The True Woman / A Series of Discourses, to Which Is Added Woman vs. Ballot

by Justin D. Fulton

III.

Having considered the teachings of the Scripture and of Nature, let us listen to the Voice of Common Sense.

Under this head we hesitate not to declare that the hope of woman lies in the recognition of the laws of God, and the laws of her own higher nature.

Look at the facts. Who demand the ballot for woman? They are not the lovers of God, nor are they the believers in Christ, as a class. There may be exceptions, but the majority prefer an infidel's cheer to the favor of God and the love of the Christian community. It is because of this tendency that the majority of those who contend for the ballot for woman cut loose from the legislation of Heaven, from the enjoyments of home, and drift to infidelity and ruin.

Our wives and mothers do not ask the ballot. Our young ladies do not care even to hear the question discussed. They believe that whatever hinders woman from being the helpmeet of man does her injury. It is claimed that woman needs the ballot to secure equal laws. This claim is urged, because, it is said, women are required to obey laws which they had no share in making. It is a mistaken notion. Woman has had a share in the legislation of the country. Her influence pervades society. Let her be true to temperance, and intemperance is restrained. Let her be true to freedom, and the pulsations of her heart find their way through the entire framework of society. Let her be true to her own glorious nature, and this attempt to unsex and discrown her will meet with the swift and terrible condemnation it deserves.

Another has said, "The Amazons have often been met with the statement, that a large majority of the women do not wish to vote, and would not if they could. The truth of this statement is not denied. The advocates of the ballot confess that many noble women affect a womanly horror of being thought strong-minded," and to offset this tendency they declare it to be the "imperative duty of women to claim the suffrage." "Does this mean that women are to be coerced in this matter? that our mothers, wives, and sisters are to be punished for staying away from the polls? We have never supposed it the imperative duty of every man to vote. And we know that many of the most intelligent and upright do not vote. Such is the inexpressible nastiness of our elections, especially in the larger cities, that men of the cleanest morals think it right to keep away from them. The foulest portions of the men go first, stay longest, and stand thickest at the places of voting. How then will it be when the foulest portion of the women get packed into the same crowd, and drive modesty away by the foulness of their speech and presence? When the aggregate filth of both sexes shall have met together at the polling stations, as it will be sure to do, we hardly think any chaste or modest home-loving woman will go near this stench unless compelled to do so."

It is because this scheme lifts the gate to the increasing wave of corruption and pollution, that we are surprised that so-called statesmen give their countenance to it. Give to woman the ballot, and this country is hopelessly given up to Romanism. The priest loses the man, but he keeps the woman. Give to the priests the control of the votes of the thousands of servants in the great cities, and there is an end to legislation in behalf of the Sabbath, the Bible, and the school system, temperance, or morality.

The right to vote implies the right to rule, to legislate, to go to Congress, and to take the Presidential chair. On this point hear Miss Muloch. "Who that ever listened for two hours to the verbose confused inanities of a ladies' committee, would immediately go and give his vote for a Female House of Congress, or of Commons? or who, on the receipt of a lady's letter of business,—I speak of the average,—would henceforth desire to have our courts of justice stocked with matronly lawyers, or thronged by

"'Sweet girl graduates, with their golden hair?'"

Well has Gail Hamilton said, "How will the possession of the ballot affect in any way the vexed question of work and wages? One orator says, 'Shall Senators tell me in their places that I have no need of the ballot, when forty thousand women in the city of New York alone are earning their daily bread at starving prices with the needle?' But what will the ballot do for those forty thousand women when they get it? It will not give them husbands, nor make their thriftless husbands provident, nor their invalid husbands healthy. They cannot vote themselves out of their dark, unwholesome sewing-rooms into counting-rooms and insurance offices, nor have they generally the qualifications which these places require. The ballot will not enable them to do anything for which their constitution or their education has not fitted them, and I do not know of any law now which prevents them from doing anything for which they are fitted, except the holding of government offices. … What can the ballot do towards equalizing wages, where work is already equalized without affecting wages, as is not unfrequently the case? There are shops of the same sort, on the same street, with male clerks in one and female clerks in another, where the former work fewer hours and receive higher wages than the latter…. Moreover, the question of female clerkship is not yet settled. There are conscientious, intelligent, and obliging shopkeepers, who say that female clerks are not satisfactory. Their strength is not equal to the draughts made upon it. They are not able to stand so long as clerks are required to stand. They have not the patience, the civility, the tact that male clerks have…. All the voting in the world can never add a cubit to a woman's stature."