Woman and the Republic / A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates

by Helen Kendrick Johnson

Lydia Maria Child said, in a letter reprinted in the Woman's edition of "The Rochester Post-Express" in 1896: "I reduce the argument to very simple elements. I pay taxes for property of my own earning and saving, and I do not believe in taxation without representation. As for representation by proxy, that savors too much of the plantation system, however kind the master may be. I am a human being, and every human being has a right to a voice in the laws which claim authority to tax him, to imprison him, or to hang him."

Not only has every human being in the United States a right to a voice in the laws that claim authority to tax him, imprison him, or hang him, but he can exercise that right in all portions of the United States where the laws that claim this authority are able to enlist sufficient physical force to execute the authority claimed. Where they have not that power, neither the voter nor the non-voter has any redress against violence offered to property or limb or life. Gerrymanders and lynchings in many parts of our land prove the truth of this. The mastery of men who abide by and execute law is not a mastery over women for the sake of the spoils of taxation or the disposal of life, but the mastery over lawlessness everywhere in order that tax-payers of either sex, native or alien, voters or non-voters, may be enabled to have that voice in the laws which, as human beings, is their right. As to the "vote by proxy," if Mrs. Child could not trust her husband, her son, her brother, or best friend to look after her interests, she certainly could not trust the carrying out of her wish, as expressed in her vote, to the men who cast in their ballots by her side.

In return for the taxes paid, women get just what men get, namely, roads, gas, water, schools, etc. The women who have refused to pay their taxes because they did not vote, have been treated with a leniency that proves the courtesy of the law-enforcers. They would have made short work with men who were non-voters, who had tried the same tactics. When a man's vote is challenged and refused, he does not dream of saying: "I shall not pay my tax," and the assessor never inquires whether he votes or desires to vote. The men in the District of Columbia do not find their unfranchised condition assuaged by the smallness of their account with the assessor. Neither do they realize or believe that they are governed without their consent, or exempt from police or military duty. This is a striking proof that the vote is not a reward for service. They are male American citizens, over twenty-one years old, and they must contribute service simply and solely for that reason. This is the price they pay for established order.

For, after all, what is government, and what are taxation and representation? When and how did society consent to be governed? When did it agree to be taxed and to be represented? The awful story of history, from the slaying of Abel to the slaughter of half a million men in the War of Secession, is the answer. It never did agree, it has not yet agreed. The struggle of civilization is the effort to make it agree. Implanted in the bosom of man by his Maker is the belief in his individual freedom, of worship as concerns that Maker, of protection as concerns man. Side by side with that, was implanted the principle of surrender of a part of that freedom for just cause. There came a time when men said: "Let us use arguments instead of force in these decisions," and some form of vote was instituted. With this they fought and voted by turns, as they set up or knocked down emperors, kings, popes, and presidents. War has been changed by progress because man has changed; but main strength to drive home the truths gained on the moral battlefield is still the power behind the throne of the National conscience, even in this enlightened land.

Though the Mothers of the Rebellion did not ask, and apparently did not think of asking, to share the military duties incident to suffrage, we must discuss it, if we are to consider the subject thoroughly. To be a voting citizen, is to be a possible soldier citizen. There is no way of fulfilling the moral part of the duty, and leaving unfulfilled the physical, and it is cowardly to attempt it. So the question comes, could American women be soldiers? They could, for a few in disguise were in service during the War of Secession. Titled women of Europe are honorary officers; but this playing soldier is a relic of Middle-Age chivalry. Women can be seriously destructive; but no one will claim that organized military duty is really practicable for them. And the suffrage proposition does not look to anything of the kind. The Suffragists demand equal vote in sending their fathers, brothers, sons, husbands, and lovers to the military field of action, and propose to be absolutely exempt from equal share in the duty that that vote now lays upon male voters. Before the law there could be no distinction of duty on account of race, sex, or previous condition of servitude. The "emancipated" woman would be emancipated into that which the Declaration of Independence expressly called for, "the right and privilege of the people to bear arms."

The constitution of Utah says that the State militia is to consist of "able-bodied males," and I have not yet heard that the women who vote there have insisted that the word "male" be struck out of that clause of the Constitution. By no means, every woman expects to be exempt. After women had succeeded in getting the framers of the constitution of every State to strike out the word "male," from its voting qualification, they would expect them to insert the word "male" in mentioning the service qualification. O Equality, where is thine equal for granting privilege! Such chivalry, it would seem, is an insult to the power and intelligence of the women of Utah, who celebrated their "enfranchisement" by a convention to favor the free coinage of silver, 16 to 1, and whose behavior on that occasion was, to say the least, boyish. The tax upon time and strength, and the money loss of citizen service, Suffrage leaders did not once allude to. They did not, and do not, propose to pay even a double money tax on account of expected exemption. Little as this would have availed to meet the actual situation, it would have shown their good will, and some comprehension of justice, while they talked of an absurd and intangible "right."

