The History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 66

[150] The speakers were Rev. Olympia Brown, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Susan B. Anthony, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Dr.

Clemence S. Lozier, Helen M. Sloc.u.m, Lillie Devereux Blake.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Belva A. Lockwood.]

CHAPTER XXIV.

NATIONAL CONVENTIONS 1873, '74, '75.

Fifth Washington Convention--Mrs. Gage on Centralization--May Anniversary in New York--Washington Convention, 1874--Frances Ellen Burr's Report--Rev. O. B. Frothingham in New York Convention--Territory of Pembina--Discussion in the Senate--Conventions in Washington and New York, 1875--Hearings before Congressional Committees.

The fifth Washington Convention was held in Lincoln Hall, January 16th and 17th, 1873. The President, Miss Anthony, in opening, said:

There are three methods of extending suffrage to new cla.s.ses. The first is for the Legislatures of the several States to submit the question to the vote of the people; that is to those already voters. Before the war this was the only way thought of, and during all those years we pet.i.tioned to strike the word "male"

from the State Const.i.tutions. The second method is for Congress to submit to the several legislatures a proposition for a XVI.

Amendment that shall prohibit the States from depriving women citizens of their right to vote. The third plan is to take our rights under the XIV. Amendment of the Const.i.tution which declares "that all persons are citizens," and "no State shall deny or abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens."

Again, there are two ways of securing the right of suffrage under the Const.i.tution as it is; one by a declaratory act of Congress instructing the officers of election to receive the votes of women, the other in appeals to the courts by inst.i.tuting suits as women have already done, in order to secure a judicial decision on the broad interpretation of the Const.i.tution "that all persons are citizens, and all citizens voters." The vaults in yonder Capitol hold the pet.i.tions of many thousands of women for a Declaratory Act, and the calendars of our courts show that many are already testing their right to vote under the XIV. Amendment.

I stand here under indictment for having exercised my right as a citizen to vote at the last election; and by a fiction of the law, I am now in custody, and not free on this platform.

A series of resolutions[151] were reported, and discussed at great length.

After the appointment of committees,[A] Matilda Joslyn Gage made the annual report. She said:

Though the casual observer might think but little progress had been made during the year, this is not the fact. There has been in many ways a marked advance, and although I do not claim to have a complete and exact record, I would mention points which have come under my notice.

Soon after the opening of the last session of Congress several important bills were introduced. The Hon. Mr. h.o.a.r introduced a bill against Territorial disfranchis.e.m.e.nt, which, as women vote in two Territories, was a bill having an important bearing upon this question of suffrage. About the same time, the Hon. Mr.

Butler introduced a bill for a Declaratory Law to protect women citizens in their right to vote. During the progress of our annual Convention in January last, a memorial was presented, and a hearing obtained before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The speeches made by women at that time have been printed in pamphlet form, and extensively circulated throughout the nation. Within a few days after this hearing, a pet.i.tion, containing 35,000 names, was presented to the House by the Hon. Benjamin F. Butler. During his remarks upon this occasion his coadjutors left their seats and pressed around him, so anxious were they to hear, until, in order to give all an equal chance, the Speaker was forced to call to order.

The Hon. Matt. Carpenter made an elaborate argument before the Supreme Court, in the Myra Bradwell case. Mrs. Bradwell, as is well known, is the editor of a paper, ent.i.tled the _Legal News_, which is ably conducted, and accepted as authority by the profession. Mrs. Bradwell, upon applying for admission to the bar in Illinois, found her husband a "legal disability," and carried her case up to the Supreme Court. This argument was also published and circulated in pamphlet form.

The Hon. Mr. Munroe, member from Indiana, presented a pet.i.tion from the women of that State, praying for the removal of political disabilities; and in the Senate Mr. Wilson introduced a bill to allow women to hold office in the Territories.

In February an argument was made before the Senate Military Committee in behalf of women who served in the army. Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren argued in person before a Congressional committee, in reference to moneys due her deceased husband.

