The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 7

[3] News of the cannonade of Boston had been received the day previous.

[4] Though thus discourteously refused to an a.s.sociation to secure equality of rights for women, it was subsequently rented to "The International Peace a.s.sociation."

[5] _President_--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Tenafly, New Jersey.

_Vice-Presidents_--Lucretia Mott, Pa.; Ernestine L. Rose, England; Paulina Wright Davis, R. I.; Clarina I. H. Nichols, Cal.; Amelia Bloomer, Iowa; Mathilde Franceska Anneke, Wis.; Virginia L. Minor, Mo.; Catharine A. F. Stebbins, Mich.; Julia and Abby Smith, Conn.; Abby P. Ela, N. H.; Mrs. W. H. H. Murray, Ma.s.s.; Ann T. Greely, Me.; Eliza D. Stewart, Ohio; Mary Hamilton Williams, Ind.; Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Ill.; Sarah Burger Stearns, Minn.; Ada W. Lucas, Neb.; Helen E. Starrett, Kan.; Ann L. Quinby, Ky.; Elizabeth Avery Meriwether, Tenn.; Mrs. L. C. Locke, Texas; Emily P. Collins, La.; Mary J. Spaulding, Ga.; Mrs. P. Holmes, Drake, Ala.; Flora M. Wright, Fla.; Frances Annie Pillsbury, S. C.; Cynthia Anthony, N. C.; Carrie F. Putnam, Va.; Anna Ella Carroll, Md.; Abigail Scott Duniway, Oregon; Hannah H. Clapp, Nevada; Dr.

Alida C. Avery, Col.; Mary Olney Brown, Wash. Ter.; Esther A.

Morris, Wyoming Ter.; Annie G.o.dbe, Utah.

_Advisory Committee_--Sarah Pugh, Pa.; Isabella Beecher Hooker, Conn.; Charlotte B. Wilbour, N. Y.; Mary J. Channing, R. I.; Elizabeth B. Schenck, Cal.; Judith Ellen Foster, Iowa; Lavinia Goodell, Wis.; Annie R. Irvine, Mo.; Marian Bliss, Mich.; Mary B.

Moses, N. H.; Sarah A. Vibbart, Ma.s.s.; Lucy A. Snowe, Me.; Marilla M. Ricker, N. H.; Mary Madden, Ohio; Emma Molloy, Ind.; Cynthia A.

Leonard, Ill.; Mrs. Dr. Stewart, Minn.; Julia Brown Bemis, Neb.; Mrs. N. H. Cramer, Tenn.; Mrs. W. V. Tunstall, Tex.; Mrs. A.

Millspaugh, La.; Hannah M. Rogers, Fla.; Sally Holly, Va.; Sallie W. Hardcastle, Md.; Mary P. Sautelle, Oregon; Mary F. Shields, Col.; Amelia Giddings, Wash. Ter.; Amalia B. Post, Wyoming Ter.

_Corresponding Secretaries_--Susan B. Anthony, Rochester, N. Y.; Laura Curtis Bullard, New York; Jane Graham Jones, Chicago, Ill.

_Recording Secretary_--Lillie Devereux Blake, New York.

_Treasurer_--Ellen Clark Sargent, Washington, D. C.

_Executive Committee_--Matilda Joslyn Gage, Fayetteville, N. Y.; Clemence S. Lozier, M. D., Elizabeth B. Phelps, Mathilde F. Wendt, Phebe H. Jones, New York; Rev. Olympia Brown, Connecticut; Sarah R.

L. Williams, Ohio; M. Adeline Thomson, Pennsylvania; Henrietta Payne Westbrook, Pennsylvania; Nancy R. Allen, Iowa.

[6] _1876 Campaign Committee_--Susan B. Anthony, N. Y.; Matilda Joslyn Gage, N. Y.; Phoebe W. Couzins, Mo.; Rev. Olympia Brown, Conn.; Jane Graham Jones, Ill.; Abigail Scott Duniway, Oregon; Laura De Force Gordon, Cal.; Annie C. Savery, Iowa.

[7] _Resident Congressional Committee_--Sara Andrews Spencer, Ellen Clark Sargent, Ruth Carr Denison, Belva A. Lockwood, Mrs. E. D. E.

N. Southworth.

[8] Among those who took part in the discussions were Dr. Clemence Lozier, Susan B. Anthony, Helen M. Sloc.u.m, Sarah Goodyear, Helen M.

Cook, Abby and Julia Smith, Sara Andrews Spencer, Miss Charlotte Ray, Lillie Devereux Blake and Matilda Joslyn Gage.

[9] Letters were written to these conventions from different States. Mrs. Elizabeth L. Saxon, New Orleans, La.; Elizabeth A.

Meriwether, Memphis, Tenn.; Mrs. Margaret V. Longley, Cincinnati, O., all making eloquent appeals for some consideration of the political rights of women.

[10] Mrs. Mott, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Gage, and Mrs. Spencer.

