History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 130

OFFICE OF THE WOMEN'S LOYAL NATIONAL LEAGUE, } Room No. 20, Cooper Inst.i.tute, N. Y., _April 7, 1864_. }

_Dear Friend:_--With this you will receive a Form of a Pet.i.tion to Congress, the object of which you can not mistake nor regard with indifference. To procure on it the largest possible number of adult names, at the earliest practicable moment, it is hoped you will regard as less a duty than a pleasure. Already we have sent one installment of our pet.i.tion forward, signed by one hundred thousand persons; the presentation of which, by Senator Sumner, produced a marked effect on both Congress and the country. We hope to send a million before the adjournment of Congress, which we shall easily do and even more, if you and the twenty thousand others to whom we have sent pet.i.tions will promptly, generously co-operate with us. For nearly three years has the scourge of war desolated us; sweeping away at least three hundred thousand of the strength, bloom, and beauty of our nation. And the war-chariot still rolls onward, its iron wheels deep in human blood!

The G.o.d, at whose justice Jefferson long ago trembled, has awaked to the woes of the bondmen.

"For the sighing of the oppressed, and for the crying of the needy, now will I arise, saith the Lord." The redemption of that pledge we now behold in this dread Apocalypse of war. Nor should we expect or hope the calamity will cease while the fearful cause of it remains.

Slavery has long been our national sin. War is its natural and just retribution. But the war has made it the const.i.tutional right of the Government, as it always has been the moral duty of the people, to abolish slavery. We are, therefore, without excuse, if the solemn duty be not now performed. With us, the people, is the power to achieve the work by our agents in Congress. On us, therefore, rests the momentous responsibility. Shall we not all join then in one loud, earnest, effectual prayer to Congress, which will swell on its ear like the voice of many waters, that this b.l.o.o.d.y, desolating war shall be arrested and ended, by the immediate and final removal, by Statute Law and amended Const.i.tution, of that crime and curse which alone has brought it upon us? Now surely is our accepted time. On our own heads will be the blood of our thousands slain, if, with the power in our own hands, we do not end that system forever, which is so plainly autographed all over with the Divine displeasure. In the name of justice and of freedom then let us rise and decree the destruction of our destroyer. Let us with myriad voice _compel_ Congress to

"Consign it to remorseless fire!

Watch till the last faint spark expire; Then strew its ashes on the wind, Nor leave one atom wreck behind."

In behalf of the Women's League, SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Secretary_.

FORM OF PEt.i.tION.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress a.s.sembled:_

The undersigned, citizens of ----, believing slavery the great cause of the present rebellion, and an inst.i.tution fatal to the life of Republican Government, earnestly pray your Honorable Bodies to immediately abolish it throughout the United States; and to adopt measures for so amending the Const.i.tution, as forever to prohibit its existence in any portion of our common country.

MEN. | WOMEN.

_Anniversary Meeting, May 14, 1864._--The adjourned meeting convened in the lecture-room of the Church of the Puritans, Sat.u.r.day P.M., May 14th. The President in the chair.

The Secretary read the report of the Executive Committee, which was unanimously adopted. The resolutions were then read, and motion taken to act upon them separately. The 2d, 7th, and 8th elicited a long and earnest discussion, but were at last adopted, with but one or two dissenting votes.

The Committee then presented a list of women to serve as officers the coming year, who were unanimously elected.

Officers of the Women's National League:--_President_, Elizabeth Cady Stanton; _Vice-Presidents_, L. M. Brownson, Mary Bates, Mrs. Col. A.

B. Eaton, S. A. Fayerweather; _Corresponding Secretary_, Charlotte B.

Wilbour; _Recording Secretaries_, Susan B. Anthony, Elvira Lane; _Treasurer_, Mary F. Gilbert; _Executive Committee_, Mrs. L. M.

