The History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 56

But, ladies and gentlemen, aside from badinage, for the subject is too grave and too solemn, it comes back to this thing. The Const.i.tution of the United States solemnly declares that every person born and naturalized in the United States, and within its jurisdiction, are citizens; and that no State shall pa.s.s, or enforce a law to abrogate the privileges and immunities of citizenship. We do not need any XVI. Amendment. We need only intelligent, firm decisive, and deciding--reasonably brave courts, and to have a question made and brought to their adjudication. I propose to offer Mrs. Griffing and two or three other ladies for registration, two or three months hence, when the time comes, here. (Applause.) If they are not registered, I propose to try the strength of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, composed of five intelligent gentlemen, and known not to be conservatives on some questions, whatever they will prove to be on this, and see whether they will issue a mandamus.

If they won't, I will take the case to the Supreme Court of the United States, and one of the present judges of that Court, who is not pre-eminently in favor of what is called woman's rights, recently pa.s.sed upon this XIV. Amendment. In the case of the "Live Stock Dealers" et al. _vs._ "The Crescent City Live Stock Company," in the circuit court of the United States, at New Orleans, Judge Bradley, of the Supreme Court of the United States, said of the XIV. Amendment:

"It is possible that those who framed the article were not themselves aware of the far-reaching character of its terms.

They may have had in mind but one particular phase of social and political wrong, which they desired to redress. Yet, if the amendment, as framed and expressed, does, in fact, bear a broader meaning, and does extend its protecting shield over those who were never thought of when it was conceived and put in form, and does reach such social evils which were never before prohibited by Const.i.tutional Amendment, it is to be presumed that the American people, in giving it their imprimatur, understood what they were doing, and meant to decree what has, in fact, been done.

"It embraces much more. The 'privileges and immunities'

secured by the original Const.i.tution were only such as each State gave to its own citizens. Each was prohibited from discriminating in favor of its own citizens, and against the citizens of other States.

"But the XIV. Amendment prohibits any State from abridging the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States, whether its own citizens or any others. It not merely requires equality of privileges, but it demands that the privileges and immunities of all citizens shall be absolutely unabridged, unimpaired."--_Mrs. Bradwell's Legal News._

What "particular phase of social and political wrong" could have been in the mind of the clear-seeing judge when he gave forth these utterances?

Gentlemen and ladies, when I stand in the presence of and contemplate for a moment this great XIV. Article, the crown of the now perfected Const.i.tution, I bow with amazed reverence to it. It shines upon me with the light of a new revelation. And this argument is great from no effort of mine, but great in its power of self-enunciation. This article is one of those great principles that come, Messiah like, to announce themselves. It needed no forerunner, and it works its own miracles in its own good time, and will convert all to its own sway, and to its own purposes. And, I trust that ere long we shall hear from the committee of the House upon this question, and that we shall get enlightened and intelligent discussion of it in the House of the American Representatives.

Here the argument closes, but suffer a word further. It is said that woman does not want the suffrage. Who says that she does not want it? Man says so and n.o.body else. Man asks the question, and answers it himself. I know it often comes from female lips, but it is man's answer.

I deny that women have declared that they don't want the ballot.

They have never been asked whether they want it. When we want a response from men how do we propound the question? We submit it formally to be voted upon by the ballot. That is the way we propound a political question to men. How do they answer it? They answer it by their solemn votes at the ballot box. Propound this question, and in this solemn way to the women of the United States. Pa.s.s a law to that effect and take a vote, or else forever stop--close up all gabble on this subject, that women do not want it. Offer her the chance by which she can speak and see whether she wants it or not, and let her vote "yes" or "no." Then from that we will take another start. But don't refuse to let her answer, and a.s.sume to answer for her, and say you represent her.

You barely succeed in misrepresenting men at your best, let alone this atrocious twaddle about representing women. Let her vote, and then we can tell whether you have a right to represent her or not.

