Life and writings of Amelia Bloomer

by D. C. Bloomer

OBJECTIONS TO WOMAN SUFFRAGE ANSWERED.

While the woman-suffrage amendment was before the general assembly of Iowa, Senator Gaylord, a member of that body, published a list of twenty-one reasons why it should not be adopted. These Mrs. Bloomer, in a letter to the Des Moines Register, answered as follows:

“1. He says ‘it is not in the interest or in the disposition of man to legislate against woman,’ etc. And yet for ages men have legislated against woman and deprived her of all right to her own person, her earnings, her property, and her children. The common law places woman in a position little better than that of slavery. And this law was made by men; and it was not until the agitation of the woman’s-rights question by women, and their exposure of the injustice of the laws and their demands for redress of grievances, that changes were made in their favor. If the senator does not know of this, let him read up the common law on these points and the history of the woman-suffrage question for the last thirty years, and he will find that up to that time it was the ‘disposition of men to legislate against’ every interest of woman.

“2. He says ‘she ought not to be compelled by law to work out a poll-tax in the public highway, nor to learn the art of butchery on the battlefield.’ Most certainly she ought not, but she could hire a substitute to do these things, just as Senator Gaylord does. I venture the assertion, without knowing, that he did not earn his right to the ballot by the bullet or by shoveling dirt on the highways. If only those who do these things were allowed to vote the number of voters would be small indeed.

“3. ‘Because there is no evidence that the most intelligent women ask for the miserable privilege of becoming politicians.’ Does the senator think that it is a miserable privilege to have the right to the ballot, the right to vote for good men and measures, the right to self-protection, the right to sit in the halls of legislation making wise and just laws for the government of his country, which shall tend to the interest and happiness of the whole people? One who prizes these privileges so lightly should be deprived of them and the wonder is that, holding such opinions as he does, we find a ‘miserable politician’ having his seat in the legislative hall of this great state, where he surely ought not to be. The fact that the women and the men who are asking for the enfranchisement of women are among the most intelligent, refined, affectionate and exemplary citizens is too patent to need proof from me.

“4. ‘Because woman is superior to man, and she owes her superiority to the fact that she has never waded in the dirty pool of politics.’ Dear me! how worried this man is about the ‘dirty,’ ‘miserable’ politics! And again how strange, knowing the pool to be so muddy, that he has waded in so deep! and to think of his going home to his family with all this filth upon him! Really, if the place is so muddy it is high time that woman come in, with all the purity and goodness he gives her credit for, and sweep out the dirt that is befouling her husband and sons and make it a more fit place for them. An atmosphere that is too impure for her to breathe cannot but be dangerous to them, and it is her duty to rescue them from the ‘muddy’ pool or so to cleanse it that it will be safe for both.

“5. Senator Gaylord may call himself a wizard if he likes, and we shall not object; but women prefer not to be angels while sojourning here below, but rather good, sensible, practical wives and mothers, prepared to discharge life’s duties in whatever situation they may be placed—in the home, at the ballot-box or in legislative halls, wherever duty, interest and inclination may lead them.

“6. ‘Because a deference is now shown to women, which would be denied,’ etc. Deference shown to women does not make up for deprivation of rights, Mr. Gaylord. Besides, it is not a fact, but on the contrary, that equality of rights, politically or otherwise, leads men to disrespect woman. Give us rights and then, if you must, withhold courtesy: I trust we should have strength to bear it.

“7. ‘Because, if married women should vote against their husbands, there would be war.’ And who would make the war, Mr. Gaylord? No man, except one who wishes to play the tyrant in his family and enslave his wife’s thought and actions, could ever utter so silly a reason for depriving her of rights to which she is as justly entitled as himself. Does he question the right of a man to do his own thinking and vote as he pleases? Why then a woman? The very fact that he thus claims the right to make her action subservient to his wishes, or to make war upon her if she does not submit to his own dictation, is reason sufficient why her individuality and right to self-government should be recognized and secured to her by making her an enfranchised citizen.

“8. ‘Because there are bad women,’ etc. Well, why may not bad women vote as well as bad men? If they had had a vote long ago perhaps they would not be bad now, and perhaps there would not be so many bad men either. I would sooner trust those women to vote right than many men who now disgrace the ballot; and as to any contamination at the polls, we no more fear it than on the streets, at public gatherings, in the stores, and in various places where we meet and brush by them unharmed. We have more to fear from the men who make women bad. But, inasmuch as many women are compelled to associate in the closest relations with these men, and we all have to tolerate them in society, and come in contact with them in business matters, we think no great harm can come to us by dropping a bit of paper in the same box. But if there is really danger from such contact, we can avoid it by having voting places for our own sex away from theirs.