Brownson, Mrs. H. M. Jacobs, Mary O. Gale, Mattie Griffith, Redelia Bates, Rebecca K. Shepherd, Frances V. Halleck, Mrs. C. S. Lozier, M.D.; Laura M. Ward, M.D.; Malvina A. Lane.

_The Women's National League to its Members and Friends_:--The folding, directing, and sending out 20,000 pet.i.tions, then the a.s.sorting, counting, and rolling up, each State by itself, 300,000 signatures, has been an herculean task, that only those who have witnessed it could fully appreciate. Remember that paper, printing, postage, office, and clerks, all require money. At the last meeting of the Executive Committee we resolved to ask each of our 5,000 members to send us the small sum of fifty cents to carry on the work.

Let the pet.i.tions be thoroughly circulated during the summer, throughout the country, that the people may speak in thunder-tones to our next Congress at its earliest sittings. Neither the Emanc.i.p.ation or Amendment bill has yet pa.s.sed the House, and the recent vote on the Montana question shows the animus of the Administration. If the majority of our voters propose to re-elect such men to rule over us, those who believe in free inst.i.tutions must begin the work of educating the nation into the idea that a stable government must be founded on justice--that freedom and equality are rights that belong to every citizen of a republic.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Secretary_, 20 Cooper Inst.i.tute.

_Amend the Const.i.tution._--The Women's National League have just sent out, all through the States, fifteen thousand pet.i.tions, with an appeal to have them filled up and returned as speedily as possible.

The bill to amend the Const.i.tution so as to prohibit the holding of slaves in any part of the country has pa.s.sed the Senate. Now comes the struggle in the House. If every one of the fifteen thousand persons--at least ten thousand of them ministers--will but gather up one hundred or more names, _a million-voiced pet.i.tion_ may yet pour into the Representatives' Hall; and such a voice from _the people_ can not but make sure the vote, and leave the bill ready for the President's signature, and Congress disposed to recommend that a special session of each State Legislature be called immediately to act upon the question; and thus the hateful thing--Slavery--be buried out of sight before the opening of the Presidential campaign. Let the pet.i.tions be mailed to Washington, direct, to some member, or to Hon.

Thomas D. Eliot, Chairman of Committee on Slavery and Freedmen. There is not a day to be lost. Let all work.--_The National Anti-Slavery Standard_, May 28, 1864.

_The World._

NEW YORK CITY, _July 25, 1864_.

WOMEN'S LOYAL NATIONAL LEAGUE.

_The Necessity for Funds--The Delinquency of the Friends of the Negro--Miss Anthony on the Const.i.tution--Fighting, a Barbaric way of Settling Questions._--About fifteen ladies and half a dozen gentlemen were present at the meeting of the Woman's League, yesterday. Although more than one of the speakers bewailed the delinquency of the "friends of the negro" in failing to supply the League with the necessary funds, yet the piles of post-paid circulars on the tables, ready for the mail, were larger than ever. There was also a bundle of tracts on emanc.i.p.ation as the only means of peace.

The meeting being called to order, a committee reported a series of resolutions, the gist of which was that, whereas the League is continually receiving from its friends to whom it applies for pecuniary a.s.sistance communications stating that the day for pet.i.tion and discussion is past, and that the bullet and bayonet are now working out the stern logic of events; nevertheless the League considers that such day is not past, and it urges the friends of the negro to come forward boldly and pour out of their abundance liberally for its aid.

