THE great American anti-suffragist (one of many thousands of women opposed to the women’s franchise), Helen Kendrick Johnson (1844-1917), wrote in her 1897 book 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:

In demanding equality, Suffragists assume that there is not and has not been equality. In asserting that “there is no sex in mind,” they really have had to maintain that there is one sex in mind, and that the masculine, to which woman must conform. If man wanted clinching arguments to prove his superiority, could he find another to match this one which suffrage has furnished him? The quaint wit of the Yankee put it neatly when he gave the toast, “Woman–once our superior, now our equal!” Man has said: “The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world.” He has also said, with Martin: “Whatever may be the customs and laws of a country, the women of it decide the morals.” The civilization of no nation has risen higher than the carrying out of the religious ideals of its best womanhood. If man has the outward framing of church and state, woman has the framing of the character of man.

— Comments —

Terry Morris writes:

Thanks for posting this excerpt from Mrs. Johnson’s book, as well as making your readers aware of the book’s existence. I for one will definitely be adding it to my list of books to read.

Mrs. Johnson wrote:

“The quaint wit of the Yankee put it neatly when he gave the toast “Woman- once our superior, now our equal.”

Ha! I believe it was the quaint wit of “Rooster Cogburn’s” creator who put the words in his mouth stating that “if they ever give ’em the vote, God help us!”

But in all seriousness, and in the spirit in which you cite the wise musings of the anti-suffragettes, I should like to quote the wise and prophetic musings of Dr. Robert Lewis Dabney upon the same subject, who, as Prof. Smith iterates, is “strong meat on this subject, as he is on so many others” (See here).

Dr. Dabney wrote:

“What then, in the next place, will be the effect of this fundamental change when it shall be established? The obvious answer is that it will destroy Christianity and civilization in America. Some who see the mischievousness of the movement express the hope that it will, even if nominally successful, be kept within narrow limits by the very force of its own absurdity. They “reckon without their host.” There is a Satanic ingenuity in these Radical measures which secures the infection of the reluctant dissentients as surely as of the hot advocates. The women now sensible and modest who heartily deprecate the whole folly, will be dragged into the vortex, with the assent of their now indignant husbands. The instruments of this deplorable result will be the (so-called) conservative candidates for office. They will effect it by this plea, that ignorant, impudent, Radical women <i>will</i> vote, and vote wrong; whence it becomes a necessity for the modest and virtuous women, for their country’s sake, to sacrifice their repugnance and counterpoise these mischievous votes in the spirit of disinterested self-sacrifice. Now a woman can never resist an appeal to the principle of generous devotion; her glory is to crucify herself in the cause of duty and of zeal. This plea will be successful. But when the virtuous have once tasted the dangerous intoxication of political excitement and of power, even they will be absorbed; they will learn to do <i>con amore</i> what was first done as a painful duty, and all the baleful influences of political life will be diffused throughout the sex.”

[…]

“We must then make up our minds in accepting Women’s Rights to surrender our Bibles, and have an atheistic Government. And especially must we expect to have, presiding over every home and rearing every group of future citizens, that most abhorrent of all phenomena, an infidel woman; for of course that sex, having received the precious boon of their enfranchisement only by means of the overthrow of the Bible, must be foremost in trampling upon this their old oppressor and enemy. Its restoration to authority is necessarily their “re-enslavement,” to speak the language of their party.”

-Robert Lewis Dabney, Discussions, “Women’s Rights Women,” 1871 (here)

Laura writes:

I’m surprised you have never read Mrs. Johnson’s book. It is brilliant, not just on the issue of the vote, but also on why the differentiation of sex roles is so important to civilization.

Mr. Morris writes:

I should add that ever since I began to advocate for repeal of the 19th Amendment “way back when,” Dabney’s foresight as to how honest and virtuous women would get dragged into the political vortex (along with assent of their husbands) has been the answer I have been given dozens of times. My own father – an otherwise very wise and honest man in his own right – gave me that answer many years ago, almost precisely as Dabney described the ways and means by which the process would ultimately play itself out. Dabney’s words are,

They will effect it by this plea, that ignorant, impudent, Radical women will vote, and vote wrong; whence it becomes a necessity for the modest and virtuous women, for their country’s sake, to sacrifice their repugnance and counterpoise these mischievous votes in the spirit of disinterested self-sacrifice.

It wasn’t until I first began to read and become acquainted with Dabney that it began to dawn on me how very evil, anti-Christian and thus anti-civilization, the whole “Woman’s Rights” movement was and is.

Mr. Morris adds:

I’m surprised you have never read Mrs. Johnson’s book.

I know, right? Well, there are many books I haven’t as yet read or even before heard of, such as Mrs. Johnson’s. I’m glad you turned us (your readers) onto it. I downloaded it in pdf format last night and read the first two chapters.

Laura writes:

I didn’t mean that as a criticism. : – )

I thought you might have come across it before since you know the issues so well.

It’s a good example of how some important books are suppressed. I don’t think Mrs. Johnson is common on women’s studies reading lists.

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