Woman Suffrage: A Menace to the South

[Page 1] Woman Suffrage A MENACE TO THE SOUTH

A Protest Against Its Imposition Through Federal Authority

[Page 2]

[Image: Black and white drawing of an African American woman fighting off large birds with a club labeled "Federal Constitution" while a boy and a girl cling to her skirts. The birds have men's faces and are labelled "Grand-Father Clause", "Jim Crow Law", "Segregation", and "Seduction". A man in a suit is seen running away in the background while saying "I don't believe in agitating and fighting. My policy is to pursue the line of least resistance. To h--- with Citizenship Rights I want money I think the white folk will let me stay on my land as long as I stay in my place. – (Shades of WILMINGTON, N.C.) The good whites aint responsible for bad administration of the law and lynching and pèonage, --let me think awhile: er—"] "WOMAN TO THE RESCUE!" From "The Crisis" of May, 1916.

[Page 3] Woman Suffrage A MENACE TO THE SOUTH

A Protest Against Its Imposition Through Federal Authority

I. INTRODUCTION. The recent adoption of woman suffrage in New York, and the efforts being made to obtain the enfranchisement of women in all the States, through an amendment of the Federal Constitution, gives national interest to the question whether women shall be thus made voters. The vital importance, as I believe, of this question to the South, not merely my disbelief in the enfranchisement of women, induces me to make an effort to prevent woman suffrage from being adopted by, or thrust upon, any State in which there is a considerable negro population. The importance of the issue will also account for, and justify, I hope, my intense but not intemperate opposition to the infliction of woman suffrage through an amendment of the Federal Constitution, for it will be an infliction on the people of those States that vote against it.

II. THE CONSTITUTION. Art. I, Sec. 2, of the Constitution of the United States, provides: "The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature." Art. I, Sec. 3, provides that the Legislature of each State shall elect two Senators every six years. Thus the Constitution—the original copartnership agreement between the States—clearly gives to each State the right to determine those who shall either directly [Page 4] or indirectly elect Congressmen and Senators. Why should this right—this original agreement between the States—be taken from the citizens of the several States? Why should the State of Vermont or Washington say who shall vote for officials in Alabama or Florida? In each State the question of those who should vote for either State of Federal officers is purely a question of State policy and not at all national. How would California and the other Pacific Coasts States like to have Chinese or Japanese voters imposed on them by the Gulf or Atlantic Woman Suffrage: A Menace to the South

States? I warn the people of the States generally that if woman suffrage is inflicted on the South through an amendment of the Federal Constitution, the bars will have been lowered, and a long step taken towards forcing on all the States whatever three-fourths of them may wish to impose, because the infliction of woman suffrage on the South—and it will be an infliction—will be a declaration that the States generally have taken to themselves the right to legislate for the several States with respect to matters very much, if not altogether, local and domestic in character. The people of the several States should long hesitate to adopt a policy of that kind, if any semblance to the original theory of our Federal Government is to be maintained.

III. NEGRO SUFFRAGE Negro suffrage was imposed on the South immediately after our Civil War by an amendment of the Federal Constitution, and thereby that fair portion of our country, and its Anglo-Saxon civilization, was nearly wrecked. The people of the South have much to be proud of in their Civil War record, but their greatest glory is the fact that they saved themselves from negroism after the war; and both as a people and individually maintained standards that before and since the war have been blessings to the whole country. Try to imagine what the United States would be today if the people of the South had not met and overcome the direful conditions that confronted them after the Civil War—conditions almost infinitely worse than those faced by any European nation in a thousand years.

IV. THE MENACE OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE. I speak of the people of the South as having overcome post-bellum conditions that so seriously threatened them. I err. These conditions were only scotched—not destroyed—and each year they will grow stronger; and through sleepless vigilance only can their revival be prevented, for each year the negroes of the South will be better able to meet the "grandfather" and other tests, and pay the poll taxes through which so many of them are now disfranchised. There is no blinking the fact that the negro vote in the South is suppressed—lawfully, as the United States Supreme Court has decided, but, nevertheless, suppressed; and I would not let the people of the South forget this fact—the elimination of the negro vote, for to it they owe immunity from negro rule in many sections of eight or ten of the Southern States. The people of the North have ceased to condemn those of the South for their practical disfranchisement of the negro, for the people of the North know full well that under like conditions they would act as the people of the South have acted. The negro man works day after day beside the white man and realizes that he does not suffer because he fails to vote, for many amongst them who could meet the voter's tests do not attempt to do so. But, some say, female suffrage will add as many white women as black to the electorate, so wherein lies the danger from giving negro women the right to vote? Though for the sake of the argument I may grant that, speaking in round figures, there are as many white as black women in the South, this does not, for several reasons, meet my objection to the latter voting. In the first place, through woman suffrage you practically double the undesirable voters of the South, for so considered in the South are negro voters, whether men or women, and very largely throughout the Union are they thus looked on. I repeat, woman suffrage will practically double the undesirable and to be suppressed vote of the South. Furthermore these added women voters will be harder to eliminate than the men of their race, and for these reasons: Their right to vote will be a novelty and they will be urged by their preachers—(who are the best educated of the race, and the politicians, guides, and mentors, of their people, and more influential with the women than the men)—to exercise their rights. The negro women are also better educated than the men, and through the urging of their "pastors" will put aside the dollar or two for their poll tax, which the men will not pay for the privilege of voting. In short, the possible one hundred per cent added to the negro vote through woman suffrage will more than double the difficulty of controlling that vote.

[Page 5] So far there has been no bid for the negro vote in the Southern States. All white men in these States, Republicans as well as Democrats, of Northern birth as well as Southern, recognize the fact that it would be a calamity for the negro to attain political power, and so far this conviction, and the social Woman Suffrage: A Menace to the South ostracism and business disadvantages that would attach to any one politically, or socially, catering to the negro, has been sufficient to prevent a dangerous cultivation of the negro voter since the overthrow of "Carpet-Bag" government in the Southern States. But with the practical doubling of the negro voters, and, in all probability, the more than doubling of the number of negroes who would vote, can this failure to cultivate negroes for their votes be counted on? Is it not folly beyond description to take any chances on such a vital matter, especially when so little, if anything, is to be thereby gained? Whatever is gained through woman suffrage, if it is acquired by an amendment of the Federal Constitution, is achieved through such a serious injustice to the people of the South that no white man, or white woman, in this country should think for a moment of imposing it on others of their race. Slavery chiefly, if not solely, brought on our Civil War, and negro emancipation, and the post-bellum negro problem may yet make serious trouble for us. I do not intend to intimate that a second effort at secession is possible, or even thinkable; but the brutal or reckless indifference of the people of some of the States to the deep convictions and anxious problems of the people of other States may be a serious obstacle to that thorough union which we all so much desire—to the Union-wide brotherly love of the white people that is now founded, and should be preserved in "A union of hearts, a union of hands, A union that no one can sever; A union of lakes, a union of lands, The American Union forever." I do not hesitate to declare my thorough conviction that women do not need the vote for their protection, or for their best interests, in any State. I will not argue this question—as it is not my intention to discuss the general proposition of votes for women—but I will give a summary of my grounds for opposing woman suffrage, independently of the negro question. I classify my objections under these four heads: 1. Where there is substantially universal manhood suffrage, as there is in this country, all persons, including women and children, are practically represented by the voters. 2. Substantially universal womanhood suffrage (and that is what is demanded) would add nothing to the voting wisdom of the present electorate of this country. 3. The legal discriminations against women in this country are but few in number and unimportant in character, and the enfranchisement of women is not necessary for the correction of these discriminations. 4. Because giving women the right to vote will have an injurious effect on the relation of the sexes, and be detrimental to the best interests of women.

V. THE SITUATION IN THE SOUTH—A CONDITION AND NOT A THEORY. I am not alone in the belief that woman suffrage has its especial perils for the South. The editor of "The Crisis," at least, agrees with me as to some of the possible results of woman suffrage, as clearly appears from the cartoon herewith given, and taken from the May, 1916, number of that magazine, which is published in New York City by a negro and devoted to the interests of the colored people, as its editor sees those interests. But it should be needless to argue that an increase in the negro vote of the South, however arising, increases an existing menace to the best interests of that portion of our common country. It is equally evident, or should be, that you cannot socially, politically or commercially injure any large and important element in one part of our country without also materially affecting other sections of the Union. The North realized this when the South was suffering from negro and "Carpet-Bag" rule, and kept its hands off when the white people rose up in 1876 and overthrew these elements in several of the Southern States. "Blood is thicker than water," and I will not believe, until proven, that any considerable number of white Americans will, —to put it as mildly as possible—endanger the best interest of their brethren of the South by imposing on the latter negro-woman suffrage, though they may give their own women the right to vote. That is, I do not believe the people of the North will force woman suffrage on the people of the South, if they are made to understand [Page 6] the possible results in the South of giving women the right to vote in all the States, if the people of the other States can be made to realize what woman suffrage Woman Suffrage: A Menace to the South may mean to the Southern States. But little thought has been given to the subject, and the possible results to the South of woman suffrage have been given little attention. Many may not agree with me in my contention that woman suffrage will menace the best interests of the South, though few, I imagine, will deny that there may be ground for my fears. Why then, I would ask those who do not agree with me, should you make the Southern people take any chance—even the slightest—in a matter of such vital importance to them, and of no value to you? WHY NOT LEAVE THE QUESTION OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE TO BE DECIDED BY THE SEVERAL STATES, EACH FOR ITSELF?

VI. SOUTHERN ADVOCATES OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE

I must admit that there are advocates of woman suffrage amongst Southern people, though no State in the South has adopted it. Therefore some may ask if there was any chance of what I fear would the cause find supporters, even the fewest, in the Southern States? To this possible question there are several good and sufficient answers. In the first place I reply that amongst more than thirty million people, (the population of the South), whether in the South or elsewhere, you will find advocates of any proposition that may be advanced—even marriage between whites and negroes—so it is not strange that there are advocates of woman suffrage in the Southern States; but such advocates are few and there is little doubt but that woman suffrage would be defeated, if now submitted, in at least eight of the former twelve slave States. Furthermore, most of the woman suffrage advocates in the South are women who, as they probably would say, have outgrown the thralldom of woman's sphere—that is, the duties for which nature seems to have intended them, and the conditions under which all that is best in life has been achieved. Many of these women are prohibitionists and yet seem to be ignorant of the fact, or to have forgotten, that prohibition has grown in the South through the votes of men only, and faster than elsewhere, because of the negro, and against his wishes; and that he will overthrow prohibition at the first opportunity there is no doubt. If these women, the chief advocates of woman suffrage in the South, have overlooked this possible consequence to their States of woman suffrage, is it strange that they should fail to appreciate the less immediate and more subtile consequences of giving votes to Southern women? Few women, and fewer men, in the Southern States, advocate woman suffrage, and therefore why should the people of other States assist these few and fewer—the minority—in putting something over on the majority of their white fellow citizens?

VII. CONCLUSION. I am aware that I have shown such antagonism to the negro possessing political power that some may think I am not a well-wisher of that race; may even believe I am its enemy; therefore a few words of a personal nature should be allowed me. I am a friend of the negro but uncompromisingly and unalterably opposed to anything approaching social equality between whites and blacks, and any and everything that may lead to, or further, such equality, or may give political power to the negro. It is needless to go into the merits or demerits of this position, or attempt to define those limitations which must, as of course, be considered as qualifying my position towards the negro equality or power, and yet be the negro's friend is admitted, I believe, by all those who have any first hand acquaintance with social life in the former slave States. My parents and grandparents owned negroes, and one of the first women to take me in her arms was of that race; and they have served me by my choice the greater part of my life. Two negroes were buried from my mother's parlor, and one of them—the faithful servant of three generations—my brothers and I carried to our family lot in a beautiful cemetery where he now lies not far from the Mistress with whom he grew up in the beautiful valley of Virginia, and who supported him long after he was unable to earn a living, and made his last years comfortable. Thus have I associated with negroes, and thus have I been taught to treat them. The negro's greatest danger of injustice comes not from the children of their former owners, or from those to the "manor born"; nor from those who live amongst them in the States of their nativity, and the power that may come to them through woman suffrage is not necessary for their protection. [Page 7] By an amendment of the Federal Constitution negro suffrage was imposed on the South, and thereby was created a problem that is not yet solved. That is, the only amendment of our Constitution Woman Suffrage: A Menace to the South relating to suffrage has made, and will continue to make, trouble for the South, and has created a condition that must be dealt with as a condition, and not as a theory. Are the difficulties of that condition to be magnified after the manner of their creation; that is, through another amendment of the Federal Constitution? I beg the people of the States which have no "negro question" not to thus further trouble the South. If you thus add to its problem, something of the bitterness of the early post-bellum days may be revived; for as surely as the sun rises in the East, and sets in the West, will trouble come through woman suffrage in the States with large negro populations. Therefore as though pleading with kindred and friends, for other kindred and friends, do I beg that the people of the South may be spared this new trial. The Democrat who would aid and abet woman suffrage by an amendment of the Federal Constitution is a pretender—he is not a Democrat. THE SOUTHERN MAN WHO ADVOCATES SUCH AN AMENDMENT I DENOUNCE AS A TRAITOR, UNLESS HE IS A FOOL. The Southern woman who is striving for a vote through such amendment I try to pity, for surely she knows not what she does, and I pray her to take counsel of those who love her and have her best interests at heart—aye, even would die for her—and many such she will find. If there are any Southern women who have none like these to advise with, I pity them the more, and must caution their sisters not to follow them, for the absence, for them, of such counsellors is something to be explained, and difficult of explanation, or else they are unworthy of the love and consideration so generally given their sisters of the South. In those States which are without a considerable negro population the wisdom of woman suffrage may be a debatable question; but it is a menace to the Southern States, and if imposed on them by the votes of other States it will be an outrage and a violation of the spirit of the Constitution of our forefathers —the Constitution as originally written and adopted. Against such arbitrary exercise of power, and serious blow at the best interests of the South, I earnestly protest, and beg others to do what they can to prevent. GEORGE R. LOCKWOOD. Rialto Building, St. Louis, Mo. November 15th, 1917.