WOMAN AND FREEDOM IN WHITMAN 381 



system of moral standards which is at work in the world in 

 judgment on man and woman. 



The suffrage already referred to is a cause Whitman cham- 

 pions for the attainment of woman's rights in civil and politi- 

 cal affairs. 1 



The persistent withholding of these rights is one of the cry- 

 ing disgraces of the day. If the political system of represen- 

 tation by suffrage is the chosen form of a country's govern- 

 ment, then withholding these rights from even one woman, 

 if she wants them, clearly shows that she is not regarded worthy 

 of citizenship, and " woman's position has reached the lowest 

 and most dependent state." 



It is unnecessary to enter here into a discussion of the rights 

 and wrongs of universal suffrage, and the majority rule, or 

 of those systems with divergent paths leading on one side to 

 Authority, and on the other side to Freedom. It is enough to 

 recall to memory those ancient systems where women at cer- 

 tain periods rose to places of eminence before the law, and 

 then to ask: If universal suffrage is admitted to be such a 

 dangerous weapon as the opposers to woman suffrage contend 

 it is, why do not those who oppose woman's claims on the 

 ground that her ignorant vote will help to bring about gen- 

 eral destruction, wage war against the entire system of suf- 

 frage? If it contains such germs of terror, why bring these 

 arguments to eliminate woman simply because she is a wo- 

 man, when the voting list is being yearly increased by foreign, 

 ignorant voters, controlled by bosses and demagogues ? Point 

 out to me where freedom is to be found in this state of af- 

 fairs. 



I cannot pass over just here the words of John Stuart Mill, 



-words in harmony with Whitman's words, which I shall 



repeat later. Mill, in reference to the United States, calls 



1 To the movement for the eligibility and entrance of women amid new 

 spheres of business, politics, and the suffrage, the current prurient, conventional 

 treatment of sex is the main formidable obstacle. The rising tide of 'Woman's 

 rights,' swelling, and every year advancing farther and farther, recoils from 

 it with dismay. There will, in my opinion, be no general progress in such eligi- 

 bility till a sensible, philosophic, democratic method is substituted. Whit- 

 man's Prose, p. 304. 



