Woman and the Republic | Page 8

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 first spot in the country in which the measure gained a foothold, and that was not believed by its introducers to be a part of the United States. The Mormons who founded Salt Lake City supposed themselves to be settling on Mexican territory, outside the jurisdiction of American law. Woman suffrage was almost coincident with its beginnings, and it came as a legitimate part of the union of state and church, of communism, of polygamy. The dangers that especially