The Ocala banner. (Ocala, Marion County, Fla.) 1883-194?, 1914-07-24
EMMERsoN FOR SUFFRAGE

A0
Ralph Waldo Emmerson in his home
town recalles the fact that Emerson
was among the signers of the call OF
the first national woman's rights con-
vention, held in Worcester, Mass, in
1850, and that he his author of some
telling arguments for equal suffrage.
In 1862, it was proposed to start a
suffrage paper in Boston, and Elmer
son wrote an article for it. The pa
per was not started at that time, and
the article was finally published in
the Woman's Journal of March 26,
1881. 1t read in part as follows:
1t is very cheap wit that finds it so
droll that a woman should vote. Ed
ucate and refine society to the high
est point; bring together a cultivated
society of both sexes in a drawing
room to consult and decide by voices
in a question of taste of right, and If
there's any absurdity o any practical
difficulty in obtaining their authentic
opinions? If not, there need be none
in a hundred companies, if you edu-
cate them and accustom them to
Judge. and for the effect Of it, l can
say for one that certainly all my
points would be sooner carried in the
! state if women voted.
The objection of their voting is the
same that is urged, in the lobbies of
legislatures, against clergymen who
take an active part in politics-that,
if they are good clergymen, they are
u~nacquainted with the expediencies
of politics; and if they become good
politicians they are the worst clergy
men. So of women; that they cannot
enter this arena without being con
taminated and unsexed.
Here are two or three objections;
first, want of practical wisdom; sec
ond, a too purely Ideal view; third,
danger of contamination.
For their want of intimate knowl-
edge of affairs. / do not think this
should disqualify them from voting
at any town meeting which l have
ever attended. If any man will take
the trouble to see how our people
vote-how many gentlemen are will
ling to take on themselves the troub-
lie of thinking and determining for
you, and, standing at the doors of the
polls, give every innocent citizen his
ticket as he comes in, informing him
that this is the vote of his party, and
the innocent citizen, without further
demur, carries it to the ballot box
| cannot but think that most women
might vote as wisely.
For the other point, of their not
knowing the world, and aiming at alb
stract right without allowance for cir
cumstances, hat is not a d%isqualif-
cation but a qualification. Human So
ciety is made up of p%artialities. Each
citizen has an interest and view of
his own, which, if followed out to the
extreme, would leave no roo for any
other citizen. One man is timid and
another rash; n would change moth
ing, and the other is pleased with
nothing; one wishes schools, another
armies; one, gunboat, another public
gardens. Bring all these bases to-
gether, and something is done in ia
vor of them all. Every one is a half
vote, but the next elector behind him
brings the other or corresponding
half in his hand. A reasonable re-
suit is had.
Now, there is no lack, l am sure,
of the expediency, Or of the interest
being neglected. There is no lack of
votes representing the physical wants
! and if your city the uneducated emil
grant vote numbers thousands, repre-
senting a brutal ignorance and mere
physical wants, it is to be corrected
by an educated and religious vote
! representing the desires of honest
and refined persons. If the wants,
the passions, the vices, are allowed
a full vote, through the hands of a
h%alf4brutal, Incorporate population,
| think it but fair that the virtues, the
aspirations, should be allowed a full
vote as an offset, through the purest
of the people.
AS for the ~unsexing and the con-
tamination, that only accuses our on
ly u existing politics, shows how
barbarious we are that our politics
are SO crooked, made up of things not
to be spoken, nor to be understood
only by wink and nudge; this man is
to be coaxed, and that man to be
bought, and that other to be duped.
1t is easy to see that there is contain
nation enough, but it rots the men
now, and fills the air with stencil: