Female Suffrage: A Letter to the Christian Women of America

by Susan Fenimore Cooper

(FOOTNOTE by SFC} [2] In connection with this point of moral qualification we venture to ask a question. Why not enlarge the criminal classes from whom the suffrage is now withheld? Why not exclude every man convicted of any degrading legal crime, even petty larceny? And why not exclude from the suffrage all habitual drunkards judicially so declared? These are changes which would do vastly more of good than admitting women to vote. {END FOOTNOTE}

This restriction connected with sex is, in fact, but one of many other restrictions, considered more or less necessary even in a democracy. Manhood suffrage is a very favorite term of the day. But, taken in the plain meaning of those words, such fullness of suffrage has at the present hour no actual existence in any independent nation, or in any extensive province. It does not exist, as we have just seen, even among the men of America. And, owing to the conditions of human life, we may well believe that unrestricted fullness of manhood suffrage never can exist in any great nation for any length of time. In those States of the American Union which approach nearest to a practical manhood suffrage, unnaturalized foreigners, minors, and certain classes of criminals, are excluded from voting. And why so? What is the cause of this exclusion? Here are men by tens of thousands—men of widely different classes and conditions—peremptorily deprived of a privilege asserted to be a positive inalienable right universal in its application. There is manifestly some reason for this apparently contradictory state of things. We know that reason to be the good of society. It is for the good of society that the suffrage is withheld from those classes of men. A certain fitness for the right use of the suffrage is therefore deemed necessary before granting it. A criminal, an unnaturalized foreigner, a minor, have not that fitness; consequently the suffrage is withheld from them. The worthy use of the vote is, then, a qualification not yet entirely overlooked by our legislators. The State has had, thus far, no scruples in withholding the suffrage even from men, whenever it has believed that the grant would prove injurious to the nation.

Here we have the whole question clearly defined. The good of society is the true object of all human government. To this principle suffrage itself is subordinate. It can never be more than a means looking to the attainment of good government, and not necessarily its corner-stone. Just so far is it wise and right. Move one step beyond that point, and instead of a benefit the suffrage may become a cruel injury. The governing power of our own country—the most free of all great nations—practically proclaims that it has no right to bestow the suffrage wherever its effects are likely to become injurious to the whole nation, by allotting different restrictions to the suffrage in every State of the Union. The right of suffrage is, therefore, most clearly not an absolutely inalienable right universal in its application. It has its limits. These limits are marked out by plain justice and common-sense. Women have thus far been excluded from the suffrage precisely on the same principles—from the conviction that to grant them this particular privilege would, in different ways, and especially by withdrawing them from higher and more urgent duties, and allotting to them other duties for which they are not so well fitted, become injurious to the nation, and, we add, ultimately injurious to themselves, also, as part of the nation. If it can be proved that this conviction is sound and just, founded on truth, the assumed inalienable right of suffrage, of which we have been hearing so much lately, vanishes into the "baseless fabric of a vision." If the right were indeed inalienable, it should be granted, without regard to consequences, as an act of abstract justice. But, happily for us, none but the very wildest theorists are prepared to take this view of the question of suffrage. The advocates of female suffrage must, therefore, abandon the claim of inalienable right. Such a claim can not logically be maintained for one moment in the face of existing facts. We proceed to the third point.

THIRDLY. THE ELEVATION OF THE ENTIRE SEX, THE GENERAL PURIFICATION OF POLITICS THROUGH THE INFLUENCE OF WOMEN, AND THE CONSEQUENT ADVANCE OF THE WHOLE RACE. Such, we are told, must be the inevitable results of what is called the emancipation of woman, the entire independence of woman through the suffrage.

Here we find ourselves in a peculiar position. While considering the previous points of this question we have been guided by positive facts, clearly indisputable in their character. Actual, practical experience, with the manifold teachings at her command, has come to our aid. But we are now called upon, by the advocates of this novel doctrine, to change our course entirely. We are under orders to sail out into unknown seas, beneath skies unfamiliar, with small light from the stars, without chart, without pilot, the port to which we are bound being one as yet unvisited by mortal man—or woman! Heavy mist, and dark cloud, and threatening storm appear to us brooding over that doubtful sea. But something of prophetic vision is required of us. We are told that all perils which seem to threaten the first stages of our course are entirely illusive—that they will vanish as we approach—that we shall soon arrive in halcyon waters, and regions where wisdom, peace, and purity reign supreme. If we cautiously inquire after some assurance of such results, we are told that to those sailing under the flag of progress triumph is inevitable, failure is impossible; and that many of the direst evils hitherto known on earth must vanish at the touch of the talisman in the hand of woman—and that talisman is the vote.

