The History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 28

(That's so.)

Mr. TRAIN at Leavenworth, the day before the election: "A great empire, and little minds go ill together," said Lord Bacon. "The sober second thought of the people," said Van Buren, "is never wrong, and always efficient." To-morrow it will be shown by voting for our mother and our sister. (Loud applause.) Never before were so many rats fleeing from a sinking ship. (Laughter.) A few staunch men will receive their reward. Falsehood pa.s.ses away. Truth is eternal. (Applause.) The woman suffrage a.s.sociation wants a few thousand dollars to pay off this expensive canva.s.s. Miss Anthony has distributed two thousand pounds weight of tracts and pamphlets. (Applause.) Mrs. Stanton, Miss Olympia Brown and Mrs. Lucy Stone, have been for months in all parts of the State. Kansas has furnished no part of the fund which makes her to-morrow the envy of the world. (Cheers.) For the benefit of the a.s.sociation I have promised on my return from Omaha to make seven speeches in the largest cities; the entire proceeds to be given to this grand cause--I paying my own expenses as in this campaign. (Loud cheers for Train.) We commence at St. Louis about the 20th, thence to Chicago, Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Boston and New York.

(Cheers.) The burden of my thought will be the future of America; my mission, with the aid of women, to reconstruct the country and save the nation. (Cheers.) To-morrow our amendment will pa.s.s with a startling majority. The other two will be lost.

(Applause.) The negro can wait and go to school. And as all are now loyal, the war over, and no rebels exist, no American in this land must be marked by the stain of attainder or impeachment.

(Cheers.) No so-called rebel must be disfranchised. I represent the people, and they speak to-morrow in Kansas, emanc.i.p.ating woman, (loud cheers), and declaring that no Hungary, no Poland, no Venice, no Ireland--crushed and disheartened--shall exist in New America. (Loud cheers.)

But Kansas being republican by a large majority, there was no chance of victory. For although the women were supported by some of the best men in the State, such as Gov. Crawford, Ex-Gov. Robinson, United States Senators Pomeroy and Ross, and a few of the ablest editors, the opposition was too strong to be conquered. With both parties, the press, the pulpit and faithless liberals as opponents, the hopes of the advocates of woman suffrage began to falter before the election.

The action of the Michigan Commission, in refusing to submit a similar amendment to her people, and the adverse report of Mr. Greeley in the Const.i.tutional Convention of New York, had also their depressing influence. Nevertheless, when election day came, the vote was nearly equal for both propositions. With all the enginery of the controlling party negro suffrage had a little over 10,000 votes, while woman suffrage without press or party, friends or politicians, had 9,000 and some over. And this vote for woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt represented the best elements in the State, men of character and conscience, who believed in social order and good government.

When Eastern Republicans learned that the action of their party in Kansas was doing more damage than the question of woman to the negro, since the pioneers, who knew how bravely the women had stood by their side amid all dangers, were saying, "if our women can not vote, the negro shall not;" they began to take in the situation, and a month before the election issued the following appeal, signed by some of the most influential men of the nation. It was published in the New York _Tribune_ October 1st, and copied by most of the papers throughout the State of Kansas:

_To the Voters of the United States_:

In this hour of national reconstruction we appeal to good men of all parties, to Conventions for amending State Const.i.tutions, to the Legislature of every State, and to the Congress of the United States, to apply the principles of the Declaration of Independence to women; "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." The only form of consent recognized under a Republic is suffrage. Mere tacit acquiescence is not consent; if it were, every despotism might claim that its power is justly held. Suffrage is the right of every adult citizen, irrespective of s.e.x or color. Women are governed, therefore they are rightly ent.i.tled to vote.

The problem of American statesmanship is how to incorporate in our inst.i.tutions a guarantee of the rights of every individual.

The solution is easy. Base government on the consent of the governed, and each cla.s.s will protect itself.[83]

But the appeal was too late, the mischief done was irreparable. The action of the Republican party had created a hostile feeling between the women and the colored people. The men of Kansas in their speeches would say, "What would be to us the comparative advantage of the amendments? If negro suffrage pa.s.ses, we will be flooded with ignorant, impoverished blacks from every State of the Union. If woman suffrage pa.s.ses, we invite to our borders people of character and position, of wealth and education, the very element Kansas needs to-day. Who can hesitate to decide, when the question lies between educated women and ignorant negroes?" Such appeals as these were made by men of Kansas to hundreds of audiences. On this appeal the New York _Tribune_ said editorially:

KANSAS--WOMAN AS A VOTER.--We publish herewith an appeal, most influentially signed, to the voters of Kansas, urging them to support the pending Const.i.tutional Amendment whereby the Right of Suffrage is extended to Women under like conditions with men. The gravity combined with the comparative novelty of the proposition should secure it the most candid and thoughtful consideration.

