Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 4.djvu/146

 The property qualification for suffrage is, to my mind, an invasion of natural right, which elevates mere property to an equality with life and personal liberty, and it ought never to be imposed. But, however that may be, its application has no relation to sex, and its only object is to secure the exercise of the suffrage under a stronger sense of obligation and responsibility. The same is true of the qualifications of sanity, education and obedience to the laws, which exclude dementia, ignorance and crime from participation in the sovereignty. Every condition or qualification imposed upon the exercise of the suffrage, save sex alone, has for its only object or possible justification the possession of mental and moral fitness, and has no relation to physical power.

The question then arises why is the qualification of masculinity required? The distinction between human beings by reason of sex is a physical distinction. The soul is of no sex. If there be a distinction of soul by reason of the physical difference, woman is the superior of man. In proof of this see the minority report of this committee with all the eulogiums of woman pronounced by those who, like the serpent of old, would flatter her vanity that they may continue to wield her power. I repeat that the soul is of no sex, and that so far as the possession and exercise of human rights and powers are concerned, sex is but a physical property, whose possession renders the female just as important as the male, and in just as great need of power in the government of society. If there be a difference, however, her average physical inferiority is really compensated for by a superior mental and moral fitness to give direction to the course of society and to the policy of the State. If, then, there be a distinction between the souls of human beings resulting from sex, woman is better fitted for the exercise of the suffrage than man.

It is asserted by some that the suffrage is an inherent natural right, and by others that it is merely a privilege extended to the individual by society at its discretion. However this may be, its extension to any class must come through the exercise of the suffrage by those who already possess it. Therefore, the appeal by those who have it not must be made to those who are asked to part with a portion of their own power. It is only human nature that the male sex should hesitate to yield one-half of its power to those whose cause, however strong in reason and justice, lacks that physical force by which so largely the masses'of men themselves have wrung their own rights from rulers and kings.

It is not strange that when overwhelmed with argument and half won by appeals to his better nature, and ashamed to refuse blankly that which he finds no reason for longer withholding, man avoids the dilemma by a pretended elevation of woman to a higher sphere, where, as an angel, she has certain gauzy, ethereal resources and superior attributes and functions which render the possession of mere earthly, every-day powers and privileges non-essential to her, however mere mortal men may find them indispensable to their own freedom and happiness. But to the denial of her right to vote,