Woman and the Republic | Page 8

somewhat
excessive, that a man requires representation so much that he must not
be deprived of it on account of the accident of not being able to read or
write!"
With Dr. Jacobi's interpretation, I will deal later. What I wish now to do
is, to call attention to her admission of the fact that woman suffrage in
England and in her colonies is not democratic, and to connect it with
the other fact that no republic, from that of Greece to our own, has
introduced it, although manhood suffrage has been universal in

Switzerland for many years, and in France since 1848.
So it would seem that under a monarchical system, with a standing
army and a hereditary nobility to support the throne, the royal mandate
could be issued by a woman. Any Queen, as well as the one that Alice
met in Wonderland, could say, "Off with his head!" But when freedom
grew, and the democratic idea began to prevail, and each individual
man became a king, and each home a castle, the law given by God and
not by man came into exercise, and upon each man was laid the duty of
defending liberty and those who were physically unfitted to defend
themselves.
Let us turn now to our own country. Technically, at least, women
possessed the suffrage in our first settlements. In New England, in the
early days, when church-membership as the basis of the franchise
excluded three- fourths of the male inhabitants from its exercise,
women could vote. Under the old Provincial charters, from 1691 to
1780, they could vote for all elective offices. From 1780 to 1785, under
the Articles of Confederation, they could vote for all elective offices
except the Governor, the Council, and the Legislature. The comment
made upon this by the Suffrage writers is, that "the fact that woman
exercised the right of suffrage amid so many restrictions, is very
significant of the belief in her right to the ballot-box." My comment is,
that the same lesson we have learned in Europe is repeated here with
wonderful emphasis. Under the transported aristocracy of churchly
power in the state, they shared the undemocratic rule. When freedom
broadened a little, and, under a system that still acknowledged
allegiance to the British Crown, all property-holders or other "duly
qualified" colonists could vote, they still had the voice that England
grants to-day, the voice of an estate. When liberty took another step and
a league was formed of "firm friendship" in which each Colony was to
be independent and yet banded for offensive and defensive aid, the
women were retired from the special vote on the result of which lay the
actual execution of the law. But this country was not yet a republic, or
even a nation. Washington himself said that the state of things under
the Articles of Confederation was hardly removed from anarchy. In
1789 a constitution was adopted, which made the American people a

nation. Its preamble read: "We, the people of the United States, in order
to form a more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic
tranquillity, provide for the common defence, promote the general
welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our
posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States
of America." Under this Constitution the last vestiges of churchly
political rule, and of property-qualification for voting, have gradually
disappeared. New Jersey was the last State to repeal her
property-qualification laws. In 1709 she made "male freeholders" who
held a certain amount of property the only voters. In 1790 her
Constitution, through an error in wording, admitted "all inhabitants"
with certain property to vote. This was in force until 1807, when an act
was passed conferring the suffrage upon "free white male citizens
twenty-one years of age worth fifty pounds proclamation money, clear
estate," etc. From 1790 to 1807 a good many women, generally from
the Society of Friends, took part in elections. After 1807 they attempted
to do so, as owners of property. Finally, that qualification for the male
voter was done away with, and with it the woman-suffrage agitation
disappeared.
State after State, in carrying out the compact of the Federal Republic,
had inserted the word "male" into the Constitutions that embodied the
American conception of a more vital and enduring freedom.
But there are now four States of the Union where women have full
suffrage, a few where they have a measure of municipal suffrage, and
many where they have the school suffrage. What bearing do these facts
have upon my claim that woman suffrage is undemocratic?
The States where they have full suffrage are Utah, Wyoming, Colorado,
and Idaho. How far was its introduction into these States the result of
advanced legislation in accord with true republicanism? Utah Territory
was the