The History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 132

Yours truly, J. T. SARGENT.

WEST NEWTON, _May 6, 1866_.

E. C. STANTON, _President Executive Committee Women's Rights a.s.sociation_:

MY DEAR MRS. S.:--I had hoped to be present at this, our eleventh anniversary, but find it impossible. And so, at the last moment, I hasten to express my earnest conviction that now, as never before, we are called upon for vigorous, united action--that we are left no alternative but an unflinching protest against the strange legislation by which a Republican Congress, so-called, a.s.sumes to engraft upon our national Const.i.tution, as "amendments!" clauses which not only allow rebels to disfranchise loyal soldiers, who have borne the flag of the Republic victoriously against their treason and rebellion, but to keep the ballot from the hands of all women!

If not moved by an enlightened appreciation of the first principles of political economy and social justice in legislation touching them heretofore, we could scarcely believe that after the record made by both the proscribed cla.s.ses during our late fearful struggle, our legislators could gravely stoop to brand them anew as "aliens" and outlaws! It is an act as discreditable to their hearts and their moral sense as to their statesmanship. And upon their shoulders must rest the responsibility of an agitation to which we are thus forced--an agitation which we have hesitated to arouse while so many vital questions touching the future of the negro were awaiting settlement, and in which we are acting strictly on the defensive. Under the magnificent utterance of our brave Senator Sumner--which was an inspiration and a prophecy--we looked to see all faltering and compromise, so fatal in all our past, so fatal always and everywhere, swept like dew before the sun. But the old fears and falterings return sevenfold reinforced to renew a puerile and patch-work legislation, which, while a.s.serting the truth, submits to, nay, invites a fresh struggle over each separate application of the same "self-evident truth." What remains for us, then, but to turn from a Congress from which we had hoped so much, which might have dared anything in the interest of loyalty and justice, as our brave brethren turned, from a recreant President to the people, whom he and Congress have not dared to trust, and resolve to do our utmost to awaken a public sentiment which only slumbers, but is not dead, and which shall make impossible such burlesques, such infamous "amendments" to our organic law. With undiminished hope and faith, yours,

CAROLINE M. SEVERANCE.

HARTFORD, _April 22, 1866_.

DEAR MADAM:--I learn by a circular I have received that a Woman's Rights Convention is to be held in New York in May. I can not have the pleasure of attending it, but I would like to take this opportunity of telling you I am with you, heart and soul, in this cause--of thanking you, and those with whom you are a.s.sociated, for the n.o.ble work you have done, and are doing, in the cause of universal suffrage. There never was a more opportune time for calling a convention of this kind than the present, when it is evident that the United States Const.i.tution is about to undergo some repairs--when all the so-called radicals in Congress are trying to have it so altered as to insure the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of one-half the nation. They have so strangely perverted the meaning of the term "universal suffrage," that it is a misnomer as at present used by them. It is rather significant of the "universality" of the suffrage intended, that every one of these special guardians of freedom refused to present Congress a pet.i.tion for woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt; that the Ma.s.sachusetts Senator who leads the van of freedom's host, did, finally, most reluctantly present it with one hand, while taking good care to deal it a blow with the other that would prove a most effectual quietus to it; that a representative [Mr. Boutwell], after repeating the self-evident truth that "there can be no just government without the consent of the governed," says that "man is endowed by nature with the priority of right to the vote rather than woman or child;" that the two Senators from Ma.s.sachusetts have each proposed amendments to the Const.i.tution holding out inducements to the States to enfranchise all male inhabitants, but none to enfranchise women, when they could have included them by omitting one word; that that light of freedom, Mr. Greeley, of the _Tribune_, states that "men express the public sense as fully as if women voted" [speech in Suffield, Conn., last June]. These are a few of the straws pointing to that sham labeled "universal suffrage."