We hold fast to the cardinal doctrine of our fathers' Declaration of Independence--that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." If, therefore, the women of Kansas, or of any other State, desire, as a cla.s.s, to be invested with the Right of Suffrage, we hold it their clear right to be. We do not hold, and can not admit, that a small minority of the s.e.x, however earnest and able, have any such right.

It is plain that the experiment of Female Suffrage is to be tried; and, while we regard it with distrust, we are quite willing to see it pioneered by Kansas. She is a young State, and has a memorable history, wherein her women have borne an honorable part. She is preponderantly agricultural, with but one city of any size, and very few of her women are other than pure and intelligent. They have already been authorized to vote on the question of liquor license, and in the choice of school officers, and, we are a.s.sured, with decidedly good results. If, then, a majority of them really desire to vote, we, if we lived in Kansas, should vote to give them the opportunity.

Upon a full and fair trial, we believe they would conclude that the right of suffrage for woman was, on the whole, rather a plague than a profit, and vote to resign it into the hands of their husbands and fathers. We think so, because we now so seldom find women plowing, or teaming, or mowing (with machines), though there is no other obstacle to their so doing than their own sense of fitness, and though some women, under peculiar circ.u.mstances, laudably do all these things. We decidedly object to having ten women in every hundred compel the other ninety to vote, or allow the ten to carry elections against the judgment of the ninety; but, if the great body of the women of Kansas wish to vote, we counsel the men to accord them the opportunity. Should the experiment work as we apprehend, they will soon be glad to give it up.

Whereupon, the Atchison _Daily Champion_, John A. Martin, editor, retorted:

TAKE IT YOURSELVES.--Thirty-one gentlemen, all but six of whom live in States that have utterly refused to have anything to do with the issue of "female suffrage," unite in an address, to apply, as they say, the "principles of the Declaration of Independence to women;" and make a specious, flimsy, and ridiculous little argument in favor of their appeal.

It is a pity that comments in the main so sensible, should be marred by a few statements as ridiculous as is the trashy address to which the article refers. It is the old cry that "female suffrage," a novel proposition, although justly regarded with distrust and suspicion by all right-thinking people; although not demanded by even a considerable minority of the women themselves; and although an "experiment" which may rudely disturb the best elements of our society and civilization, may be tried in Kansas!

"We regard it with distrust," says the _Tribune_, "but are quite willing to see it tried in Kansas." "Upon a full and fair trial,"

it continues, "we believe they (the women) would conclude that the right of suffrage for women was, on the whole, rather a plague than a profit, and vote to resign it into the hands of their husbands and fathers." But it "decidedly objects to having ten women in every hundred compel the other ninety to vote, or to allow the ten to carry elections against the judgment of ninety."

These expressions of grave doubt as to the expediency of "female suffrage," together with the fact that the editor of the _Tribune_, in his report as chairman of the Suffrage Committee in the New York Const.i.tutional Convention, declared this new hobby "an innovation revolutionary and sweeping, openly at war with a distribution of duties and functions between the s.e.xes as venerable and pervading as government itself," make the _Tribune's_ recommendation that we shall "try the experiment in Kansas" rather amusing as well as impudent.

There is not a man nor a woman endowed with ordinary common sense who does not know that Kansas is the last State that should be asked to try this dangerous and doubtful experiment. Our society is just forming, our inst.i.tutions are crude. Ever since the organization of the Territory, we have lived a life of wild excitement, plunging from one trouble into another so fast that we have never had a breathing-spell, and we need, more than any other people on the globe, immunity from disturbing experiments on novel questions of doubtful expediency. We can not afford to risk our future prosperity and happiness in making an innovation so questionable. We want peace, and must have it. Let Ma.s.sachusetts or New York, or some older State, therefore, try this nauseating dose. If it does not kill them, or if it proves healthful and beneficial, we guarantee that Kansas will not be long in swallowing it. But the stomach of our State, if we may be permitted to use the expression, is, as yet, too tender and febrific to allow such a fearful deglut.i.tion.

REMINISCENCES BY HELEN EKIN STARRETT.

After the first Const.i.tutional Convention in which Mrs. C. I. H.

