CHAPTER VII.

OF RIGHTS EMANATING FROM THE SENTIMENTS AND AFFECTIONS.

MAN is endowed with certam propensities which impel him to a prompt and vigorous defence of his person and his might be made quite consistent with female delicacy to register and go to the polls; as consistent at any rate, as to go to the cess office, or to receive the visits of the tax-gatherer or rate-collector. Any objections that we have heard against permit ting females who possess the requisite qualifications is, to enjoy the first and lowest degree of political power, have appeared to us extremely slight, if not wholly groundless. The possible sway of male relations has been made an objection.At most, this could only neutralize the biased votes of females, and, acting indif ferently on all classes, could not be turned to the advantage of one party more than another. This objection was urged by Mr. Fox in the following language:

"In all the theories and projects of the most absurd speculation, it has never been suggested that it would be advisable to extend the elective franchise to the female sex; and yet justly respecting as we must do the mental powers, the acquirements, the discrimination, and the talents of the women of England, in the present improved state of society-knowing the opportunities which they have for acquiring knowledge-that they have interests as dear and as important as our own-it must be the genuine feeling of every gentleman who hears me, that all the superior classes of the female sex of England must be more capable of exercising the elective franchise with deliberation and propriety, than the uninformed individu. als of the lowest class of men, to whom the advocates of universal suffrage would extand it. And yet why has it never been imagined that the right of election should be extended to women? Why! but because by the law of nations, and perhaps also by the law of nature, that sex is dependent on ours-and because, therefore, their voices would be governed by the relation in which they stand in society.

"This argument," says the reviewer, "good in the main, is not however strictly applicable to the class of women whose rights to representation we are disposed to advocate, for of such it cannot be said that they are directly influenced, any more than they are represented by men. It must be observed that Fox did not admit the objection of incapacity, the only remaining one we can think of, besides a general alarm of danger to the state, and detriment to one's hearths and altars, which we do not feel it necessary to combat. We do not expect that the greatest legislators, or most profound politicians, will be found among female house. holders, after the elective franchise has been extended to them. The Reform bill, however, does not proceed on the supposition that the knowledge or wisdom of a statesman is required in an elector, but on this, that within certain limits of intelligence and opportunities of instruction, every one understands his own interests best, and has a right to let them be known by the fittest deputy he can find. Now, whenever we see a woman, able by her own exertions, unassisted by the stronger arm or head of man, to place herself in a situation which would entitle him to have a vote in the choice of a member of Parliament, we think it clear that such a woman is not without the necessary qualifications. Granting between a lady and her coachman an original difference of capacity (in favor of the latter for the affairs of government) we think it is making too much amount of it in its undeveloped state to give him the right and withhold it from his mistress.

"The argument of incapacity loses much of its force at present, when a woman sits at the helm of government in England."

The Reviewer quotes from an article in the Monthly Repository as follows: "Is it not strange that the egregious anomaly should have been felt of institu

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rights; and in the absence of a superior protection he has always the right to defend himself. Laws for the protection

tions which sometimes invest a woman, educated in very unfavorable circum. stances, with the state and amplitude of supreme political authority, and which nevertheless uniformly deny to woman, though trained in the most favorable cir cumstances, the exercise of the lowest and simplest political function, that which is essential to political existence, the elective franchise. In the common opinion of common statesmen, the fitness of women to vote for an individual's elevation to the temporary dignity of a legislator in the House of Commons, is a mere joke; yet her naming scores of persons legislators for life, and their heirs legislating too, through all generations, is an essential portion of that perfection of ancestral wisdom under which we live. She is vested with the entire power of the state-or not entrusted with its meanest portion."

The Reviewer says, in another place: "The political non-existence of women all over the world is a very certain fact; except in criminal cases, and oftenest as culprits, the law scarcely recognises in them any individual existence. This, as Miss Martineau observes, seems hard. In no country, however, but America, are they, as respects political or social rights. much worse off than a large portion of the community, male and female, who are liable to be put in prison, transported, hung, as well as married and buried, according to laws, with the making of which they have had nothing to do. But we do not quite like her own reproachful tone, as if, because the democrats of America are as despotic toward women as the aristocrats of the old world, there were in man a constant desire to do woman wrong, in woman a base inclination to give up her rights.

