The daily phoenix. [volume] (Columbia, S.C.) 1865-1878, 1869-09-19
rWornn1l Suffrage.

~ sd' Woman .SuRrnge. .'lT
The following views upon this. subject
are welFiput Rev. j. P. Thompson.
LID, says: 90 "l" = - ~ .fI
''The necessary Qualification for the
privilege Of voting is the ability to serve
the State in whatever kind of service the
State may require of its citizens. Any
other principle of suffrage will be found
conventional and arbitrary; this Is loei-
cal and fundamental. By this principle
the Pigments of race. suffrage caste-suf-
frage and universal suffrage fall to the
ground. Under our loose and unphilo-
sophical theories of suffrage, multitudes
are now permitted to vote whom this
safe and national principle would dis
qualify. Nv
"Now, woman is, by her very nature,
const.tutionally and organically disquali-
fed for the service of the State. She
has nota cerebral organization adapted to
the close, protraoted and harassing study
OF State affairs, nor nervous organiza-
tion equal to the sustained exertion and
endurance demanded by judicial and le-
glslat1ve duties, nor muscular organiza-
tion fitted for the police or military SER
woe; and the functions of maternity, or,
it she be single, the physiological condi-
ton that provides for maternity as the
normal function of womanhood, incapa-
citate her for kind of service that must
either repress her nature or destroy her
health. That woman can do some things
that the State requires, and that some
mon cannot do anything, does not invali-
date the great Fundamental principle by
which society must assign; the privilege
OF suffrage. Women cannot claim to
participate in the government of the
State, because, rs women, they oannot
render the equivalent service that the
State is entitled to demand of the 90
verning class among its citizens. Their
disability is not civil or legal, but physi-
illogical and natural, and no amount of
voting could remove it.
?. Another objection to women's parti-
cipating in political life, that DIR. Bush
nell states, but fails to press with his
usual vlgor, is that it would 80 far work
a practical obliteration of sex as to dis
organize society. For deferential courte-
sy and considerate regard in man, it
would substitute virago boldness in
woman, and would produce q hybrid
species, which Count Gasparin has aptly
termed conference.-the woman man.
inferior both to the woman and the man,
who would have renounced all grace.
and not have exchanged it for strength.
Trained to the contest, giving and taking
hard hits, she would soon lose the charm
OF softness and modesty, which are at
once charm and q defence. In the
rude whirl of outside affairs, she will
lose all, even to her grace, even to her
beauty. And I wish to be informed
what politics would gain? Would there
be less intrigue, fewer passions, less pre-
Jud1ce, fewer personal questions taking
the place of questions of principle?
These significant questions of Count
Gasparin are answered equally by the
excesses Of the French Revolution, and
the vices fof the French Court. And
human nature adds its warning to the
voice OF history. To force women into
sphere OF men, by violating at once the
physiological laws of her being and the
ethereal delicacy of her sex, is to degrade
the State and to disorganize society.
Naturalists have observed that in pro-
portion as the differentiation of sex be-
comes less marked, the type of existence
is more and more degraded. But who
shall measure the social degradation of
humanity when by the confounding of
sex in labor and in affairs, woman-'who
is issuperior and influential only on condi-
tion that she is true woman'-shall
have given place to the female man"
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