Woman Suffrage is Inevitable by 卡利·查普曼·卡特
woman suffrage is inevitable. suffragists knew it before november 4, 1917; opponents afterward. three distinct causes made it inevitable.
first, the history of our country. ours is a nation born of revolution, of rebellion against a system of government so securely entrenched in the customs and traditions of human society that in 1776 it seemed impregnable. from the beginning of things, nations had been ruled by kings and for kings, while the people served and paid the cost. the american revolutionists boldly proclaimed the heresies: "taxation without representation is tyranny." "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." the colonists won, and the nation which was established as a result of their victory has held unfailingly that these two fundamental principles of democratic government are not only the spiritual source of our national existence but have been our chief historic pride and at all times the sheet anchor of our liberties.
eighty years after the revolution, abraham lincoln welded those two maxims into a new one: "ours is a government of the people, by the people, and for the people." fifty years more passed and the president of the united states, woodrow wilson, in a mighty crisis of the nation, proclaimed to the world: "we are fighting for the things which we have always carried nearest to our hearts: for democracy, for the right of those who submit to authority to have a voice in their own government."
all the way between these immortal aphorisms political leaders have declared unabated faith in their truth. not one american has arisen to question their logic in the 141 years of our national existence. however stupidly our country may have evaded the logical application at times, it has never swerved from its devotion to the theory of democracy as expressed by those two axioms ....
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