Debate on Woman Suffrage in the Senate of the United States Part 4

Mr. DOLPH. Mr. President, I shall not detain the Senate long. I do not feel satisfied when a measure so important to the people of this country and to humanity is about to be submitted to a vote of the Senate to remain wholly silent.

The pending question is upon the adoption of a joint resolution in the usual form submitting to the legislatures of the several States of the Union for their ratification an additional article as an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution, which is as follows:

ARTICLE--,

SECTION I. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of s.e.x.

SEC. 2. The Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.

Fortunately for the perpetuity of our inst.i.tutions and the prosperity of the people, the Federal Const.i.tution contains a provision for its own amendment. The framers of that instrument foresaw that time and experience, the growth of the country and the consequent expansion of the Government, would develop the necessity for changes in it, and they therefore wisely provided in Article V as follows:

The Congress, whenever two-thirds of both Houses shall deem it necessary, shall propose amendments to this Const.i.tution, or, on the application of the Legislatures of two-thirds of the several States, shall call a convention for proposing amendments, which in either case shall be valid to all intents and purposes, as part of this Const.i.tution, when ratified by the Legislatures of three-fourths of the several States, or by conventions in three-fourths thereof, as the one or the other mode of ratification may be proposed by the Congress.

Under this provision, at the first session of the First Congress, ten amendments were submitted to the Legislatures of the several States, in due time ratified by the const.i.tutional number of States, and became a part of the Const.i.tution. Since then there have been added to the Const.i.tution by the same process five different articles.

To secure an amendment to the Const.i.tution under this article requires the concurrent action of two-thirds of both branches of Congress and the affirmative action of three-fourths of the States. Of course Congress can refuse to submit a proposed amendment to the Legislatures of the several States, no matter how general the demand for such submission may be, but I am inclined to believe with the senior Senator from New Hampshire [Mr. BLAIR], in the proposition submitted by him in a speech he made early in the present session upon the pending resolution, that the question as to whether this resolution shall be submitted to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification does not involve the right or policy of the proposed amendment. I am also inclined to believe with him that should the demand by the people for the submission by Congress to the Legislatures of the several States of a proposed amendment become general it would he the duty of the Congress to submit such amendment irrespective of the individual views of the members of Congress, and thus give the people through their Legislative a.s.semblies power to pa.s.s upon the question as to whether or not the Const.i.tution should be amended. At all events, for myself, I should not hesitate to vote to submit for ratification by the Legislatures of the several States an amendment to the Const.i.tution although opposed to it if I thought the demand for it justified such a course.

But I shall vote for the pending joint resolution because I am in favor of the proposed amendment. I have been for many years convinced that the demand made by women for the right of suffrage is just, and that of all the distinctions which have been made between citizens in the laws which confer or regulate suffrage the distinction of s.e.x is the least defensible.

I am not going to discuss the question at length at this time. The arguments for and against woman suffrage have been often stated in this Chamber, and are pretty fully set forth in the majority and minority reports of the Senate committee upon the pending joint resolution. The arguments in its favor were fully stated by the senior Senator from New Hampshire in his able speech upon the question before alluded to, and now the objections to it have been forcibly and elaborately presented by the senior Senator from Georgia [Mr. BROWN].

I could not expect by anything I could say to change a single vote in this body, and the public is already fully informed upon the question, as the arguments in favor of woman suffrage have been voiced in every hamlet in the land with great ability. No question in this country has been more ably discussed than this has been by the women themselves.

I do not think a single objection which is made to woman suffrage is tenable. No one will contend but that women have sufficient capacity to vote intelligently.

Sir, sacred and profane history is full of the records of great deeds by women. They have ruled kingdoms, and, my friend from Georgia to the contrary notwithstanding, they have commanded armies. They have excelled in statecraft, they have shone in literature, and, rising superior to their environments and breaking the shackles with which custom and tyranny have bound them, they have stood side by side with men in the fields of the arts and the sciences.

