6.10 & 6.11 Women's Suffrage Arguments

"With violence and disturbance in the natural world, we see a constant effort to maintain an equilibrium of forces. Nature, like a loving mother, is ever trying to keep land and sea, mountain and valley, each in its place, to hush the angry winds and waves, balance the extremes of heat and cold, of rain and drought, that peace, harmony, and beauty may reign supreme. There is a striking analogy between matter and mind, and the present disorganization of society warns us that in the dethronement of woman we have let loose the elements of violence and ruin that she only has the power to curb. If the civilization of the age calls for an extension of the suffrage, surely a government of the most virtuous educated men and women would better represent the whole and protect the interests of all than could the representation of either sex alone."

“Woman suffrage would result either in a needless political muddle or in a social and political turmoil which would tend to weaken the State, to stir up discord in society and in the home, and would put obstacles in the way of progress which the wisest statesmanship might fail to overcome…

The grant of suffrage to women is repugnant to instincts that strike their roots deep in the order of nature. It runs counter to human reason, it flouts the teachings of experience and the admonitions of common sense. Although women have other capacities without numbers held in equal distinction and some in higher honor, they have never possessed or developed the political faculty. Without the counsel and guidance of men, no woman ever ruled a state wisely or well. The defect is innate [a characteristic they are born with] and one for which a cure is both impossible and not to be desired. That they lack the genius for politics is no more to their discredit than man’s handiness in housewifery and in the care of infants….

Let there be no mistake as to the import of this argument. It is not in the remotest manner based upon the assumption or belief that woman is man’s inferior, either intellectually or in any other way. It rests upon the established fact that man’s work is different from women's work, and that in his work and in his striving in his own particular field that give man the qualifying knowledge essential to intelligent voting….”