(Contemporary. Ex-President the Illinois Equal Suffrage Association—Former Secretary “National American Suffrage Association.”)
Suffrage is not an end in itself, but a means to an end....
The opposition of the liquor forces is not gauged by the number of women actively engaged in temperance work. That number is still comparatively small. It takes no comfort from the fact that suffrage associations are non-partisan on all questions except suffrage. It would fear and fight off the enfranchisement of women if every temperance organization were to disband today. Therein it unconsciously pays its high tribute to woman and confesses its own lack of moral defense.... The forces of evil fear for woman’s vote.
Man Cannot Represent Woman
By Rev. Antoinette Brown
(The first woman ordained to preach in the United States. The following extract is from a speech delivered at the Suffrage Convention at Syracuse, N. Y., Sept. 8, 1852.)
Man cannot represent woman. They differ in their nature and relations. The law is wholly masculine; it is created and executed by man. The framers of all legal compacts are restricted to the masculine standpoint of observation, to the thoughts, feelings and biases of man. The law then can give us no representation as women, and therefore no impartial justice, even if the law makers were intent upon this, for we can be represented only by our peers.... When woman is tried for crime, her jury, her judges, her advocates, are all men; and yet there may have been temptations and various palliating circumstances connected with her peculiar nature as woman, such as man cannot appreciate. Common justice demands that a part of the law-makers and law-executors should be of her own sex. In questions of marriage and divorce, affecting interests dearer than life, both parties in the contract are entitled to an equal voice.
Universality
By Belle Lindner Israels