Now, to speak frankly—and being as yet untrammeled by political aspirations, we fearlessly do so—as regards this flag of progress, we know it to be a very popular bit of bunting; but to the eye of common-sense it is grievously lacking in consistency. The flag of our country means something positive. We all love it; we all honor it. It represents to us the grand ideas by which the nation lives. It is the symbol of constitutional government, of law and order, of union, of a liberty which is not license. It is to us the symbol of all that may be great and good and noble in the Christian republic. But this vaunted flag of progress, so alluring to many restless minds, is vague in its colors, unstable, too often illusive, in web and woof. Many of its most prominent standard-bearers are clad in the motley garb of theorists. Their flag may be seen wandering to and fro, hither and thither, up and down, swayed by every breath of popular caprice; so it move to the mere cry of "Progress!" its followers are content. To-day, in the hands of the skeptical philosopher, it assaults the heavens. Tomorrow it may: float over the mire of Mormonism, or depths still more vile. It was under the flag of progress that, in the legislative halls of France, the name of the Holy Lord God of Hosts, "who inhabiteth eternity," was legally blasphemed. It was under the flag of progress that, on the 10th of November, 1793, Therese Momoro, Goddess of Reason, and wife of the printer Momoro, was borne in triumph, by throngs of worshipers, through the streets of Paris, and enthroned in the house of God.

Beyond all doubt, there is now, as there ever has been, an onward progress toward truth on earth. But that true progress is seldom rapid, excepting perhaps in the final stages of some particular movement. It is, indeed, often so slow, so gradual, as to be imperceptible at the moment to common observation. It is often silent, wonderful, mysterious, sublime. It is the grand movement toward the Divine Will, working out all things for eventual good. In looking back, there are for every generation way-marks by which the course of that progress may be traced. In looking forward no mortal eye can foresee its immediate course. The ultimate end we know, but the next step we can not foretell. The mere temporary cry of progress from human lips has often been raised in direct opposition to the true course of that grand, mysterious movement. It is like the roar of the rapids in the midst of the majestic stream, which, in the end, shall yield their own foaming waters to the calm current moving onward to the sea. We ask, then, for something higher, safer, more sure, to guide us than the mere popular cry of "Progress!" We dare not blindly follow that cry, nor yield thoughtless allegiance to every flag it upholds.

Then, again, as regards that talisman, the vote, we have but one answer to make. We do not believe in magic. We have a very firm and unchangeable faith in free institutions, founded on just principles. We entirely believe that a republican form of government in a Christian country may be the highest, the noblest, and the happiest that the world has yet seen. Still, we do not believe in magic. And we do not believe in idolatry. We Americans are just as much given to idolatry as any other people. Our idols may differ from those of other nations; but they are, none the less, still idols. And it strikes the writer that the ballot-box is rapidly becoming an object of idolatry with us. Is it not so? From the vote alone we expect all things good. From the vote alone we expect protection against all things evil. Of the vote Americans can never have too much—of the vote they can never have enough. The vote is expected by its very touch, suddenly and instantaneously, to produce miraculous changes; it is expected to make the foolish wise, the ignorant knowing, the weak strong, the fraudulent honest. It is expected to turn dross into gold. It is held to be the great educator, not only as regards races, and under the influence of time, which is in a measure true, but as regards individuals and classes of men, and that in the twinkling of an eye, with magical rapidity. Were this theory practically sound, the vote would really prove a talisman. In that case we should give ourselves no rest until the vote were instantly placed in the hands of every Chinaman landing in California, and of every Indian roving over the plains. But, in opposition to this theory, what is the testimony of positive facts known to us all? Are all voters wise? Are all voters honest? Are all voters enlightened? Are all voters true to their high responsibilities? Are all voters faithful servants of their country? Is it entirely true that the vote has necessarily and really these inherent magical powers of rapid education for individuals and for classes of men, fitting them, in default of other qualifications, for the high responsibilities of suffrage? Alas! we know only too well that when a man is not already honest and just and wise and enlightened, the vote he holds can not make him so. We know that if he is dishonest, he will sell his vote; if he is dull and ignorant, he is misled, for selfish purposes of their own, by designing men. As regards man, at least, the vote can be too easily proved to be no talisman. It is very clear that for man the ballot-box needs to be closely guarded on one side by common-sense, on the other by honesty. A man must be endowed with a certain amount of education and of principle, before he receives the vote, to fit him for a worthy use of it. And if the vote be really no infallible talisman for man, why should we expect it to work magical wonders in the hands of woman?

