WOMEN'S RIGHTS. In 1851 an article in The Westminster Review attracted attention to the novel subject of the enfranchisement of women. Since that time the agitation for women's rights has in this country, and to a still greater extent in America, attained the dimensions of a political movement. The subject has, therefore, become one of general interest. The following is an account of the claims included in women's rights, and a brief statement of the chief arguments by which those claims are supported: 1. The Political Rights of discussion has hitherto turned upon the right to the suffrage. The right to vote is claimed in accordance with the principles of polit ical reasoning that are held conclusive in the case of men. The argument applies with peculiar force to a democratic constitution. Democracy involVes two ideas. It is a protest against privilege and against despotism; it maintains that every individual is born with an equal right to the protection and consideration of the law; and it affirms that every one must have a vote in order to secure this fundamental right. The practice of the United States shows a gradual approach to those principles. Till lately, the negroes were refused the benefit of them; but the privilege founded on color has per ished, and there remains now only the privilege founded on sex.
In England the right to vote has been made to rest on the principles of English law. A petition of women to the house of commons, presented on June 7, 1866, set forth that the possession of property in this country carries with it the right to vote in the election of representatives in parliament. From the earliest times the principle of the English constitution, and the spirit of the English people, have required that no man's property should be taken for the purposes of government without his consent. Since, therefore, the English law permits women to hold and manage property, it seems anomalous and inconsistent that it should refuse them a vote to protect their property from inordinate taxation. Other persons allowed by the law to hold property, but excluded from the suffrage, are minors, idiots, lunatics, and criminals. But the principle of disqualifica tion in those cases does not apply to women. Moreover, there is alleged to be historical evidence that women have voted both in counties and boroughs. The disuse of the privilege is traced to historical causes. Such was the violence of the time that women were often unable to administer their property, and it was therefore natural that they should take little part in elections. Besides, the right to vote was at first regarded, not as a privilege, but as a burden; for the power of the commons was low, and the expense of paying members of parliament was considerable. The disfranchisement of women is therefore held to be an anomaly in the constitution, as it was an accident in history.
The objections to female suffrage are various. In an argument in the Times it is said: "There exists, as it were, a tacit concordat guaranteeing to the weaker sex the protection and deference of the strong, .upon one condition only: that condition is the political dependence of women." This asserts a claim on the part of men to make laws for women, in return for protection and deference. Now, protection to person and property every one has a right to who obeys the laws and contributes to the support of the government. The reason for refusing votes to women must lie deeper. It may be
said that, inasmuch as women are weak and at the mercy of men, men abstain from abusing their superiority only on one condition; that condition is, that women shall have no legal rights except those that men are pleased to give them. In the last resort the rights and privileges of any class of men depend on their might. The nobility. established their privileges when they had power. The working-class has been admit ted to the franchise because its power has increased. But women have no physical power to enforce their rights. If rights are to be measured by might, women will occupy the bottom of the scale. This is their position among savages. But, as civil iza tion has advanced, men have learned to renounce the advantage of their physieal supe riority, and freely to give women privileges that could not have been extorted. It would, therefore, seem that the rights women actually enjoy do not depend upon, and are not to be measured by, their physical strength. The rights of women flow from the prevailing sense of justice, and justice now means that the interests of women be con sulted with as much impartiality as the interests of men. An unjust preferenbe of either would be mischievous to both. Since, then, the interests of women should be fairly considered, what reason can there be to prevent them voting, and thereby intima ting what views they take of their own interests? Another objection to the enfranchisement of women is that women have no business with politics, and that politics would withdraw them from their proper duties. Is this apprehension well founded? Granting that domestic life is the proper sphere of women, is it really impossible to unite an interest in polities with attention to a family? Upon this subject we are not altogether without experience. in the great dissenting churches in Scotland women, though excluded from office, vote equally with men in the appoint ment of ruling-elders, ministers, and in everything that is decided by it popular vote. But this privilege has not " hardened " them or made them " unfeminine," or interfered with their household work. On the other hand it has largely contributed to the success of the voluntary system, and to the strength of the church. The chimerical nature of the alarm felt on this subject has been illustrated by the objections that might be made against allowing clergymen to vote. "We should be told that clergymen have no busi ness with politics; that it was their province to attend to spiritual matters, and that they ought to confine themselves to their proper sphere; that if they were permitted to partici pate in political affairs, it would deteriorate from the sanctity of their character; that the passions roused by political contests were inconsistent with that spirit of meekness and holiness which we look for in preachers of the gospel." Women are not wholly excluded from politics. In some countries a woman may be sovereign; and history affords many examples of women that have had the highest capacity for government. Women in this country, if they have the same qualification as men, have parochial votes. And few would go so far as to propose that women should not only be shut out from public affairs, but also be kept ignorant of polities. Even if family-life be made their sole occupation, it surely is not to bound the horizon of their knowledge and sym pathies.