women while their absence is welcomed in men? Simply because this booted, spurred and whiskered thing called government is a usurpation, and men choose to have it so. Since, then, custom not reason, fraud not justice, prejudice not good sense, object, this is a question not for argument, but for affirmation. Those who acknowledge the validity of existing government, by increasing its numerical power, not merely drop a stitch in their logic, but surrender the flag of impartial suffrage to its enemies. The negro certainly has quite as good right to vote as his late masters. If ignorant, they made it a penal offence to teach him to read; if poor, they robbed him of his earnings by law. But who are negro men and Chinese that we should confer irresponsible power on them? To admit any man, be he black, red, yellow, or a minor—our curled, white darling, just come of age—to the franchise, who is not pledged to share it with women, is treason to liberty, a desertion of the logical duty of the hour.
Vicarious protection.A cruel kindness, thought to be friendly regard, assumes to "protect" those who, by divine right of rational being, are entitled, at least, to be let alone. We are not among beasts; from whom, then, does woman need protection? From her protection. While making marriage almost her only possible means of permanent subsistence, and working for a living unpopular, custom forbids her to "propose," to seek a husband; hence this vicarious theory of government owes her, what Socrates claimed for himself, a support at the public expense. If, in the old law phrase, "the husband and wife are one person, and he that one;" if, married or unmarried, her personality is buried in his, man should also embody her responsibility—be taxed for her food, clothing, leisure, pleasure, and punished for her sins. But, in practice, he does not recognize this obliging doctrine; for, while reserving the hottest corner of his future hell for her, in this life his responsibility ends with the gratification of his personal desires, and she is "abandoned"—thrown upon the tender mercies of public censure and charity. If there is hanging to be done, it is her head which goes through the noose; if imprisonment is decreed, her body is locked up; if starvation ensues, she perishes, while he lives on fat, and free to protect new victims of this loving kindness. If she is to be restrained, can one inferior in rectitude and continence be her keeper? It is said that beauty leans on strength; that Venus rides on a lion, now as in the old fable; but evidently the protector will despoil, unless she is armed with self-supporting and self-defending weapons.
We form societies to prevent cruelty to dumb animals, but horses and dogs are better fed and lodged, in our cities, than thousands of working women. Instead of the scythe, in the primer, we should now have the skeleton figure of Death sewing shirts. The following cases, takes at random from numberless facts reported and unreported by the press, sadly illustrate the inevitable result of denying woman direct access to the sources of life and liberty:
