At any rate, if the clergy still retain too much of their control, the evil is not to be corrected by leaving the whole matter in their hands. The argument itself must be turned the other way. Women need the mental training of science to balance the over-sympathy of religion; they need to participate in statesmanship to develop the practical side of their lives. We are outgrowing the sarcasm of the Frenchman who said that in America there were but two amusements,—politics for the men, and religion for the women. When both women and men learn to mingle the two more equally, both politics and religion will become something more than an amusement.
C.
THE ROMAN CATHOLIC BUGBEAR.
“Those who wish the Roman Catholic Church to subvert our school system, control legislation, and become a mighty political force, cannot do better than labor day and night for woman suffrage. This, it is true, is opposed to every principle and tradition of that great church, which nevertheless would reap from it immense benefits. The priests have little influence over a considerable part of their male flock; but their power is great over the women, who would repair to the polls at the word of command, with edifying docility and zeal.”—Francis Parkman on “The Woman Question” in North American Review, September, 1879.
I am surprised that a man like Mr. Parkman, who has done so much to vindicate the share of Roman Catholic priests and laymen in the early settlement of this continent, should have introduced this paragraph into a serious discussion of what he himself recognizes as an important question. Here is the case. One-half the citizens of every State are unrepresented in the government: the ordinary means of republican influence are withheld from them, as they are from idiots and criminals. It is the rights and claims of these women, as women, that statesmanship has to consider. Whether their enfranchisement will help the nation or the race, as a whole, is legitimate matter for argument. Whether their votes will temporarily tell for this or that party or sect, is a wholly subordinate matter, that ought not to be obtruded into a serious debate. If republican government is not strong enough to stand on its own principles, if its fundamental theory must be interpreted and modified so that it shall work for or against a particular church or class of citizens, then it is a worse failure than even Mr. Parkman represents it. The “woman question,” whenever it is settled, must be settled on its own merits, with no more reference to Roman Catholics, as such, than to Mormons or Chinese. Having said this before, when advocates of woman suffrage were presenting the movement as an anti-Catholic movement, I can consistently repeat it now, when the movement is charged with being unconsciously pro-Catholic in its tendencies. It is not its business to be for or against any religion: its business is with principles.
The paragraph throws needless odium on a large and an inseparable portion of the community,—the Roman Catholics. “Aliens to our blood and race!” cried indignantly the orator Shiel, in the House of Commons, when some one had thus characterized the Irish. “Heavens! have I not, upon the battle-field, seen those aliens do their duty to England?” It is too soon after the great civil war to stigmatize, even by implication, a class on whom we were then glad to call. Whole regiments of Roman Catholics were then called into the service; Roman Catholic chaplains were commissioned, than whom none did their duty better, or in a less sectarian spirit. In case of another war, all these would be summoned to duty again. We have no right, in reasoning on American institutions, to treat this religious element as something by itself, an alien member, not to be assimilated, virtually antagonistic to republican government. It has never proved to be so in Switzerland, where about half the cantons are overwhelmingly Roman Catholic, and yet the federal union is preserved, and the republican feeling is as strong in these cantons as in any other.
No doubt there would be great objections to the domination of any single religious body, and the more thorough its organization the worse; but this is an event in the last degree improbable in any State of the Union. It is doubtful if even the Roman Catholic Church will ever again be relatively so powerful as in the early years of our government, when it probably had a majority of the population in three States,—Maryland, Louisiana, and Kentucky,—whereas now it has lost it in all. It may be many years before we again see, as we saw for a quarter of a century, a Roman Catholic chief justice of the United States (Taney). If we ever see this church come into greater power, it will be because it shows, as in England, such tact and discretion and moderation as to disarm opposition, and earn the right to influence. The common feeling and prejudice of American people is, and is likely to remain, overwhelmingly against it; and none know this better than the Roman Catholic priests themselves. They know very well that nothing would more exasperate this feeling than to marshal women to the polls like sheep; and this alone would prevent their doing it, were there no other obstacle.
The abolitionists used to say that the instinct of any class of oppressors was infallible, and that if the slaveholders, for instance, dreaded a certain policy, that policy was the wise one for the slaves. If the priests are such oppressors as Mr. Parkman thinks, they must have the instinct of that class; and their present unanimous opposition to woman suffrage is sufficient proof that it promises no good to them. How easy it is to misinterpret their policy, has been shown in the school suffrage matter. It was confidently stated that a certain priest in the city where I live, had demanded from the pulpit a certain sum—two thousand dollars—to pay the poll-taxes for women voters. Most people believed it; yet, when it came to the point, not a Roman Catholic woman applied for assessment. It will be thus with Mr. Parkman’s fears. Women will ultimately vote,—as indeed, he seems rather to expect; and the effect will be to make them more intelligent, and therefore less likely to obey the will of any man. Roman Catholic men are learning to think for themselves; and the best way to make women do so is to treat them as intelligent and responsible beings.
CI.
DANGEROUS VOTERS.
One of the few plausible objections brought against women’s voting is this: that it would demoralize the suffrage by letting in very dangerous voters; that virtuous women would not vote, and vicious women would. It is a very unfounded alarm.
For, in the first place, our institutions rest—if they have any basis at all—on this principle, that good is stronger than evil, that the majority of men really wish to vote rightly, and that only time and patience are needed to get the worst abuses righted. How any one can doubt this, who watches the course of our politics, I do not see. In spite of the great disadvantage of having masses of ignorant foreign voters to deal with,—and of native black voters, who have been purposely kept in ignorance,—we certainly see wrongs gradually righted, and the truth by degrees prevail. Even the one great, exceptional case of New York City has been reached at last; and the very extent of the evil has brought its own cure. Now, why should this triumph of good over evil be practicable among men, and not apply to women also?