We men have made the inst.i.tutions for men, and for men alone; never consulted woman. We have said she was n.o.body, and nowhere, or, if she was found anywhere she was out of her sphere, (laughter) and must go back to nowhere immediately, and to n.o.body. We have gravely a.s.sumed that we understood her nature and character better than she did herself. It is one of the wondrous elements of the s.e.xes that they shall perpetually reveal themselves to each other, and neither shall ever fully comprehend the other. Let woman speak for herself. Give her a chance to speak as man speaks, by precisely the same language, and in the same manner, and then reverently incline your heads, and listen to what she says.

I have said this great question is up for final argument. My mission was simply to present to you this dry, but very interesting question of woman's rights, under the XIV. Amendment.

To my mind, the argument is perfectly invincible. It never can be met, and never will be, and it will, ultimately work out its own end.

Thanking you for the kindness with which you have listened to me, I leave this matter with you.

ADDRESS OF MRS. ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER.

Mrs. HOOKER said: We are told by men themselves that there are too many voters already; restriction is what we want, not enlargement of the suffrage. Let us see how this is, my friends--let us reason together on this point for a few moments.

The one great propelling power of this Government that moves the great political engine, and that keeps us alive as a Nation on the face of the earth, is G.o.d's own doctrine of personal liberty and personal responsibility. That is all we have to go upon. It is, in fact, fuel and steam. Liberty is the steam, responsibility puts on the brakes, and then what is the safety-valve, I ask you?

Is it not our election day? Look at it in this way. Every honest lawyer will tell you that the next best thing to settling a quarrel between two belligerents is to bring the parties into court. Because the court-room is a great cooling off place, a perfect refrigerator. A man who has quarreled with his neighbor comes into court, and, before the lawyers get through with him, he wishes he hadn't quarreled. How is it that our courts act in this way? What do we gain in this? Everything. In old times a dispute between man and man was settled by blows--fisticuffs--gradually superseded by the sword, at last by the pistol; and now we have thrown that out, and established a system of jurisprudence. Now all these petty grievances must be settled in court. Private violence must no longer be permitted, and that is a great march in civilization.

The parallel case is this: We in this country--we men, I mean, for women are n.o.bodies and nowhere when you come to the discussion of great questions like these, but I use the conventional we--we in this country are attempting to carry our ideas of liberty and responsibility into legislation, and we don't agree--we quarrel bitterly and almost come to blows again--but election days cool us off, acting like a court-room itself. We accept their judgment, and go about our business quietly till next time. Now if we were all Americans, acting under an intelligent sense of responsibility, everything might be expected to run smoothly under this regime; but the trouble is when the foreigner comes in who does not understand our inst.i.tutions, who is, perhaps, ignorant, debased, and superst.i.tious. But the foreigner is, it seems to me, the very man who needs this safety-valve of the election day more than any other on the face of the globe. We ourselves could run our own nationality; but here comes this man from the princ.i.p.alities of the old world--from Europe we will say, to begin with--and he has an idea that he is going to be richer, smarter, happier, more on an equality with every other man than ever he was before. He comes here, and what does he find? He finds a ladder, reaching higher into the clouds, perhaps, but the lower rounds are just as near the earth as over there, and he is on the lowest round still. He sees his next-door neighbor has more money than he has, is better educated, and commands the respect of the community, as he does not, and he is filled with disappointment, and sometimes with rage. What would he naturally do, with his old world antecedents and training, when he is thus aggrieved as he conceives himself to be? Why, burn your barn, break into your house, steal all he could from you. But what does election day do for him? On that day he is as good as anybody. He goes to the polls side by side with the first man in the land, and he rides in a carriage there, if he is too drunk to walk, and he can vote the first man in the line, if he chooses. The richest man in the country must walk behind him and wait for his turn. He drops his ballot and he is cooled off. He soon begins to get hold a little of this idea of responsibility that I am speaking of, and after a while it will come into his head--very slowly, perhaps, for we are all slow to learn these things--that he has got to work himself up and get on a par with those intelligent and influential people who are so powerful in making laws and customs.

Now, gentlemen, it seems to me if you could disfranchise every foreigner to-day who was not intelligent, or if you could make intelligence the test of voting, you would have ten barns burned where you have one now. I believe it firmly. Being naturally conservative, as I think all women are, a few years ago I really thought that ten, even twenty years' residence might be required of foreigners before they should be allowed to vote. I said they did not know enough, and so ought to be kept out as long as that.

