The History of Woman Suffrage Volume I Part 101

3d. _Resolved_, That for the men of this land to claim for themselves the elective franchise, and the right to choose their own rulers and enact their own laws, as essential to their freedom, safety, and welfare, and then to deprive all the women of all these safeguards, solely on the ground of a difference of s.e.x, is to evince the pride of self-esteem, the meanness of usurpation, and the folly of a self-a.s.sumed superiority.

4th. _Resolved_, That woman, as well as man, has a right to the highest mental and physical development; to the most ample educational advantages; to the occupancy of whatever position she can reach, in Church and State, in science and art, in poetry and music, in painting and sculpture, in civil jurisprudence and political economy, and in all the varied departments of human industry, enterprise, and skill; to the elective franchise, and to a voice in the administration of justice, and the pa.s.sage of laws for the general welfare.

5th. _Resolved_, That to pretend that the granting of these claims would tend to make woman less amiable and attractive, less regardful of her peculiar duties and obligations as wife and mother, a wanderer from her proper sphere, bringing confusion into domestic life, and strife into the public a.s.sembly, is the cant of Papal Rome as to the discordant and infidel tendencies of the right of private judgment in matters of faith; is the outcry of legitimacy as to the incapacity of the people to govern themselves; is the false allegations which selfish and timid conservatism is ever making against every new measure of reform, and has no foundation in reason, experience, fact, or philosophy.

6th. _Resolved_, That the consequences arising from the exclusion of woman from the possession and exercise of her natural rights and the cultivation of her mental faculties, have been calamitous to the whole human race; making her servile, dependent, unwomanly; the victim of a false gallantry on the one hand, and of tyrannous subjection on the other; obstructing her mental growth, crippling her physical development, and incapacitating her for general usefulness; and thus inflicting an injury upon all born of woman, and cultivating in man a lordly and arrogant spirit, a love of dominion, a disposition to lightly regard her comfort and happiness, all which have been indulged to a fearful extent, to the curse of his own soul and the desecration of her nature.

7th. _Resolved_, That so long as the most ignorant, degraded, and worthless men are freely admitted to the ballot-box, and practically acknowledged to be competent to determine who shall be in office and how the Government shall be administered, it is preposterous to pretend that women are not qualified to use the elective franchise, and that they are fit only to be recognized, politically speaking, as _non compos mentis_.

REBECCA M. SANFORD TO THE CLEVELAND CONVENTION.

NEW LONDON, HURON CO., O., _October 3, 1853_.

FRIENDS OF REFORM:--Not being present at the Convention, I can but express my interest by a few lines.

The mere question of woman's civil rights is not a deep one, for it is a natural one, and closely follows her mission in this world. She was not created anything else than a helpmeet to man, and where to limit that a.s.sistance there is no rule in nature, except her physical functions; _there is a limit in law_, but whether the law has the right to place her where she is, is the question. It must be conceded that the law has drawn too great an inference from her ancient social att.i.tude, and from present custom and prejudice. But has the law the right to be prejudiced--ought it not to stand pure, and n.o.ble, and magnanimous, founded on the natural rights of the human soul? The law grants woman protection; it also grants negroes, animals, and property protection in their certain spheres. It gives no more to woman.

Woman's sphere is her capability of performing her duty to herself, her family, and to society, taking self-preservation as the first law of her nature. At present she does not fully act in her sphere. The lid of the ballot-box shuts out more than one-half of her duty to herself, family, and society. The eye of the law is diseased, and woman must be made a.s.sistant occulist, to render that eye pure and single-sighted. Let not this Convention close until some way and means are decided upon to secure woman's vote at the polls. The propriety or impropriety of the same place and box and other objections, can be disposed of in a short time, as occasion requires.

This done, the monster evils of society, Intemperance, etc., can be handled with ungloved hands.

At this time, as far as custom, made potent by law, permits woman to lead her sons on in the journey of life, she keeps them pure and unspotted from the world; but where she leaves off, h.e.l.l's avenues are opened, and man too often leads them through.

Allow me, as one who has been obliged to look upon our Conventions from many points of observation, and to note their effects upon the community by actual communication with that community; as one who feels identified in principle and purpose, to suggest perfect unity and but few resolutions, and those well-digested and fully acted upon.

Beware of _ultraisms_. Give a high tone and elevation to your deliberations; bring out the true, the beautiful, the divine of your own souls, to meet the true, the grand, the divine inspirations of this agitation.

One thing else I would strongly recommend. Let no gentleman be appointed to office in the Convention, or by the Convention. You will then secure yourselves from outside coa.r.s.eness, and secure to yourselves greater respect from the public at large. If you do not come to this _now_, you will be obliged to come to it before you receive the credit for a _wisdom_ you justly deserve.