But let us drop the play of metaphor, appropriate though it be when facing the visions of political theorists. Let us look earnestly and clearly at the positive facts before us. We are gravely told that to grant the suffrage to woman would be a step inevitably beneficial and elevating to the whole sex, and, through their influence, to the entire race, and that, on this ground alone, the proposed change in the constitution should be made. Here, so far at least as the concluding proposition goes, we must all agree. If it can be clearly proved that this particular change in our institutions is one so fraught with blessings, we are bound to make it at every cost. The true elevation of the whole race: that is what we are all longing for, praying for. And is it indeed true that this grand work can effectually be brought about by the one step we are now urged to take? What says actual experience on this point? The whole history of mankind shows clearly that, as yet, no one legislative act has ever accomplished half of what is claimed by the advocates of woman's suffrage as the inevitable result of the change they propose. No one legislative act has ever been so widely comprehensive in its results for good as they declare that this act shall be. No one legislative act has ever raised the entire race even within sight of the point of elevation predicted by the champions of what is called the emancipation of woman. Hear them speak for themselves: "It is hardly possible, with our present experience, to raise our imaginations to the conception of so great a change for the better as would be made by its removal"—the removal of the principle of the subordination of the wife to the husband, and the establishment of the entire independence of women, to be obtained by female suffrage. These are not the words of some excited woman making a speech at a public meeting. The quotation is from the writings of Mr. Stuart Mill. The subordination of the wife to the husband is declared by Mr. Mill to be "the citadel of the enemy." Storm the citadel, proclaim the entire independence of the wife, and our feeble imaginations, we are told, are utterly incapable of conceiving the glorious future of the race consequent upon this one step. This is a very daring assertion. It is so bold, indeed, as to require something of positive proof ere we can yield to it our implicit belief. The citadel we are urged to storm was built by the hand of God. The flag waving over that citadel is the flag of the Cross. When the Creator made one entire sex so much more feeble in physical powers than the other, a degree of subordination on the part of the weaker sex became inevitable, unless it were counteracted by increase of mental ability, strengthened by special precept. But the mental ability, so far as there is a difference, and the precept, are both on the side of the stronger sex. The whole past history of the race coincides so clearly with these facts that we should suppose that even those who are little under the influence of Christian faith might pause era they attacked that citadel. Common-sense might teach them something of caution, something of humility, when running counter to the whole past experience of the race. As for those who have a living belief in the doctrines of Christianity, when they find that revealed religion, from the first of the Prophets to the last of the Apostles, allots a subordinate position to the wife, they are compelled to believe Moses and St. Paul in the right, and the philosophers of the present day, whether male or female, in the wrong. To speak frankly, the excessive boldness of these new theories, the incalculable and inconceivable benefits promised us from this revolution from the natural condition of things in Christendom—and throughout the world indeed—would lead us to suspicion. Guides who appeal to the imagination when discussing practical questions are not generally considered the safest. And the champions of female suffrage are necessarily compelled to take this course. They have no positive foundation to rest on. Mr. Stuart Mill has said in Parliament, in connection with this subject, that "the tyranny of established custom has entirely passed away." Nothing can be more true than this assertion. As a rule, the past is now looked upon with doubt, with suspicion, often with a certain sort of contempt, very far from being always consistent with sound reason. The tyranny of the present day—and it may be just as much a tyranny as the other—is radically opposite in character. It is the tyranny of novelty to which we are most exposed at present. The dangers lie chiefly in that direction. There will be little to fear from the old until the hour of reaction arrives, as it inevitably must, if the human mind be strained too far in a new direction. At present the more startling an assertion, the farther it wanders from all past experience, the greater are its chances of attracting attention, of gaining adherents, of achieving at least a partial and temporary success. In the age and in the country which has seen the development of Mormonism as a successful religious, social, and political system, nothing should surprise us. Such is the restlessness of human nature that it will often, from mere weak hankering after change, hug to its bosom the wildest theories, and yield them a temporary allegiance.