Nichols did such valuable service for the cause of woman, the question of woman suffrage in some shape or other was introduced into every succeeding Legislature. In January, 1867, the Legislature met at Topeka. Immediately upon the organization of the Senate on the 9th, Hon. B. F. Simpson of Miami Co., introduced an amendment to strike the word "white" from the suffrage clause of the State Const.i.tution. Hon. S. N. Wood, Senator from Chase Co., within five minutes introduced a resolution to strike the word "male" from the same clause. This resolution was made the special order for Thursday the 10th, when it pa.s.sed the Senate by a vote of nineteen to five. Of the five noes, four were Republicans, the other a Democrat. Thus Mr. Wood, although he started second, got ahead in the pa.s.sing of his resolution. The resolution of Hon. B. F. Simpson was referred to the committee of the whole. When it came up Hon. S. N. Wood moved to amend by also striking out the word "male," and in this shape it pa.s.sed.

The House amended by striking out the amendment of Mr. Wood. The Senate, however, insisted on its re-instatement; the Democrats and a majority of the Republicans standing by Mr. Wood. The fight continued for over a month. The question came up in all stages and shapes from the House; but Mr. Wood was always ready for them with his woman suffrage amendment, and the Senate stood by him.

The friends of negro suffrage tried hard to get him to yield and let their resolution through, but he was firm in his refusal, saying he advocated both, "but if we can have but one, let the negro wait." On the 12th day of February Hon. W. W. Updegraff, a member of the House and an ardent supporter of both woman and negro suffrage, went to Mr. Wood and urged a compromise. After a long discussion two separate resolutions were prepared by Mr.

Wood, one for woman suffrage, the other for negro suffrage, and these Mr. Updegraff introduced into the House the same day. The next day the vote on the woman suffrage resolution came up and stood fifty-two to twenty-five. Not being a two-thirds vote, the resolution was lost.

On the 14th the negro suffrage resolution came up and pa.s.sed by a vote of sixty-one to fourteen. The vote on woman suffrage was then re-considered, and after an a.s.surance from Mr. Updegraff that negro suffrage could be secured in no other way, it pa.s.sed by a vote of sixty-two to nineteen, getting one more vote than negro suffrage. These resolutions were promptly reported to the Senate, and on motion of S. N. Wood, the woman suffrage resolution was pa.s.sed by over a two-thirds vote. The negro suffrage resolution was amended, and after a bitter fight was pa.s.sed. Thus these separate resolutions were both submitted to a vote of the people. The Legislature adjourned about the 12th of March. Hon. S. N. Wood immediately prepared a notice of a meeting to be held in Topeka on the 2d of April to organize a canva.s.s for impartial suffrage without regard to s.e.x or color. This was published in the _State Record_ with the statement that it was by the request of Hon. S. N. Wood; it was copied by all the papers of the State. Mr. Wood, ex-Governor Robinson, and others, wrote to many prominent advocates East asking them to be present at the Topeka meeting. It was soon known that Lucy Stone and Henry B.

Blackwell would be there, and a very great and general interest was aroused on the question.

April 2d at length arrived, and although it was a season of terrible mud and rain, and there were no railroads, a very large audience a.s.sembled. Hon. S. N. Wood rode eighty miles on horseback to attend the meeting. Lucy Stone and Mr. Blackwell were present. A permanent organization was effected, with Governor S. J. Crawford as President; Lieutenant-Governor Green, Vice-President; Rev. Lewis Bodwell and Miss Mary Paty, Recording Secretaries; and S. N. Wood, Corresponding Secretary. A letter was at once prepared and addressed to all the prominent men in the State, asking them to aid in the canva.s.s. Letters in reply poured in from the gentlemen addressed, giving a.s.surance of sympathy and declaring themselves in favor of the movement. A thorough canva.s.s of the State was at once inaugurated. Lucy Stone was invited and lectured in Lawrence, Leavenworth, Topeka, and Atchison, to crowded houses, giving the proceeds to the cause.

Hon. S. N. Wood gave his whole time to the canva.s.s, speaking with Lucy Stone and Mr. Blackwell in nearly all the towns in the western and northern part of the State. Mrs. Stone and Mr.

Blackwell visited nearly every organized county. As we have said before, there were no railroads, and it was at an immense expense of bodily fatigue that they accomplished their journeys, often in the rudest conveyances and exposed to the raw, bl.u.s.tering winds of a Kansas spring. Their meetings, however, were "ovations." Men and women everywhere were completely won by the gentle, persuasive, earnest addresses of Lucy Stone, while their newly aroused interest was informed and strengthened by the logical arguments and irresistible facts of Mr. Blackwell.

The religious denominations in Kansas from the first gave their countenance to the movement, and clergymen of all denominations were found speaking in its favor. At Olathe, the Old School Presbytery was in session at the time of Lucy Stone's meeting there. It was an unheard-of occurrence that the body adjourned its evening session to allow her to occupy the church. All the members of the Presbytery who heard her were enthusiastic in her praise. We remember a meeting in Topeka at which the Rev. Dr.

