The encouraging fact in the present condition of the whole matter is not that we get more votes here or there for this or that form of woman suffrage—­for experience has shown that there are great ups and downs in that respect; and States that at one time seemed nearest to woman suffrage, as Maine and Kansas, now seem quite apathetic.  But the real encouragement is that the logical ground is more and more conceded; and the point now usually made is not that the Jeffersonian maxim excludes women, but that “the consent of the governed” is substantially given by the general consent of women.  That this argument has a certain plausibility may be conceded; but it is equally clear that the minority of women, those who do wish to vote, includes on the whole the natural leaders,—­those who are foremost in activity of mind, in literature, in art, in good works of charity.  It is, therefore, pretty sure that they only predict the opinions of the rest, who will follow them in time.  And even while waiting it is a fair question whether the “governed” have not the right to give their votes when they wish, even if the majority of them prefer to stay away from the polls.  We do not repeal our naturalization laws, although only the minority of our foreign-born inhabitants as yet take the pains to become naturalized.

THE GOOD OF THE GOVERNED

In Paris, some years ago, I was for a time a resident in a cultivated French family, where the father was non-committal in politics, the mother and son were republicans, and the daughter was a Bonapartist.  Asking the mother why the young lady thus held to a different creed from the rest, I was told that she had made up her mind that the streets of Paris were kept cleaner under the empire than since its disappearance:  hence her imperialism.

I have heard American men advocate the French empire at home and abroad, without offering reasons so good as those of the lively French maiden.  But I always think of her remark when the question is seriously asked, as Mr. Parkman, for instance, once gravely put it in “The North American Review,”—­“The real issue is this:  Is the object of government the good of the governed, or is it not?” Taken in a general sense, there is probably no disposition to discuss this conundrum, for the simple reason that nobody dissents from it.  But the important point is:  What does “the good of the governed” mean?  Does it merely mean better street cleaning, or something more essential?

There is nothing new in the distinction.  Ever since De Tocqueville wrote his “Democracy in America,” forty years ago, this precise point has been under active discussion.  That acute writer himself recurs to it again and again.  Every government, he points out, nominally seeks the good of the people, and rests on their will at last.  But there is this difference:  A monarchy organizes better, does its work better, cleans the streets better.