Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1882-04-20

the blot is the only prescribed lawful
mode of resisting these aggressions.
Is not the right to this defense-the
ballot, therefore, as natural and inner
ent as these rights themselves or the
right to use personal force against per-
SOFIA aggression? Was not the negro
invested with the ballot upon these ex-
press grounds that it was necessary
weapon for his defense?
But, if 1t be not natural right, where
do men get their right to vote? By
what authority do they not only as
sumo to vote themselves, but to ex-
clude all others from that privilege ?
Oh! they say the sovereign power of a
people represented in government may
not only grant it, but may abridge and
even withhold it.
But sovereignty in our country rests
only in the people-not part but in
the achole people. Governments are the
mere agents and representatives of this
sovereignty.
[ admit that such government rep
resenting such sovereignty, deriving
its powers from the consent of each
constituent of such sovereignty, and be-
cause each one has consented thereto,
may, for cause and the safety and bet
ter protection of the whole, or common
welfare, limit, restrict and even deprive
individuals Of their natural rights, in
Guiding life and liberty, and may for
the same cause also grant, limit or
withhold the right to the ballot: but |
emphatically deny that one-half of
people have the right to assume or
confer upon themselves the right of
suffrage, and to exclude the other half
therefrom-they not consenting there
to.
As we have already shown, this
would be usurpation and an oligarchy.
But, the question is not so much
whether women are entitled to the bal
lot by nature, as whether it is right and
just that she should receive it. IF
right and justice demand this then fiat
iuStitiG rudt c0Ium.
Does not every consideration and ar
gument that shows it is rig ht and just
that men should vote, apply with equal
if not greater force in favor of women?
Being one Of the governed, why
should she not have an equal voice in
determination what that government
should be :?
She inherits at her birth the same
right to ''life, liberty and pursuit of
happiness, and is endowed with equal
intelligence. Men have not single
right to be protected. nor an interest
to be prompted. that women has not in
common with them.
Is she not equally affected by an d in
terested in, all civil laws enacted for
the protection of her life, her liberty
and her property? Then why should
she not have an equal voice in framing
them.
Is she not equally, at least, affected
by and interested in the marriage rela-
tions, including that Of divorce ?
Then is it not right and just, that she
should participate in prescribing its
forms, defining it's duties, and disabili-
ties, and the causes and conditions for
which it should be annulIed?
Has she not the same Vital interest
in that relates to education, to our
schools, our colleges and universities
Why, then. should she not have an
equal voice in framing our educational
codes, and in selecting the officers to
execute them.
In several of the states, and even in
conservative old England, the justice
of this right has been partially though
stintedly conceded, by permitting them
to vote for municipal and school Of
fcers; and even in our own state, while
the right to vote at these elections is
illogically withheld, she has been
grudglngly made eligible to be elected
to these positions, and three counties
Of Wisconsin last fall honored them
selves by electing women superintend-
ents of schools.
Is she not compelled to pay her pro
rata share of tax for all the purposes
of government? And since the right to
hold her seperate property has been Sc
cured to her, her share amounts to no
inconsiderable proportion Of the whole.
Out of 102 millionaires in Boston 10
per cent Of them are women. Our
laws of inheritance are continually in
vesting women with real and personal
estates.
Why, I ask, should she be taxed
without representation Why should
she not have an equal voice in saying
what per cent. of her property shall be
thus taken, by whom, in what manner,
and for what purpose it shall be taken
and disbursed?
It is true, she has not been trans
ported to foreign chimes, bat is it not
true that her right to life, liberty and
property must be adjudicated by, to her
foreign tribunals, which she has had
no voice in organizing, byjudges whom
she has not chosen, and by juries from
which her sex is wholly excluded?
Who, more than the wife and moth
er, is affected by or has as deep or
deeper interest in all that pertains to
the domestic relationship the care,
welfare, education and protection of
her offspring.
A mothers love-whe can fathom
it? Who can realize her intense anx-
iety for the welfare of her darling boy?
W ho can number her prayers, her mid
night vigils, her self-saerifces, her