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1819 Sept. 19
Parl. Reform Bill or Defence ag. Ed Review
Reasons, or […?]
§.2. Electors Who
Females?
Historical cause
2
Not only Naturally; but one should have thought necessarily. But in this case as in others, accident will sometimes produce /clog general rules with/ strange exceptions.
Among our British ancestors, not only the head of the state but the conductor of the war – the war against the oppressing Romans – was of the female sex – Queen Boadicea
Among our Saxon ancestors we find another such anomaly in the person of Matilda, wife of the /an/ Emperor of the West, our /in the language of our early English/ historians stiled the Empress Maud, who disputed the Crown with our King Stephen, and left her pretension to her more successful /fortunate/ son, King Henry the second. /our second Henry./
In the portion of time stiled the reign of Henry 6 th the Monarch being in a state little if any thing above that of idiocy, and having a woman of spirit for his wife, of spirit sufficient to take a lead in the command of such armies as were then in use here then was another example of where a part destined by nature for the male sex, was under the pressure of necessity acted occasionally by a female.
It must have been Nothing less than a /an extraordinary/ concurrence of circumstances could have produced an arrangement /a pretension/ so all according with the general state of the public mind in that rude age.
By this example /these examples/ added to the support sought for /to/ his title by Henry the seventh to /in his marriage with/ the heiress of the House of York, and the extraordinary ascendancy /influence/ obtained over the public mind by the strength of character of Henry the eighth prepared the people for quiet submission after the death of his son Edward to his daughter Mary, and thus to his daughter Elizabeth. In her days it was no longer necessary that supreme ruler should be a military leader
In all its branches appropriate probity, appropriate intellectual aptitude, and active talent, her aptitude for the situation equalled at least if it did not exceed that of any Monarch we then had or have since had of the male sex.
Adverting to /Led blindfold by/ the custom formed by these examples /instances/ the /it was by /in the eyes of/ the/ politicians have /been/ deemed it right, proper and unexceptionable that the supreme acting power should be in the hands of a female: why? because they have been used it: /to see it there:/ in the same eyes the notion that it has been absurd and ridiculous absurd to such a degree as to be ridiculous /a just object of ridicule/ to suppose that a /this the/ minutest fraction of what controuling power there is that can apply a check to that same supreme power should be in female hands: Why? because they are not used to see it there.
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Title: [1819 Sept. 19 Parl. Reform Bill or]Description: 1819 Sept. 19 Parl. Reform Bill or Defence ag Ed. Review §.2. Electors Who Females? Historical cause 3 But the power here in question is not that same vast integral power but this fraction of a controlling power. Whence it has happened that of this power no part has ever been in female hands – why the historical cause of the exclusion has had no exception is sufficiently obvious /obvious enough/ In the feudal times in the times of the Henry and the Edwards here and there an instance may have been seen an instance in which in the absence of her husband, the castle of a Baron or a Knight has been defended by his wife But of a female clothed in iron armour and ranking[?] herself with the embattled Knights not so much as a single example it is believed would be to be found Accordingly neither in the days of Henry 3 d and his son Edward I when, for the purpose of agreeing to a tax the Knights of a County /Shire/ were summoned to meet the King, nor on any subsequent occasion could it have entered into the thoughts of any assembly of men to think of charging with any such commission a person of the female sex: to send into an Assembly which at any rate could not fail to be composed chiefly and almost exclusively of males, the timidity and bashfulness of the weaker sex in the person either of speaker, wife or widow. In the case of the representative of a town, though military service was not so prominently in view, still the business was of a sort for which it was not natural that a person of the female sex should be selected, where a supposed tolerably qualified agent of the male sex were to be had.
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Title: [1822 May 13 Economy etc Q.]Description: 1822 May 13 Economy etc Q. Does the greatest happiness principle require that the female sex should be excluded from a participation in this function? A. /A. Not any more than males./ Yes: if /No: unless/ persons of the female sex are not members of the community if their happiness forms no portion of the universal happiness - their interest of the universal interest: or the state of their minds such as to demonstate them to be irremediably incapable of taking /incapacitated from giving/ the direction to their own conduct without detriment to their own interest As to intellectual aptitude, no reason can be assigned /has ever been assigned/ why in respect of that branch of appropriate aptitude this half of the species ought to be deemed inferior to the other. Of experience - of experience /of experience as far as it goes/ as applied to the highest situation in the scale of power operative power the decision is rather /more/ in favour rather of the female sex than of the male. In no two male reigns was England as prosperous as in the two female reigns of Elizabeth and Ann. As to Ann whatever was the cause it was more prosperous than that of her immediate male predecessor, a man as unamiable as she was amiable. In intellectual aptitude Elizabeth of England shewed herself in an incontestable degree superior to her immediate successor and even to the nearest of her male and adult predecessors. If Ann was weak she was not more so than her two immediate successors both males. If Mary put men to death for what was called religion so did her father, and so did her next male successor: if Queen Mary put men to death for what was called religion, so did Chief Justice Hale, the saint and hero of English lawyers, for what was called Witchcraft. As to intellectual aptitude considered as applied to the field of thought and action at large two points require to be considered, in the first place among writers for example in how small a degree the superiority is on the side of the male sex. in the next place how small the number of those of the female sex whom laws and institutions have left unexcluded from the competition in comparison of those whom they have excluded. They might be unapt for exercise of supreme operative power or a share in it, and yet not be so for exercise of constitutive power in relation to supreme operative power. But they can not be unapt for exercise of supreme constitutive power i.e. constitutive power with relation to supreme operative power, and at the same time apt with relation to supreme operative power.
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