If it were a fact that woman is intellectually inferior to man, which I do not admit, still that would be no reason why she should not be permitted to partic.i.p.ate in the formation and control of the Government to which she owes allegiance. If we are to have as a test for the exercise of the right of suffrage a qualification based upon intelligence, let it be applied to women and to men alike. If it be admitted that suffrage is a right, that is the end of controversy; there can no longer be any argument made against woman suffrage, because, if it is her right, then, if there were but one poor woman in all the United States demanding the right of suffrage, it would be tyranny to refuse the demand.

But our friends say that suffrage is not a right; that it is a matter of grace only; that it is a privilege which is conferred upon or withheld from individual members of society by society at pleasure.

Society as here used means man's government, and the proposition a.s.sumes the fact that men have a right to inst.i.tute and control governments for themselves and for women. I admit that in the governments of the world, past and present, men as a rule have a.s.sumed to be the ruling cla.s.ses; that they have inst.i.tuted governments from partic.i.p.ation in which they have excluded women; that they have made laws for themselves and for women, and as a rule have themselves administered them; but that the provisions conferring or regulating suffrage in the const.i.tutions and laws of governments so const.i.tuted determined the question of the right of suffrage can not be maintained.

Let us suppose, if we can, a community separated from all other communities, having no organized government, owing no allegiance to any existing governments, without any knowledge of the character of present or past governments, so that when they come to form a government for themselves they can do so free from the bias or prejudice of custom or education, composed of an equal number of men and women, having equal property rights to be defined and to be protected by law. When such community came to inst.i.tute a government--and it would have an undoubted right to inst.i.tute a government for itself, and the instinct of self-preservation would soon lead them to do so--will my friend from Georgia tell me by what right, human or divine, the male portion of that community could exclude the female portion, although equal in number and having equal property rights with the men, from partic.i.p.ation in the formation of such government and in the enactment of laws for the government of the community? I understand the Senator, if he should answer, would say that he believes the Author of our existence, the Ruler of the universe, has given different spheres to man and woman. Admit that; and still neither in nature nor in the revealed will of G.o.d do I find anything to lead me to believe that the Creator did not intend that a woman should exercise the right of suffrage.

During the consideration by this body at the last session of the bill to admit Washington Territory into the Union, referring to the fact that in that Territory woman had been enfranchised, I briefly submitted my views on this subject, which I ask the Secretary to read, so that it may be incorporated in my remarks.

The Secretary read as follows:

Mr. President, there is another matter which I consider pertinent to this discussion, and of too much importance to be left entirely unnoticed on this occasion. It is something new in our political history. It is full of hope for the women of this country and of the world, and full of promise for the future of republican inst.i.tutions. I refer to the fact that in Washington Territory the right of suffrage has been extended to women of proper age, and that the delegates to the const.i.tutional convention to be held under the provisions of this bill, should it become a law, will, under existing laws of the Territory, be elected by its citizens without distinction as to s.e.x, and the const.i.tution to be submitted to the people will be pa.s.sed upon in like manner.

I do not intend to discuss the question of woman suffrage upon this occasion, and I refer to it mainly for the purpose of directing attention to the advanced position which the people of this Territory have taken upon this question. I do not believe the proposition so often a.s.serted that suffrage is a political privilege only, and not a natural right. It is regulated by the const.i.tution and laws of a State I grant, but it needs no argument, it appears to me, to show that a const.i.tution and laws adopted and enacted by a fragment of the whole body of the people, but binding alike on all, is a usurpation of the powers of government.

Government is but organized society. Whatever its form, it has its origin in the necessities of mankind and is indispensable for the maintenance of civilized society. It is essential to every government that it should represent the supreme power of the State, and be capable of subjecting the will of its individual citizens to its authority. Such a government can only derive its just powers from the consent of the governed, and can be established only under a fundamental law which is self-imposed.