The conservatives of the slave-driving school have had an odious enough reputation, but I never heard of any of them taking measures to so amend the Const.i.tution as to insure the perpetuation of the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of sixteen millions of the nation, as would the proposed amendments of Messrs. Sumner and Wilson. And these Ma.s.sachusetts Senators are called the foremost workers in the ranks of liberty's grand army. If these are the foremost, Heaven save us from those in the rear! Why does Mr. Boutwell try to make it appear that he believes that governments, to be founded on justice, should obtain "the consent of the governed," when he believes the consent of only one-half the governed should be obtained? when he cla.s.ses adults as fully capable of exercising an enlightened judgment as himself with infants? If Mr. Greeley thinks it right for one-half the people to represent the wants, and speak as they may think best for the other half, that other half having no choice in the matter, he must admit, if he have a t.i.the of the sense of justice attributed to him, that it would be only fair to let each half take their turn--the men expressing the public sense a part of the time, then the women--thus alternating between the two, in order to balance the scales of justice with perfect equilibrium.

It seems rather a difficult matter for men to appreciate the fact that women are ordinary human beings, with the wants and reasoning faculties of the same. If women lived on the plane where sword and cannon are resorted to for the procuring of justice, men might then see the necessity of establishing equality of rights for all. But the power of women lies in spiritual, not in brute force; therefore men have failed to comprehend them, or to see the necessity of granting rights that are not contested at the point of the bayonet. Add to this the ambitious but weak love of power--of having some one to rule--inherent in the natures of most men, and the causes of woman's bondage are pretty clear. In the light of the developments of the past few months it is plain that the most thorough faced abolitionists--those who wax eloquent for the negro--are as much in favor of continuing the slavery of women as were Southern planters of continuing negro slavery. There are a few exceptions to this, and but a few.

Even the Boston _Commonwealth_, perhaps as radical a paper as any now published, and which favors suffrage for women, is a good ill.u.s.tration of the difficulty of the most liberal-minded men seeing this question in its true light; for, in its issue of February 24, it says that "suffrage for women is not a political necessity of a republican government."

The _Nation_ thinks women ought to be deprived of the franchise because they do not, as a general thing, express a wish for it, stating at the same time that they have as good a right to it as men.

Remarkable logic this, to deprive the whole cla.s.s of the power to obtain their dues because they do not _en ma.s.se_ express a wish for them. There are men who do not care enough about the franchise to make use of it; therefore, according to this argument, they should be immediately disfranchised.

There is no compulsion in exercising the right to the vote--all can let it alone who choose; and did every woman in the land choose to let it alone, it would be no argument for withholding from her the power to make use of it whenever disposed. But the statement that they are opposed to it is untrue. No woman--whether teacher, or telegraph operator, or government clerk, or dry-goods clerk, all the way down to the poor needle-woman who lives under a reign of oppression as frightful as that in the manufacturing districts of England--is paid more than half or a third what she earns, or what a man would be paid performing the same services, and performing them no better, in many cases not so well; and the needle-women are paid no more than a tenth part of what they earn. And yet women do not rise up against the oppression that denies them the just compensation; therefore these logicians of the _Nation's_ school must, to be consistent, argue that women do not wish to have just wages paid them, and they should not have just wages offered them--the right of accepting or refusing being at their own option.

It seems to be full time for the women of this country to demand a settlement of the question whether they are still to be treated as infants or as intelligent adults. If the former treatment is to be continued it would be very appropriate to present Congress with a protest against having one-half the basis of representation composed of those who are to remain in a state of perpetual infancy (which needs and can have representation; whose government must be as absolute as that of the Czar's, the very word "representative"

implying a subst.i.tute chosen by another)--a protest that if they are too good--as often stated, too divine--to have any voice in such earthly matters as governments, they are also too good to be thrust just so far into the body politic as to swell the basis of representation one-half, merely for the furtherance of the interests of ambitious politicians, and then to be put one side and utterly ignored when the voice of a free intelligent being is required.

It seems to be full time for women to take soundings of the depth of the professions, and make calculations of the lat.i.tude and longitude of the party to which alone they have looked for redemption from the slavery in which they have ever been held, when the chief ones of that party--now that there is any possibility of attaining that object--utterly refuse all efforts in that direction, and, worse than that, give indications of taking positive measures in the opposite direction. It is important that Congress be flooded with pet.i.tions on this matter--that it be allowed no rest from them; and, in addition to pet.i.tions, a bill is needed excluding women from the basis of representation so long as they shall be excluded from the franchise--excluding them from the list of taxable persons and from those who are by law liable to the death-penalty.

