University of Virginia Library

Can Laws Be Enforced?

But thousands of male non-combatants are already admitted to the
ballot box, and there is no certainty at any election that the majority
of voters represent a majority of possible fighters. No trouble of
this kind has resulted from equal suffrage in practice. The laws are
as well enforced in the enfranchised states as in adjoining states
where women have no vote.

Where women have school suffrage their votes occasionally turn
the scale, but there is never any attempt to install the defeated candidates
by force. Where women have the full ballot, they have often
defeated bad candidates for higher offices, but no riotous uprising has
ever followed. This particular objection is a libel on American manhood.