Every citizen of suitable age and discretion who is to be subject to such a government has, in my judgment, a natural right to partic.i.p.ate in its formation. It is a significant fact that should Congress pa.s.s this bill and authorize the people of Washington Territory to frame a State const.i.tution and organize a State government, the fundamental law of the State will be made by all the citizens of the State to be subject to it, and not by one-half of them. And we shall witness the spectacle of a State government founded in accordance with the principles of equality, and have a State at last with a truly republican form of government.

The fathers of the Republic enunciated the doctrine "that all men are created equal; that they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." It is strange that any one in this enlightened age should be found to contend that this declaration is true only of men, and that a man is endowed by his Creator with inalienable rights not possessed by a woman. The lamented Lincoln immortalized the expression that ours is a Government "of the people, by the people, and for the people," and yet it is far from that. There can be no government by the people where one-half of them are allowed no voice in its organization and control. I regard the struggle going on in this country and elsewhere for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women as but a continuation of the great struggle for human liberty which has, from the earliest dawn of authentic history, convulsed nations, rent kingdoms, and drenched battlefields with human blood. I look upon the victories which have been achieved in the cause of woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt in Washington Territory and elsewhere as the crowning victories of all which have been won in the long-continued, still-continuing contest between liberty and oppression, and as destined to exert a greater influence upon the human race than any achieved upon the battlefield in ancient or modern times.

Mr. DOLPH. Mr. President, the movement for woman suffrage has pa.s.sed the stage of ridicule. The pending joint resolution may not pa.s.s during this Congress, but the time is not far distant when in every State of the Union and in every Territory women will be admitted to an equal voice in the government, and that will be done whether the Federal Const.i.tution is amended or not. The first convention demanding suffrage for women was held at Seneca Falls, in the State of New York, in 1848. To-day in three of the Territories of the Union women enjoy full suffrage, in a large number of States and Territories they are ent.i.tled to vote at school meetings, and in all the States and Territories there is a growing sentiment in favor of this measure which will soon compel respectful consideration by the law-making power.

No measure in this country involving such radical changes in our inst.i.tutions and fraught with so great consequences to this country and to humanity has made such progress as the movement for woman suffrage. Denunciation will not much longer answer for arguments by the opponents of this measure. The portrayal of the evils to flow from woman suffrage such as we have heard pictured to-day by the Senator from Georgia, the loss of harmony between husband and wife, and the consequent instability of the marriage relation, the neglect of husband and children by wives and mothers for the performance of their political duties, in short the incapacitating of women for wives and mothers and companions, will not much longer serve to frighten the timid. Proof is better than theory. The experiment has been tried and the predicted evils to flow from it have not followed. On the contrary, if we can believe the almost universal testimony, everywhere where it has been tried it has been followed by the most beneficial results.

In Washington Territory, since woman was enfranchised, there have been two elections. At the first there were 8,368 votes cast by women out of a total vote of 34,000 and over. At the second election, which was held in November last, out of 48,000 votes cast in the Territory, 12,000 votes were cast by women. The opponents of female suffrage are silenced there. The Territorial conventions of both parties have resolved in favor of woman suffrage, and there is not a proposition, so far as I know in all that Territory, to repeal the law conferring suffrage upon woman.

I desire also to inform my friend from Georgia that since women were enfranchised in Washington Territory nature has continued in her wonted courses. The sun rises and sets; there is seed-time and harvest; seasons come and go. The population has increased with the usual regularity and rapidity. Marriages have been quite as frequent, and divorces have been no more so. Women have not lost their influence for good upon society, but men have been elevated and refined. If we are to believe the testimony which comes from lawyers, physicians, ministers of the gospel, merchants, mechanics, farmers, and laboring men, the united testimony of the entire people of the Territory, the results of woman suffrage there have been all that could be desired by its friends. Some of the results in that Territory have been seen in making the polls quiet and orderly, in awaking a new interest in educational questions and in questions of moral reform, in securing the pa.s.sage of beneficial laws and the proper enforcement of them; and, as I have said before, in elevating men, and that without injury to the women.