Mrs. Lockwood and Mrs. Spencer both gave interesting statements in regard to women voting in the District of Columbia, and ably argued their right to do so under the National Const.i.tution. Mrs. Lockwood introduced the following resolution:

_To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives, in Congress a.s.sembled:_

We, the undersigned, citizens of the United States, being deprived of some of the privileges and immunities of citizens, among which is the right to vote, beg leave to submit the following resolution:

_Resolved_, That we, the officers and members of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, in convention a.s.sembled, respectfully ask Congress to enact appropriate legislation, during its present session, to protect women citizens in the several States of this Union in their right to vote.

FRANCIS MILLER, Esq. said that he had one reason for congratulation in being engaged in the suit with Mr. Riddle, as it gave him an opportunity to do something for the women of his country. Under the XIV. Amendment he contended that women had the right to vote, and no lawyer that read the amendment could decide in any other way.

It was not true that the cohorts of this issue had been defeated every time, but it was true that they had gained two victories.

Chief-Justice Cartter had decided that woman was a full citizen, and had not the right to vote, simply because they had not pa.s.sed a law necessary for the purpose. If the XIV. Amendment did not confer suffrage they must go through the States with a new amendment, and fight a battle in each. He thought that very obscure ideas prevailed on the subject. How could anyone that had no self-government enjoy any inalienable right? It was said that the ballot was a creature of legislation, consequently not natural. This was an absurdity. There was no way in the world for a man to govern himself except by the ballot. To deny any one the only means of exercising that right is a wrong before heaven and should be redressed. He did not propose to go into a legal argument; the best of his ability has been expended in the cause, and is before the public.

At the evening session Mrs. Gage gave the following address:

Mrs. GAGE said: We hear many fears expressed in regard to the danger of "centralized power," and the growing tendency of the nation toward it. The people have been told that through this tendency their liberties were endangered. The truth is just the contrary. "State rights" has from the very commencement of this Government been the rock on which the ship of the nation has many times nearly foundered, and from which it is to-day in great danger. The one question of the hour is, Is the United States a Nation with full and complete National powers, or is it a mere thread upon which States are strung as are the beads upon a necklace?

Let us look back a hundred years. The War of the Revolution commenced merely as a rebellion of the Colonies against the Nation to which they belonged. Though all were located on the continent of America, each colony was under its own charter, separate and distinct from every other one. Each colony resisted what it deemed to be acts of oppression against itself.

Therefore, the War of the Revolution began as the resistance of individual colonies, but with the progress of this resistance grew up a feeling of united interests, and in 1774 eleven of these colonies, and a portion of the twelfth, connected themselves under certain articles of a.s.sociation. The colonies still considered themselves as belonging to the British Empire, and in these articles avowed their allegiance to His Majesty, George the Third. Although we date the birth of our nation two years later, our nationality actually dates back to these articles of a.s.sociation, for the colonies bound themselves as one in regard to non-importation, non-exportation, and non-consumption; the first two pledges having National bearing as regarded commerce, and the last one regulating internal affairs in a National manner. This course of the colonies made them one, and has had a bearing on our every step since, even up to this day of grace, January 17, 1873. Resolutions of independence and freedom from all control of Great Britain were introduced into the Colonial Congress in June, 1776, and the committee which was then appointed to draft a declaration of independent government was required to base it upon the first resolution of the June declaration of rights, which said, "These United Colonies are, and of right ought to be, free and independent," etc. The veriest school-boy needs not to be told the date of this instrument, which we are fond of terming the "Great Charter of our Liberties;" yet even professed statesmen, from that day to this, have seemingly forgotten that this declaration was agreed to, and signed by the already United Colonies in their Congress a.s.sembled, and issued as the action of "one people." No new Congress met; the declaration was not the act of single colonies, or states, but the act of already united colonies, or states, and in this instrument we first find our National name of United States.

The members of Congress did not sign this declaration as New Yorkers, or Virginians, or New Englanders, but as Americans. Nor was it referred to different colonies for approbation, but on that very Fourth of July, 1776, Congress, with already National authority, flung to the world the announcement that these united colonies were a Nation, and ordered that copies of the declaration should be sent to the several colonial a.s.semblies, conventions, councils of safety, and to each of the commanding officers of the Continental troops, and that it should be proclaimed in each of the United States, and at the head of the army. We see, therefore, that the Declaration of Independence, in being truly National, was wholly centralizing--and much more so than any act since, and is therefore the truest basis of our liberties.