To-day I am inclined not to limit the time a moment longer than it is necessary for men to get their naturalization papers out, and go through the required legal formalities. If disfranchis.e.m.e.nt meant annihilation, selfishly, I might be glad to get rid of this troublesome question in that way, the task of ruling this country would then be a far easier one than it is; but it does not mean annihilation. So when gentlemen talk with me, and say we have too many voters already, I reply, do not disfranchise these men, enlighten them, for G.o.d has sent them here for a purpose of His own. And I say to you gentlemen the ballot in the hands of every man is the only thing that saves us from anarchy to-day, that keeps us alive as a republic--the ballot in the hands of these ignorant men, and the more ignorant they are the more they need it, and the more we need they should have it. And let me say, in pa.s.sing, that reconstruction at the South is hindered to-day for the same reason, responsibility is taken away from a large cla.s.s of citizens. A disfranchised cla.s.s is always a restless cla.s.s; a cla.s.s that, if it be not as a whole given up to deeds of violence, will at least wink at them, when committed by men either in or out of its own ranks. What the South needs to-day is ballots, not bullets.

I leave out of the question the ultimate educating power of the ballot, though I would like to make you an argument upon that alone. But I say give the poor men, ignorant men the ballot for purposes of self-defense, and because we could not live in safety in our homes otherwise. New York is poorly governed, we say, to-day, and getting to be a pretty dangerous place to live in.

But what would it be if every foreigner and every ignorant man could not go out on election day, and prove that he was as good as anybody? That is human nature, and it is human nature, and plenty of it too, that we have to deal with. And now, let me ask you, what are these men sent here for and who sent them? We have got all Europe, and all Asia is coming, and who sends them? When G.o.d put into that good ship _Mayflower_ those two great ribs of oak, personal liberty and personal responsibility, He knew the precious freight she was to bear, and all the hopes bound up in her, and He pledged Himself by both the great eternities, the past and the future, that that ship should weather all storms and come safe to port with all she had on board. And what G.o.d has promised He will perform. So I beg of you not to think for a moment of limiting manhood suffrage.

And if men can not live in this country in safe homes, except their neighbor men are enfranchised, can they live without enfranchised women any more? If you can not live in safety with irresponsible men in your midst, how can you live with irresponsible women? Much more, how can you grow into the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus our Lord; how can you become perfect legislators, except your mothers are instructed on these great subjects you are called to legislate upon, that they may instruct you in their turn? You do not know anything so well as what your mothers have taught you; but they have not taught you political economy. It is not their fault that they have not, nor yours, perhaps. No man nor woman studies a subject profoundly except he or she is called upon to act upon it. What business man studies a business foreign to his own? What woman studies a business foreign to her own? In past ages this woman, in the providence of G.o.d, we will say, has been shut out from political action, for, so long as the sword ruled and man had to get his liberty by the sword, so long woman had all she could do to guard the home, for that was her part of the work; and she did it bravely and well, you will say. But now men are not fighting for their liberty with the gun by the door and the Indians outside.

You are fighting for it in halls of legislation, with the spirit of truth--with spiritual weapons--and woman would be disloyal to her womanhood if she did not ask to share these heavy responsibilities with you. And she has really been training herself all these years she has seemed so indifferent; she has neglected her duty in part--I confess it freely--it is not your fault alone, gentlemen, that we are not with you to-day. If we had been as conscious of our duty and privilege years ago as we are to-day, if we had known our birthright, we should have stood by your side, welcome coadjutors, long since. So we will take the blame of the past alike--we have all been walking very slowly this path of Christian civilization. But in the greatest conflict of modern times, you announced great principles and fought for them on the field, and we stood by them in the home, and we stand by them still there. And when we come to deliberate with you in solemn council as to how these principles shall be carried into legislation, your task will be easier, our opportunities will be larger, and still our hearts will be where they have ever been--in our homes.

Forty-first Congress, 3d Session, House of Representatives, Report, No. 22, Jan. 30, 1871, recommitted to the Committee on Judiciary and ordered to be printed. Mr. BINGHAM, from the Committee on the Judiciary, made the following report.

