Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 2.djvu/208

186 Our danger lies, not in the direction of despotism, in the one-man power, in centralization; but in the corruption of the people....

It is in vain to look for a genuine republic in this country until the women are baptized into the idea, until they understand the genius of our institutions, until they study the science of government, until they hold the ballot in their hands and have a direct voice in our legislation. What is the reason, with the argument in favor of the enfranchisement of women all on one side, without an opponent worthy of consideration—while British statesmen, even, are discussing this question—the Northern men are so dumb and dogged, manifesting a studied indifference to what they can neither answer nor prevent? What is the reason that even abolitionists who have fearlessly claimed political, religious and social equality for women for the last twenty years, should now, with bated breath, give her but a passing word in their public speeches and editorial comments—as if her rights constituted but a side issue of this grave question of reconstruction? All must see that this claim for male suffrage is but another experiment in class legislation, another violation of the republican idea. With the black man we have no new element in government, but with the education and elevation of women we have a power that is to develop the Saxon race into a higher and nobler life, and thus, by the law of attraction, to lift all races to a more even platform than can ever be reached in the political isolation of the sexes. Why ignore 15,000,000 women in the reconstruction? The philosophy of this silence is plain enough. The black man crowned with the rights of citizenship, there are no political Ishmaelites left but the women. This is the last stronghold of aristocracy in the country. Sydney Smith says: "There always has been, and always will be, a class of men in the world so small that, if women were educated, there would be nothing left below them."

It is a consolation to the "white male," to the popinjays in all our seminaries of learning, to the ignorant foreigner, the boot-black and barber, the idiot—for a "white male" may vote if he be not more than nine-tenths a fool—to look down on women of wealth and education, who write books, make speeches, and discuss principles with the savans of their age. It is a consolation for these classes to be able to say, "well, if woman can do these things, they can't vote after all." I heard some boys discoursing thus not long since. I told them they reminded me of a story I heard of two Irishmen the first time they saw a locomotive with a train of cars. As the majestic fire-horse, with all its grace and polish, moved up to a station, stopped, and snorted, as its mighty power was curbed, then slowly gathered up its forces again and moved swiftly on—"be [sic]jabers," says Pat, "there's muscle for you. What are we beside that giant?" They watched it intently till out of sight, seemingly with real envy, as if oppressed with a feeling of weakness and poverty before this unknown power; but rallying at last, one says to the other: "No matter, Pat; let it snort and dash on—it can't vote, after all."

Poor human nature wants something to look down on. No privileged order ever did see the wrongs of its own victims, and why expect the "white male citizen" to enfranchise woman without a struggle—by a scratch of the