Our age has annihilated s.p.a.ce; danger lies in darkness and distance. With every newspaper, every railroad, every line of telegraph, danger from centralized National power grows less.

With the newspaper, the railroad, the telegraph, the course of the government is constantly before our eyes The reporter penetrates everywhere, the lightning flashes everywhere, and before plans are scarcely formed here in Washington, the miner of California, the lumberman of Maine, and the cotton-grower of Carolina are pa.s.sing opinions and interchanging views upon them with their neighbors. The increase of education in the common schools, and the vast private correspondence of the country, too, help to put the proceedings of the government under the cognizance of the whole people. Our danger lies elsewhere, and to clearly see it we must still look back to the early history of our Nation. For a few months after the Declaration of Independence, our new-born republic worked under a common sentiment, for a common interest; but ultimately self-interest prompted the claim of "State Rights." This doctrine was, by wise men, seen to be utterly destructive to the government, and in the second year of our independence it became necessary to fight this State-right doctrine, and the second step was taken in centralization, by the Articles of Confederation, which were declared to make the Union perpetual, and States were forbidden to coin money, establish their own weights and measures, their own post-offices, and forbidden to do many other things which, by right, belong to independent self-controlling States.

So anxious was the Nation to set its own power upon a firm basis, entirely over and above that of the States, that back in these articles of confederation we find the term "privileges and immunities," that vexed phrase in the present discussion. In the fourth article, the inhabitants of each State were declared to be ent.i.tled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens of the several States, etc. These articles, unlike the declaration, were made dependent upon ratification by the Legislatures of the several States, which was not fully accomplished till 1781.

For awhile all went merry as a marriage bell. Power had been further centralized, and the Nation felt secure. But there had been left a little loophole, which was destined to create State claims in defiance of the general government. Congress soon found that under the articles of confederation the limitation of States was more theoretical than practical. It found that though, in a general way, the United States possessed national powers, as over boundaries, peace and war, the issue of money, the establishment of post-offices, etc., yet in the very necessary matter of revenue, and the regulation of trade and commerce, it was powerless against the States. The old form of the confederation was found insufficient to secure the full independence of the United States as a Nation, and in the very year that the articles were fully adopted, and before the last State had given its adherence (1781), a member of Congress from New Jersey moved a recommendation to the States to invest Congress with additional means of paying the public debt and prosecuting the war of the Revolution, by laying duties on imports and prize goods.

This proposition at once roused opposition, and it is well to remember that it did not first come from a Southern State. "State rights" is not a peculiar Southern doctrine. South Carolina was not the original nullifying State. It was Rhode Island, which then, as to-day, set at defiance national authority, and a.s.serted her right to control her own internal affairs. The New England States, which claim to lead the Union in all that is grand and good, must be made to bear the shame of the evils into which they have also led. Even John C. Calhoun learned his first State rights lessons in Connecticut and Ma.s.sachusetts of the most eminent men; of President Dwight when a student in Yale college, and Theophilus Parsons, with whom he read law in Ma.s.sachusetts.

When Rhode Island, in 1781, refused to comply with the recommendations of Congress in regard to levying duties on imports and prizes, she looked only at her own interests as a sea-board State. The address of her a.s.sembly to Congress, through Hon. William Bradshaw, gave reasons of purely local self-interest for her refusal; but her State selfishness was seen by the patriots of the hour not to be even that of an enlightened State-interest, and Congress at once declared there "could be no general security, no confidence in the Nation, at home or abroad, if its actions were under the constant revisal of thirteen different deliberations."

It therefore became necessary to take another step in the centralization of power, and let it be remembered that every such successive step we have traced was taken in the interests of liberty, and for the benefit of the whole people. The Nation has acted in the defense of its citizens against the tyranny of States. We are not first citizens of Rhode Island, or South Carolina, but, if we belong to the Nation at all, we are first parts of that Nation. I am first a citizen of the United States, then a citizen of the State of New York, then a citizen of Onondaga county in that State, and then a citizen of the town of Manlius, and lastly, a citizen of the village of Fayetteville.