Ekin,[84] then pastor of the Old School Presbyterian church, very effectively summed up in a public address all the arguments of the opposition by relating the story of the Canadian Indian who, when told of the greatness of England, and also that it was governed by a queen, a woman, turned away with an incredulous expression of contempt, exclaiming, "Ugh! Squaw!" The effect upon the audience was tremendous. At the same time letters of cheer and encouragement were pouring in from prominent workers all over the country. John Stuart Mill, of England, wrote to Hon. S. N.

Wood full of hope and interest for the success of the movement:

BLACKHEATH PARK, KENT, ENGLAND, _June 2, 1867_.

DEAR SIR: Being one who takes as deep and as continuous an interest in the political, moral, and social progress of the United States as if he were himself an American citizen, I hope I shall not be intrusive if I express to you as the executive organ of the Impartial Suffrage a.s.sociation, the deep joy I felt on learning that both branches of the Legislature of Kansas had, by large majorities, proposed for the approval of your citizens an amendment to your const.i.tution, abolishing the unjust political privileges of s.e.x at one and the same stroke with the kindred privilege of color. We are accustomed to see Kansas foremost in the struggle for the equal claims of all human beings to freedom and citizenship. I shall never forget with what profound interest I and others who felt with me watched every incident of the preliminary civil war in which your n.o.ble State, then only a Territory, preceded the great nation of which it is a part, in shedding its blood to arrest the extension of slavery.

Kansas was the herald and protagonist of the memorable contest, which at the cost of so many heroic lives, has admitted the African race to the blessings of freedom and education, and she is now taking the same advanced position in the peaceful but equally important contest which, by relieving half the human race from artificial disabilities belonging to the ideas of a past age, will give a new impulse and improved character to the career of social and moral progress now opening for mankind. If your citizens, next November, give effect to the enlightened views of your Legislature, history will remember that one of the youngest States in the civilized world has been the first to adopt a measure of liberation destined to extend all over the earth, and to be looked back to (as is my fixed conviction) as one of the most fertile in beneficial consequences of all the improvements yet effected in human affairs. I am, sir, with the warmest wishes for the prosperity of Kansas,

Yours very truly, J. STUART MILL.

To S. N. Wood, Topeka, Kansas, U. S. A.

Rev. Olympia Brown came to Kansas the 1st of July, and made an effective and extensive canva.s.s of the State, often holding three meetings a day. Other speakers, both from home and abroad, were vigorously engaged in the work, and the friends of the movement believed, not without cause, that Kansas would be the first State to grant suffrage to women. Had the election been held in May while the tide of public opinion ran so high in their favor, there is little doubt that both resolutions would have been carried unanimously. To explain the causes that led to the defeat of both propositions, I quote from a letter of Hon. S. N. Wood, in reply to questions addressed him as to certain facts of the campaign. He writes: "About May 2d, C. V. Eskridge of Emporia wrote a very scurrilous article against woman suffrage. It filled three columns of _The News_. In it he denounced the lady speakers in the most abusive manner, ridiculing them with insulting epithets. About the middle of May F. H. Drenning, Chairman of the Republican State Committee, called a meeting of that committee to make arrangements to canva.s.s the State for negro suffrage. The committee met and published an address in favor of manhood suffrage, and said nothing as to woman suffrage.

Shortly afterwards the same committee summoned C. V. Eskridge, T.

C. Sears, P. B. Plumb, I. D. Snoddy, B. F. Simpson, J. B. Scott, H. N. Bent, Jas. G. Blunt, A. Akin, and G. W. Crawford--all opposed to woman suffrage--to make a canva.s.s for negro suffrage.

They were instructed that "they would be allowed to express their own sentiments on other questions." This meant that these men would favor negro suffrage, but would oppose woman suffrage. This at once antagonized the two questions, and we all felt that the death blow had been struck at both."

Early in September, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony came to the State to a.s.sist in the canva.s.s; and certainly if indefatigable labor and eloquent addresses could have repaired the mischief done by the State Republican Committee, the cause would yet have triumphed. At all places where they spoke they had crowded houses, and everywhere made the warmest friends by their truly admirable personal qualities.[85] The amount of work performed by these two ladies was immense. Mrs. Stanton, escorted by Ex-Gov. Robinson spoke in nearly every county of the State.