May G.o.d guide you and bless you.

Yours, strong in the right, REBECCA M. SANFORD.

SIXTH NATIONAL WOMAN'S RIGHTS CONVENTION, CINCINNATI, OHIO, 1856.

OFFICERS:

_President_--Martha C. Wright, New York.

_Vice-Presidents_--Ernestine L. Rose, New York; James Mott, Pennsylvania; Frances D. Gage, Missouri; Hannah Tracy Cutler, Emily Robinson, Ohio; Euphemia Cochrain, Michigan; Paulina Wright Davis, Rhode Island.

_Business Committee_--Lucy Stone Blackwell, Ohio; Lucretia Mott, Pennsylvania; Josephine S. Griffing, Adelaide Swift, Henry B.

Blackwell, Ohio.

_Secretaries_--Rebecca Plumly, Pennsylvania; Wm. Henry Smith, editor of _The Type of the Times_.

RESOLUTIONS.

WHEREAS, All men are created equal and endowed with certain inalienable rights, and that among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness; and,

WHEREAS, To secure these rights governments are inst.i.tuted among them, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed; therefore

_Resolved_, That the legislators of these United States are self-convicted of the grossest injustice and of inconsistency with their own admitted principles, while they refuse these rights to women.

_Resolved_, That taxation without representation is tyranny.

_Resolved_, That in accordance with an universally admitted and self-evident truth, woman should possess the elective franchise, as a basis of all legal and political rights, as the only effective protection of their interests, as a remedy against present oppression, and as a school for character.

_Resolved_, That the right to acquire knowledge should be limited only by the capacity of the individual; and, therefore, we deprecate, especially, that social usage, inexorable as a written statute, which excludes woman from all our best colleges, universities, schools of law, medicine, and divinity, and that we demand equal scholastic advantages for our daughters and our sons; that while only three out of the one hundred and fifty American colleges are open to women, and while every avenue to scientific and professional culture is closed against her, it is unfair to judge woman by the same intellectual standard as man, and impossible to define a limit to her capacities and talents.

_Resolved_, That the inadequate compensation which the labor of women now commands, is the source of inexpressible individual misery and social demoralization; that inasmuch as the law of supply and demand will always regulate the remuneration of labor, the diversity of female employments and her free access to every branch of business, are indispensable to the virtue, happiness, and well-being of society.

CHAPTER VIII.

Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

_First Worcester Convention, 1850._

NAMES OF PERSONS WHO SIGNED THE CALL OF 1850.

Ma.s.sACHUSETTS.

Lucy Stone, B. S. Treanor, Dr. Seth Rogers, Wm. H. Channing, Mary M. Brooks, Eliza F. Taft, Harriot K. Hunt, T. W. Higginson, Dr. A. C. Taft, A. Bronson Alcott, Mary E. Higginson, Charles K. Whipple, Nathaniel Barney, Emily Winslow, Mary Bullard, Eliza Barney, R. Waldo Emerson, Emma C. Goodwin, Wendell Phillips, William L. Garrison, Abby Price, Ann Greene Phillips, Helen E. Garrison, Thankful Southwick, Adin Ballou, Charles F. Hovey, Eliza J. Kenney, Anna Q. T. Parsons, Sarah Earle Louisa M. Sewall, Mary H. L. Cabot, Abby K. Foster Sarah Southwick.

RHODE ISLAND.

Sarah H. Whitman, Sarah Brown, George Clarke, Thomas Davis, Elizabeth B. Chace, Mary Adams, Paulina W. Davis, Mary Clarke, George Adams.

Joseph A. Barker, John L. Clarke,

NEW YORK

Gerrit Smith, Charlotte G. Coffin, Joseph Savage, Nancy Smith, Mary G. Taber, L. N. Fowler, Elizabeth C. Stanton, Elizabeth S. Miller, Lydia Fowler, Catharine Wilkinson, Elizabeth Russell, Sarah Smith, Samuel J. May, Stephen Smith, Charles D. Miller.

Charlotte C. May, Rosa Smith,

PENNSYLVANIA.

William Elder, Jane G. Swisshelm, Myra Townsend, Sarah Elder, Charlotte Darlington, Mary Grew, Sarah Tyndale, Simon Barnard, Sarah Lewis, Warner Justice, Lucretia Mott, Sarah Pugh, Huldah Justice, James Mott, Hannah Darlington, William Swisshelm, W. S. Pierce, Sarah D. Barnard.

MARYLAND.

Mrs. Eliza Stewart.

OHIO.