Mr. Brown Quotes Mrs. C. H. Doll.
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such that woman could not properly participate in your elections, is an argument that does not go to the right of the woman, but does go to the wrong of the man. It is a criticism, perhaps a satire upon the civilization of your political system, not a justification for any exclusions practiced under it.
There is one other line of remark that has been indulged in, and only one other so far as I have heard, which calls for any special rejoinder, and that affirms the precedents of the past to be all against any such proposition as that now submitted. It is said that there is no precedent, that it is not customary in any of our governments, that it is not one of the recognitions of our society, that it has never been signified as such in the past. I do not know that such an argument amounts to anything at best, but I do know that the allegation itself has no foundation in fact. I know that in many cases and on many occasions this impassable barrier that is now set forth as dividing the natural rights of man and woman has been broken down and trampled upon, and that, too, without any injury to the society from so doing. Perhaps I can best illustrate this point by what an accomplished lady, who has given much thought and research to the subject, has presented. I read from a contribution she has made to one of our leading public prints. She says:
So long as political power was of an absolute and hereditary character women shared it whenever they happened, by birth, to hold the position to which it was attached. In Hungary, in some of the German States, and in the French Provinces to this day, certain women, holding an inherited right, confer the franchise upon their husbands, and in widowhood empower some relative or accredited agent to be the legislative protector of their property. In 1858, the authorities of the old university town of Upsal granted the right of suffrage to fifty women owning real estate, and to thirty-one doing business on their own account. The representative that their votes elected was to sit in the House of Burgesses. In Scotland, it is less than a century since, for election purposes, parties were unblushingly married in cases where women conveyed a political franchise, and parted after the election. In Ireland, the court of Queen's Bench, Dublin, restored to women, in January, 1864, the old right of voting for town commissioners. The Justice, Fitzgerald, desired to state that ladies were also entitled to sit as town commissioners, as well as to vote for them, and the chief-justice took pains to make it clear that there was nothing in the act of voting repugnant to their habits.
In November, 1864, the Government of Moravia decided that all women who were tax-payers had the right to vote. In the Government of Pitcairn's Island, women over sixteen have voted ever since its settlement. In Canada, in 1850, a distinct electoral privilege was conferred on women, in the hope that thereby the Protestant might balance the Roman Catholic power in the school system. I lived where I saw this right exercised by female property holders for four years. I never heard the most cultivated man, not even that noble gentleman, the late Lord Elgin, object to its results. In New Jersey, the Constitution adopted in 1776, gave the right of suffrage to all inhabitants, of either sex, who possessed fifty dollars in proclamation money. In 1790, to make it clearer, the Assembly inserted the words "he or she." Women voted there till 1838, when, the votes of some colored women having decided an election, the prejudice against the negro came to the aid of lordly supremacy, and an act was passed limiting the right of suffrage to "free white male citizens." In 1852, the Kentucky Legislature conferred the right on widows with children in matters relating to the school system. The same right was conferred in Michigan; and full suffrage was given to women in the State constitution submitted to Kansas in 1860.
I think that is a list of illustrations sufficient to dispose of any argument that may arise on such a score. And now, Mr. President, permit