Should such a bill be tabled by Congress; should they refuse all action on it that would place them in their true light, showing that they look upon this question the same as the Southern Congress under Polk, Pierce, and Buchanan looked upon the anti-slavery movement--very much afraid of having the subject agitated; should they give it a decided veto, that would place them in their true light--greatly opposed to universal suffrage, although it is their policy to sail under that banner, like the pirate who sometimes finds an advantage in subst.i.tuting for his own black flag some more respectable one. Should they pa.s.s such a bill it would place them in a better light than they have ever had the fortune to be in before, while it would make it for the interest of the States to have this bill followed up by another, giving women the franchise; and it is very doubtful whether we will ever obtain it in any other way than from motives of self-interest on the part of legislators--motives of pure justice and right occupying a secondary place.

The statutes of the land present a remarkable conglomeration of inconsistencies and injustice in regard to women, and show the utter failure of the plan of having one cla.s.s govern another cla.s.s without any consent or partic.i.p.ation in the matter on the part of the cla.s.s so governed. The law ought not in certain cases to treat women as infants and wholly irresponsible beings, merely to foster a weak ambition and love of power, and in other cases as wholly responsible adults. The infant regimen should be enforced thoroughly from the day of their birth to the day of their death, whether it be in one year or a hundred, or they should come, in all respects, under a system adapted to responsible, intelligent adults. Infants should not pay taxes and they should not be hung. It is the general opinion that the infant Surrat committed crimes equal in magnitude to those of any of the conspirators who were hung with her, but her state of infancy should have afforded her legal protection from the gallows. If this government is too weak to decide the qualifications of voters; too weak to extend freedom from the northern coast of Maine to the southern coast of Florida; too weak to prevent any State disfranchising its inhabitants; too weak to make ignorance, criminality, and non-age the only political limitations for man or woman, be they black or white, or a combination of all the hues of the rainbow; too weak to send tyranny to the wall and make liberty the universal rule for this broad land; then a party must and will arise of sufficient metal to infuse into it the requisite strength--a party that will "strengthen its weak hands and confirm its feeble knees."

Concentration of power for the establishment and extension of liberty is not a tendency to despotism. Despotisms are never built out of that material. But that is a despotism as bad as Austria that allows one-half its citizens to govern the other half without any consent of theirs; and it is none the less a despotism for being divided up into petty State despotisms than if carried on by the general government, so long as they are all agreed on disfranchising one-half the people.

Thirty-six despotisms make a pretty good sized one taken in the aggregate. The party to inaugurate the reign of freedom must inevitably arise, for the elements to bring it into power are at work.

Morally, it will tower as far above the present republican party as that did above the old ones--whig and democratic. There are true souls, women and men, in the Old World and the New, faithfully working and watching for its advent.

Some months ago we got word from over the water that John Stuart Mill had been elected to that formidable body of conservatism--the British Parliament. Another significant fact, but this time significant of good. The writings of Mill are illumined by the sun-clear radiance of that liberty for which he appeals--a liberty that shines with the steady light of a fixed star--and which I have watched for in vain in the writings and speeches of the most noted reformers on this continent. When men like him come into power I think we have good ground for taking fresh courage. I have written more than I intended, but the subject is one on which I do not feel like restricting myself, especially when writing to one who fully appreciates the situation.

Sincerely hoping you may never weary in your good work.

Yours respectfully, F. ELLEN BURR.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

ALBANY, _April 9, 1866_.

MY DEAR MISS ANTHONY:--It will be out of my power to speak at your Convention--my health will not permit my attendance--but I cordially concur in your efforts to restore to woman her civil and political rights, and for her emanc.i.p.ation from slavery, her actual, undeniable status at present in the Government. I can suggest no plan to effect this great object, except that of agitation and discussion, everywhere throughout the land. Whenever the public mind shall become sufficiently enlightened, and women themselves shall seriously and earnestly demand, on their own behalf, equal rights and equal laws, they will be accorded; and then we shall have, what the world has never yet had or seen, a true republican system of government. Excuse these hasty thoughts.

Truly yours, A. J. COLVIN.

