New national era. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1870-1874, 1873-02-20

Legal Condition Of Women in Massachu
sets; Mr.. Mill on The Subsection of wo
men, or the code Of any so-called civilized
country.
True, these disabilities may be removed
by men, True, many of the most outrage
GUS have been stricken from the statute
books; but it has been done more to silence
the clamors from the growing ranks Of the
refomers than from mans innate sense o.
justice. The presence Of woman in the jury
box, in the court room, and, perhaps, on the
bench, would be a more certain method o'
reforming these wrongs altogether.
Women would add to the number of voters
''To extendthe suffrage" say some, sis inju
rious." Very true but it is not so much the
number as the ignorance Of the political rab
BILE which makes the evil of too extended
suffrage.
ballot would increase the number Of ignorant
voters to any appreciable extent, am not
disposed to admit.
The political education which | find the
mass Of male voters imbibing-
''-as twas their mothers milk,
And not a man afraid
consists in the newspaper, the political tract,
the public meeting where orators of his own
way of thinking strengthen him in his con-
victions, and where any opposition is sedu-
lousy excluded.
Were such extraordinary opportunities
open to the women of the country, and 1 am
half inclined to think they are, in time they
might approximate to the full panoplied
intelligence Of the average voter. Universal
suffrage may or may not be, to some extent,
an evil. All thinking men are not satisfied
that every man has the same interest in the
State. There are some such tribes as thrift,
industry, education, and property, which tend
to make some men better citizens than 9TH
ers. However this may be, we are probably
joined to what we call universal suffrage for
the remainder Of the century, and it is not
so great an evil as it would be to leave any
large class unrepresentel.
How would women use the suffrage is an
Interior consideration, with which, while ar
guing the question, we have nothing to do.
Would the majority Of women vote, likewise
is irrelevant. Would il benefit women as a
class, is legitimate inquiry. 1t would inn
prove the condition Of the working women, by
opening to and making respectable for them
cmployments into which they dare not now
enter. Supposing such conditions, would
al l. 81 o.- ~, Ia 80
affect the question, and should be left to the
employer to settle. The opportunities Of
extended employment would settle the ques-
ton Of raging women commensurate with
their work, and would teach them that, when
contending in the arena with men, they must
not claim the exemption Of sex.
Womanhood suffrage is desirable because
a very large, influential, and constantly in
creasing number of women think they need it.
every man." says Bulwer Lytton in his
Caxtoniana, should have fair chance Of
fulfilling what he conceives to be his des-
tiny" Every woman should have the OPP
portunities freely accorded to others in the
State, the deprivation Of which cripples
would satisfy the women who crave it; it
need not affect directly those who do not
desire it, any more than voting now troubles
many lazy and unpatriotic citizens who do
not deign to NEEDLE with such low things as
politics and government. Would she be con-
taIninated by mingling with men at the polls :?
Give her aseparate voting place.
In the advancement of learning, in the
prosecution Of affairs of the State, if woman's
intellect differs either in kind or degree from
mans, it''would be an acquisition, and hence
desirable. Did not Buckle deliver the argu-
mentum ad hominem when he said, "Thereforc it
is that those who are most anxious the bounda-
ries of knowledge should be enlarged, ought
to be most eager that the influence of woman
should be increased, in order that every re-
source Of the human mind may be at once
and quickly brought into play"
Again, if it were ever desirable to restrict
the suffrage, it could more justly be done
when every intelligent person of legal age
had voice in the matter.
If it be urged that politics would corrupt
women, as it VIGOROUSLY does some men, this
is rather an argument against the corruption
and one of the strongest arguments for wo-
mans participation. She could not render
it worse, she might improve it.
Woman's suffrage is new and untred
thing, say the DIRECTORS, whose reading is not
equalled by the strength of their convictions
Neither; but if it were, so was the rise of
citizenship out of feudalism," says De
TOcqueville. So was the curtailment of
the influence of the church in the State.
So was geology when it was supposed to
clash with the Mosaic account of creation
So was the evolution theory of Darwin but
all of these have come forward, been dis
cussed, and, stripped Of unessentials, re-
garded without prejudice. have been adopted,
and the world is better for the discussion of
them. If the ballot accomplish no more than
to make women equal with men in the eyes Of
the law; and if it do no more than give them
the opportunities Of developing their mental
or manual capacity further, it would be well
worth the experiment. Suffrage will not
make women, as class, the equals, physi.
cally, OF men. The earlier DEVELOPMENT of
women, the slower and later knitting to-
gether of the manly frame, at once show a