SPEECH BY MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

Miss Susan B. Anthony made a speech arguing that the decision of the anti-slavery question should not be left to the "stern logic of events" which is wrought by the bullet and the bayonet. More knowledge is needed. The eyes and the ears of the whole public are now open. It should be the earnest work of every lover of freedom to give those eyes the right thing to see and those ears the right thing to hear. It pains her to receive in answer to a call for a.s.sistance and funds, letters saying that the day for discussion and pet.i.tion is past. It looks as if we had returned to the old condition of barbarism, where no way is known of settling questions except by fighting. Women, who are noted for having control of the moral department of society and for lifting the other half of the race into a higher moral condition, should not relapse into the idea that the status of any human being is to be settled merely by the sword. Miss Anthony then spoke of the const.i.tutional right of Congress to pa.s.s an emanc.i.p.ation law. She read a letter from a lady who, on receiving doc.u.ments from the League, first doubted the power of Congress to pa.s.s such a law; then she thought perhaps it had; then she compared the pet.i.tion and the Const.i.tution; then she thought it had no such power, and finally she concluded to circulate the pet.i.tion anyhow. Miss Anthony proceeded at some length to expound the Const.i.tution, showing that it does not say that slaves shall not be emanc.i.p.ated, and therefore concluding that they may. But if Congress can not emanc.i.p.ate slaves const.i.tutionally, it should do so unconst.i.tutionally. She does not believe in this red-tapism that can not find a law to suppress the wrong, but always finds one to oppress the innocent. If she was a mayor, or a governor, or a legislator, and there was no law to punish mobocrats, she thought she should go to work to make one pretty quick. She requested the opinion of some gentleman.

A gentleman present related a number of touching incidents about the recent mobbing of negroes in this city, most of which have already appeared in print in this and other papers. Miss Anthony held up two photographs to the view of the audience. One represented "Sojourner Truth," the heroine of one of Mrs. H. B. Stowe's tales, and the other the bare back of a Louisiana slave. Many of the audience were affected to tears. "Sojourner Truth" had lost three fingers of one hand, and the Louisiana slave's back bore scars of whipping. She asked every one to suppose that woman was her mother, and that man her father. In that case would they think the time past for discussion and pet.i.tion? The resolutions were at once unanimously pa.s.sed. The meeting adjourned.

MISS ANTHONY IN CHICAGO.

Miss Susan B. Anthony is now on her homeward way from Kansas, where she has been spending several of the past months, and where she has performed much excellent service in the cause of the freedmen of the country generally. She has recently visited Chicago and given a lecture, which is highly commended by the _Tribune_ and _Republican_ of that city, the latter giving an extended report of it in its columns, besides p.r.o.nouncing upon it very flattering encomiums, concluding with these words: "The audience dwelt with thoughtful and marked interest upon her words, and when occasionally her remarks called forth an irrepressible burst of feeling, the applause was marked and emphatic, without descending to a noisy disturbance." Of the lecture in general, the Chicago _Tribune_ thus speaks:

Last evening Miss Susan B. Anthony, of Rochester, N. Y., addressed an audience composed chiefly of colored people, in Quinn's Chapel. Her subject was "Universal Suffrage." Mrs. Jones, the President of the Ladies' Aid Society, in introducing her, said: "She was one of their old and firm friends; not one who had believed in sitting down to the communion first, and letting the negro come last. She was not one who needed to have her father or brothers starved in Southern prisons, to make her aware of the humanity of the black man."

Miss Anthony is a clear, logical speaker, earnest and truthful, and has long considered the questions of the day. Few _men_ in this or any other city could more ably present the subject, or more closely chain the audience that listened to her n.o.ble utterances, and one could not but wish that she had spoken to thousands rather than hundreds. Miss A. is recently from Leavenworth, Kansas, where she has been spending some months past, aiding as she had opportunity, in the elevation of the freed people, and occasionally by lectures, contributing to form a true public sentiment in that new State. Consequently, she speaks from absolute knowledge of the present state of the freedmen. Her criticism of the theories of reconstruction was masterly, showing that the fundamental principles of this Government are set aside and really endanger all that we have seemed to gain by the war, and that nothing but the admission of the black man to the franchise can save the nation from future disgrace and ultimate ruin.--_National Anti-Slavery Standard_, August, 1865.

CHAPTER XVIII.

NATIONAL CONVENTIONS, 1866 AND 1867.

_Report made to the Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention._

BY CAROLINE H. DALL.

