It is only by being herself encouraged to form an opinion,
and obtain an intelligent comprehension of the reasons which ought
to prevail with the conscience against the temptations of personal
or family interest, that she can ever cease to act as a disturbing
force on the political conscience of the man. Her indirect agency
can only be prevented from being politically mischievous by being
exchanged for direct.
I have supposed the right of suffrage to depend, as in a good
state of things it would, on personal conditions. Where it depends, as
in this and most other countries, on conditions of property, the
contradiction is even more flagrant. There something more than
ordinarily irrational in the fact that when a woman can give all the
guarantees required from a male elector, independent circumstances,
the position of a householder and head of a family, payment of
taxes, or whatever may be the conditions imposed, the very principle
and system of a representation based on property is set aside, and
an exceptionally personal disqualification is created for the mere
purpose of excluding her. When it is added that in the country where
this is done a woman now reigns, and that the most glorious ruler whom
that country ever had was a woman, the picture of unreason, and
scarcely disguised injustice, is complete. Let us hope that as the
work proceeds of pulling down, one after another, the remains of the
mouldering fabric of monopoly and tyranny, this one will not be the
last to disappear; that the opinion of Bentham, of Mr.
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