Mr. EUSTIS. Will the Senator allow me to ask him a question?

Mr. DOLPH. The Senator can ask me a question, if he chooses.

Mr. EUSTIS. If it be right and proper to confer the right of suffrage on women, I ask the Senator whether he does not think that women ought to be required to serve on juries?

Mr. DOLPH. I can answer that very readily. It does not necessarily follow that because a woman is permitted to vote and thus have a voice in making the laws by which she is to be governed and by which her property rights are to be determined, she must perform such duty as service upon a jury. But I will inform the Senator that in Washington Territory she does serve upon juries, and with great satisfaction to the judges of the courts and to all parties who desire to see an honest and efficient administration of law.

Mr. EUSTIS. I was aware of the fact that women are required to serve on juries in Washington Territory because they are allowed to vote.

I understand that under all State laws those duties are considered correlative. Now, I ask the Senator whether he thinks it is a decent spectacle to take a mother away from her nursing infant and lock her up all night to sit on a jury?

Mr. DOLPH. I intended to say before I reached this point of being interrogated that I not only do not believe that there is a single argument against woman suffrage that is tenable, and I may be prejudiced in the matter, but that there is not a single one that is really worthy of any serious consideration. The Senator from Louisiana is a lawyer, and he knows very well that under such circ.u.mstances, a mother with a nursing infant, that fact being made known to the court would be excused; that would be a sufficient excuse. He knows himself, and he has seen it done a hundred times, that for trivial excuses compared to that men have been excused from service on a jury.

Mr. EUSTIS. I will ask the Senator whether he knows that under the laws of Washington Territory that is a legal excuse from serving on a jury?

Mr. DOLPH. I am not prepared to state that it is; but there is no question in the world but that any judge, that fact being made known, would excuse a woman from attendance upon a jury. No special authority would be required. I will state further that I have not learned that there has been any serious objection on the part of any woman summoned for jury service in that Territory to perform that duty. I have not learned that it has worked to the disadvantage of any family in the Territory; but I do know that the judges of the courts have taken especial pains to commend the women who have been called to serve upon juries for the manner in which they have discharged their duty.

I wish to say further that there is no connection whatever between jury service and the right of suffrage. The question as to who shall perform jury service, the question as to who shall perform military service, the question as to who shall perform civil official duty in a government is certainly a matter to be regulated by the community itself; but the question of the right to partic.i.p.ate in the formation of a government which controls the life and the property and the destinies of its citizens, I contend is a question of right that goes back of these mere regulations for the protection of property and the punishment of offenses under the laws. It is a matter of right which it is tyranny to refuse to any citizen demanding it.

Now, Mr. President, I shall close by saying: G.o.d speed the day when not only in all the States of the Union and in all the Territories, but everywhere, woman shall stand before the law freed from the last shackle which has been riveted upon her by tyranny and the last disability which has been imposed upon her by ignorance, not only in respect to the right of suffrage, but in every other respect the peer and equal of her brother, man.

Mr. VEST. Mr. President, any measure of legislation which affects popular government based on the will of the people as expressed through their suffrage is not only important but vitally so. If this Government, which is based on the intelligence of the people, shall ever be destroyed it will be by injudicious, immature, or corrupt suffrage. If the ship of state launched by our fathers shall ever be destroyed, it will be by striking the rock of universal, unprepared suffrage. Suffrage once given can never be taken away. Legislatures and conventions may do everything else; they never can do that. When any particular cla.s.s or portion of the community is once invested with this privilege it is used, accomplished, and eternal.

