The Unexpurgated Case Against Woman Suffrage | Page 6

purpose of securing these essentials--an understanding which would
almost amount to legal sanction.
The suffragist who employs the term "Woman's Rights" does not
employ the word rights in either of these senses. Her case is analogous
to that of a man who should in a republic argue about the divine right
of kings; or that of the Liberal who should argue that it was his right to
live permanently under a Liberal government; or of any member of a
minority who should, with a view of getting what he wants, argue that
he was contending only for his rights.
The woman suffragist is merely bluffing. Her formula "_Woman's
Rights" means simply "Woman's Claims_."
For the moment--for we shall presently be coming back to the question
of the enforcement of rights--our task is to examine the arguments
which the suffragist brings forward in support of her claims.
First and chief among these is the argument that the _Principle of
Justice_ prescribes that women should be enfranchised.
When we inquire what the suffragist understands under the Principle of
Justice, one receives by way of answer only the _petitio principii
[question begging]_ that Justice is a moral principle which includes
woman suffrage among its implications.
In reality it is only very few who clearly apprehend the nature of Justice.

For under this appellation two quite different principles are
confounded.
The primary and correct signification of the term Justice will perhaps
be best arrived at by pursuing the following train of considerations:--
When man, long impatient at arbitrary and quite incalculable autocratic
judgments, proceeded to build up a legal system to take the place of
these, he built it upon the following series of axioms:--(a) All actions
of which the courts are to take cognisance shall be classified. (b) The
legal consequences of each class of action shall be definitely fixed. (c)
The courts shall adjudicate only on questions of fact, and on the issue
as to how the particular deed which is the cause of action should be
classified. And (d) such decisions shall carry with them in an automatic
manner the appointed legal consequences.
For example, if a man be arraigned for the appropriation of another
man's goods, it is an axiom that the court (when once the questions of
fact have been disposed of) shall adjudicate only on the issue as to
whether the particular appropriation of goods in dispute comes under
the denomination of larceny, burglary, or other co-ordinate category;
and that upon this the sentence shall go forth: directing that the legal
consequences which are appointed to that particular class of action be
enforced.
This is the system every one can see administered in every court of
justice.
There is, however, over and above what has just been set out another
essential element in Justice. It is an element which readily escapes the
eye.
I have in view the fact that the classifications which are adopted and
embodied in the law must not be arbitrary classifications. They must all
be conformable to the principle of utility, and be directed to the
advantage of society.
If, for instance, burglary is placed in a class apart from larceny, it is

discriminated from it because this distinction is demanded by
considerations of public advantage. But considerations of utility would
not countenance, and by consequence Justice would not accept, a
classification of theft into theft committed by a poor man and theft
committed by a rich man.
The conception of Justice is thus everywhere interfused with
considerations of utility and expediency.
It will have become plain that if we have in view the justice which is
administered in the courts--we may here term it _Juridical Justice--then
the question as to whether it is just_ to refuse the suffrage to woman
will be determined by considering whether the classification of men as
voters and of women as non-voters is in the public interest. Put
otherwise, the question whether it would be just that woman should
have a vote would require the answer "Yes" or "No," according as the
question whether it would be expedient or inexpedient that woman
should vote required the answer "Yes" or "No." But it would be for the
electorate, not for the woman suffragist, to decide that question.
There is, as already indicated, another principle which passes under the
name of Justice. I have in view the principle that in the distribution of
wealth or political power, or any other privileges which it is in the
power of the State to bestow, every man should share equally with
every other man, and every woman equally with every man, and that in
countries where Europeans and natives live side by side, these latter
should share all privileges equally with the white--the goal of
endeavour being that all distinctions depending upon natural
endowment, sex,