Women -- Suffrage -- History; Women -- Suffrage -- United States -- History; Women's rights -- History; Women's rights -- United States -- History
First: Because their own good demands it. Give woman the ballot
and she will have additional means and inducements to a broader
and better education, including a knowledge of affairs, of which
she will not fail to avail herself to the uttermost; give her the
ballot and you add to her means of protection of her person and
estate. The ballot is a powerful weapon of defense sorely needed
by those too weak to wield any other, and to take it from such
and give to those already clothed in strength and fully armed,
would appear to be unjust, unfair and unwise to one unaccustomed
to the sight. Long usage "sanctions and sanctifies" wrongs and
abuses, and causes cruelty to be mistaken for kindness.
The history of woman is for the most part a history of wrong and
outrage. Created the equal companion of man, she early became his
slave, and still is so in most parts of the world. In many
so-called Christian nations of Europe she is to-day yoked with
beasts and is doing the labor of beasts, while her son and
husband are serving in the army, protecting the divine right of
kings and men to slay and destroy. In the farther East she is
still more degraded, being substantially excluded from the world.
Man has not been consciously unjust to woman in the past, nor is
he now, but he believes that she is in her true sphere, not
realizing that he has fixed her sphere, and not God. This is as
true of the barbarian as of the Christian, and no more so. If the
"unspeakable Turk" should be solicited to open the doors of his
harem and let the inmates become free, he would be indignant,
doubtless, and would swear by the beard of the Prophet that he
never would so degrade lovely woman, who, in her sphere, was
intended to be the solace of glorious, superior man.
Yet, as man advances, woman is elevated, and her elevation in
turn advances him. No liberty ever given her has been lost or
abused or regretted. Where most has been given she has become
best. Liberty never degrades her; slavery always does. For her
good, therefore, she needs the ballot.
Second: Woman's vote is needed for the good of others. Our
horizon is misty with apparent dangers. Woman may aid in
dispelling them. She is an enemy of foreign war and domestic
turmoil; she is a friend of peace and home. Her influence for
good in many directions would be multiplied if she possessed the
ballot. She desires the homes of the land to be pure and sober;
with her help they may become so. Without her what is the
prospect in this regard?
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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