“9. ‘Because, if a woman trains up her children right, they will vote right.’ etc. No, not always. The training of the mother is often counteracted by the influence, authority and example of the father, and the two might differ as to what was right. The mother might teach her son that the ballot is a high and sacred thing, a mighty power to be wielded for the best interests and happiness of humanity, a power for the putting down of evil and for the forming and sustaining just governments; while the father might teach him that the right of the elective franchise is a ‘miserable privilege,’ that it leads to a ‘muddy pool’ into which all must wade, that it is all ‘moonshine and monsoons’ and that the ‘privilege of voting is not to be so much desired as the privilege of being voted for.’ Which training is he to follow? Where lies the danger?

“10. The senator here claims that men are ‘vain, ambitious and aspiring, caring more to be voted for than to vote,’ and he fears that women will show the same weakness if permitted to vote. It is to be hoped, for the credit of womanhood, that if a woman ever takes his seat she will not disgrace herself by the utterance of such senseless twaddle in opposition to any measure as characterized his effort on the proposed amendment!

“13. ‘Because there must be a dividing line, somewhere, between those who may vote and who may not,’ etc. Then why not let the educated, intelligent, sober and moral of both sexes vote, and shut out the ignorant, drunken and immoral? Why let men vote and make laws, no matter how low and vile they may be, simply because they are men while those who are subject to the man-made laws are denied the right to vote, simply because they are women? The line so drawn is unnatural, unjust, and productive of great wrong to all parties. The line as now drawn shuts out only Indians, idiots, and women.

“14. Here our senator throws all the responsibility upon the ‘All-wise Author of our natures,’ and claims that He has made laws to prevent woman entering the ‘moonshine and monsoon of politics,’ forgetting that God called Deborah to the political field and made her a judge in Israel, and that for all time there have been queens and rulers among women, evidently with God’s approval. The All-Father gave woman an intelligent mind and capacity for governing, and then left her free to exercise her gifts as she saw fit; and if there be times when by sickness or other circumstance she may be prevented from the discharge of political duties, so also there are times and circumstances when men are kept from the polls and from office, and if this be reason why the former should not be enfranchised then it is also reason why the latter should be disfranchised.

“15. ‘Because the wife has a voice and a vote already, and her husband is her agent to carry that vote to the ballot-box.’ How is it about the thousands of women who have no husbands to do such errands for them? How does this proxy-voting work when the wife differs with the husband on the question to be voted on? Does he waive his own preference and deposit the vote in accordance with her wishes? If he does not, then does he represent her? The only just course is to let her deposit her own vote; then both will be represented. Now, they are not. Man deposits his vote regardless of his wife’s interests and wishes.

“17. ‘Because there cannot be two equal heads in the same family.’ ‘Where the wife is anybody, the husband must be a nobody.’ ‘If the wife has sense enough to vote, the husband is dwarfed.’ So, according to our senator, the wife should be a weak-minded, senseless thing deprived of all right of opinion, so that the husband may rise to the dignity of a voter. Is not this sound logic? Did the superior brain of man ever before conceive of so strong an argument why woman should not vote? Two heads are better than one, Mr. Senator, and there may be two equal heads in the same family, at the same time, and neither of them be ‘dwarfed’ or belittled by the superiority of the other. If such is not the condition of your family, your wife is a subject for sympathy.

“18. ‘Because politics would pervert and destroy woman’s nature, the religious element,’ etc. God implanted in woman’s nature a love of home and a love of her offspring, and also an instinctive knowledge of what is proper and what improper for her to do; and it needs no laws of man’s making to incite the one or compel the other. Give her her rights and her own good sense will teach her how to use them. Does the ballot change man’s nature for the worse? Why then woman’s?

“Pp. 11, 12, 19, 20 and 21. These concluding reasons show a dreadful imaginative picture of the condition of things that would exist in the family should women be permitted to go to the polls and exercise the rights secured to them by the laws of their country. ‘Strife, contention, jealousy, hatred, slander, rivalry, intemperance, licentiousness, temper, retaliation, suicide, suspicion, discord, divorce,’ all these are to come to our good senator’s family when his wife has a right to vote. He anticipates it all and is doing all he can to avert the dire calamity. But while he is to be commiserated, he must remember that all families are not alike, and where he sees only dire disaster other men see the dawning of a better day and are ready to ‘turn the crank’ that shall hasten it on. Other men do not fear and tremble; but calmly await the time when they can take their wives on their arms and, side by side, go to the polls and drop in the little paper that declares them equal in rights and privileges. In these families there will be no war, for such men are proud to own their wives their equals and do not feel that they themselves are dwarfed thereby. As the ballot elevates and ennobles man, so they believe it will be with woman, and they cannot understand how rendering justice to her is going to convert her into the coarse, vile, quarrelsome thing our senator predicts, or how acknowledging her the equal of her husband is going to ‘dwarf’ men and convert them into ruffians and nobodies.

“A. B.”