_To the President and Members of the Eleventh National Woman's Rights Convention in New York a.s.sembled_:

LADIES:--I notice with pleasure the call for your annual convention The hour is pregnant with events, and this period is opportune for opening and pressing upon the public attention the questions with which you are occupied. As the claims of the slave in past years have furnished to so many espousing them the occasion of manifold and large emanc.i.p.ations little thought by them at first, so the claims of the emerging freedman will lay open the way to the study and solution of the gravest and widest social questions. The great problems of social order: government, its fit aims and happiest methods, the nature and just basis of suffrage, etc., are to be studied anew and brought to true adjustment; false barriers and artificial distinctions must be swept away, no child of Adam must be inhibited from wielding those prerogatives which by birthright or attainment he may be ent.i.tled to.

The more obvious abuses, the flagrantly gratuitous distinctions, involving very gross inequalities and oppressions, will be the first to be exposed and abolished.

The natural and just basis of the right of suffrage is doubtless qualification, wisdom, and substantial honesty. The right to wield the ballot is not in the strict sense an inborn and original right, coeval with our being, except as any right to which we may by culture attain is of this character. It is ours potentially. It belongs to attainment and possession, as the right, for instance, in a particular case to survey land, or instruct minds. It is a right I am to rise to through intelligence, discipline, manhood. It is conditioned upon discernment and true faithfulness. Those too ignorant or uncaring to distinguish between rule and misrule, government and lawlessness, science and a juggle, supernal and infernal--those especially so profligate, who seek only to reach through government the sanction of law, the baptism of social order for their wickedness and misdeeds, have no business at any ballot-box, save that of recorded resolution to amend and repent.

To put the ballot into the hands of the reckless, the besotted, and the profligate, is the sheerest abuse possible, and suicidal to all just protection and rule.

It may be a long day ere suffrage shall be adjusted carefully and strictly to the normal basis. But before this the Gospel must be preached to all nations, the rough places must be made smooth and the paths straight for the coming of the Most High. Whatever unjust barriers or fact.i.tious discrimination there may be against any must be abolished, and equality must be for all. Wisdom or virtue is not the monopoly of any cla.s.s or s.e.x or race. By all the proprieties of nature, woman should have with man a voice in the enactment of laws and the administration of government. She is the complement of man, essential for the due poise, the right wisdom, and conduct in family, in neighborhood, in Church or in State. Sharing in civil government, she will be a redemptive agency for society in many ways little thought at present. And agitation and overturning shall not cease until the final realization is reached. Society shall yet be rewrought and born again. All rule shall be justice, and obedience liberty.

Government shall be the reflection of the infinite kingdom, the incarnation of truth, wisdom, benignity, power, the protector and help of all, inviting and a.s.sisting each to full realization of the utmost possibilities of attainment and strength for the individual soul, building to perfect freedom, building also to perfect unity. Service, sacrament, supreme reverence--this shall be the motto and norm of the world, all society become a church and all life worship, the broad anthem of souls. For this high consummation let us look and labor, trusting and working on to the perfect end.

Yours sincerely, CHAS. D. B. MILLS.

DWIGHT, ILL., _April 30, 1866_.

MY DEAR MISS ANTHONY:--Your kind letter inviting me to attend the Convention on the 10th of May, was duly received. I should be extremely happy to be with you in your deliberations, but so much of my time has of late been occupied in the work of the American Union Commission, that I can hardly spare a moment for even your good work.

I, however, feel only selfish regrets, for I should be but a listener and partaker of the rich mental feasts that will there be freely offered to all who will partake. The great arguments have all been made by our opponents, and they concede all that we ask, save that they subst.i.tute expediency for principle. They have yet to learn that G.o.d will not be dethroned; that when He decrees a human soul, He surrounds it with all the dignity of free will and consequent responsibility. He therefore endows the soul with rights, the exercise and protection of which are the crown of humanity. We ask no new code of rights. We simply ask to be included in the general method of a.s.serting and protecting them, which even the shadowy-browed children of bondage are now perceived to claim without presumption. It has been with no small degree of interest that I have seen that our wisest statesmen begin to so far see and feel the importance of the issue that lies inevitably in their path, that they stop to explain and apologize; but they dare not deny, lest the logic they use should be turned against themselves.

