But, suppose all those mentioned were really exempt, how would that apply to women? If a like number were counted out, there would still be a goodly array, from the maiden of twenty-one to the matron of forty-five, from which to draw. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony write: "Women have led armies in all ages, have held positions in the army and navy for years in disguise, have fought, bled, and died on the battlefield in our late war." The isolated occasions on which they have done so are not such as to commend the practice, neither do the Suffragists propose seriously to commend it. Dr. Jacobi, in her address before the Committee of the Constitutional Convention, says: "We do not admit that exemption from military duty is a concession of courtesy, for which women should be so grateful as to refrain from asking for anything else. The military functions performed by men, and so often perverted to most atrocious uses, have never been more than the equivalent for the function of child-bearing imposed by nature upon women. It is not a fanciful nor sentimental, it is an exact and just equivalent. The man who exposes his life in battle, can do no more than his mother did in the hour she bore him. And the functions of maternity persist, and will persist, to the end of time,—while the calls to arms are becoming so faint and rare that three times since the Revolutionary War, an entire generation of men has grown up without having heard them."
This question of military service is not a question of equivalent at all— sentimental or otherwise; it is a question of the actual service, and as to the service to the state given by women in bearing sons, the men work not only to support those sons but to support also their mothers and sisters, and that far beyond the child-bearing age of the mother.
As to the rareness of the calls, I read of seven wars since the Revolution, and three insurrections, not counting the riots and strikes at Chicago, Homestead, Brooklyn, and in the mountains in the West. Dr. Jacobi said in an article in the "New York Sun," two years ago, "We do not vote for war." That appears like a quibble, for we vote for what brings, or may bring it; but neither is it exact in fact. Three times, at least, in our history men have deposited their ballots in the box, knowing that the result meant peace or war. These were at the second election of Madison in 1812, the election of Polk in 1844, and that most solemn of all the acts of our country-men, the second election of President Lincoln. There have been other elections in which war issues were linked with the decisions, but in a less direct way.
The same writer says also, "The will of the majority rules, for the time being, not, as has been crudely asserted, because it possesses the power, by brute force, to compel the minority to obey its behests; but because, after ages of strife, it has been found more convenient, more equitable, more conducive to the welfare of the state, that the minority should submit, until, through argument and persuasion, they shall have been able to win over the majority. Now that this stage in the evolution of modern society has been reached, it has become possible for women to demand their share also in the expression of the public opinion that is to rule. They could not claim this while it was necessary to defend opinions by arms; but this is no longer either necessary or expected." How long is it since this comfortable state of things was evolved? Has England consented to it? In view of Venezuela and the Monroe Doctrine it would be necessary to have her. Has Spain mentioned her resignation of a right to appeal to arms in case she was not pleased with the conduct of our Government in regard to Cuba? Does the Sultan know about it, so that in case we see a good fair fighting chance to help the Armenians he will understand that the ages of strife are over, and that persuasion has been found more equitable and convenient than a resort to arms? And the Czar, and the erratic German Emperor, are they in the evolutionary agreement? Force is just what men are able to make it. It is not brutish unless it is brutishly used. There is as much force in the world to-day as there ever has been, but it is better applied. It is the object of a Christian civilization to persuade more and more men to come to the defence of good against evil in forms of government. Despotism and absolutism are corrupt uses of force. Republicanism and a constitutional government are its nobler uses. But the force is still behind them, or there would be no power to continue such liberal forms. During the first Republic, Marathon and Thermopylae saved the principle of Western democracy against Oriental despotism, Salamis and Plataea saved Greek letters and Greek art to the continents that were yet to be. Christianity changed the motive but not the method in evolution; and, finally in the last great Republic, the American Revolution proclaimed liberty of thought, the war of 1812 secured American independence, while, beside the wandering Antietam and on the field of Gettysburg "green regiments went to their graves like beds" that the Union might live, and that human slavery might die. Manhood force, led by intelligence and goodness, is the bulwark of that maternity that must persist if heroes are to be. Dr. Jacobi's admission that women could not claim the vote while it was necessary to defend opinions by arms, is a vital one, for it contravenes her entire argument.
