Page:History of Woman Suffrage Volume 6.djvu/889

 

To the Electors of the State of Nebraska:

At a meeting of men lately held in the city of Omaha the following resolution was unanimously adopted: "Resolved, That it is the sense of this meeting that a Manifesto be prepared, issued and circulated, setting forth the reasons for our opposition to the pending constitutional amendment providing for equal (woman) suffrage and requesting the cooperation of the voters of the State, and that such Manifesto be signed by all the men present."

We yield to none in our admiration, veneration and respect for woman. We recognize in her admirable and adorable qualities and sweet and noble influences which make for the betterment of mankind and the advancement of civilization. We have ever been willing and ready to grant to woman every right and protection, even to favoritism in the law, and to give her every opportunity that makes for development and true womanhood. We have a full appreciation of all the great things which have been accomplished by women in education, in charity and in benevolent work and in other channels of duty too numerous to mention, by which both men and women have been benefited, society improved and the welfare of the human race advanced. We would take from women none of their privileges as citizens but we do not believe that women are adapted to the political work of the world.

The discussion of all questions growing out of the social and family relations and local economic conditions has no direct relationship to the right of women to participate in the political affairs of government. The right of suffrage does not attach of right to the owners of property, for, if so, all other persons should be disfranchised. It is not a fundamental right of taxpayers, for a great body of men are not taxpayers, and nine-tenths of the women who would become voters, if woman suffrage were adopted, would be non-taxpayers. It is not an inherent right of citizenship, for the time never was in the whole history of the world when the franchise was granted to all citizens.... Franchise is a privilege of government granted only to those to whom the Government sees fit to grant it. As a law-abiding people men and women alike should recognize once and for all that the right of suffrage is not a natural or inherent right of citizenship but can only come by grant from the Government. (Legal authorities quoted.]

We must also recognize that woman suffrage is inconsistent with the fundamental principles upon which our representative government was founded and to accept it now involves revolutionary changes. The framers of the Federal Constitution, a body of the wisest men the country has ever produced, did not recognize or provide for woman suffrage. No one of the original thirteen States which adopted it provided in their constitutions for woman suffrage. True it was permitted in New Jersey from 1776 to 1807, a period of thirty-one years, when it was taken away by statute, by reason of unsatisfactory conditions and results. After the close of the Civil War, the southern States which had gone into rebellion were admitted back into the