Mrs. Stanton And Suffrage

In hor addi'üsso8, lectures, or rathor political harangues through the State, Mrs. Stantox defines suffrago to be : " Tho right to the protection of one's porson and proporty by the law." In " Webster's Uiudiridged," - and though Noaii Wehster, being dead, may bo considered soraewhat antiquated in bis notions, his dictionary is authority so far as definitions are concerned in all the courts of the land, - we find suffrage definod in this wise : " A voice given in deciding a con troverted question, or in the choice of a man for an office of trust ; the formal ex pression of an opinión ; aastmt ; vote." - As Mrs. Staxton and every woman an child in the land, or assuredly in thi State where the battlo now rages, have the saine (or greater) protection of per son and property, eithor by or under th law, that any elector has, her definition cannot well be correct. The laws of thi State make no discrimination agains non-voters as such, but provide the sam protection of person and property for all that is unless the privileges and protec tion extended to woman are the greater And that this is so we quote from a decis ion of Judge Cooley, made by that gen ileman when Chief-Justice of our Su preme Court : " The law has justly enlarged her rights, bu at the same time has surrounded her action with none of thoae securities for the protection of the fainily which it has deemed essential in the oase of the husband. The wife, if moved by evil promptings to abscond from her husbant: may take her property with her ; the husband if disposed to be equally faithless to the mar riage vow, can only sell his real estáte subjec to the dower interest of his wife, and subject als to the right in the family to occupy and enjo; the homestead as long as the wlfe may choose This is by coustitutional and statutory provis ions, which also prevalí iu many other States They have been framed very much as if the au thors supposed legal wrongs in the marriage re latiou could come from one side only." Mrs. StasttoN also maintains tho posi tion (it would be better to say puts forti the proposition) that suffrage is a natura and not a politieal right, and that boing a 'natural right it belongs to woman equally with man. Now elementary writers define the absolute or natura rights of the citizen to be " the right o personal security, the right of persona liberty, and the right to acquire and en joy property." These, and not the righ of suffrage, which is not included in the definition, are what are so " frequently de clared by the people of this country, to be natural, inherent, and inalienable," o as the writer and signers of tha Declara tion of Independence put it, ' life, liber ty, and the pursuit of happiness." But why throw definitions at Mrs. Stanton She has a natural right to ignore them ana will ao so, at least so long as süe üas the platform to herself. But if suffrage be a natural right why does she not plant herself in favor of the rights of minors ? Mrs. STANTON or the " first lady in the land" has no more natural right to the suffrage than the " stock" infaut, " mewling and pukiug in its mother's arma." We would not intímate that the average minor is as competent to exercise the right of suffrage as Mrs. Stanton or the average woman, or even that the average woman would not vote as intelligently as the average man, but use the illustration only to exposé the utter shallowness of the claim that suffrage is a natural right. Mrs. Stanton also asserts that the right of suffrage is conferred upon or guaranteed to woman by tho organic law of the nation ; that is, that the XIV. amendment to the Constitution haa declared that " all persons bom or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States," and that the XV. amendment has made all citizeus voters. She reasons that every woman is a person and therefore a citizen and a voter. Half right. The XIV. amendment did not assume to make any citizen a voter, but recognized the distinction between male and female inhabitants or citizens, and prescribed penalties for discriminations against male negroes. The XV. amendment simply declared, " The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of tude." We sea nothing there about sex or age, and unless the right to vote is denied to wornan because she has been a serf or slave she has no remedy under that clause. And if she has, so has the minor, who is excluded from the ballot box by the same arbitrary law that drives woman away. Mrs. Stanton's positions prove too much : we mistake, assert too inuch, as her compeer and fellow-laborer, Miss Anthony, who has been tried and oonvicted before an able and learned judge of a United States Court, on an indictment for illegal voting, could easily have assured her. Again, Mrs. Stanton bases woman's right to the ballot on the supposition that taxation and representation are interchangeable terms, and quotes the fathers as protesting in pre-revolutionary days against taxation without representation. If Mrs. Stantox will show us that in those days " no taxation without representation" meant that the colonies were not to be taxed unless every oolonist - man, woman and child - voted, we will yield the point. The inoiters of the revolution, the framers of ourgovernment did not so hold. They did not claim or grant universal suffrage, and the much abused phrase in question meant simply that parliainent should not tax the colonies un less the colonies were represented in parliament, and that taxes should not be imposed by so-called colonial legislatures appointed by the Crown. If no citizen can be taxed by the Legislatura or Congress, unless he is directly representod in thoso bodies and has a voice in inaking the laws, then the minority - the men who vote for defeated candidates, the oitizens who are misrepresented in Congress and Legislature - must go " scot free" of taxation. Mrs. Stanton hits as wide of the mark as upon the preceding points. There was as much sophistry in her discussion of the benefits to accrue to the State or to woman from placing the ballot in her hands, as assumption in presenting woman's claim that she is deprived of rights now inalienably hers. She will need revise her discourse if she proposes to convert thinking men and secuje their votes, or even to convince doubting women that they are degraded by being deprived of the ballot.