That every person born or naturalized in the Nation, is first a citizen of the Nation, must be borne in mind, for upon that depend the liberties of every man, woman and child in the Nation, black or white, native or foreign. Although Rhode Island led in State rights, she had many followers, as only four States complied with the recommendation of Congress to invest that body with more powers for collecting the revenue and prosecuting the war. This non-compliance led to active debate. In regard to the public debt it was said, "That it must, once for all, be defined and established on the faith of the States, solemnly pledged to each other, and not revocable by any, without a breach of the general compact." If a feeling of insecurity existed in regard to the property interests of the Nation when but thirteen legislative bodies a.s.sumed their control, how much greater is the insecurity of our personal interests if they are, as is a.s.sumed, under the control of thirty-seven separate legislative bodies, and subject to their constant revision?

The controversy soon based itself upon the security of human rights. It was said that it "had ever been the pride and boast of America that the rights for which she contended were the rights of human nature," that "the citizens of the United States were responsible for the greatest trust ever confided to a political society," and that it was for "the people of the United States, by whose will and for whose benefit the Federal Government was inst.i.tuted, to decide whether they would support their rank as a Nation." Virginia and New York ultimately led in the proceeding which caused the formation of the Const.i.tution; New York, through her Legislature, declaring that the radical source of the government embarra.s.sments lay in the want of sufficient power in Congress, and she suggested a convention for the purpose of establishing a firm National government. Out of this agitation grew the Const.i.tution of the United States, which was the third great step in the centralization of power. The pride and the boast of this country has been more fully centered, if possible, on the Const.i.tution than on the Declaration, and yet the Const.i.tution was not framed until eleven years after our existence as a Nation--not ratified by the whole of the original States until about fourteen years after we had taken rank as a free and independent people--Rhode Island being the last State to give her adherence--and it was expressly framed and adopted in order to centralize power, and to destroy the State rights doctrine.

Washington himself, in transmitting, as President of the Convention, the Const.i.tution to Congress, said: "It is obviously impracticable in the Federal Government of these States to secure all rights of independent sovereignty to each, and yet provide for the interest and safety of all," and in the deliberations of the Convention upon the subject, they kept steadily in view that which appeared to them "the greatest of every true American--the consolidation of our Union, in which is involved our prosperity, safety, and, perhaps, our National existence." Thus we see not only the desire of the originators of the Const.i.tution to strengthen the National power by that instrument, but we also have the views of Washington himself in regard to the necessity of consolidating power in the Nation.

The various amendments to the Const.i.tution have been adopted with the intent of further defining and securing National power. The first ten, which were called the conciliatory amendments, were suggested in the conventions of a number of the States at the very time of adopting the Const.i.tution. The first Congress which met thereafter proposed twelve amendments, of which ten were adopted in 1791, only two years after the full adoption of the Const.i.tution. These ten amendments secured religious freedom, freedom of speech, the right of people to be secure in their houses, trials by jury, etc. All of them centralizing power in the National hands, and at the same time securing broader liberty to the people. These amendments were pa.s.sed at the first session of the First Congress. An eleventh amendment was proposed by the Third National Congress in 1794, and declared ratified in 1798, thus making eleven amendments to the Const.i.tution in the short s.p.a.ce of seven years. In 1803 a twelfth amendment was proposed by the Eighth Congress, and ratified in 1804.

We pa.s.s now over quite a s.p.a.ce of time, in which the National power and State power retained their relative positions to each other. Perhaps in no better place can I mention two constantly existing, yet diverse tendencies in the people of the United States, which are well-defined in the minds of but few persons.

There are two kinds of centralized power, one dangerous to liberty, and the other fortifying and securing liberty. The dangerous is that which has grown to such dimensions in the various States, multiplying legislation and regulating each petty local concern within its borders, down to a village cemetery.