_The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the Memorial of Victoria C. Woodhull, having considered the same, make the following report:_

The Memorialist asks the enactment of a law by Congress which shall secure to citizens of the United States in the several States the right to vote "without regard to s.e.x." Since the adoption of the XIV. Amendment of the Const.i.tution, there is no longer any reason to doubt that 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, for that is the express declaration of the amendment.

The clause of the XIV. Amendment, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States," does not, in the opinion of the Committee, refer to privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States other than those privileges and immunities embraced in the original text of the Const.i.tution, article IV., section 2.

The XIV. Amendment, it is believed, did not add to the privileges or immunities before mentioned, but was deemed necessary for their enforcement, as an express limitation upon the powers of the States. It has been judicially determined that the first eight articles of amendment of the Const.i.tution were not limitations on the power of the States, and it was apprehended that the same might be held of the provision of section 2, article iv.

To remedy this defect of the Const.i.tution, the express limitations upon the States contained in the first section of the XIV. Amendment, together with the grant of power in Congress to enforce them by legislation, were incorporated in the Const.i.tution. The words "citizens of the United States," and "citizens of the States," as employed in the XIV. Amendment, did not change or modify the relations of citizens of the State and Nation as they existed under the original Const.i.tution.

Attorney-General Bates gave the opinion that the Const.i.tution uses the the word "citizen," only to express the political quality of the individual in his relation to the Nation; to declare that he is a member of the body politic, and bound to it by the reciprocal obligation of allegiance on the one side and protection on the other. The phrase "a citizen of the United States," without addition or qualification, means neither more nor less than a member of the Nation. (Opinion of Attorney-General Bates on citizenship.)

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that, according to the express words and clear meaning of the section 2, article iv. of the Const.i.tution, no privileges are secured by it except those which belong to citizenship. (Connor _et al._ _vs._ Elliott _et al._, 18 Howard, 593). In Corfield _vs._ Coryell, 4 Washington Circuit Court Reports, 380, the Court say:

The inquiry is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are in their nature fundamental; which belong of right to the citizens of all free governments; and which have at all times been enjoyed by the citizens of the several States which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign. What these fundamental principles are would, perhaps, be more tedious than difficult to enumerate. They may, however, be all comprehended under the following general heads: Protection by the Government; the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety, subject, nevertheless, to such restraints as the Government may justly prescribe for the general good of the whole; the right of a citizen of one State to pa.s.s through or to reside in any other State, for the purpose of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; to claim the benefit of the writ of _habeas corpus_; to inst.i.tute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the State; to take, hold, and dispose of property, either real or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by the other citizens of the State, may be mentioned as some of the particular privileges and immunities of citizens which are clearly embraced by the general description of privileges deemed to be fundamental; to which may be added the elective franchise, as regulated and established by the laws or Const.i.tution of the State in which it is to be exercised.... But we can not accede to the proposition which was insisted on by the counsel, that under this provision of the Const.i.tution, sec. 2, art. 4, the citizens of the several States are permitted to partic.i.p.ate in all the rights which belong exclusively to the citizens of any other particular State.

The learned Justice Story declared that the intention of the clause--"the citizens of each State shall be ent.i.tled, to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"--was to confer on the citizens of each State a general citizenship, and communicated all the privileges and immunities which a citizen of the same State would be ent.i.tled to under the circ.u.mstances. (Story on the Const.i.tution, vol. 2, p. 605).

In the case of the Bank of the United States _vs._ Primrose, in the Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Webster said:

That this article in the Const.i.tution (art. 4, sec. 2) does not confer on the citizens of each State political rights in every other State, is admitted. A citizen of Pennsylvania can not go into Virginia and vote at any election in that State, though when he has acquired a residence in Virginia, and is otherwise qualified, is required by the Const.i.tution (of Virginia), he becomes, without formal adoption as a citizen of Virginia, a citizen of that State politically.

(Webster's Works, vol. 6, p. 112).

It must be obvious that Mr. Webster was of opinion that the privileges and immunities of citizens, guaranteed to them in the several States, did not include the privilege of the elective franchise otherwise than as secured by the State Const.i.tution.

