Note 37 — Chapter XIII

"Manhood," Mr Bradlaugh explained later in answer to a letter from Mrs Law, he used "not in a sexual sense, but rather as asserting the right of every citizen to the franchise," with, of course, limitations as to insanity, etc. My father put his position in most unmistakable language in March 1884 in the National Reformer, in answer to a suggestion made by a correspondent that if there had been women-voters in Northampton he would not have been elected. "If the women-electors," he said, "thought fit to reject Mr Bradlaugh, and they made the majority, it would be their right. If Mr Bradlaugh were in the House of Commons he would vote for woman suffrage, even if he were sure he would in future be excluded by women's votes." And again in the December of the following year he urged: "Even if it were unfortunately true that every woman would always vote Tory, it would be the duty of Radicals to try and obtain the suffrage for them."