Millicent Garrett Fawcett

“ Lord Acton once wrote: "It seems to be a law of political evolution that no great advance in human freedom can be gained except after the display of some kind of violence." We wanted to show that we could make the grand advance in human freedom, at which we aimed without the display of any kind of violence. We have been disappointed in that ambition, but we may still lay the flattering unction to our souls that the violence offered has not been formidable, and that the fiercest of the suffragettes have been far more ready to suffer pain than to inflict it. ”

“ The Queen's love for Scotland and the Scottish people has made it easier for her to take part in ordinary social life in the neighborhood of Balmoral than in the crowded whirl of London. She has taken part in the torch-carrying on Halloween, in gillies' balls, in marriages and christenings in Scotland, and made herself one with her people there in all their joys and sorrows. ”

“ Anti-suffragists, especially anti-suffrage men, maintain that to take part in the strife and turmoil of practical politics is in its essence degrading to women, and calculated to sully their refinement and purity. If this, indeed, is so, why invite women into the turmoil? Why advertise, as the anti-suffragists do, the holding of classes to train young women to become anti-suffrage speakers, and thus be able to proclaim on public platforms that "woman's place is home?" ”

“ A man is taught to dread the eye of God; but women were taught to dread nothing but the eye of man. Rousseau embodies the then current doctrine, that reputation in the case of women takes the place of virtue, in a passage which Mary Wollstonecraft quotes. "To women," he says, "reputation is no less indispensable than chastity: . . . what is thought of her is as important to her as what she really is. It follows hence that the system of a woman's education should in this respect be directly contrary to that of ours. Opinion is the grave of virtue among the men, but its throne among women." ”

“ The politicians' field of vision is entirely filled by those who are represented; the unrepresented are forgotten. So, again, when the Birmingham Liberals let their imagination range over what was to be expected and worked for in the future, no mention was made of anything being done for women. Their ideal seemed rather to be manhood as opposed to universal suffrage; that is, all men not being either paupers or felons to be admitted to political power, no matter how ignorant, how poor, how degraded, in virtue of their manhood; while all women are to be excluded in virtue of their womanhood. ”

“ I have endeavoured to show that men's rights and women's rights must stand or fall together; their maintenance is necessary to the fulfilment of the Divine will—man's happiness. For if God wills man's happiness, and man’s happiness depends on his freedom, then God wills man's freedom. "Equity knows no difference of sex. The law of equal freedom necessarily applies to the whole race—female as well as male. The same reasoning which establishes that law for men may be used with equal cogency on behalf of women." ”

“ All through the Queen's reign these words have been turned into actions; they have inspired her to do her duty faithfully and courageously and with unfailing self-sacrifice of her own inclinations and wishes. By so living she has revived the feeling of personal affection and loyalty to the throne on the part of her subjects which her immediate predecessors had done much to destroy. When we reflect upon the contrast which the pure-minded, pure-hearted girl presented to them we shall be able to understand something of the keen emotion of joyful loyalty which was evoked at her accession. ”

“ With all this wealth of testimony rebutting from practical experience almost every objection urged against women's suffrage, it is impossible to exaggerate the value to the movement here of the example of Australia and New Zealand. There are few families in the United Kingdom that have not ties of kindred or of friendship with Australasia. The men and women there are of our own race and traditions, starting from the same stock, owning the same allegiance, acknowledging the same laws, speaking the same language, nourished mentally, morally, and spiritually from the same sources. ”

“ Lings, the last chance of women getting the suffrage by "a sort of accident" vanishes, and very few of us can now regret it, for the long struggle to obtain suffrage has been a great education for women, not only politically, but also in courage, perseverance, endurance, and comradeship with each other.
If the nineteenth century was a time of education for women, it was no less a time of education for men. We have not yet arrived at an equal moral standard for men and women, but we have travelled a long way on the road leading to it. ”

“ For with what truth or rationality could the suffrage be termed universal while half the human species remain excluded from it? To declare that a voice in the government is the right of all, and demand it only for a part—the part, namely, to which the claimant belongs—is to renounce even the appearance of principle. ”

“ It was Mary Wollstonecraft's good fortune that when she spoke the ears of men had been prepared to hear and their minds to assimilate what she had to say. In one sense she was as much the product of the women's rights movement as its earliest confessor. The fermentation in men's minds which had already produced new thoughts about the rights of man, which was destined presently to overthrow the authority of unrestrained despotism wherever it existed in Western Europe, did not pass by without producing its effect on the greatest despotism of all, that of men over women. ”

“ I desire to approach the subject of the claims of women to the suffrage in a different spirit to either of these contending parties. I will attempt to state fairly and impartially the main arguments on both sides. If I fail in doing justice to the views of those with whom I differ, I shall not do so wilfully, but through ignorance. I will only add, before entering upon the general subject, that in my opinion this is not exclusively a woman’s question; above all, it is not one in which the interests of men and women are opposed. ”

“ Give women the rights of free citizenship, the power to protect themselves, and then they will let their representatives know what they want and why they want it. They will find, no doubt—as other classes have found—that though the price of liberty is vigilance, the House of Commons will never turn a deaf ear to well-considered measures of reform which are demanded by the constituencies.
This movement for the representation of women is nothing more nor less than a simple outgrowth of the democracy which has been the gradual product of this century. ”

“ Wishing your Majesty, the Prince and Princess of Wales, and the Princess May, so cruelly bereaved and utterly disconsolate, all the strength, consolation, and comfort which God alone can give, and which He never fails to give to all who seek Him in truth and sincerity, we remain, beloved Queen, your loving and grateful though sorrowing subjects, The Oaks Widows. ”

“ Several of the ladies who signed The Nineteenth Century protest in 1889 were at that moment taking an active part in organising the political work and influence of women for or against the main political issue of the day, the granting of Home Rule to Ireland; and yet they were saying at the same time that women had not the material to form a sound judgment in politics. This is, of course, the inherent absurdity of the whole position of anti-suffrage women. If women are incapable of forming a sound judgment in grave political issues, why invite them and urge them to express an opinion at all? ”

“ Two fires cannot burn together, and the most ardent of the suffragists felt that, while the war lasted, it was not a fitting time to press their own claims and objects. The war temporarily suspended the progress of the suffrage movement, but it is probable that it ultimately strengthened the demand of women for citizenship, for it has been observed again and again that a war, or any other event which stimulates national vitality, and the consciousness of the value of citizenship is almost certain to be followed by increased vigour in the suffrage movement, and not infrequently by its success. ”

“ It was universally felt that there was work for women, even in war—the work of cleansing, setting in order, breaking down red tape, and soothing the vast sum of human suffering which every war is bound to cause. Miss Nightingale's work in war was work that never had been done until women came forward to do it, and her message to her countrywomen was educate yourselves, prepare, make ready; never imagine that your task can be done by instinct, without training and preparation. Painstaking study, she insisted, was just as necessary as a preparation for women's work as for men's work ”