Let us suppose that to-day the proposed revolution were effected; all women, without restriction, even the most vile, would be summoned to vote in accordance with their favorite theory of inalienable right. That class of women, and other degraded classes of the ignorant and unprincipled, will always be ready to sell their votes many times over—to either party, to both parties, to the highest bidder, in short. They will sell their vote much more readily than the lowest classes of men now do. They will hold it with greater levity. They will trifle with it. They will sell their vote any day for a yard of ribbon or a tinsel brooch—unless they are offered two yards of ribbon or two brooches. They will vote over again every hour of every election day, by cunning disguises and trickery. And thus, so far as women are concerned, the most degraded element in society will, in fact, represent the whole sex. Nay, they will probably not unfrequently command the elections, as three colored women are said once to have done in New Jersey. A hundred honest and intelligent women can have but one vote each, and at least fifty of these will generally stay at home. If, which God forbid, it actually comes to female voting, a very small proportion of the sex will, at common elections, appear at the polls. Avocations more urgent, more natural to them, and in which they are more deeply interested, will keep them away. The degraded women will be there by the scores, as tools of men, enjoying both the importance of the hour, the fun, and THE PAY. Fifty women, known to be thieves and prostitutes, will hold, at a moderate calculation, say two hundred votes. And, as women form the majority of the resident population in some States, that wretched element of society will, in fact, govern those States, or those who bribe them will do so. Massachusetts, very favorable to female suffrage now, will probably come round to the opinion of New Jersey in former days. Great will be the consumption of cheap ribbons, and laces, and artificial flowers, and feathers, and tinsel jewelry, in every town and village about election time, after emancipation is achieved. We are compelled to believe so, judging from our knowledge of human nature, and of the use already made of bribery at many elections. The demagogues will be more powerful than ever. Their work will be made easy for them. It seems, indeed, probable that under the new era our great elections shall become a sort of grand national gift concerns, of which the most active demagogues of all parties will be the managers. Not that women are more mercenary, or more unprincipled than men. God forbid! That would be saying too much. We entirely believe the reverse to be true. But the great mass of women can never be made to take a deep, a sincere, a discriminating, a lasting interest in the thousand political questions ever arising to be settled by the vote. They very soon weary of such questions. On great occasions they can work themselves up to a state of frenzied excitement over some one political question. At such times they can parade a degree of unreasoning prejudice, of passionate hatred, of blind fury, even beyond what man can boast of. But, in their natural condition, in everyday life, they do not take instinctively to politics as men do. Men are born politicians; just as they are born masons, and carpenters, and soldiers, and sailors. Not so women. Their thoughts and feelings are given to other matters. The current of their chosen avocations runs in another channel than that of politics—a channel generally quite out of sight of politics; it is an effort for them to turn from one to the other. With men, on the contrary, politics, either directly or indirectly, are closely, palpably, inevitably blended with their regular work in life. They give their attention unconsciously, spontaneously; to politics. Look at a family of children, half boys, half girls; the boys take instinctively to whips and guns and balls and bats and horses, to fighting and wrestling and riding; the girls fondle their dolls, beg for a needle and thread, play at housekeeping, at giving tea-parties, at nursing the sick baby, at teaching school. That difference lasts through life. Give your son, as he grows up, a gun and a vote; he will delight in both. Give your daughter, as she grows up, a gun and a vote, and, unless she be an exceptional woman, she will make a really good use of neither. Your son may be dull; but he will make a good soldier, and a very tolerable voter. Your daughter may be very clever; but she would certainly run away on the battle-held, and very probably draw a caricature on the election ticket. There is the making of an admirable wife and mother, and a valuable member of society, in that clever young woman. She is highly intelligent, thoroughly well educated, reads Greek and Latin, and has a wider range of knowledge and thought than ninety-nine in a hundred of the voters in the same district; but there is nothing of the politician in her nature. She would rather any day read a fine poem than the best political speech of the hour. What she does know of politics reaches her through that dull but worthy brother of hers. It is only occasionally that we meet women with an inherent bias for politics; and those are not, as a rule, the highest type of the sex—it is only occasionally that they are so. The interest most women feel in politics is secondary, factitious, engrafted on them by the men nearest to them. Women are not abortive men; they are a distinct creation. The eye and the ear, though both belonging to the same body, are each, in a certain sense, a distinct creation. A body endowed with four ears might hear remarkably well; but without eyes it would be of little use in the world. A body with four eyes would have a fourfold power of vision, and would consequently become nearly as sharp-sighted as a spider; but without hearing its powers of sight would avail little. In both cases, half the functions of the human being, whether physical or mental, would be very imperfectly performed. Thus it is with men and women; each has a distinct position to fill in the great social body, and is especially qualified for it. These distinct positions are each highly important. And it is reasonable to believe that, by filling their own peculiar position thoroughly well, women can best serve their Creator, their fellow-creatures, and themselves. No doubt you may, if you choose, by especial education from childhood upward, make your girls very respectable politicians, as much so as the majority of your sons. But in that case you must give up your womanly daughters—you must be content with manly daughters. This essential difference between the sexes is a very striking fact; yet the advocates of female suffrage constantly lose sight of it; they talk and write as if it had no existence. It is not lack of intellect on the part of women, but difference of intellect, or rather a difference of organization and affinities giving a different bias to the intellect, which is the cause of their distinct mental character as a sex. And, owing to this essential difference, the great majority of women are naturally disinclined to politics, and partially unfitted for action in that field.