Page:The Enfranchisement of Women, the law of the land.pdf/19

19 half the nation to be disfranchised by a single hazy inference of a branch of Westminster Hall? Mark, Justice Bovill is the first and only judge of England that has so declared. Point to any other shred of authority for such a dictum. If the Parliament of 1832 believed that women were then legally incapable, why did it step out of its way for the first time in the whole course of the statutes at large to insert the word "male" into the Act? Every other uses the term freeholder, people, person, without ever touching upon sex. If women at common law, or by statute, were from time immemorial excluded, why did not the Legislature continue its customary phraseology? Clearly it felt that unless it had employed the term "male," its other provisions would not have excluded women.

But it is also evident that the Parliament of 1832 did not regard women as subject to legal incapacity, else it would not have employed the tautology of "male." If women were in the same category as aliens, lunatics, or minors, the word male was quite superfluous. The terms "every person not subject to legal incapacity" would have included women—would have left them outside the constitution, without the use of any adjective specification. Still more singular is it that in reserving and keeping alive all the qualifications in existence before those itself created, this statute falls back exactly to the accustomed phraseology of the earlier Acts. Whenever it confers a new right, it restricts it to every "male person." Whenever it perpetuates existing franchises, it continues them to "every person," leaving the word "male" out on set system. At the very least, Parliament manifestly leaves the question open; and I have shown that, by the constitution, the House of Commons, that "High Court of Parliament," is the only tribunal competent to determine the rights of electors. Let me not be misunderstood. It is not necessary for me to argue that the franchises created by the statute of 1832 included women. It is not worth while to argue the point, because if the earlier and later qualifications extend to them, I can make misogynists a present of the first Reform Act.

Nineteen years subsequently to the date of that statute, and sixteen years before the date of that of 1867, Lord Romilly's measure for shortening the language of Acts of Parliament