History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 38

FOURTEENTH AMENDMENT, JULY 28, 1868.

Section 1. "All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."

Section 2. "Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for partic.i.p.ation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State."

Section 3. "No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice-President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State Legislature, or as an Executive or Judicial officer of any State, to support the Const.i.tution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or give aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability."

Section 5. "The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article."

FIFTEENTH AMENDMENT, MARCH 30, 1870.

Section 1. "The right of citizens of the United to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

Section 2. "The Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation."

The women understood the principles involved in these amendments, and accepted the logical conclusions. Under the first they applied to Congress for protection against the tyranny of the States in depriving them of the right of suffrage, but they were remanded to the States, and were told that Congress had no jurisdiction in the matter. Under the second, when women claimed the rights of citizens as tax-payers who helped to support the Government, they were told that neither the fathers nor their sons ever thought of women in framing their Const.i.tutions, and that some special legislation was needed before their rights of citizenship could be recognized or accorded.

During the prolonged debates on these amendments, those who watched the progress of political sentiment and understood the drift of events, struck the key-note of reconstruction in "universal suffrage and universal amnesty," but they were speedily silenced or condemned.

Abraham Lincoln saw that this was the true policy, and counseled it in private. But he was influenced by those who misjudged the signs of the times, and for the success of his party and his own re-election, he yielded to weak counselors. Horace Greeley, with the suffering and humiliation of the South, as well as the guilt and selfishness of the North before him, declared "universal suffrage and universal amnesty"

to be the true basis of reconstruction, but a few cracks of the party whip brought him into line. Henry Ward Beecher foreshadowed the same policy in an able letter, which called down upon him the nation's scorn and denunciation, for which he was stabbed by the friends of his own household. He was the one leading man in the nation who, in all his public speeches, demanded universal suffrage in the reconstruction. And by universal suffrage Mr. Beecher meant political equality for all, without distinction of race, color, or s.e.x. Women would have been dull scholars indeed had they not readily seen that the watchword "universal suffrage" stripped of the limitations that lay in the minds of party politicians, included women also.

Under Section 1 of the Fourteenth Amendment they saw that being "persons" and born in the United States, they were "citizens," whom the National Government was bound to protect against the tyranny of the State.

Section 2 called their attention to another principle of justice, that those who were counted in the basis of representation should have a voice in the rulers whose election their numbers helped to secure. To be sure, the word "male" thrown in seemed to nullify all applications of the several amendments to one s.e.x, nevertheless the women understood the breadth of the principle, and made their demands for an equal recognition on the ground that they too were counted in the basis of representation.

Again, in the discussion on removing the "political disabilities" of those who had made war on the Government, when the injustice of taxing that large cla.s.s denied the suffrage was pointed out and the exercise of that right demanded for thousands of rebels, the women saw the application of that principle to themselves, and echoed the old war-cry in our first Revolution, "taxation without representation is tyranny." In the exhaustive discussions on the emanc.i.p.ation and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the black man and the restoration of the rebels to political equality, the fundamental principles of republican government were more clearly comprehended by the American people than ever before. Hence, it was in harmony with the order of events that educated women, appreciating the genius of our inst.i.tutions, with their interest in politics intensified by all the complications of the war, should think and reason and express their opinions on all these great questions of popular thought. They saw that "universal suffrage and universal amnesty" was the broad, safe foundation for the new republic. They saw that the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the women of the South would not only double the vote, but give a new impulse to thought and education throughout the Southern States, and mitigate the hostility they would naturally feel in seeing their slaves suddenly made their political superiors, their rulers, law-makers, judges, and jurors! They saw that with the incoming tide of ignorant voters from Southern plantations and from the nations of the Old World, that the Government needed the intelligent votes and moral influence of woman to outweigh the ignorance and vice fast crowding round our polling booths.

Seeing all this, they pressed with earnestness the well-considered demand for woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, not from any selfish or personal considerations, but for the elevation of all womankind, and to vindicate the principles that underlie republican government. They who have the responsibility of action are usually more timid in counsel than those who can exert only an indirect influence. Hence the statesmen of that period did not dare to trust their own principles to their logical results, and instead of the broad demand of equal rights for all, they proposed reconstruction on the basis of "manhood suffrage"; a half-way measure that satisfied n.o.body, glossed over by the party in power as "universal suffrage," "equal suffrage,"

"impartial suffrage," until compelled to call the proposition by its true name, "manhood suffrage."

