Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States. Various

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СКАЧАТЬ If the larger number of females select pursuits or professions which require them to decline marriage, society to that extent is deprived of the advantage resulting from the increase of population by marriage.

      It is said by those who have examined the question closely that the largest number of divorces is now found in the communities where the advocates of female suffrage are most numerous, and where the individuality of woman as related to her husband, which such a doctrine inculcates, is increased to the greatest extent.

      If this be true, it is a strong plea in the interests of the family and of society against granting the petition of the advocates of woman suffrage.

      After all, this is a local question, which properly belongs to the different States of the Union, each acting for itself, and to the Territories of the Union, when not acting in conflict with the laws of the United States.

      The fact that a State adopts the rule of female suffrage neither increases nor diminishes its power in the Union, as the number of Representatives in Congress to which each State is entitled and the number of members in the electoral college appointed by each is determined by its aggregate population and not by the proportion of its voting population, so long as no race or class as defined by the Constitution is excluded from the exercise of the right of suffrage.

      Now, Mr. President, I shall make no apology for adding to what I have said some extracts from an able and well-written volume, entitled "Letters from the Chimney Corner," written by a highly cultivated lady of Chicago. This gifted lady has discussed the question with so much clearness and force that I can make no mistake by substituting some of the thoughts taken from her book for anything I might add on this question. While discussing the relations of the sexes, and showing that neither sex is of itself a whole, a unit, and that each requires to be supplemented by the other before its true structural integrity can be achieved, she adds:

      Now, everywhere throughout nature, to the male and female ideal, certain distinct powers and properties belong. The lines of demarkation are not always clear, not always straight lines: they are frequently wavering, shadowy, and difficult to follow, yet on the whole whatever physical strength, personal aggressiveness, the intellectual scope and vigor which manage vast material enterprises are emphasized, there the masculine ideal is present. On the other hand, wherever refinement, tenderness, delicacy, sprightliness, spiritual acumen, and force, are to the fore, there the feminine ideal is represented, and these terms will be found nearly enough for all practical purposes to represent the differing endowments of actual men and women. Different powers suggest different activities, and under the division of labor here indicated the control of the state, legislation, the power of the ballot, would seem to fall to the share of man. Nor does this decision carry with it any injustice, any robbery of just or natural right to woman.

      In her hands is placed a moral and spiritual power far greater than the power of the ballot. In her married or reproductive state the forming and shaping of human souls in their most plastic period is her destiny. Nor do her labors or her responsibilities end with infancy or childhood. Throughout his entire course, from the cradle to the grave, man is ever under the moral and spiritual influence and control of woman. With this power goes a tremendous responsibility for its true management and use. If woman shall ever rise to the full height of her power and privileges in this direction, she will have enough of the world's work upon her hands without attempting legislation.

      It may be argued that the possession of civil power confers dignity, and is of itself a re-enforcement of whatever natural power an individual may possess; but the dignity of womanhood, when it is fully understood and appreciated, needs no such re-enforcement, nor are the peculiar needs of woman such as the law can reach.

      Whenever laws are needed for the protection of her legal status and rights, there has been found to be little difficulty in obtaining them by means of the votes of men; but the deeper and more vital needs of woman and of society are those which are outside altogether of the pale of the law, and which can only be reached by the moral forces lodged in the hands of woman herself, acting in an enlarged and general capacity.

      For instance, whenever a man or woman has been wronged in marriage the law may indeed step in with a divorce, but does that divorce give back to either party the dream of love, the happy home, the prattle of children, and the sweet outlook for future years which were destroyed by that wrong? It is not a legal power which is needed in this case; it is a moral power which shall prevent the wrong, or, if committed, shall induce penitence, forgiveness, a purer life, and the healing of the wound.

      This power has been lodged by the Creator in the hands of woman herself, and if she has not been rightly trained to use it there is no redress for her at the hands of the law. The law alone can never compel men to respect the chastity of woman. They must first recognize its value in themselves by living up to the high level of their duties as maidens, wives, and mothers; they must impress men with the beauty and sacredness of purity, and then whatever laws are necessary and available for its protection will be easily obtained, with a certainty, also, that they can be enforced, because the moral sentiments of men will be enlisted in their support.

      Privileges bring responsibilities, and before women clamor for more work to do, it were better that they should attend more thoughtfully to the duties which lie all about them, in the home and social circle. Until society is cleansed of the moral foulness which infests it, which, as we have seen, lies beyond the reach of civil law, women have no call to go forth into wider fields, claiming to be therein the rightful and natural purifiers. Let them first make the home sweet and pure, and the streams which flow therefrom will sweeten and purify all the rest.

      As between the power of the ballot and this moral force exerted by women there can not be an instant's doubt as to the choice. In natural refinement and elevation of character, the ideal woman stands a step above the ideal man. If she descends from this fortunate position to take part in the coarse scramble for material power, what chance will she have as against man's aggressive forces; and what can she possibly gain that she can not win more directly, more effectually, and with far more dignity and glory to herself by the exercise of her own womanly prerogatives? She has, under God, the formation and rearing of men in her own hands.

      If they do not turn out in the end to be men who respect woman, who will protect and defend her in the exercise of every one of her God-given rights, it is because she has failed in her duty toward them; has not been taught to comprehend her own power and to use it to its best ends. For women to seek to control men by the power of suffrage is like David essaying the armor of Saul. What woman needs is her own sheepskin sling and her few smooth pebbles from the bed of the brook, and then let her go forth in the name of the Lord God of Hosts, and a victory as sure and decisive as that of the shepherd of Israel awaits her.

      Again, in chapter 4, entitled "The Power of the Home," the author says, in substance: It is, perhaps, of minor consequence that women should have felt themselves emancipated from buttons and bread making; but that they should have learned to look in the least degree slightingly upon the great duties of women as lovers of husbands, as lovers of children, as the fountain and source of what is highest and purest and holiest, and not less of what is homely and comfortable and satisfying in the home, is a serious misfortune. Women can hardly be said to have lost, perhaps what they have so rarely in any age generally attained, that dignity which knows how to command, united with a sweetness which seems all the while to be complying, the power, supple and strong, which rescues the character of the ideal woman from the charge of weakness, and at the same time exhibits its utmost of grace and fascination.

      But that of late years the gift has not been cultivated, has not, in fact, thrown out such natural off-shoots as gave grace and glory to some earlier social epochs, must be evident, it would seem, to any thoughtful observer.

      If, instead of trying to grasp more material power, women would pursue those studies and investigations which tend to make them familiar with what science teaches concerning the influence of the mother and the home upon the child; of how completely СКАЧАТЬ