Foreign Corresponding Secretaries—Caroline A. Biggs, London; Lydia E. Becker, Manchester, England; Marguerite Berry Stanton, Hubertine Auclert, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Paris, France; Clara Neymann, Berlin, Germany.
Treasurer—Jane H. Spofford, Riggs House, Washington, D. C.
Auditors—Eliza T. Ward, Ellen M. O'Connor, Washington, D. C.
CHAPTER XXXII.
CONNECTICUT.
Is the Family the Basis of the State?
BY JOHN HOOKER.
The proposition that the family is the basis of the State has come down through many generations, so far as I know, unchallenged; but in the sense in which it is ordinarily understood, and for the purpose for which it is ordinarily used, it is entirely a fallacy. The State depends upon the family for the continuance of its population, just as it depends upon the school for the intelligence of its people and on religious institutions for their morality. But the State stands in no political relation to the family any more than to the school and the church. What is meant by the proposition as generally used is, that the State is politically an aggregate of families and not of individuals. This is entirely untrue, and if true the fact would be calamitous. Civil government is supposed to have had its origin in family government, the patriarch becoming chief of a tribe which was substantially the outgrowth and expansion of a single family; but if a nation was to be formed of such tribes it would be essential to its peace and prosperity that they should as soon as possible mingle into one homogeneous mass, and that no citizen should consider himself of one tribe rather than another. It is the family idea in a government like ours that makes the feuds which are handed down from generation to generation in some parts of the country. It made the frequent bloody contests of the clans in Scotland, and the dissensions of the Hebrew tribes. In a republic nothing can be more disastrous than that great political leaders should have large family followings. The first duty of the citizen is to forget that he belongs to any family in particular. He is an individual citizen of the State, and when he becomes a magistrate he must practically ignore the fact that he has family relatives who feel entitled to his special favor. He must, like justice, be blind to every fact except that the applicant for office or for justice is an individual citizen and must stand wholly on his personal merits or the justice of his cause.
The proposition that the family is the basis of the State thus taken by itself is entirely false; but even if true, the use made of it as an argument against giving suffrage to women is equally fallacious. This can be shown by a single illustration. We will suppose there are two families, in both of which the father dies, leaving in one case a widow and one son, and in the other a widow and six daughters. Where is now the family representation? The son whom we will suppose to be of age, goes to the polls and we will suppose sufficiently represents the family to which he belongs; but where is the family representation for the other widow and her six daughters? She may be the largest tax-payer in the State, and yet she can have no voice in determining what taxes shall be laid, nor to what purposes the money shall be appropriated.