Having served the Government during the war in such varied capacities, and taken an active part in the discussion of its vital principles on so many reform platforms, women naturally felt that in reconstruction their rights as citizens should be protected and secured. They who had so diligently rolled up pet.i.tions for the emanc.i.p.ation and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the slaves now demanded the same liberties, not only for the white women of the nation, but for the newly made freed-women from Southern plantations, who had borne more grievous burdens and endured keener sufferings in the flesh and far more aggravating humiliations in spirit, than the man slave could ever know. And yet Abolitionists who had drawn their most eloquent appeals for emanc.i.p.ation from the hopeless degradation of woman in slavery, ignored alike the African and the Saxon in reconstruction, and refused to sign the pet.i.tion for "woman suffrage." Even such just and liberal men as Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips, in their haste to see the consummation of the black man's freedom, to which they had devoted their life-long efforts, lost sight of the ever-binding principles of justice, and accepted an amendment to the National Const.i.tution that made all men rulers, all women subjects. Gerrit Smith, who had often said, "It is always safe to do right"; "now is the time for action, you can not be sure of to-morrow"; "speak the truth though the heavens fall," acted from policy rather than principle in refusing to sign the following pet.i.tion:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress a.s.sembled_:

The undersigned, citizens of the State of New York, earnestly but respectfully request, that in any change or amendment of the Const.i.tution you may propose to extend or regulate suffrage, there shall be no distinctions made between men and women.

PETERBORO, Dec. 30, 1868.

MY DEAR SUSAN B. ANTHONY:--I this evening received your earnest letter. It pains me to be obliged to disappoint you. But I can not sign the pet.i.tion you send me. Cheerfully, gladly can I sign a pet.i.tion for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. But I can not sign a paper against the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro man, unless at the same time woman shall be enfranchised. The removal of the political disabilities of race is my first desire--of s.e.x, my second. If put on the same level and urged in the same connection neither will be soon accomplished. The former will very soon be, if untrammeled by the other, and its success will prepare the way for the accomplishment of the other.

With great regard, your friend, GERRIT SMITH.

To which letter Mrs. Stanton replied in _The Revolution_ Jan. 14, 1869:

The above is the pet.i.tion to which our friend Gerrit Smith, as an abolitionist, can not conscientiously put his name, while Republicans and Democrats are signing it all over the country. He does not clearly read the signs of the times, or he would see that there is to be no reconstruction of this nation, except on the basis of universal suffrage, as the natural, inalienable right of every citizen. The uprising of the women on both continents, in France, England, Russia, Switzerland, and the United States, all show that advancing civilization demands a new element in the government of nations. As the aristocracy in this country is the "male s.e.x," and as Mr. Smith belongs to the privileged order, he naturally considers it important for the best interests of the nation, that every type and shade of degraded, ignorant manhood should be enfranchised, before even the higher cla.s.ses of womanhood should be admitted to the polls.

This does not surprise us. Men always judge more wisely of objective wrongs and oppressions, than of those in which they are themselves involved. Tyranny on a Southern plantation is far more easily seen by white men at the North than the wrongs of the women of their own households.

Then, again, when men have devoted their lives to one reform, there is a natural feeling of pride, as well as an earnest principle, in seeing that one thing accomplished. Hence, in criticising such good and n.o.ble men as Gerrit Smith and Wendell Phillips for their apathy on woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt at this hour, it is not because we think their course at all remarkable, nor that we have the least hope of influencing them, but simply to rouse the women of the country to the fact that they must not look to these men as their champions at this hour. While philosophy and science alike point to woman as the new power destined to redeem the world, how can Mr. Smith fail to see that it is just this we need to restore honor and virtue in the Government? There is s.e.x in the spiritual as well as the physical, and what we need to-day in government, in the world of morals and thought, is the recognition of the feminine element, as it is this alone that can hold the masculine in check.

