large number of masculine
voters of all ages.
That women are quite generally dependent on the other sex is
true. So it is true that men are quite generally dependent on the
other sex. It is impossible so to measure this dependence as to
declare that man is more dependent on woman or woman upon man. It
is by no means true that the dependence of either on the other
affects the right to the suffrage.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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