The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty YearsHarper, Ida Husted
History
The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony (Volume 2 of 2): Including Public Addresses, Her Own Letters and Many From Her Contemporaries During Fifty Years
Harper, Ida Husted
Anthony, Susan B. (Susan Brownell), 1820-1906
I have said I would not speak of the inconveniences to arise from
woman suffrage. I care not whether the mother is called upon to
decide as a juryman, or a jurywoman, rights of property or rights
of life, whilst her baby is "mewling and puking" in solitary
confinement at home. There are other considerations more important,
and one of them to my mind is insuperable. I speak now respecting
women as a sex. I believe that they are better than men, but I do
not believe they are adapted to the political work of this world. I
do not believe that the Great Intelligence ever intended them to
invade the sphere of work given to men, tearing down and destroying
all the best influences for which God has intended them. The great
evil in this country today is emotional suffrage. Women are
essentially emotional. What we want in this country is to avoid
emotional suffrage, and what we need is to put more logic into
public affairs and less feeling.[31]
He presented a remonstrance against giving the ballot to women, signed
by nearly 200 New England men, headed by President Eliot, of Harvard
University, and including nearly fifty names prefixed by "Rev." He next
drew from his budget a letter from Clara T. Leonard, of Boston, praying
that the suffrage should not be granted to women, and Mr. Hoar remarked
that the lady herself had been holding public office for a number of
years.
Continuing Senator Vest said: "If we are to tear down all the blessed
traditions, if we are to desolate our homes and firesides, if we are to
unsex our mothers, wives and sisters, and turn our blessed temples of
domestic peace into ward political assembly rooms, pass this joint
resolution!" He now produced a document, entitled "The Law of Woman
Life," and said: "This is signed Adeline D. T. Whitney--I can not say
whether she be wife or mother. It contains not one impure or
unintellectual aspiration. Would to God that I knew her so I could thank
her in behalf of the society and politics of the United States. I shall
ask that it be printed, as my strength does not suffice for me to read
it."[32] It proved to be a long and involved essay begging that the
ballot should not be given to women, and saying: "Are the daughters and
granddaughters about to leap the fence, leave their own realm little
cared for, undertake the whole scheme of outside creation, or contest it
with the men? Then God help the men! God save the commonwealth!" Mr.
Vest concluded with a blood-curdling picture of the French Revolution
which would be repeated in this country if women were enfranchised.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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