Again; Mr. Smith refuses to sign the pet.i.tion because he thinks to press the broader question of "universal suffrage" would defeat the partial one of "manhood suffrage"; in other words, to demand protection for woman against her oppressors, would jeopardize the black man's chance of securing protection against his oppressors. If it is a question of precedence merely, on what principle of justice or courtesy should woman yield her right of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt to the negro? If men can not be trusted to legislate for their own s.e.x, how can they legislate for the opposite s.e.x, of whose wants and needs they know nothing? It has always been considered good philosophy in pressing any measure to claim the uttermost in order to get something. Being in Ireland at the time of the Repeal excitement, we asked Daniel O'Connell one day if he expected to secure a repeal of the Union. "Oh, no!"

said he, "but I claim everything that I may be sure of getting something." But their intense interest in the negro blinded our former champions so that they forsook principle for policy, and in giving woman the cold shoulder raised a more deadly opposition to the negro than any we had yet encountered, creating an antagonism between him and the very element most needed to be propitiated in his behalf. It was this feeling that defeated "negro suffrage" in Kansas.

But Mr. Smith abandons the principle clearly involved, and intrenches himself on policy. He would undoubtedly plead the necessity of the ballot for the negro at the south for his protection, and point us to innumerable acts of cruelty he suffers to-day. But all these things fall as heavily on the women of the black race, yea far more so, for no man can ever know the deep, the d.a.m.ning degradation to which woman is subject in her youth, in helplessness and poverty. The enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the men of her race, Mr. Smith would say, is her protection. Our Saxon men have held the ballot in this country for a century, and what honest man can claim that it has been used for woman's protection? Alas! we have given the very hey day of our life to undoing the cruel and unjust laws that the men of New York had made for their own mothers, wives, and daughters.

As to the "rights of races," on which so much stress is laid just now, we have listened to debates in anti-slavery conventions, for twenty years or more, and we never heard Gerrit Smith plead the negro cause on any lower ground than his manhood; his individual, inalienable right to freedom and equality, and thus, we conjure every thoughtful man to plead woman's cause to-day. Politicians will find, when they come to test this question of "negro supremacy" in the several States, that there is a far stronger feeling among the women of the nation than they supposed. We doubt whether a const.i.tutional amendment securing "manhood suffrage" alone could be fairly pa.s.sed in a single State in this Union. Women everywhere are waking up to their own G.o.d-given rights, to their true dignity as citizens of a republic, as mothers of the race.

Although those who demand "woman's suffrage" on principle are few, those who would oppose "negro suffrage" from prejudice are many, hence the only way to secure the latter, is to end all this talk of cla.s.s legislation, bury the negro in the citizen, and claim the suffrage for all men and women, as a natural, inalienable right. The friends of the negro never made a greater blunder than when, at the close of the war, they timidly refused to lead the nation in demanding suffrage for all. If even Wendell Phillips and Gerrit Smith, the very apostles of liberty on this continent, failed at that point, how can we wonder at the vacillation and confusion of politicians at this hour. We had hoped that the elections of '67, with their overwhelming majorities in every State against negro suffrage, would have proved to all alike, how futile is compromise, how short-sighted is policy. We have pressed these considerations so often on Mr.

Phillips and Mr. Smith during the last four years, that we fear we have entirely forfeited the friendship of the one, and diminished the confidence of the other in our good judgment; but time, that rights all wrongs, will surely bring them back to the standpoint of principle.

As soon as we had a mouthpiece in _The Revolution_ we found that many n.o.ble women in every State understood the situation, and saw that while the question of reconstruction was under debate, woman was false to herself not to put in her claims. In face of all opposition, those who did see the policy and justice of claiming this time as the woman's hour also, made the most persistent, brave fight possible.

Again were appeals and pet.i.tions sent to Congress and the people, but now for woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt. When the whole nation was as it were resolved into its original elements, and the fundamental rights of citizens the topic for discussion in the halls of legislation and at every fireside, the time seemed so opportune for the settlement of the broad question of representation, that the persistency and determination of a few women to secure their rights was neither surprising nor unreasonable.

