DEBATE OF DECEMBER 19, 1888.Question: "Resolved, That the right of suffrage should be extended to women."

Brief for the Affirmative.C. D. Gibbons and F. E. Huntress.

Best general reference: "Woman's Legal Right to the Ballot," in Forum, II, 315.

I. Women are citizens of the United States.- Rev. Statutes, 1992-1994.

II. As citizens of the United States, they are entitled to the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States.- Justice Bradley, "Live Stock Assoc. vs. Crescent City," 1 Abbott, 396.

III. The right of suffrage is a fundamental right of citizenship and included in the term "privileges and immunities of the United States."- Abbott vs. Bayley, 6 Pick, 92; Corfield vs. Correll, 2 Kent, 72; Fifteenth Amendment.

IV. Women need the right of suffrage for self-protection. (a) They need it for the protection of their property and civil rights.- T. W. Higginson in "Common Sense about Women," p. 199. (b) There is no virtual representation for women.- Charles Sumner, speech, March 7, 1866.

V. Women desire the right of suffrage. (a) They are asking for it through their representative women. (b) They have sent memorials to Congress and State legislatures.- H. R. Mis. Doc., 46th Cong., 2nd Sess., Vol. II.

VI. Women will improve the moral condition of politics.- H. W. Beecher, "Women in Politics," pp. 11, 15; G. W. Curtis, "Equal Rights of Women," p. 17; J. S. Mill, "Subjection of Women," p. 38.

Brief for the Negative.C. M. Thayer and W. D. Clark.

Best general reference: J. J. Ingals on "The Sixteenth Amendment," in Forum, 1887. Catherine E. Beecher, "Woman's Suffrage and Woman's Profession."

I. No political right is absolute and of universal application and the dogma that suffrage is a natural right has no support either in reason or experience.- Forum IV, 1-15.

II. Woman is entitled to an equality of rights with man but not to an identity of rights. (a) Her temperament is different; (b) This difference of temperament especially unfits her for politics.- Nation VIII, 88, X, 205: Forum IV, 2.

III. Woman's influence must be that exercised in her family by her sympathy and refinement. These qualities would be changed if she mingled in politics.- Bushnell, Woman's Suffrage, p. 20.

IV. (a) Woman does not need the ballot to protect her rights.- Bushnell, Woman's Suffrage, p. 29. (b) Suffrage should be conferred only on those who can enforce its decrees.- Forum IV, 1-15.

V. Woman suffrage is inexpedient. (a) The great majority of women do not desire suffrage. (b) The class of women who would make use of it would, as a rule, belong to the ignorant and degraded classes in large cities.- New Englander, 1884, p. 206-7. (c) The influence of the Roman Catholic Church would be vastly increased.- Forum IV, 14-15. (d) It would add 2,300,000 illiterate and ill-qualified voters to the 1,900,000 already existing.

VI. 1. The theory that all women or majority of women would vote for the purification of politics and society has been contradicted by actual experience in Utah.- Forum IV, 1-15. 2. Women suffragists have an exaggerated idea of the power of the ballot and legislation to remedy moral and social evils- New Englander, 1884, p. 211.

VII. Right to vote implies right to hold office.

VIII. The U. S. Supreme Court has decided that the right of suffrage is not necessarily one of the privileges of a citizen.- Forum II, 351.