Savannah courier. (Savannah, Tenn.) 1885-1979, 1888-08-09
MIGHT AND RIGHT.
Frederick Douglass on Suffrage, Before
the New England Woman Suffrage As
ISOLATION at Their Twentieth Annual Ses-
sim.

sion.
According to the Declaration of indie
pendence and to the men who signed
that great charter of human liberty,
all rightful powers of Government
are derived from the consent of the gov
erned.
No man has yet been able to state
when, where and how woman has ever
given her consent to be deprived of all
participation in the government under
which she lives, or why women should
be excepted from the principles of the
American Declaration of Independence.
We are told that man derived his au-
thority thus to disfranchise woman from
Nature; well, we should all have great
respect for Nature We can not too
often listen TO her voice and learn the
lesson she teaches.
Let us begin then with Nature in the
family. This is the starting-point of
life, the natural starting-point of organ
lied society and of the State. Here are
a son and daughter in the same house,
hold. They have nursed at the same
breast in their infancy; they have been
supplied from the same board; they
have talked, sung, prayed, and played
together on equal terms in their youth;
they have grown to manhood and wo-
manhood together; in word, they have
been equal members of the same family
together all their young lives, with SUBJ
stantially the same rights and privi-
leges in the common family; they have
received the same moral and intellectual
training, and have enjoyed the same tree
dom of thought and expression around
the family bOard-the right to ask and
to answer questions. They are equal
in moral and intellectual endowments,
or If not so equal, the one is as likely to
be superior as the other, the daughter
as the son, the sister as the brother.
Now the question to be answered at this
point is just this; At what time and
under what conditions does Nature step
in to change the relations of these two
people and make the son and brother
the ruler of this daughter and sisterp
When does Nature say that he shall
elect lawmakers, and make
laws, institute governments, define
for her the metes and bounds of her
| liberty, and that she rational crea-
ture like himself, shall have no voice or
vote in determining any question con-
corning the government under which
she, equally with him, is to livep They
were equal in the cradle, equal in The
family, equal in childhood, equal in
youth, equal at maturity, equal in the
right to life, to liberty, and to the pur.
suit of happiness. / demand to know,
then, what fiat of Nature, what moral
earthquake from below, or what
ts,under-bolt from above, has driver
these two people asunder-raised one
to the sky and struck the other tC
earth-one to freedom and the other t.
slavery The only answer that Natur,
is alleged to give here in opposition t.
woman, is one which no just and gener
Gus man can or should accept, for i
bases a moral and intellectual conclu
sion-one which excludes woman from
all freedom of choice in the affairs o
government-upon purely physica
fact. The logic is that man is physical
ly stronger than woman, and that b.
has the right to make her a subject o
his will; that since she can not shoul
der musket and fight, she shall no
select a ballot and vote-that though
she may have the ability to think
she shall not have the right +
express her thought and give Ell
feet to her thought by her vote
There is no getting away fror
the conclusion here that the very es
sence of this anti-woman suffrage doc
trine is that might makes right. 1t
the right of the usurper, the slave
holder, the tyrant, the robber an
pirate-a right which better BELTS viii
beasts than reasoning men and wome
"a right which no woman ought to az
nit and no man should claim. The onl
thing that saves it from execration
the fact that men are too humane an
too civilized to make their practice COZ
form to the full measure Of their theor,
They deny rights, but admit influence
She may not vote, theNsay. but she ma
+ influence the man who does vote; ar
, it is precisely this which constitutes IL
vice of this relation, for it gives inf
, ence and excludes responsibility.
sense of responsibility is an essenti
$ element in all our exertions and rel
tons. We need It; woman needs