This was one of the most trying periods in the woman suffrage movement. Negro suffrage being a party measure, a political necessity and the culmination of the anti-slavery conflict, Republicans and Abolitionists could bid each other a most sincere and heartfelt G.o.dspeed. And with them, too, stood the majority of the woman suffrage a.s.sociations. Wives and daughters of Republicans and Abolitionists, imbued with the ideas of politicians, "one measure at a time," "one reform for a generation," lost sight of the true philosophy, that justice is always in order, and the fact that "universal suffrage" was the one reform that belonged specifically to the period of reconstruction. But women educated to self-sacrifice and self-abnegation readily accepted the idea that it was divine and beautiful to hold their claims for rights and privileges in abeyance to all orders and cla.s.ses of men. They forgot that the highest patriotism, and the best interests of man himself demanded the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman.

The few who insisted on absolute right stood firmly together under a steady fire of ridicule and reproach even from their life-long friends most loved and honored. They knew their position was una.s.sailable, for they had well learned the lesson taught in the early days of anti-slavery and the Republican party, that all compromises with principle are dangerous. Statesmen and reformers alike admitted that the demands of the women were just and proper, though not opportune.

But when the whole question of suffrage was up for discussion, there could not be a better time to get all the agitation possible in regard to woman's claims. The subject once settled on the narrow ground of cla.s.s, it would not be renewed for a generation. Time has proved their fears well grounded. Nearly twenty years have pa.s.sed, and there has been no such agitation and excitement as then on the question. If all the women, to say nothing of the Republicans and Abolitionists who claimed to believe in the truth of the idea, had stood firm, woman would have been enfranchised with the negro. But few could withstand the persecution, the ridicule, the pathetic appeals to keep silent, and in a large measure when the Anti-Slavery Society disbanded the woman suffrage movement became the toy of the Republican party, and has been trifled with ever since, like the cat with the mouse in the fable.

But Democrats seeing the inconsistency of Republicans, did advocate our cause, present our pet.i.tions in Congress, and frank our doc.u.ments to all parts of the country. And because these women, denied help and encouragement from other sources, accepted aid from the Democrats, they were called "Copperheads";[108] disloyal to the Government.

Women who had been complimented by the Republican press as "wise,"

"prudent," "n.o.ble," while rolling up 300,000 pet.i.tions for emanc.i.p.ation, were now said to be "selfish," "impracticable,"

"unreasonable," because forsooth they demanded some new liberties for themselves. More over said the Republicans, "these Democrats are hypocritical, they do not believe in the extension of suffrage to any cla.s.s." To this the women replied, "If the Democrats advocate a grand measure of public policy which they do not believe, they occupy much higher ground than Republicans who refuse to press the same measure which they claim to believe. At all events the hypocrisy of Democrats serves us a better purpose in the present emergency than does the treachery of Republicans."

But with all their long-time friends against them; such as Charles Sumner and Henry Wilson in the Senate, William Lloyd Garrison and Gerrit Smith in reform, Horace Greeley and most of the Liberals in the press, the position of the women seemed so untenable to the majority that at times a sense of utter loneliness and desertion made the bravest of them doubt the possibility of maintaining the struggle or making themselves fairly understood. And yet, what was done was sound in principle and wise in policy. Every argument made by Republicans and Abolitionists for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro was pertinent for woman. As Mr. Sumner said to us years after he made that great speech on "Equal rights to all," "subst.i.tute s.e.x for color, and you have the best speech I could make on your platform." Our cause was wise too in policy, for never before had we such an opportunity to compel intelligent opposition in the halls of legislation and in conventions of the people. Black men were at the white heat of anxiety and expectation; Abolitionists, with bated breath, watched every move and vote in Congress; Republicans felt that on the success or defeat of "negro suffrage" hung the life or death of their party; and all alike feared the slightest influence that might turn the scale, and deplored the seeming coalition of the women and the Democrats. Hence what an hour to proclaim our principles of government upon their broadest basis, and to keep up the discussion of woman suffrage at every point with so formidable an opposition!