But, it might be said, "Utah did insert such a clause into her constitution, and so could other States. It is, after all, common sense that rules, and men can legislate what they please." The law passed by Utah, which provided that "male voters must be tax-payers, while female voters need not be," was decided to be unconstitutional, and this one also may well be. At the end of Utah's Constitution, as of every other, and of every bill that is passed, occurs or is understood something like this sentence from the United States Constitution: "The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." Is it the "appropriate legislation" that gives to Congress, or to any other body, the power to enforce the article decided upon by a majority? We know that it is not. It is the men who can enforce it if it is disobeyed. Every day we see that some laws are "dead letters," not because the legislation appropriate to their enforcement was not perfect, but because they are not enforced. When Mr. Roosevelt became Chairman of the Police Commission there had been for some time a bill, duly legislated, for the enforcement of the Sunday closing of liquor saloons in New York city. But the saloons had not been closed. Mr. Roosevelt summoned the police, and proceeded to enforce the law. If they had refused, the militia stood behind them. Do you say, "Very well, if Miss Willard had been Chairman of the Commissioners she could have done the same." There would have been this great difference. Mr. Roosevelt himself was as much subject to serve at the call of the law, as were the policemen. He was not a dictator merely, he was part and parcel of the strength that he invoked. The reason for obedience rested on the same ground in each case—service in which each stood equal. It is a specious form of mistake to suppose that "men can legislate just what they wish to." They can legislate only what the majority decrees, and they can legislate effectively only what they have power to enforce. Had the saloon-keepers refused to obey Miss Willard, not she, but Mr. Roosevelt and other men would have had to enforce the law.

It is absurd in itself, and annoying to Suffrage advocates, to talk about military duty for woman. Her very nature forbids it. So it is, and so it does, and therefore it is equally absurd to talk about her attempting to assume duties whose very nature forbids their being done by her. Were voting only a matter of obtaining the opinion of women on matters that concern the country, or concern them (and all matters that concern the country concern them), all precedent gathered from the treatment of American women by American men goes to prove that no urging would have been required to secure for them as large a measure of suffrage as was consistent with their duties and their desires.

In 1879 an earnest discussion on Woman Suffrage was held in the legislature of Massachusetts. Four propositions were pending. The first was that a constitutional amendment should be submitted to the people, which, if accepted, would decree to women full suffrage. Thomas Wentworth Higginson, Lucy Stone and William Lloyd Garrison argued the case for the women. Col. Higginson said that if ability to fight were made the test of voting "a large proportion of men, especially of professional men, would be disfranchised. The report of the Surgeon-General of the United States showed that of the thousand clergymen who volunteered or were drafted during the war, 945 were declared to be unfit for service. Of the lawyers who volunteered or were drafted, 650 were rejected, and of the physicians, 745." He added, "You must go down to the mechanics and laborers before you can find a class of men a majority of whom will fulfil this requirement. Of the clergymen who preach that woman suffrage is wrong because women can do no military duty, only one twentieth would themselves be accepted for such service. There is but one class of men better fitted than mechanics for military service, and that is the prize-fighting class, and therefore the constituency which sent John Morrissey to Congress was the only constituency that ever carried out this idea to the end." Col. Higginson, who played a gallant part in the Civil War, should have remembered what poor fighting material the country found in such men as formed the constituency of John Morrissey. The regiment of Zouaves raised in New York City by Billy Wilson, the pugilist, was found to be so mischievous, as well as worthless, that it was shipped to the Dry Tortugas in order to rid the army of a pest. On the other hand, many of the most gallant as well as most orderly soldiers came from dry-goods stores and apothecary shops. The pugilists and roughs are the very ones that are good for nothing as soldiers; they belong to the class that makes soldiery necessary.

When Col. Higginson can use such logic, it is no wonder that women have repeated the argument. The question was not whether, because certain men who were naturally looked upon by the Government as its defenders, and as such were called upon to fight, proved physically unable, but whether the Government had a right, because of its very existence, to call upon those men, and in case of need, to say to them "Put yourself into physical condition for this service." If it had such a right, by what law under the constitution of the United States could Lucy Stone ask to vote and not expect to have her military fitness inquired into, and be asked to put herself into physical condition for it?