This has led to that destruction of liberty--a multiplication of statutes which have scarcely been recorded ere a second legislative body has annulled them. Each State has, in fact, been an immense centralized power; and as bitter as has been the South against centralized National power, we have in it seen a most imperious, tyrannical exercise of centralized power under the specious name of State rights. The evil is such a constantly increasing one under the old const.i.tutions, that they are being revised in many States with special intent to check this centralizing tendency. New York has now a commission sitting, and Pennsylvania a convention in session, for the purpose of revising their const.i.tutions, and attention has been especially directed to this dangerous feature of State centralization. The new const.i.tution of Illinois limits the pa.s.sage of special laws by its legislature to certain specified subjects, leaving all local interests in the hands of local corporations. The need of the hour--and, in fact, I may say the new tendency of the hour--is toward diffused power within the limits of States in matters pertaining solely and entirely to their small or local interests.

The centralization that fortifies and secures liberty is National centralization, which we have traced through six steps since 1776, and which has, within the last ten years, received a new impetus by the XIII., XIV., and XV. Amendments, and which, as they successively followed each other at short intervals, may be termed the seventh, eighth, and ninth steps in centralization. By and through these three amendments the Nation fortified and enlarged its powers in reference to personal rights. It defined citizenship; it secured the exercise of the ballot--and we can not fail to see that in these last three centralizing steps, it more broadly than ever before enlarged the bounds of liberty. The protection of citizens of the Nation, by the Nation, is the national duty.

This is the second tendency of which I spoke. Most persons who have been awake to the evils of State centralization, have applied the same rules of judgment to National centralization.

The two are dissimilar as are darkness and light. State centralization is tyranny; National centralization is freedom.

State centralization means special laws; National centralization means general laws. The continued habit of States to make laws for every part of their own boundaries brought to the surface the "State rights" theory which precipitated upon us our civil war.

States had become so absolute in themselves that out of it grew the feeling of absoluteness in regard to the Nation. But is it not strange that after the late sad experience there can still be found people so stupid as not to see that the security of individual citizens of the Nation in matters pertaining to their personal political rights, does lie, and in the very fact of our Nationality must lie, in National power superior to State power?

The corner-stone of our Nation is political equality. Our ancestors came here for civil and religious freedom. To secure political freedom they formed themselves into a Nation; if the United States has no power to protect its citizens it is not a Nation.

The eighth step in centralization, the XIV. Amendment, specifically declares that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, are citizens of the United States, and of the States in which they reside." Notwithstanding this plain language--notwithstanding the corner-stone of this Nation is political equality--notwithstanding the chief right of citizenship in this country is a right to share in making its laws--notwithstanding the Const.i.tution and laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, are declared to be the supreme law of the land, and the judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the const.i.tution or law of any State to the contrary notwithstanding, yet 10,000 naturalized citizens of the United States have, during this session of Congress, pet.i.tioned that body for protection of their rights as citizens of the United States against the State in which they live.

"State rights" is again rearing its head. Rhode Island is again raising her hand against National power. She again a.s.sumes to be superior to the United States. All foreign-born citizens of that State, not possessed of a freehold estate of $134 value, or property amounting to an annual rental of $7, are, by State law, forbidden to vote. These men were naturalized under a law of the United States, not under a law of Rhode Island. The United States not only made them citizens, but expressly in the XIV. Amendment declares them to be citizens, and yet little Rhode Island presumes to be stronger than the United States.

Here again arises what I have shown to be the question of the hour. Is the United States a Nation? If it does not possess powers to protect its own citizens it is not a Nation. Citizens of the United States are ent.i.tled to protection, whether they are robbed of their liberties in a Spanish dungeon, or in the States of Rhode Island or New York. The Judiciary Committee of Congress has reported adversely upon the pet.i.tion of the 10,000 naturalized citizens of Rhode Island. Does Congress intend to sustain State Rights? What better is it for those 10,000 men that they became naturalized? If they are first citizens of the United States, as the XIV. Amendment declares, they should be protected in their rights of citizenship by the United States against the States, and their thirty-seven isolated methods of legislation.

This adverse report of the Judiciary Committee in regard to the 10,000 disfranchised men of Rhode Island, foreshadows the course of Congress in regard to the great cla.s.s of citizens now knocking at its door. Women claim National protection as citizens of the Nation.