whether that denial be the blunt refusal of the ignorant or the polished evasion of the refined courtier and politician, woman can oppose only her most solemn and perpetual appeal to the reason of man and to the justice of Almighty God. She must continually point out the nature and object of the suffrage and the necessity that she possess it for her own and the public good.
What, then, is the suffrage, and why is it necessary that woman should possess and exercise this function of freemen? I quote briefly from the majority report of the Senate Committee:[1]
"The rights for the maintenance of which human governments are constituted are life, liberty and property. These rights are common to men and women alike and both are entitled to the sovereign power to protect these rights. This right to the protection of rights appertains to the individual, not to the family, or to any form of association, whether social or corporate. Probably not more than five-eighths of the men of legal age, qualified to vote, are heads of families, and not more than that proportion of adult women are united with men in the legal merger of married life. It is, therefore, quite incorrect to speak of the State as an aggregate of families duly represented at the ballot-box by their male head. The relation between the government and the individual is direct; all rights are individual rights, all duties are individual duties.
"Government in its two highest functions is legislative and judicial. By these powers the sovereignty prescribes the law and directs its application to the vindication of rights and the redress of wrongs. Conscience and intelligence are the only forces which enter into the exercise of these primary and highest functions of government. The remaining department is the executive or administrative, and in all forms of government the primary element of administration is force, but even in this department conscience and intelligence are indispensable to its direction.
"If, now, we are to decide who of our sixty millions of human beings are, by virtue of their qualifications, to be the law-making power, by what tests shall the selection be determined? The suffrage is this great primary law-making power. It is not the executive power. It is not founded upon force. Never in the history of this or any other genuine republic has the law-making power, whether in general elections or in the framing of laws in legislative assemblies, been vested in individuals by reason of their physical powers. ....
"The executive power of itself is a mere physical instrumentality —an animal quality—and it is confided from necessity to those who possess that quality, but always with danger, except so far as wisdom and virtue control its exercise. Therefore it is obvious that the greater the spiritual forces, whether found in those who execute the law, or in the large body by whom the suffrage is exercised, and who direct its execution, the greater will be the safety and the surer will be the happiness of the State.
- ↑ This report had been presented Mar. 28, 1884, by Senators T. W. Palmer, H. W. Blair, E. G. Lapham and H. B. Anthony.