"Miss Martineau bestows much scornful pity on the women of New-Jersey, for having given up without a murmur, the right of voting at State elections, after they had been inadvertently suffered to do so, &c.

"Should the claims of women to represent be any where admitted, we incline to think they will be so first in our old aristocratic, over-taxed, over-populous, broken down country of England, rather than in young, democratic, thriving America, where representatives in husbands may be easily obtained, and where 'helps' can with difficulty be procured."

This prediction may be verified if England's Queen shall accomplish as much in behalf of her sex as the renowned Isabella of Spain. I quote a passage from Prescott's Ferdinand and Isabella, Vol. 2, page 196:

"In this brilliant exhibition those of the other sex must not be omitted, who contributed by their intellectual endowments to the general illumination of the period. Among them, the writers of that day lavish their panegyrics on the Marchioness of Monteagudo, and Doña Maria Pacheco, of the ancient house of Mendoza, sisters of the historian Don Diego Hurtado, and daughters of the accomplished Count of Tendilla, who, while Ambassador at Rome, induced Martyr to visit Spain, &c. This illustrious family, rendered yet more illustrious by its mer. its than its birth, is worthy of specification as affording altogether the most remarkable combination of literary talent in the enlightened Court of Casteli.

"The Queen's instructor in the Latin language was a lady named Doña Beatrice de Galindo, called, from her peculiar attainments, la Latina. Another lady, Doña Lucia de Medrano, publicly lectured on the Latin Classics in the University of Sala manca. And another, Doña Francisca de Lebrija, daughter of the historian of that name, filled the chair of Rhetoric with applause at Alcalá. But our limits will not allow a further enumeration of names, which should never be permitted to sink into oblivion, were it only for the rare scholarship-peculiarly rare in the female sexwhich they displayed in an age comparatively unenlightened.

"Female education in that day embraced a wider compass of education in refer. ence to the ancient languages than is common at present, &c. I am not aware, however, that it was usual for learned ladies in any other country than Spain. to take part in the public exercises of the gymnasium, and deliver lectures from the chairs of the Universities.

"This peculiarity, which may be referred in part to the Queen's influence, who encouraged the love of study by her own example, as well as by personal attend. ance on the academic examinations, may have been also suggested by a similar usage among the Spanish Arabs."

of humanity emanated from man's superior nature, and whenever it is possible they ought to furnish a full measure of protection, rather than leave any man to passionate and vindictive self-defence. The most perfect human laws, and their most rigorous administration, will, however, always leave a man exposed in society to aggression, which he may properly resist by force. The law cannot always shield his person from the ruffian's attack, although it may punish the aggressor after his mischiefs have been perpetrated. It cannot secure one's property from theft or embezzlement, although it may award restitution and restrain the liberty of the offender. So that in the best ordered society a man will have occasion to draw upon his defensive faculties, where these can avail him, to prevent injuries to his rights. One of the legitimate offices of the instinct of combativeness is, to oppose force as a means of preventing injury. If it go farther, either in or out of society, it offends the superior sentiments. Under the control of the moral forces of the

mind, it acts for defence and not for vengeance. There cannot be a right of vindictive self-redress, since this implies the supremacy of the animal instincts over the moral and intellectual powers of the mind, which is to reverse the order of nature. Conscientiousness was ordained, under the enlightenment of the intellectual faculties, to determine between the accuser and the accused-between him who demands and him who withholds the right. From his very constitution, as we have seen, man must exist in the social

Even at present, in England, the idea of women's holding official station, is not BO strange as in the United States. The Countess of Pembroke, Dorset and Mont gomery, had the office of hereditary Sheriff of Westmoreland, and exercised it in person. At the Assizes at Appleby she sat with the Judges on the Bench.

