The comet. [volume] (Jackson, Miss.) 1877-1882, 1880-06-26

her rights to work and to win, If she can,
and do not cheat her by paying her hall
wages for her work, simply because she Is
n woman and will submit to the robbery.
THE INEVITABLE FINALE-woMAN WITH
THE BALLOT.
| Do you say fortify woman on this eleya-
ted vantage ground to which she has been
brought by Investing her with civil and
political rights hitherto not enjoyed by
herr Do you say enable her to hold this
advanced line by arming her with that
weapon, potential for good or evil, the bal
lotl Let us examine the matter and see
If we can make the argument more than
tentative. II Is to be said, then, that all
Just government derives its power from
the consent of the governed-a political
maxim so nearly perfect as to be universal
in its application. We find in America
twenty millions of women, citizens of the
governed class. We find them possessing
sufficient intelligence to qualify them for
exercising the right of suffrage. We
find them of proper legal age. We find
them possessed of those moral qualities
which inhere in citizens of the best type
honest, peaceful, industrious, sober virtu-
Gus and singularly 0bedient to lawful re-
straint, we find many of them, too, prop
erty holders and taxpayers. Then there
is that other maxim of political philosophy
in free America, received in the creed Of
each one of us that there shall be no taxa
tion without representation. This tax
payer unrepresented, denied part or lot
In the administration of the affairs of state,
is, we find, that intelligent, mature and
moral citizen just described as honest,
peaceful, Industrious, sober, virtuous and
singularly obedient to lawful authority.
viii the male voter, measured by his high
standard, pass the ordeal? In fully one
half the cases we may examine, honesty
will compel us to answer no. Why should
man, who cannot endure the true test of
qualification for suffrage, pass, and Wo-
man, who admirably complies with every
requirement, be rejected? VIII any one
answer me? Can any one answer me! Is
it because she does not drink whisky, does
not brawl nor rowdy, and never commits
crime? Because she does not know how
to buy voter, stuff ballot-boX, or alter
poll-book2 | would to God that every voter
in this Union were equally innocent and
ignorant. The result might be disastrous
to partisans and wretched partisan poll
tics, but the country and society would be
the better. / beg my Republican brother
take his negro voter by the arm and start
for the polls; ignorant, credulous, unin-
formed dirty, offensive alike in sight and
smell and touch l beg my Democratic
brother take his shoulder-hitter, picked up
in the slums of the city, and start for the
polls; bloated, ragged, reeking with the
fumes of last nights debauch, violent and
ready for anything except the proper eNer-
else of the right suffrage. Blush both of
you, as you fix your tickets and your
TOOLS tickets, and prostitute the highest
right of citizenship in helping them detile,
with their ballots, the receptacle of the
ultimate will of freemen. And, having
finished the dishonorable job, blush more
in seeing wife or mother, every way
worthy Of suffrage, hustled from the polls
and ordered to give place while your negro
and bruiser save the country | challenge
any partisan to the trial of the fitness of
woman for suffrage, comparing her with
the present voter. l will not mock your
and degrade woman by con-
trasting her with negro or shoulder-hitter.
[ take a given number of women as chance |
engage to put to the blush like number
Of male voters selected in like manner
having regard in the comparison only to
integrity and obedience to
aw-lOoking to those qualities alone
which ought to characterize Il proper voter.
The only test tried to male voters are age,
freedom from the infamy of
criminal conviction, domicile, or citizen
ship and, here and there, educational or
property qualification. Now, all the tests
ire perfectly met in the average woman.
Why, then, exclude her from the ballot!
Why, unless because our fathers did and
We ARE the Inheritors of their prejudices
This same sex rejudice-deep-scated and
as race prejudice, perhaps
S the chief obstacle we have everywhere
encountered in considering woman's
light to perfect equality in the labors ana
ewards of life.