The Senator who last spoke on this question refers to the successful experiment in regard to woman-suffrage in the Territories of Wyoming and Washington. Mr. President, it is not upon the plains of the spa.r.s.ely-settled Territories of the West that woman suffrage can be tested. Suffrage in the rural districts and spa.r.s.ely settled regions of this country must from the very nature of things remain pure when corrupt everywhere else. The danger of corrupt suffrage is in the cities, and those ma.s.ses of population to which civilization tends everywhere in all history. Whilst the country has been pure and patriotic, the cities have been the first cancers to appear upon the body-politic in all ages of the world.

Wyoming Territory! Washington Territory! Where are their large cities?

Where are the localities in these Territories where the strain upon popular government must come? The Senator from New Hampshire, who is so conspicuous in this movement, appalled the country some months since by his ghastly array of illiteracy in the Southern States. He proposes that $77,000,000 of the people's money be taken in order to strike down the great foe to republican government, illiteracy. How was that illiteracy brought upon this country? It was by giving the suffrage to unprepared voters. It is not my purpose to go back into the past and make any partisan or sectional appeal, but it is a fact known to every intelligent man that in one single act the right of suffrage was given without preparation to hundreds of thousands of voters who to-day can scarcely read. That Senator proposes now to double, and more than double, that illiteracy. He proposes to give the negro women of the South this right of suffrage, utterly unprepared as they are for it.

In a convention some two years and a half ago in the city of Louisville an intelligent negro from the South said the negro men could not vote the Democratic ticket because the women would not live with them if they did. The negro men go out in the hotels and upon the railroad cars. They go to the cities and by attrition they wear away the prejudice of race; but the women remain at home, and their emotional natures aggregate and compound the race-prejudice, and when suffrage is given them what must be the result?

Mr. President, it is not my purpose to speak of the inconveniences, for they are nothing more, of woman suffrage. I trust that as a gentleman I respect the feelings of the ladies and their advocates. I am not here to ridicule. My purpose only is to use legitimate argument as to a movement which commands respectful consideration, if for no other reason than because it comes from women. But it is impossible to divest ourselves of a certain degree of sentiment when considering this question.

I pity the man who can consider any question affecting the influence of woman with the cold, dry logic of business. What man can, without aversion, turn from the blessed memory of that dear old grandmother, or the gentle words and caressing hand of that blessed mother gone to the unknown world, to face in its stead the idea of a female justice of the peace or township constable? For my part I want when I go to my home--when I turn from the arena where man contends with man for what we call the prizes of this paltry world--I want to go back, not to be received in the masculine embrace of some female ward politician, but to the earnest, loving look and touch of a true woman. I want to go back to the jurisdiction of the wife, the mother; and instead of a lecture upon finance or the tariff, or upon the construction of the Const.i.tution, I want those blessed, loving details of domestic life and domestic love.

I have said I would not speak of the inconveniences to arise from woman suffrage--I care not--whether the mother is called upon to decide as a juryman or jury-woman rights of property or rights of life, whilst her baby is "mewling and puking" in solitary confinement at home. There are other considerations more important, and one of them to my mind is insuperable. I speak now respecting women as a s.e.x.

I believe that they are better than men, but I do not believe they are adapted to the political work of this world. I do not believe that the Great Intelligence ever intended them to invade the sphere of work given to men, tearing down and destroying all the best influences for which G.o.d has intended them.

The great evil in this country to-day is in emotional suffrage. The great danger to-day is in excitable suffrage. If the voters of this country could think always coolly, and if they could deliberate, if they could go by judgment and not by pa.s.sion, our inst.i.tutions would survive forever, eternal as the foundations of the continent itself; but ma.s.sed together, subject to the excitements of mobs and of these terrible political contests that come upon us from year to year under the autonomy of our Government, what would be the result if suffrage were given to the women of the United States?

Women are essentially emotional. It is no disparagement to them they are so. It is no more insulting to say that women are emotional than to say that they are delicately constructed physically and unfitted to become soldiers or workmen under the sterner, harder pursuits of life.