In a reported case, it is stated by Counsel, and substantially assented to by the Court, that a woman is capable of serving in almost all the offices of the kingdom; such as those of Queen, Marshall, Great Chamberlain, and Constable of England, the Champion of England, Commissioner of Sewers, Governor of a Work House, Sexton, Keeper of the Prison, of the Gate House of the Dean and Chapter of Westminster, Returning Officer for Members of Parliament, and Constable; the latter of which is in some respects judicial. The office of Jailer is frequently exercised by a woman.

In the United States a woman may administer upon the estate of her deceased husband-and she has occasionally held a subordinate place in the Post Office Department-she has therefore a sort of legal post-mortem and post-mistress notoriety-but with the exception of the privilege of handling letters of administra tion and letters mailed, she is the submissive creature of the old common law.

state, where he can always have an appeal for justice to his impartial brethren. They immediately sympathize with the injured, and are impelled by their moral feelings to redress his wrongs. If in a moment of excitement he exceed the limit of defence and take vengeance, he offends against the moral feelings of his brethren, and wounds his own superior sentiments so that he feels the agony of remorse after they regain their just supremacy of his mind. Self-redress, then, by way of taking vengeance upon an aggressor, is not a natu ral right but a natural wrong; and man in society does but obey the true law of his nature when he looks to the social body for the redress of injuries. In the prevention of wrongs the animal powers of the individual may be properly exerted, while in the redress of them the moral and intellectual powers of the social body must have exclusive sway. Benevolence, not less than justice, is all-pervading in human society, and dictates the benign sentiment of mercy and goodwill to all the sensitive creation. It disposes man to desire the prevention of offences, as it shrinks from their punishment, and looks in kindness even upon the vilest offender. It infuses a spirit of philanthropy in the legal code, tempers justice with mercy, and sheds a tear for the victim of the offended laws. It would not, nevertheless, defeat justice— but would rather prevent the occasion for its exercise; and under its blessed influences the social body is stimulated to make provision for the prevention of wrong, and to inflict what is denominated punishment only as a means of pre

vention.

But such is the nature of man that an offence against any of his rights so disturbs the serenity of his mind and its harmonious action, and produces such a mingled excitement of his sentiments and passions, that unless the laws afford him redress he will obtain it for himself, and will oftentimes execute vengeance upon the offender, which is the product of conscientiousness, combativeness and destructiveness, acting in combination. In the act of self-redress, Justice often arrays herself in a ruffian's garb and uses the assassin's wea pons. Vengeance comes of enraged justice; and greater

wrong may be done in the passionate redress of injuries t1, an in their perpetration by the first offender. But this wrong proceeds from the disturbed and inharmonious activity cf man's innate faculties, and laws emanating from and adapted to the harmony of his mental forces must exclude so great an evil in human society. How shall this be done? By a legal recognition of every human right, and guarantying to each as far as possible a full and complete measure of protection. Humanity will forever cry aloud for the protection of her rights and for the redress of injuries; and when human laws fail to mete out justice to man, be not astonished if he take vengeance instead. It is the duty of the State to take effectual measures for the prevention of crimes and for the redress of injuries-and if it fail to do this the aggrieved party will be strongly inclined to supply the omission; but if, while smarting under a sense of injury, he act out this inclination, he will do that for which he himself will be punishable, and thus he will conceive himself to be the victim of three wrongs. The first comes from society-a wrong of omission in not protecting his infringed rights; the second, an actual wrong from the individual aggressor; and the third, the outrage of society in mal-treating him for obtaining that redress for himself which it had failed to afford him. He will conceive himself to be the victim of society, and not unlikely will be a perverse citizen ever after. Let me illustrate this with a few examples.

The law leaves the citizen perfectly unprotected from the rudest insult by simple speech. His truth, integrity, honor or courage, may be called to nought; the honor of his wife or daughter may be openly impeached by the rudest assailant-and thus his pride, his approbativeness and feelings of domestic attachment may be wounded in the highest degree, yet the law leaves him to take care of himself. The instincts of combativeness and destructiveness, however, do not desert him, but rush to the aid of these wounded feelings and inflict instantaneous personal chastisement upon the offender. Thus an assault and battery is committed, and Justice removes the bandage from her eyes and beholds this as the first