(This e-text has been prepared from the original two-part magazinearticle, "Female Suffrage: A Letter to the Christian Women of America,"by Susan Fenimore Cooper, which appeared in Harper's New WeeklyMagazine, Vol. XLI (June-November, 1870), pp. 438-446, 594-600. Theauthor is identified only in the Table of Contents, p. v, where she islisted as "Susan F. Cooper."
Transcribed by Hugh C. MacDougall jfcooper@wpe.com
{Because "vanilla text" does not permit of accents or italics, accentshave been ignored, and both all-capital and italicized wordstranscribed as ALL CAPITALS. Paragraphs are separated by a blank line,but not indented. Footnotes by Susan Fenimore Cooper are inserted asparagraphs (duly identified) as indicated by her asterisks. Allinsertions by the transcriber are enclosed in {brackets}. For readerswishing to know the exact location of specific passages, the pagebreaks from Harper's are identified by a blank line at the end of eachpage, followed by the original page number at the beginning of the next.
{A Brief Introduction to Susan Fenimore Cooper's article:
{The question of "female suffrage" has long been resolved in the UnitedStates, and—though sometimes more recently—in other democraticsocieties as well. For most people, certainly in the so-called Westernworld, the right of women to vote on a basis of equality with men seemsobvious. A century ago this was not the case, even in America, and itrequired a long, arduous, and sometimes painful struggle before theNineteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution was ratified onAugust 18, 1920.
{Why then, take steps to make available through the Gutenberg Projectan article arguing AGAINST the right of women to vote—an articlewritten by a woman?
{There are two reasons for doing so. The first is that Susan FenimoreCooper (1813-1894) was no ordinary woman. She was educated in Europeand extremely well read; she was the daughter and literary assistant ofJames Fenimore Cooper, America's first internationally recognizednovelist; and she was a naturalist and essayist of great talent whose"nature diary" of her home village at Cooperstown, published as "RuralHours" in 1850, has become a classic of early American environmentalliterature.
{Yet Susan Fenimore Cooper argued eloquently, bringing to her task notonly her deep religious feelings but also her very considerableknowledge of world history and of American society, that women shouldnot be given the vote! Hers was not a simple defense of male dominion;her case is combined with equally eloquent arguments in favor of highereducation for women, and for equal wages for equal work. "FemaleSuffrage," is thus of considerable biographic importance, throwingimportant light on her views of God, of society, and of Americanculture.
{At the same time, "Female Suffrage" demonstrates that no socialargument—however popular or politically correct today—can beconsidered as self-evident. Those who favor full legal and socialequality of the sexes at the ballot box and elsewhere (as I believe Ido), should be prepared to examine and answer Susan Fenimore Cooper'sarguments to the contrary. Many of those arguments are still hearddaily in the press and on TV talk shows—not indeed to end women'sright to vote, but as arguments against further steps towards genderequality. Unlike many modern commentators, Susan Fenimore Cooperexamines these arguments in detail, both as to their roots and theirpossible effects, rathe