any particular class or portion of the people. Suffrage is representation, and it has been given in free governments to such class of persons as in their judgment [whose judgment?] would fairly and safely represent the rights and interests of the whole. The right has generally, if not universally, been conferred on men above twenty-one years of age, and often this has been restricted by requiring the ownership of property or the payment of taxes. [Which?]
The great majority of women are either under the age of twenty-one, or are married and therefore under such influence and control as that relation implies and confers. Is there any necessity for the protection and preservation of the rights of women, that they must be allowed to vote and, of course, to hold office and directly to participate in the administration of the laws?
Nearly every man who votes has a wife or mother or sisters or daughters; some sustain all these relations or more than one. I think it certain that the great majority of men when voting or when engaged as legislators or in administering the laws in some official character, are fully mindful of the interests of all that class with whom they are so closely connected, and whose interests are so bound up with their own, and that, therefore, they fairly represent all the rights and interests of women as well as their own. Persons who have been accustomed to see legal proceedings in the courts, and occasionally to see a female litigant in court, know very well whether they are apt to suffer wrong because their rights are determined wholly by men.[1] There is just as little reason for suspicion that their rights are not carefully guarded in legislation, and in every way where legislation can operate.
There is another reason why I think this proposal to enlist the women of the country as a part of its active political force, and to cast upon them an equal duty in the political meetings, campaigns and elections—to make them legislators, jurors, judges and executive officers—is all wrong. I believe it to be utterly inconsistent with the very nature and constitution of woman, and wholly subversive of the sphere and function she was designed to fill in the home and in society. The office and duty which nature has devolved upon woman during all the active and vigorous portion of her life would often render it impossible, and still more often indelicate, for her to appear and act in caucuses, conventions or elections, or to act as a member of the Legislature or as a juror or judge.
I can not bring myself to believe that any large portion of the intelligent women of this country desire any such thing granted them, or would perform any such duties if the chance were offered them.[To comment upon this would be "to gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet." It would be positively "indelicate."]
William Dorsheimer (N. Y.) agreed with the committee to
- ↑ Would the men whose crimes very often have sent these "female litigants" into the courts, be willing to have their cases tried before a jury of women?