Few[109] only were equal to the emergency. Even in the Equal Rights Conventions the slightest opposition to the XIV Amendment called out hisses and denunciation, and all resolutions on that point were promptly voted down. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony were waylaid again and again in the ante-rooms, and implored to avoid all discussions on the pending amendments, and were persistently opposed by black men, Abolitionists, Republicans and women who did not understand either the principle or policy involved in the discussion. This opposition of the few did not grow out of any hostility to "negro suffrage," for they were all Abolitionists, and had labored untiringly for the emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves; but they were opposed to the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of another cla.s.s of ignorant men to be lifted above their heads, to be their law-makers and Governors; to prescribe the moral code and political status of their daughters. The hue and cry against those who claimed that "that was the woman's hour," for accepting the aid of Democrats in the establishment of a paper through which they could plead their own case, were so many plausible pretexts in the mouths of those who could not consistently attack their principles of action. But from this opposition on all sides true woman suffragists learned their power to stand alone, and to maintain the right against large and honorable majorities.

Again said our professed friends we can carry "negro suffrage" now; it is a political necessity; do not trammel us with another issue--this done, depend upon it, men have too much chivalry to forget the services of the loyal women all through the war, and through the long political struggle in Congress. Women in our conventions echoed the same a.s.suring sentiments, and voted down resolutions of protest and rebuke. They were deceived with the plausible promises made by Republicans and Abolitionists--promises still unredeemed, for Republicans have been busy ever since trying to save the life of their party; and Abolitionists, with few exceptions, have thrown their influence into Labor Reform, Temperance, Finance, and Literature. But of what do you complain, asked our statesmen. Of many things, we replied:

1st. Our National Const.i.tution was broad and liberal in letter and spirit, put no limits on suffrage, made no distinctions in s.e.x, until the Republicans, by their amendments, introduced the word "male," and thus blocked woman's path to equality.

2d. Republicans in Congress either suppressed our pet.i.tions for suffrage, or presented them under protest, after holding them for weeks in their possession.

3d. By their speeches and votes in Congress, and their decisions in the courts on questions involving our civil and political rights, they have stultified their own grand declarations of the equal rights of citizens in a republic.

When the XIV Amendment was first proposed, the Hon. Charles Sumner opposed it, because, he said, there was already enough of Justice, Liberty, and Equality in the Const.i.tution to protect the humblest citizen under our flag. He had always taken the ground that the Const.i.tution was an Anti-Slavery doc.u.ment, hence to vote for an amendment was to contradict his former position. We opposed the amendments because, in the Const.i.tution as it was there were no distinctions of s.e.x recognized, while the amendments declaring "manhood suffrage," established an aristocracy of s.e.x. However, in due season, Mr. Sumner withdrew his opposition; and without changing his opinion, voted for the amendments because negro suffrage was a party measure, and the political necessity of the hour. We, having no party, no votes, no political right but to pet.i.tion and discuss the measures up for consideration, saw no reason for changing our opinions, hence we used the best possible means to keep up the agitation until the amendments were pa.s.sed, and beyond reconsideration. Nevertheless, in the midst of this general hostility, the sound policy of the agitation carried on against the Republican party and its measures was evident in the numerous bills some of its liberal members soon after presented in Congress. In _The Revolution_, December 10, 1868, we find the following:

NOW'S THE HOUR.--Not the "negro's hour" alone, but everybody's hour. All honor to Senator Pomeroy! He has taken the first step to redeem the Const.i.tution from all odious distinctions on account of race or s.e.x. He lost no time in presenting, at the opening of Congressional proceedings, the following as an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution to regulate suffrage throughout the country:

Article 15. The basis of suffrage in the United States shall be that of citizenship; and all native or naturalized citizens shall enjoy the same rights and privileges of the elective franchise; but each State shall determine by law the age of a citizen and the time of residence required for the exercise of the right of suffrage which shall apply equally to all citizens; and also shall make all laws concerning the times, places, and manner of holding elections.

Laid on the table and ordered to be printed.

Now let the work of pet.i.tioning and agitating for this amendment be prosecuted with a vigor and energy unknown before. And let Senator Pomeroy be honored with receiving and presenting to the Senate such a deluge of names as shall convince him that his n.o.ble step in the direction of a true democracy, is appreciated; and such too as shall be a rebuke to all half-way measures that would leave woman (white and colored) behind the colored male; and moreover, that shall convince Congress and the whole government that we can be trifled with no longer on a subject so vital to the peace, prosperity, and perpetuity of our own people, and the establishment of free inst.i.tutions among the nations of the earth.

CONGRESS WIDE AWAKE.--Last week we gave good account of Mr.