Miss Anthony remained at Lawrence working indefatigably in planning and advertising meetings, distributing tracts, sending posters to different places, and attending to all the minutiae and drudgery of an extensive campaign. Often have I regarded with admiration the self-sacrificing spirit with which she arranged matters for others, did the hard and disagreeable work, and then saw others carry off the honor and glory, without once seeming to think of her services or the recognition due them.[86]

In a letter, summing up the campaign, Hon. S. N. Wood said, "On the 25th of September, an address was published signed by over forty men, the most prominent in the State; such men as Senator Pomeroy, Senator Ross, Gov. Crawford, Lt. Gov. Green, Ex-Gov.

Robinson, and others, in favor of woman suffrage, but the cause of both began to lag. Sears, Eskridge, Kalloch, Plumb, Simpson, Scott, Bent, and others, made a very bitter campaign against woman suffrage. About the middle of October George Francis Train commenced a canva.s.s of the State for woman suffrage and the questions became more and more antagonized. The last few days a regular Kilkenny fight was carried on." I will here take occasion to record that several of the gentlemen who then canva.s.sed the State against woman suffrage have since announced a reconsideration of their views; some of them have even stated that were the question to come up again they would publicly advocate it.

An address was prepared by the Woman's Impartial Suffrage a.s.sociation of Lawrence[87] which was widely circulated and copied even in England. This address was signed by a large number of the prominent ladies of Lawrence. Miss Anthony often said that Lawrence was the headquarters of the movement. Every clergyman, every judge, both the papers and a large proportion of the prominent citizens were in favor of it. And with our State University located here with over three hundred students, one half of whom are ladies, we still claim Lawrence as the headquarters of the friends of woman suffrage.

The work of George Francis Train has been much and variously commented upon. Certainly when he was in Kansas he was at the height of his prosperity and popularity, and in appearance, manners and conversation, was a perfect, though somewhat unique specimen of a courtly, elegant gentleman. He was full of enthusiasm and confident he would be the next President. He drew immense and enthusiastic audiences everywhere, and was a special favorite with the laboring cla.s.ses on account of the reforms he promised to bring about when he should be President. Well do I remember one poor woman, a frantic advocate of woman suffrage, who b.u.t.ton-holed everybody who spoke a word against Train to beg them to desist; a.s.suring them "that he was the special instrument of Providence to gain for us the Irish vote."

Both propositions got about 10,000 votes, and both were defeated.

After the canva.s.s the excitement died away and the Suffrage a.s.sociations fell through, but the seed sown has silently taken root and sprung up everywhere. Or rather, the truths then spoken, and the arguments presented, sinking into the minds and hearts of the men and women who heard them, have been like leaven, slowly but surely operating until it seems to many that nearly the whole public sentiment of Kansas is therewith leavened. A most liberal sentiment prevails everywhere toward women. Many are engaged in lucrative occupations. In several counties ladies have been elected superintendents of public schools. In Coffey County, the election of Mary P. Wright, was contested on the ground that by the Const.i.tution a woman was ineligible to the office. The case was decided by the Supreme Court in her favor. By our laws women vote on all school questions and avail themselves very extensively of the privilege. Our property laws are conceded to be the most just to women of any State in the Union. It is believed by many that were the question of woman suffrage again submitted to the people it would be carried by an overwhelming majority.

The following letter from Susan E. Wattles, the widow of the pioneer, Augustus Wattles, shows woman's interest in the great struggle to make Kansas the banner State of universal freedom and franchise.

MOUND CITY, _December 30, 1881_.

MY DEAR MISS ANTHONY:--Here, as in New York, the first in the woman suffrage cause were those who had been the most earnest workers for freedom. They had come to Kansas to prevent its being made a slave State. The most the women could do was to bear their privations patiently, such as living in a tent in a log cabin, without any floor all winter, or in a cabin ten feet square, and cooking out of doors by the side of a log, giving up their beds to the sick, and being ready, night or day, to feed the men who were running for their lives. Then there was the ever present fear that their husbands would be shot. The most obnoxious had a price set upon their heads. A few years ago a man said: "I could have got $1,000 once for shooting Wattles, and I wish now I had done it." When in Ohio, our house was often the temporary home of the hunted slave; but in Kansas it was the _white_ man who ran from our door to the woods because he saw strangers coming.

After the question of a free State seemed settled, we who had thought and talked on woman's rights before we came to Kansas, concluded that now was the woman's hour. We determined to strive to obtain Const.i.tutional rights, as they would be more secure than Legislative enactments. On the 13th of February, 1858, we organized the Moneka Woman's Rights Society. There were only twelve of us, but we went to work circulating pet.i.tions and writing to every one in the Territory whom we thought would aid us. Our number was afterwards increased to forty; fourteen of them were men. We sent pet.i.tions to Territorial Legislatures, Const.i.tutional Conventions, State Legislatures, and Congress.