Woman and the Republic — a Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates by Johnson, Helen Kendrick, 1844-1917

The Supreme Court of Ohio, in 1894, held that the provision of the act of April 24, 1894, conferring upon women the right to vote at elections of certain school officers, is valid, such right being within the legislative power to provide for the establishment and maintenance of public schools, and not within Article V. part 1, of the Constitution, which limits the right to male citizens. Judge Shauck says: "The whole subject of the public schools is delegated to the Assembly. As the common-school organization is wholly a creation of the Legislature, it is in the power of the Legislature to determine the qualifications of an elector and office-holder in it." In upholding his ruling, he cited similar decisions from the Supreme Courts of Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Massachusetts, Michigan, and Iowa.

This rapid survey suggests, it seems to me, that, instead of being "a legitimate outgrowth of the fundamental principles of our government," woman suffrage is really incompatible with true republican forms. Pre- civilized conditions, aristocratic tendencies, the forces that would destroy government--these appear to be its natural allies. We must study more closely its connection with representative government the better to comprehend this portentous truth.

CHAPTER III.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.

The writers of the "History of Woman Suffrage" give the following account of the founding of their Association. In July, 1848, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha O. Wright, and Ann McClintock issued an unsigned call for a convention, which was asked to consider the social, civil, and religious condition and rights of woman; and in preparation for the meeting, they wrote a "Declaration of Sentiments," which was adopted by the assembly. They say, in describing the writing of this declaration:-- "The reports of Peace, Temperance, and Anti-Slavery conventions were examined, but all alike seemed too tame and pacific for the inauguration of a rebellion such as the world had never before seen. We knew women had wrongs, but how to state them was the difficulty, and this was increased from the fact that we ourselves were fortunately organized and conditioned.... After much delay, one of the circle took up the Declaration of 1776, and read it aloud with spirit and emphasis, and it was at once decided to adopt the historic document, with some slight changes. Knowing that women must have more to complain of than men under any circumstances possibly could, and seeing the Fathers had eighteen grievances, a protracted search was made through statute books, church usages, and the customs of society to find that exact number."

In such solemnly puerile fashion did they work out a travesty on one of the most august utterances ever penned. A young man who was present remarked: "Tour grievances must be grievous indeed when you are obliged to go to books in order to find them out." He might have added, "And they must be false indeed when you have to found most of your charges on dead- letter statutes and outgrown usages and customs."