Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
William Dorsheimer (N. Y.) agreed with the committee to table the
resolution, but did not endorse their arguments. He signed the
following statement: "I think it probable that the interests of
society will some time require that women should have the right of
suffrage, and I am not willing to say more than that the present is
not an opportune time for submission to the States of the proposed
amendment."
In this, it will be observed, there is no recognition of woman's right
to represent herself, no disposition to grant her petition for her own
sake, but simply the opinion that should there ever be a crisis when
her suffrage was needed it should be allowed as a matter of
expediency.
In the eyes of posterity the Judiciary Committee of this Forty-eighth
Congress will be redeemed from the disgrace of these reports by that
of the minority, signed by Thomas B. Reed, afterwards for many years
Speaker of the House; Ezra B. Taylor (O.); Moses A. McCoid (Ia.);
Thomas M. Browne (Ind.). The question of woman suffrage never has been
and never can be more concisely and logically stated.
No one who listens to the reasons given by the superior class for
the continuance of any system of subjection can fail to be
impressed with the noble disinterestedness of mankind. When the
subjection of persons of African descent was to be maintained,
the good of those persons was always the main object. When it was
the fashion to beat children, to regard them as little animals
who had no rights, it was always for their good that they were
treated with severity, and never on account of the bad temper of
their parents. Hence, when it is proposed to give to the women of
this country an opportunity to present their case to the various
State Legislatures to demand equality of political rights, it is
not surprising to find that the reasons on which the continuance
of the inferiority of women is urged are drawn almost entirely
from a tender consideration of their own good. The anxiety felt
lest they should thereby deteriorate would be an honor to human
nature were it not an historical fact that the same sweet
solicitude has been put up as a barrier against all the progress
which women have made since civilization began.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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