WHO  SHALL  SHARE  IN  GOVERNMENT?  447

195.   Woman  suffrage  summed  up  ^

The  doctrine  of  natural  rights,  together  with  a  large  number  of   Widening

other  factors,  operated  to  widen  the  suffrage  in  the  nineteenth  centur>^    of  the

Nominally,  universal  manhood  suffrage  seems  to  have  been  attained

when  in  1870  the  Fifteenth  Amendment  to  the  Federal  Constitution

declared  that  the  right  of  citizens  of  the  United  States  to  vote  shall  The

not  be  denied  or  abridged  on  account  of  race,  color  or  previous  con-    -f^^teenth

and
dition  of  servitude.     INIeanwhile  the  agitation  for  the  extension  of

the  suffrage  to  women  was  growing,  culminating  in  1920  in  the  passage

of  the  Nineteenth  Amendment,  which  declared  that  the  right  of  suf-   Nineteenth

frage  shall  not  be  denied  on  account  of  sex.    ]\Iuch  has  been  written   ^"^^^dments.
for  and  against  woman  suffrage,  and  upon  the  question  of  whether

the  exercise  of  the  ballot  by  women  is  beneficial,  injurious  or  neutral

in  its  effects.    In  1919,  Professor  Munro  summed  up  the  discussion

as  follows:

Various  arguments  are  advanced  both  for  and  against  the  policy  Arguments

of  giving  full  voting  rights  to  women.    Women  are  citizens;   many   ^°'"  ^^^

•'     extension  of
of  them  own  property;    and  all  are  so  affected  by  the  workings  of   full  suffrage

government  as  to  be  directly  interested  in  its  efficiency.     In  some   ^°  women.
