The following article, written by Julia Ward Howe in 1879, outlines some arguments for women's suffrage. It is a response to an earlier article in the same journal by Francis Parkman which opposed woman suffrage.
NORTH AMERICAN REVIEW.
No. CCLXXVI.
NOVEMBER, 1879.
THE OTHER SIDE OF THE WOMAN QUESTION.
JULIA WARD HOWE.
The woman question, from the man's point of view, is very apt to be only the man question, after all. And the man, according to Mr. Parkman, questions thus: "Do we wish our women to vote? and, if we do not, what arguments can we find against their voting?" Starting from this point, with a zeal which can scarcely be mistaken for a candid spirit of inquiry, it is not surprising that very eloquent papers can be written, and a very plausible statement made, by individuals of one sex against the political enfranchisement of the other. Argument of this sort is no novelty nor rarity. The white man reasoned on this wise against the political enfranchisement of the black man. In fact, against every enlargement of representation many reasons have always been, and may always be, found.
"Those who vote already," it is said, "vote so badly. Why should we increase the number of fools who go to the polls?"
The danger of trusting mankind at large with the care of their own interests appears, and is, very great. The wise, among men as among women, are few. Culture, which quadruples the mental power of either sex, is not possessed by any majority in the known world. Ignorance may be deluded and misled, may even be bought and sold. Volumes of argument are written and spoken in this sense. And yet, representative government in time always makes good its position and right to exist. One reason of this is that it not only founds itself upon popular education, but is in itself an education. Under its dominion, men are educated to their duties by the exercise of their rights. The greatest truths, moreover, in politics as in religion, are often bidden from the wise and prudent and revealed to the simple multitude. It soon appears that the dangers foreseen in the enlargement of representation are dangers to the exceptional privileges of a class, not to the community.
Representation is what the friends of woman suffrage demand for one half of the community from which it has hitherto been withheld. The slaveholder was formerly supposed, by a legal fiction, to represent his slaves. By a similar fiction, men are held to represent women at the polls. The slaveholders represented their own interests, and men, in voting, do the same. It might be said in both instances that the true interest of the two parties is the same. This is true in a sense so enlarged that few male voters will be found to take it in. The good of each and the good of all are really one and the same. But men, even while professing this as their faith, rarely exemplify it in their voting. In much of their social and political action, they will pursue personal advantage as it presents itself to them, in the form of some immediate gain, and will only in rare instances consult that larger conception of the general good which holds that what is best for the community is also best for the individual. And, even if men in general were disposed to do this, are they so wise that women should be satisfied of their ability to do it? Even from this point of view, Mr. Parkman's statements are not encouraging. He tells us that the best men among us naturally shun politics. All of our women, then, the best included, are subject to the legislation of a set of men whom he characterizes as "practiced tricksters," or as "hungry and rapacious crowds." And their knowledge of this state of things will, he thinks, induce only "the coarse and contentious among women" to draw near to the political arena. It is, to say the least, a singular method of argument to adduce the imperfections of government as actually administered, as so many reasons why good women should be satisfied to keep aloof from participation in any attempt to make it better.
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