The great Christian doctrine of the equality of all before G.o.d, who is declared to be no respecter of persons, is the axe laid at the root of the tree of prejudice, which has for such long ages brought forth injustice and oppression in a mult.i.tude of forms. Our good and great men are reading with anointed eyes the declaration, "There is neither Jew nor Greek, neither bond nor free," and we may hope they will soon read the final a.s.sertion, "Neither male nor female, for ye are all one in Christ Jesus." In this full and broad a.s.sertion lies the completion of the great Christian scheme, not limited to any number of parts, but embracing the great whole, thus recognizing the fatherhood of G.o.d and the brotherhood of man. What our cause now needs is the Christian advocacy of good and wise men and women. Legally, our position is conceded, so far as the logical sequences are concerned; but the pulpit, on which woman is p.r.o.ne to lean for all her opinions on questions of morality, has, with a few rare exceptions, been silent.

Henry Ward Beecher has dared to speak out in a manly, Christian way; but even he has not laid upon the women of the Church that burden of responsibility concerning government that they ought to be made to feel. For what, let me ask, is to excuse them, if their want of intelligence and activity should lead to a thorough corruption of political morals such as we have seen in portions of our country during a few years past. Will they not be among those who hide their Lord's talent in the earth, and by and by come back with the little morsel carefully wrapped up in a napkin, all beautifully embroidered, it may be, and tender it back, saying, "Lo! there is thine own, take it!" In this religious aspect women must come to consider the question before it will become vital. Political action may give it a body, but G.o.d only can breathe into it the breath of life that will const.i.tute it a living soul. Hence we see that without the best religious sanction, little progress can really be a.s.sured. I am conscious that my views are not identical with those of many who have reached the same general conclusions; but as many are disposed to regard the question from this standpoint, I have thought it best to express myself with great frankness. With many regrets that I can not partake in your deliberations,

I remain, truly yours, MRS. H. M. TRACY CUTLER.

1710 LOCUST STREET, PHILADELPHIA, _May 10, 1866_.

MY VERY DEAR SUSAN ANTHONY:--I fully intended coming to the meetings--gave up Washington, made all my arrangements, packed my bag--and stayed at home. Circ.u.mstances which I could not control, and which I can't very well explain, put utterly out of my power the duty and pleasure of coming. There's no use in saying how sorry I am, for it would waste paper and time to state all my regrets. Suffice it to declare that I have rarely been so extremely sorry and disappointed.

Affectionately and truly thine, ANNA E. d.i.c.kINSON.

OFFICE OF CORRESPONDENCE WITH THE FRIENDS OF THE MISSING MEN OF } UNITED STATES ARMY, WASHINGTON, D. C.; _April 3, 1866_. }

DEAR MISS ANTHONY:--I am glad that my too kind and partial friends have set me "right on the record." I am "with you," and with all who labor for the advancement of humanity and the world through the proper channels--the elevation of woman. You have my heart, my sympathies (if needed), my prayers, and, best of all, my hopes, for the success of your every endeavor; and my poor words you should have, if they could add either strength or interest, but neither nature nor art have contributed me anything in this direction. I sometimes work a little, but it seems to me to be in the most common manner, and I am sure I could not speak at all. But no one knows how happy I should be to be present and listen to those who can; and if not prevented by duties of a very pressing and positive nature, I shall indulge myself so far. With a.s.surances of the highest regard, believe me your friend,

CLARA BARTON.

NEWPORT, R. I., _May 14, 1866_.

MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY--_Dear Friend_:--It has proved impossible for me to attend the Convention; and I hope it is unnecessary, so far as my own position is concerned, for me to renew my allegiance to the Equal Rights movement. It seems to me the most glaring of logical absurdities to apply the name of Universal Suffrage to any system which does not include both s.e.xes. It seems, in this point of view, a righteous retribution upon American men, that the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman has put such a weapon into the hands of those who would disfranchise the negro also. I must say, however, that a still greater share of this responsibility rests upon American women, for it is their unwillingness to ask for their rights which chiefly renders our legislators unwilling to concede them.

Cordially yours, THOMAS WENTWORTH HIGGINSON.