The History of the Women's Suffrage: The Flame Ignites. Susan B. Anthony

though entirely different in their character.40 In the family she is a queen. She alone is fitted for the discharge of the sacred trust of wife and the endearing relation of mother. While the man is contending with the sterner duties of life, the whole time of the noble, affectionate and true woman is required in the discharge of the delicate and difficult duties assigned her in the family circle, in her church relations and in the society where her lot is cast. When the husband returns home weary and worn in the discharge of the difficult and laborious tasks assigned him, he finds in the good wife solace and consolation which is nowhere else afforded.

But a still more important duty devolves upon the mother. After having brought into existence the offspring of the nuptial union, the children are dependent upon the mother as they are not upon any other human being. The trust is a most sacred, most responsible and most important one. She molds the character. She educates the heart as well as the intellect, and she prepares the future man, now the boy, for honor or dishonor. Upon the manner in which she discharges her duty depends the fact whether he shall in future be a useful citizen or a burden to society. She inculcates lessons of patriotism, manliness, religion and virtue, fitting the man by reason of his training to be an ornament to society, or dooming him by her neglect to a life of dishonor and shame. Society acts unwisely, when it imposes upon her the duties that by common consent have always been assigned to the stronger and sterner sex, and the discharge of which causes her to neglect those sacred and all-important duties to her children and to the society of which they are members.41

      In the church, by her piety, her charity and her Christian purity, she not only aids society by a proper training of her own children, but the children of others, whom she encourages to come to the sacred altar. In the Sunday-school room the good woman is a princess and she exerts an influence which purifies and ennobles society. In the sick room and among the humble, the poor and the suffering the good woman is an angel of light....

If the wife and the mother is required to leave the sacred precincts of home and to attempt to do military duty when the State is in peril; or if she is to be required to leave her home from day to day in attendance upon the court as a juror, and to be shut up in the jury room from night to night with men who are strangers, while a question of life or property is being discussed; if she is to attend political meetings, take part in political discussions and mingle with the male sex at political gatherings; if she is to become an active politician; if she is to attend political caucuses at late hours of the night; if she is to take part in all the unsavory work that may be deemed necessary for the triumph of her party; and if on election day she is to leave her home and go upon the streets electioneering for votes for the candidates who receive her support, and mingling among the crowds of men who gather round the polls, she is to press her way through them to the precinct and deposit her ballot; if she is to take part in the corporate struggles of the city or town in which she resides, attend to the duties of his honor, the mayor, the councilman, or of policeman, to say nothing of the many other like obligations which are disagreeable (!) even to the male sex, how is she, with all these heavy duties of citizen, politician and officeholder resting upon her shoulders, to attend to the more sacred, delicate, refining trust to which we have already referred, and for which she is peculiarly fitted by nature? Who is to care for and train the children while she is absent in the discharge of these masculine duties?42

But it has been said that the present law is unjust to woman; that she is often required to pay tax on the property she holds without being permitted to take part in framing or administering the laws by which her property is governed, and that she is taxed without representation. That is a great mistake. It may be very doubtful whether the male or female sex in the present state of things has more influence in the administration of the affairs of the government and the enactment of the laws by which we are governed.43

While the woman does not discharge military duty, nor does she attend courts and serve on juries, nor does she labor on the public streets, bridges or highways, nor does she engage actively and publicly in the discussion of political affairs, nor does she enter the crowded precincts of the ballot-box to deposit her suffrage, still the intelligent, cultivated, noble woman is a power behind the throne. All her influence is in favor of morality, justice and fair dealing, all her efforts and her counsel are in favor of good government, wise and wholesome regulations and a faithful administration of the laws.44 ...

      It would be a gratification, and we are always glad to see the ladies gratified, to many who have espoused the cause of woman suffrage if they could take active part in political affairs and go to the polls and cast their votes alongside the male sex; but while this would be a gratification to a large number of very worthy and excellent ladies who take a different view of the question from that which we entertain, we feel that it would be a great cruelty to a much larger number of the cultivated, refined, delicate and lovely women of this country who seek no such distinction, who would enjoy no such privilege, who would with womanlike delicacy shrink from the discharge of any such obligation, and who would sincerely regret that what they consider the folly of the State had imposed upon them any such unpleasant duties. But should female suffrage be once established it would become an imperative necessity that the very large class, indeed much the largest class, of the women of this country of the character last described should yield, contrary to their inclinations and wishes, to the necessity which would compel them to engage in political strife.

      We apprehend no one who has properly considered this question will doubt, if female suffrage should be established, that the more ignorant and less refined portions of the female population, to say nothing of the baser class of females, laying aside feminine delicacy and disregarding the sacred duties devolving upon them, to which we have already referred, would rush to the polls and take pleasure in the crowded association which the situation would compel, of the two sexes in political meetings and at the ballot-box....

It is now a problem which perplexes the brain of the ablest statesmen to determine how we will best preserve our republican system as against the demoralizing influence of the large class of our present citizens and voters who by reason of their illiteracy are unable to read or write the ballot they cast. If our colored population, who were so recently slaves that even the males who are voters have had but little opportunity to educate themselves or to be educated, whose ignorance is now exciting the liveliest interest of our statesmen, are causes of serious apprehension, what is to be said in favor of adding to the voting population all the females of that race, who, on account of the situation in which they have been placed, have had much less opportunity to be educated than even the males of their own race?45

It may be said that their votes could be offset by the ballots of the educated and refined ladies of the white race in the same section; but who does not know that the ignorant female voters would be at the polls en masse, while the refined and educated, shrinking from public contact on such occasions, would remain at home and attend to their domestic and other important duties?46 Are we ready to expose the country to the demoralization, and our institutions to the strain, which would be placed upon them, for the gratification of a minority of the virtuous and good of our female population at the expense of the mortification of a very large majority of the same sex?

      It has been frequently urged that the ballot is necessary to women to enable them to protect themselves in securing occupations, and to enable them to realize the same compensation for the like labor which is received by men. This argument is plausible, but upon a closer examination it will be found to possess but little real force. The price of labor is and must continue to be governed by the law of supply and demand, and the person who has the most physical strength to labor, and the most pursuits requiring such strength open for employment, will always command the higher prices.

      Ladies