For, after making the statement above quoted, that a citizen of Pennsylvania can not go into Virginia and vote, Mr. Webster adds, "but for the purposes of trade, commerce, buying and selling, it is evidently not in the power of any State to impose any hindrance or embarra.s.sment, etc. upon citizens of other States, or to place them, going there, upon a different footing from her own citizens." (Ib.) The proposition is clear that no citizen of the United States can rightfully vote in any State of this Union who has not the qualifications required by the Const.i.tution of the State in which the right is claimed to be exercised, except as to such conditions in the const.i.tutions of such States as deny the right to vote to citizens resident therein "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."

The adoption of the XV. Amendment to the Const.i.tution imposing these three limitations upon the power of the several States, was by necessary implication, a declaration that the States had the power to regulate by a uniform rule the conditions upon which the elective franchise should be exercised by citizens of the United States resident therein. The limitations specified in the XV.

Amendment exclude the conclusion that a State of this Union, having a government republican in form, may not prescribe conditions upon which alone citizens may vote other than those prohibited. It can hardly be said that a State law which excludes from voting women citizens, minor citizens, and non-resident citizens of the United States, on account of s.e.x, minority, or domicil, is a denial of the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

It may be further added that the 2d section of the XIV.

Amendment, by the provision that "when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors of President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, or executive and judicial officers of the 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, a citizen 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," implies that the several States may restrict the elective franchise as to other than male citizens. In disposing of this question effect must be given, if possible, to every provision of the Const.i.tution. Article 1, section 2, of the Const.i.tution provides:

That the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.

This provision has always been construed to vest in the several States the exclusive right to prescribe the qualifications of electors for the most numerous branch of the State Legislature, and therefore for Members of Congress. And this interpretation is supported by section 4, article 1, of the Const.i.tution, which provides:

That the time, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations except as to the place of choosing Senators.

Now it is submitted, if it had been intended that Congress should prescribe the qualifications of electors, that the grant would have read: The Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, and also prescribe the qualifications of electors, etc. The power, on the contrary, is limited exclusively to the time, place, and manner, and does not extend to the qualification of the electors. This power to prescribe the qualification of electors in the several States has always been exercised, and is, to-day, by the several States of the Union; and we apprehend, until the Const.i.tution shall be changed, will continue to be so exercised, subject only to express limitations imposed by the Const.i.tution upon the several States, before noticed. We are of opinion, therefore, that it is not competent for the Congress of the United States to establish by law the right to vote without regard to s.e.x in the several States of this Union, without the consent of the people of such States, and against their const.i.tutions and laws; and that such legislation would be, in our judgment, a violation of the Const.i.tution of the United States, and of the rights reserved to the States respectively by the Const.i.tution. It is undoubtedly the right of the people of the several States so to reform their const.i.tutions and laws as to secure the equal exercise of the right of suffrage at all elections held therein under the Const.i.tution of the United States, to all citizens, without regard to s.e.x; and as public opinion creates const.i.tutions and governments in the several States, it is not to be doubted that whenever, in any State, the people are of opinion that such a reform is advisable, it will be made.

If however, as is claimed in the memorial referred to, the right to vote "is vested by the Const.i.tution in the citizens of the United States without regard to s.e.x," that right can be established in the courts without further legislation.

The suggestion is made that Congress, by a mere declaratory act, shall say that the construction claimed in the memorial is the true construction of the Const.i.tution, or in other words, that by the Const.i.tution of the United States the right to vote is vested in citizens of the United States "without regard to s.e.x,"

anything in the const.i.tution and laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. In the opinion of the Committee, such declaratory act is not authorized by the Const.i.tution nor within the legislative power of Congress. We therefore recommend the adoption of the following resolution:

_Resolved_, That the prayer of the pet.i.tioner be not granted, that the memorial be laid on the table, and that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from the further consideration of the subject.

Forty-first Congress, 3d Session, House of Representatives, Report No. V., Part 2, Feb. 1, 1871, ordered to be printed.

Mr. LOUGHRIDGE, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following as the view of the minority: