Page:Popular Science Monthly Volume 33.djvu/746

726 question. The situation is such, that the sexes can not take an equal share of governmental responsibilities even if they should desire to do so. Woman suffrage becomes government by women alone on every occasion where a measure is carried by the aid of woman's votes. If such a measure should be obnoxious to a majority of men, they could successfully defy a party composed of a minority of their own sex and a majority of women. That this would be done there can be no question, for we have a parallel case in the attempt to carry into effect negro suffrage in some parts of the South. We know the history too well. Intimidation, deception, and the manipulation of the count, have nullified the negro vote. How many Governors, Legislatures, and even Presidents have attained their positions in violation of the rights of the ballot during the last twenty years, we may never know. In times of peace and general prosperity these things have excited indignant protest, but nothing more. But when serious issues distract the nation or any part of it, frauds on the ballot and intimidation of voters will be a more serious matter, and will lead to disastrous consequences. We do not want to increase possibilities of such evil portent. Unqualified negro suffrage is, in the writer's estimation, a serious blunder, and woman suffrage would be another. And it is now proposed that we have both combined.

Immunity from service in executing the law would make most women irresponsible voters. But there are other reasons why the questions involved in government are foreign to the thoughts of most women. The characteristics of the female mind have been already described. Most men who have associated much with girls and women remember how many needed lessons they have learned from them in refinement and benevolence; and how they have had, on the other hand, to steel their minds against their aimlessness and pettiness. And from youth to later years they have observed one peculiarity for which no remedy has been yet found, and that is, a pronounced frailty of the rational faculty in thought or action. This characteristic is offset by a strength and elevation of the emotional nature, which shines with inextinguishable luster in the wife and mother. It is to this that man renders the homage of respect, admiration, and such devotion as he is capable of. But, are these the qualities for our governors? Men who display personal bias in ever so small a degree, unless accompanied by unusual merits of another kind, are not selected by their fellows for positions of responsibility and trust. Strong understanding, vigorous judgment, and the absence of "fear, favor, and affection," are what men desire in their governors; for only through minds of that character can justice be obtained.

On account of their stronger sympathies girls always think themselves the moral superiors of boys, who are often singularly