Book-bot.com - read famous books online for free

Woman and the Republic — a Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates by Helen Kendrick Johnson
page 21 of 239 (08%)
to do so, as owners of property. Finally, that qualification for the male
voter was done away with, and with it the woman-suffrage agitation
disappeared.

State after State, in carrying out the compact of the Federal Republic,
had inserted the word "male" into the Constitutions that embodied the
American conception of a more vital and enduring freedom.

But there are now four States of the Union where women have full suffrage,
a few where they have a measure of municipal suffrage, and many where they
have the school suffrage. What bearing do these facts have upon my claim
that woman suffrage is undemocratic?

The States where they have full suffrage are Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and
Idaho. How far was its introduction into these States the result of
advanced legislation in accord with true republicanism? Utah Territory was
the first spot in the country in which the measure gained a foothold, and
that was not believed by its introducers to be a part of the United
States. The Mormons who founded Salt Lake City supposed themselves to be
settling on Mexican territory, outside the jurisdiction of American law.
Woman suffrage was almost coincident with its beginnings, and it came as a
legitimate part of the union of state and church, of communism, of
polygamy. The dangers that especially threaten a republican form of
government are anarchy, communism, and religious bigotry; and two of these
found their fullest expression, in this country, in the Mormon creed and
practice. Fealty to Mormonism was disloyalty to the United States
Government. Thus, the introduction of woman suffrage within our borders
was not only undemocratic, it was anti-democratic.

Woman suffrage was secured in Wyoming by means that bring dishonor upon
DigitalOcean Referral Badge