Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 3.djvu/107

107 The freedom of elections was further impaired by "frequent false returns," made by the sheriffs. Against these the people had no sufficient redress, for the sheriffs were responsible neither to them nor to officers of their appointment. And how could a more pregnant cause of discontent exist in a country where the elective franchise was cherished as the dearest civil privilege?—If land is to be taxed, none but landholders should elect the legislature.—The other freemen, who are the more in number, may refuse to be bound by those laws in which they have no representation, and we are so well acquainted with the temper of the people that we have reason to believe they had rather pay their taxes than lose that privilege.

Would those statesmen have dared to tax those landholders and yet deny them the privilege of choosing their representatives? And if, forsooth, they had, would not each one of you have declared such act unconstitutional and unjust? We are the daughters of those liberty-loving patriots. Their blood flows in our veins, and in view of the recognized physiological fact that special characteristics are transmitted from fathers to daughters, do you wonder that we tax-paying, American-born citizens of these United States are here to protest in the name of liberty and justice? We recognize, however, that you are not responsible for the present political condition of women, and that the question confronting you, as statesmen called to administer justice under existing conditions, is, "What are the capacities of this great class for self-government?" You have cautiously summoned us to adduce proof that the ballot in the hands of women would prove a help, not a hindrance; would bring wings, not weights. First, then, we ask you in the significant name of history to read the record of woman as a ruler from the time when Deborah judged Israel, and the land had rest and peace forty years, even down to this present when Victoria Regina, the Empress Queen, rules her vast kingdom so ably that we sometimes hear American men talk about a return "to the good old ways of limited monarchy," with woman for a ruler. John Stuart Mill, after studious research, testifies as follows:

When to queens and emperors we add regents and viceroys of provinces, the list of women who have been eminent rulers of mankind swells to a great length. The fact is so undeniable that some one long ago tried to retort the argument by saying that queens are better than kings, because under kings women govern, but under queens, men. Especially is her wonderful talent for governing evinced in Asia. If a Hindoo principality is strongly, vigilantly, and economically governed; if order is preserved without oppression; if cultivation is extending, and the people prosperous, in three cases out of four that principality is under a woman's rule. This fact, to me an entirely unexpected one, I have collected from a long official knowledge of Hindoo governments. There are many such instances; for though by Hindoo institutions a woman cannot reign, she is the legal regent of a kingdom during the minority of the heir—and minorities are frequent, the lives of the male rulers being so often prematurely terminated through their inactivity and excesses. When we consider that these princesses have never been seen in public, have never conversed with any man not of their own family, except from behind a curtain; that they do not read, and if they did, there is no book in their languages which can give them the smallest instruction on political affairs, the example they afford of the natural capacity of women for government is very striking.

In view of these facts, does it not appear that if there is any one distinctively feminine characteristic, it is the mother-instinct for government?