The record-union., 1891-03-09
WOMAN SUFFRAGE AGAIN.
The Position of Its Advocates
Clearly Defined.
A Very Readable Paper; But it Does
Not Answer ga Woman Who
works''-old Arguments in Choice
Language.

EDS. hECORD-UNION I'm your Sunday
edition of March Sth I find an article on
the question now before the Legislature
OF California, woman Suffrage signed
a Woman Who Works. Being my
sell woman who works, and in addition
to this, hope, a woman who thinks,
feel constrained to reply, even at the risk
OF antagonizing the writer III the be-
ginning, [ wish to state that there is a
Iooseness of language used in treating
this subject which is inclined to mislead
many who do not take pains to analyze
1t. The question is usually stated as
granting the right OF suffrage to women.
Now, do not believe that the Legislature
OF the State of California or even the Con-
gress of the United States has the power
to grant the right. of suffrage to women.
The right inheres in them us American
citizens. What our legislative bodies can
do, Is to remove existing restrictions.
1t has been for years Il great part OF my
work to teach history and the science Of
government, and i'll the study OF these
subjects / have found how hard it has
been for the great principles of human
rights to gain recognition, and how blind
have been the political leaders of all ages.
to the great underlying principles which
ultimately must prevail.
L think all viii agree with Inc in the
statement that granting OF privileges or
removal ofreStrictionS. by those i'll power
TO those destitute Of power, has been the
result OF one of two conditions, namely,
pressure dangerous to resist, or political
eXpcdiency. In testimony ofthe former
refer to the struggle, of more than two
hundred years, between the Roman Pile
beians and the Roman patricians; to the
granting OF the Magma Charta by King
John; and subsequently, to tho resistance
OF the English people, to the aggressions
OF the Stuart Kings, terminating in the
glorious revolution of 1852; to our own
American revolutions; and still later to
those of the French.
In support Of the latter proposition,
namey ea attentPon P1l'ca to cfpedi0aey sbs
ment OF the Athenian Democracy,
b; c. $40 by the coup d'ctat of
Clisthenes; to the granting the Roman
franchise to the Italians, R. G.. SO: to the
armlng the lower classes by Henry III. in
Il5i IN order to suppress the power of the
Barons; to the calling, BY Simon de
Montfort, 1865, the first Parliament which
included representatives from the
boroughs; and last to the franchise given
to the freedmen after our civil war /
am sure no member of the Republican
party, or for that matter of any party,
suppoSes for moment that this right
would have been extended to the slaves
just liberated from bondage, except on
the belief, amounting to certainty, that
almost the entire number thus en-
tranchised would vote for the party grant
ing the fightIcN Nor do / for Il moment
suppose that either of our great political
parties would hesitate for an instant to
remove the restrictions against women,
if the party could be assured OF receiving
the entire votethus gained.
Perhaps no word in our language is
more indefinitely used than the word
Liberty" Liberty is like cube COM
posed of three equal factors; these factors
are personal liberty religious
liberty" civil liberty" With this sub
Ject, i'll each of its three aspects, the world
has been struggling for ages. In the
been already worked out, and the third is
in process of solution.
our Puritan ancestors came to America
to find religious liberty" but falling to
recognize 1t as universal factor in human
affairs, we find them in turn banishing a
Roger Williams and prosecuting and ex-
ecuting Baptfsts and Quakers. but later.
soon after the adoption of the Constitu-
ton, we find the lesson so learned that
the first amendment to that instrument
forblds Congress making any law re-
spqetlng the establishment of religion, or
prohibiting the free exercise thereof"
In order to look at the question in its
other aspects, personal liberty'' and
''civil iberty,n we must 90 back TO the
formation of the Government of the
United States, and look for moment at
the underlying principles on which it
claims to be founded. In the Declaration
of Independence we find these words,
I'VE hold these truths to be self-evident:
That all men are created equal; that they
are endowed by their Creator with GER
tain lnalienable rights; that among these
are life, liberty and the pursuit of happi-
ness; that to- secure these rights govern
ments are instituted among men, deriy-
ing their Just powers from the consent Of
the governed - etc.; but in spite of this
and at the very time of its adoption part
of our population was holding in bondage
another part, and even when our Consti-
tuition was framed concessions were made
in that instrument to the slave power:
and concession and compromise contin-
ued to be made until a struggle such as
the world hao never seen was the result,
and the blood of thousands of our best
citizens shed on a hundred battlefields
from Bull Run to Appomatox obliterated
the calculations and miscalculations, and
wrought out the correct solution of the
problem, and placed the answer in the
words of the Thirteenth Amendment to
the Constitution of the United States:
Neither slavery nor involuntary servi-
tude, except as a punishment of crime,
shall exist in the United States.'
Now comes the third factor, ''ciyil lib
erty," demanding asettlement. The pre-
amble to the Constitution declares that
I'VE, the people of the United States, in
order to form more perfect union to es-
tablich justice" ETC., do ordain and es-
tablish the Constitution of the United
States.
,0r1.@ =,
are the people?" The answer for nearly
a century of our natural existence was in
fact 1.-The white males born or naturalized
in the United States are the citiZens;'' but
later, after our dreadful struggle. it be-
came necessary for Congress to make the
definition of the term citizen little
more explicit, and so we find the first
clause of the Fourteenth Amendment to
read thus: '.All persons born or natural
lied in the United States, and subject to
its jurisdiction, are citizens of the United
States" And the Fifteenth Amend
ment further declares that, 1.-THE right of
citizen to vote shall not be denied or
abridged" etc. This then is the state of
the case: If words mean anything, the
Constitution declares that women are
people; that women are citizens. Then
as citizens they have claim to any and
all rights that inhere in an individual as
an American citizen; and in the exercise
of that right they are restricted.
We open our doors and emigrants from
every nation flock into our ports. Par
thians, Medes, Elamites and dwellers in
Mesopotamia' ask to be naturalized.
They may not be able to read; they may
lot understand our language; they have
no conception of the genius of our gov
ernment; they are like clay in the hands
of the potter under the rule of saloon
@n .snNp