So long as any portion of the community are
unrepresented, the argument of the Chartists against ballot in
conjunction with a restricted suffrage is unassailable. The present
electors, and the bulk of those whom any probable Reform Bill would
add to the number, are the middle class; and have as much a class
interest, distinct from the working classes, as landlords or great
manufacturers. Were the suffrage extended to all skilled labourers,
even these would, or might, still have a class interest distinct
from the unskilled. Suppose it extended to all men- suppose that what
was formerly called by the misapplied name of universal suffrage,
and now by the silly title of manhood suffrage, became the law; the
voters would still have a class interest, as distinguished from women.
Suppose that there were a question before the Legislature specially
affecting women; as whether women should be allowed to graduate at
Universities; whether the mild penalties inflicted on ruffians who
beat their wives daily almost to death's door should be exchanged
for something more effectual; or suppose that any one should propose
in the British Parliament, what one State after another in America
is enacting, not by a mere law, but by a provision of their revised
Constitutions- that married women should have a right to their own
property. Are not a man's wife and daughters entitled to know
whether he votes for or against a candidate who will support these
propositions?
"It will of course be objected that these arguments' derive all
their weight from the supposition of an unjust state of the
suffrage: That if the opinion of the non-electors is likely to make
the elector vote more honestly, or more beneficially, than he would
vote if left to himself, they are more fit to be electors than he
is, and ought to have the franchise: That whoever is fit to
influence electors is fit to be an elector: That those to whom
voters ought to be responsible should be themselves voters; and
being such, should have the safeguard of the ballot to shield them
from the undue influence of powerful individuals or classes to whom
they ought not to be responsible.
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