John H. Vincent

[Reposted]

“WHEN about thirty years of age, I accepted for a time the doctrine of Woman Suffrage, and publicly defended it.

“Years of wide and careful observation have convinced me that the demand for Woman Suffrage in America is without foundation in equity, and, if successful, must prove harmful to American society.

“I find some worthy women defending it, but the majority of our best women, especially our most intelligent, domestic, and godly mothers, neither ask for nor desire it. The instinct of motherhood is against it. The basal conviction of our best manhood is against it. The movement is at root a protest against the representative relations and functions by virtue of which each sex depends upon and is exalted by the other. This theory and policy, tending to the subversion of the natural and divine order, must make man less a man, and woman less a woman.

“A distinguished woman advocate of this suffrage movement says, ‘We need the ballot to protect us against men.’ When one sex is compelled thus to protect itself against the other, the foundations of society are already crumbling.

“Woman now makes man what he is. She controls him as a babe, boy, manly son, brother, lover, husband, father. Her influence is enormous. If she use it wisely, she needs no additional power. If she abuse her opportunity, she deserves no additional responsibility. Her womanly weight, now without measure, will be limited to the value of a single ballot, and her control over from two to five additional votes forfeited.

“The curse of America today is in the dominated partisan vote — the vote of ignorance and superstition. Shall we help matters by doubling this dangerous mass? Free from the direct complications and passions of the political arena, the best women may exert a conservative and moral influence over men as voters. Force her into the same bad atmosphere, and both man and woman must inevitably suffer incalculable loss. We know what woman can be in the ‘commune,’ in ‘riots,’ and on the ‘rostrum.’

“Woman can, through the votes of men, have every right to which she is entitled. All she has man has gladly given her. It is his glory to represent her. To rob him of this right is to weaken both. He and she are just now in danger through his mistaken courtesy.”

— John H. Vincent (1832-1920), Methodist founder of the Chautauqua movement

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