Elizabeth Cady Stanton one of the staunchest fighters for the passage of the 16th Amendment absolutely understood that right in progressive political terms: as key to equality of opportunity underwritten by a government that considered itself responsible for providing it to the republic. I advise reading her entire speech, Solitude of Self, which she delivered to the Committee of the Judiciary of the United States Congress, Monday, January 18, 1892, when she was 77 years old.
Here are some passages worth special note (emphases mine):
Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: We have been speaking
before Committees of the Judiciary for the last twenty years, and we
have gone over all the arguments in favor of a sixteenth amendment
which are familiar to all you gentlemen; therefore, it will not be
necessary that I should repeat them again.
The point I wish plainly to bring before you on this occasion is the
individuality of each human soul; [...] the right of
individual conscience and judgment--our republican idea, individual
citizenship. In discussing the rights of woman, we are to consider,
first, what belongs to her as an individual, in a world of her own, the
arbiter of her own destiny, an imaginary Robinson Crusoe with her woman
Friday on a solitary island. Her rights under such circumstances are to
use all her faculties for her own safety and happiness.
Secondly, if we consider her as a citizen, as a member of a great
nation, she must have the same rights as all other members, according
to the fundamental principles of our Government.
Thirdly, viewed as a woman, an equal factor in civilization, her
rights and duties are still the same--individual happiness and
development.
Fourthly, it is only the incidental relations of life, such as
mother, wife, sister, daughter, that may involve some special duties
and training. In the usual discussion in regard to woman's sphere, such
as men as Herbert Spencer, Frederic Harrison, and Grant Allen uniformly
subordinate her rights and duties as an individual, as a citizen, as a
woman, to the necessities of these incidental relations, some of which
a large class of woman may never assume. In discussing the sphere of
man we do not decide his rights as an individual, as a citizen, as a
man by his duties as a father, a husband, a brother, or a son,
relations some of which he may never fill. Moreover he would be better
fitted for these very relations and whatever special work he might
choose to do to earn his bread by the complete development of all his
faculties as an individual.
Just so with woman. The education that will fit her to discharge the
duties in the largest sphere of human usefulness will best fit her for
whatever special work she may be compelled to do.
The isolation of every human soul and the necessity of
self-dependence must give each individual the right, to choose his own
surroundings.
The strongest reason for giving woman all the opportunities for
higher education, for the full development of her faculties, forces of
mind and body; for giving her the most enlarged freedom of thought and
action; a complete emancipation from all forms of bondage, of custom,
dependence, superstition; from all the crippling influences of fear, is
the solitude and personal responsibility of her own individual life.
The strongest reason why we ask for woman a voice in the government
under which she lives; in the religion she is asked to believe;
equality in social life, where she is the chief factor; a place in the
trades and professions, where she may earn her bread, is because of her
birthright to self-sovereignty; because, as an individual, she must
rely on herself. No matter how much women prefer to lean, to be
protected and supported, nor how much men desire to have them do so,
they must make the voyage of life alone, and for safety in an emergency
they must know something of the laws of navigation. To guide our own
craft, we must be captain, pilot, engineer; with chart and compass to
stand at the wheel; to match the wind and waves and know when to take
in the sail, and to read the signs in the firmament over all. It
matters not whether the solitary voyager is man or woman.
[...]
To throw obstacle in the way of a complete education is like putting
out the eyes; to deny the rights of property, like cutting off the
hands. To deny political equality is to rob the ostracised of all
self-respect; of credit in the market place; of recompense in the world
of work; of a voice among those who make and administer the law; a
choice in the jury before whom they are tried, and in the judge who
decides their punishment. Shakespeare's play of Titus and Andronicus
contains a terrible satire on woman's position in the nineteenth
century--"Rude men" (the play tells us) "seized the king's daughter,
cut out her tongue, out off her hands, and then bade her go call for
water and wash her hands." What a picture of woman's position. Robbed
of her natural rights, handicapped by law and custom at every turn, yet
compelled to fight her own battles, and in the emergencies of life to
fall back on herself for protection.
[...]
Such is individual life. Who, I ask you, can take, dare take, on
himself the rights, the duties, the responsibilities of another human
soul?