[11] On the receipt of these letters a prolonged council was held by the officers of the a.s.sociation at their headquarters, as to what action they should take on the Fourth of July. Mrs. Mott and Mrs. Stanton decided for themselves that after these rebuffs they would not even sit on the platform, but at the appointed time go to the church they had engaged for a meeting, and open their convention. Others more brave and determined insisted that women had an equal right to the glory of the day and the freedom of the platform, and decided to take the risk of a public insult in order to present the woman's declaration and thus make it an historic doc.u.ment.--[E.C.S.

[12] During the reading of the declaration to an immense concourse of people, Mrs. Gage stood beside Miss Anthony, and held an umbrella over her head, to shelter her friend from the intense heat of the noonday sun; and thus in the same hour, on opposite sides of old Independence Hall, did the men and women express their opinions on the great principles proclaimed on the natal day of the republic. The declaration was handsomely framed and now hangs in the vice-president's room in the capitol at Washington.

[13] This doc.u.ment was signed by Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Paulina Wright Davis, Ernestine L. Rose, Clarina I. H.

Nichols, Mary Ann McClintock, Mathilde Franceska Anneke, Sarah Pugh, Amy Post, Catharine A. F. Stebbins, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Clemence S. Lozier, Olympia Brown, Mathilde F. Wendt, Adleline Thomson, Ellen Clark Sargent, Virginia L. Minor, Catherine V. Waite, Elizabeth B. Schenck, Phoebe W. Couzins, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Laura De Force Gordon, Sara Andrews Spencer, Lillie Devereux Blake, Jane Graham Jones, Abigail Scott Duniway, Belva A. Lockwood, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Sarah L. Williams, Abby P. Ela.

[14]

One hundred years hence, what a change will be made, In politics, morals, religion and trade, In statesmen who wrangle or ride on the fence, These things will be altered _a hundred years hence_.

Our laws then will be uncompulsory rules, Our prisons converted to national schools.

The pleasure of sinning 'tis all a pretense, And the people will find it so, _a hundred years hence_.

Lying, cheating and fraud will be laid on the shelf, Men will neither get drunk, nor be bound up in self, But all live together, good neighbors and friends, Just as _Christian folks_ ought to, _a hundred years hence_.

Then woman, man's partner, man's equal shall stand, While beauty and harmony govern the land, To think for oneself will be no offense, The world will be thinking _a hundred years hence_.

Oppression and war will be heard of no more, Nor the blood of a slave leave his print on our sh.o.r.e, Conventions will then be a useless expense, For we'll all go _free-suffrage a hundred years hence_.

Instead of speech-making to satisfy wrong, All will join the glad chorus to sing Freedom's song; And if the Millenium is not a pretense, We'll all be good brothers _a hundred years hence_.

This song was written in 1852, at Cleveland, Ohio, by Frances Dana Gage, expressly for John W. Hutchinson. Several of the friends were staying with Mrs. Caroline M. Severance, on their way to the Akron convention, where it was first sung.

[15] Protests and declarations were read by Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, in Evanston, Ill.; Sarah L. Knox, California; Mrs. Rosa L.

Segur, Toledo, Ohio; Mrs. Mary Olney Brown, Olympia, Washington territory; Mrs. Henrietta Paine Westbrook, New York city. In Maquoketa, Iowa; Mrs. Nancy R. Allen read the declaration at the regular county celebration. Madam Anneke, Wis.; Elizabeth Avery Meriwether, Tenn.; Lucinda B. Chandler, N. J.; Jane E. Telker, Iowa; S. P. Abeel, D. C.; Mrs. J. A. Johns, Oregon; Elizabeth Lisle Saxon, La.; Mrs. Elsie Stewart, Kan.; and many others impossible to name, sent in protests and declarations.

[16] See Appendix.

[17] Henry Hutchinson, the son of John.

[18] A German legend says, G.o.d first made a mouse, but seeing he had made a mistake he made the cat as an afterthought, therefore if woman is G.o.d's afterthought, man must be a mistake.

[19] Afterwards killed by the Indians in Colorado.

CHAPTER XXVIII.

NATIONAL CONVENTIONS, HEARINGS AND REPORTS.

1877-1878-1879.

Renewed Appeal for a Sixteenth Amendment--Mrs. Gage Pet.i.tions for Removal of Political Disabilities--Ninth Washington Convention, 1877--Jane Grey Swisshelm--Letters, Robert Purvis, Wendell Phillips, Francis E. Abbott--10,000 Pet.i.tions Referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections by Special Request of the Chairman, Hon. O. P. Morton, of Indiana--May Anniversary in New York--Tenth Washington Convention, 1878--Frances E. Willard and 30,000 Temperance Women Pet.i.tion Congress--40,000 Pet.i.tion for a Sixteenth Amendment--Hearing before the Committee on Privileges and Elections--Madam Dahlgren's Protest--Mrs. Hooker's Hearing on Washington's Birthday--Mary Clemmer's Letter to Senator Wadleigh--His Adverse Report--Favorable Minority Report by Senator h.o.a.r--Thirtieth Anniversary, Unitarian Church, