Publisher's Synopsis
This historic book may have numerous typos and missing text. Purchasers can usually download a free scanned copy of the original book (without typos) from the publisher. Not indexed. Not illustrated. 1904 edition. Excerpt: ... XII. WOMAN AS CITIZEN. (concerning Suffrage.) The Ballot: "A weapon that comes down as still As snowflakes fall upon the sod, But executes a freeman's will, As lightning does the Will of OodI" --John Piebpont, 1800. Could an investigating and unprejudiced stranger enter America, he would find some startling legal and industrial conditions, semi-civilized conservatisms existing within our vaunted democracy. Perhaps the most glaring inconsistency of the republic would be the fact that half the population of seventy-six millions, being in sound mind and morals, a good per cent. American born, are wholly disfranchised. From infancy, we are regaled with the foundation maxims of our national independence; "Governments derive their just power from the consent of the governed," "No taxation without representation," yet here are some thirty-eight million people governed without consent, and all these millions taxed without representation! What is the cause of this singular paradox? Why did our country enter into a heartrending war to free a race of illiterate black people, making the final issue, the giving of these black men the citizen's badge of honor, the ballot; yet totally ignore the intelligent, moral white women in every home, utterly deprived of political power? Never were women so competent, so well-educated as to-day, yet the press utters not a word against their absolute civil inpotency, while it hurls stormy denunciations at a Southern State which dares disfranchise its negro men! Let us dispassionately review for a moment the pages of history. How many of us realize that the primitive form of government was the matriarchate, or Mother Rule? Women, through their motherhood, were the arbiters of home and tribe. Paternity was...