Voting is not only coercion, but collective coercion.
I think Queen Victoria would have been yet more popular and satisfying
if she had never signed a death warrant. I think Queen Elizabeth
would have stood out as more solid and splendid in history if she
had not earned (among those who happen to know her history)
the nickname of Bloody Bess. I think, in short, that the great historic
woman is more herself when she is persuasive rather than coercive.
But I feel all mankind behind me when I say that if a woman has
this power it should be despotic power--not democratic power.
There is a much stronger historic argument for giving Miss Pankhurst
a throne than for giving her a vote. She might have a crown,
or at least a coronet, like so many of her supporters;
for these old powers are purely personal and therefore female.
Miss Pankhurst as a despot might be as virtuous as Queen Victoria,
and she certainly would find it difficult to be as wicked as Queen Bess,
but the point is that, good or bad, she would be irresponsible--
she would not be governed by a rule and by a ruler.
There are only two ways of governing: by a rule and by a ruler.
And it is seriously true to say of a woman, in education and domesticity,
that the freedom of the autocrat appears to be necessary to her.
She is never responsible until she is irresponsible.
In case this sounds like an idle contradiction, I confidently
appeal to the cold facts of history. Almost every despotic
or oligarchic state has admitted women to its privileges.
Scarcely one democratic state has ever admitted them to its rights
The reason is very simple: that something female is endangered
much more by the violence of the crowd. In short, one Pankhurst
is an exception, but a thousand Pankhursts are a nightmare,
a Bacchic orgie, a Witches Sabbath. For in all legends men have
thought of women as sublime separately but horrible in a herd.
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