Another plea of the Suffrage leaders is that "men send substitutes, and so could women." The answer in regard to exempt classes will apply here also, because in case of need both substitute and substituter are obliged to serve. During our Civil War the fact that a man had sent a substitute did not prevent him from being called in the next draft. The state claims both men as its defenders. But whom do the women propose to substitute? Other women? No, they propose to substitute men! The Suffragists seriously suggest that half the population, exempted by nature from military duty, shall become organic members of a government whose reliance, embodied in every constitution, is upon the ability and the willingness of its organic members to do military duty in defence of those constitutions, and that this exempted half may have it as their sole office, in case of war, to vote when and where the lives, the fortunes, and the sacred honor of those other organic members shall be laid down or imperilled. Suffragists seem to forget, when they boast of Joan of Arc, that the army she led was masculine.
The English socialist, Mrs. Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in her addresses in this country two years ago, said: "Woman is not protected through chivalry, but because the men know that to put women to the front is national suicide. Woman's part in war is not to wail or weep, but to furnish the army for the future." Then there is to be an army for the future! Was there no "national suicide" when over three million men were "put to the front" in the Rebellion, and more than five hundred thousand, North and South, laid down their lives, so that through the veins of this generation runs none of the gallant blood they spilled? Shall the fathers, and possible fathers, be the only ones to die, if the mothers and betrothed proclaim themselves no longer desirous of being protected by such high sacrifice? If women cease to "weep and wail," will men not cease to be willing to be "furnished by them to the army?"
"At any cost one good is cheap—
The soldiers die lest women weep;
And this reward is great and high—
The women weep that soldiers die."
Women and soldiers cannot transpose their work. The duty of each to the Republic is equally "great and high;" but in order to be done it must be kept distinct as now.
But all this is subordinate to the real, vital question. In the passages just quoted, the writers make an error that is made so persistently by all Suffragists whenever the argument of force is alluded to, that it seems necessary to repeat the explanation. They assume that this argument, briefly stated, is: The men do the fighting, therefore they ought to be rewarded with the ballot. That is not the argument; it is no matter of reward. The argument, briefly stated, is this: Stability is one of the highest virtues that any government can possess, and perhaps the most necessary. It can have no stability if it issues decrees that it cannot enforce. The only way to avoid such decrees is, to make sure that behind every law and every policy adopted stands a power so great that no power in the land can overthrow it. The only such power possible consists of a majority of the men. Therefore, the only safe thing for the Government to do is, to carry out the ascertained will of a majority of the men. This does not always secure ideally good laws, but it does secure stability and avoids revolution. The majority may blunder; but they are the only power that can correct their own blunders.
But war does not call for the only form of public service. There are others provided for in the National and State constitutions, which are constant and exacting. They are jury, police and militia duty. When a boy reaches twenty-one the law says to him, "You are my servant." If a fire breaks out, the foreman can legally lay his hand on the boy's shoulder, and say, "Help to put out this conflagration." When the law is broken, the sheriff can say to him, "Help me make this arrest." When a turn of the judicial wheel brings out his name, he must serve the state on a jury; if a riot occurs, he can be called out to quell it; and if a war arises, he can be drafted to fight against the country's enemies. There is not a single act of defence to which the voter was subjected by law when the Constitution was framed, to which he is not subject now, and subject because he is a voter. The vote is not given to him as a reward for standing ready to give this service to the state; it is a recognition by the state that, as he must stand ready to defend it, he should assist in establishing the laws which it may call upon him to enforce. As he has assisted to frame them, he cannot refuse to defend them. Woman's only relation to this defence is that of beneficiary, and therefore her relation to the laws with which that defence is associated must be one of advice and not of control. Fortunately for her, advice may prove sometimes to be control of the most satisfactory kind, a kind that admits of mental power and does not exact physical.