For the last five years the women of the United States have held few public discussions. They have done wisely. Circ.u.mstances have proved their friend. Nothing ever had done, nothing ever will do again, so great a service to woman in so short a time, as this dreadful war out of which we are so slowly emerging. Respect for woman came only with the absolute need of her, and so many women of distinguished ability made themselves of service to the Government, that we had no single woman to honor as England had honored Florence Nightingale. With us her name was _legion_. But with the prospect of peace comes the old duty of agitation, and we find ourselves again summoned to a Convention, and again anxiously awaiting its results--_anxiously_, for a convention of women is an object which still attracts the gaze of the curious, and the smallest indiscretion on the part of a single speaker has a retrograde effect which few women seem able to measure.

Our reform is unlike all others, for it must begin in the family, at the very heart of society. If it be not kindly, temperately, and thoughtfully conducted, men everywhere will be able to justify their remonstrances. Let us rather justify ourselves. My last report to any Convention was made to those called in Boston in 1859 and 1860.

Between that time and 1863 I printed five volumes, which are nothing but reports upon the various interests significant to our cause.

During the last four years I have watched the development of American industry in its relation to women, and have, through the newspapers, aroused public feeling in their behalf. My labor is naturally cla.s.sed under the three heads of Education, Labor, and Law. A proper education must prepare woman for labor, skilled or manual; and the experience of a laborer should introduce her to citizenship, for it provides her with rights to protect, privileges to secure, and property to be taxed. If she is a laborer, she must have an interest in the laws which control labor. In considering our position in these three respects, it is impossible to offer you a digest of all that has occurred during the last six years. What I have to say will refer chiefly to the events of the last two.

EDUCATION.

I wish it were in my power to furnish you with reports of the present condition of all the female colleges in the United States; but, while I receive from various foreign sources such reports, and am promptly informed of any educational movement in Europe, it never seems to occur to the government of such inst.i.tutions in the United States that there is any necessary connection between them and the interests which this Convention represents. We are, consequently, dependent upon newspapers for our information.

The most important educational movement of the last year has been the formation of an American Social Science a.s.sociation, with four departments, and two women on its Board of Directors. Subsequently, the Boston Social Science a.s.sociation was organized, with seven departments, and seven women on its Board of Directors, one woman being a.s.signed to each department, including that of law. Any woman in the United States can become a member of this a.s.sociation. If the opportunities it offers are not seized, it will be the fault of women themselves.

During the past winter the Lowell Inst.i.tute, in Boston, in connection with the government of the Ma.s.sachusetts Technological Inst.i.tute, took a step which deserves our public mention. They advertised cla.s.ses for both s.e.xes, under the most eligible professors, for instruction in French, mathematics, and natural science. As the training was to be thorough, the number of pupils was limited, and the _women_ who applied would have filled the seats many times over. These cla.s.ses have been wholly free, and have added to the obligation which the free Art School for women had already conferred.

Elmira College showed its enterprise last summer by a visit to Ma.s.sachusetts, and Va.s.sar College was organized and commenced its operations in September, with Miss Mitch.e.l.l in the Chair of Mathematics, and Miss Avery in that of Physiology. I attempted to visit this inst.i.tution last summer for the purpose of investigating the facilities its buildings and proposed courses might offer to foreign students. The reluctance of the Trustees to subject it to observation so early in its career interfered with my plan, but I have since received a letter from Miss Mitch.e.l.l speaking of it in the most encouraging terms. "I have a cla.s.s," she says, "of seventeen pupils, between the ages of 16 and 22. They come to me for fifty minutes every day. I allow them great freedom in questioning, and I am puzzled by them daily. They show more mathematical ability and more originality of thought than I had expected. I doubt whether young men would show as deep an interest. Are there seventeen students in Harvard College who take mathematical astronomy, do you think?" So Mr. Va.s.sar's magnificent donation is drawing interest at last.

On the 25th of June, 1865, the Ripley College, at Poultney, Vermont, celebrated its commencement. Seventeen young ladies were graduated.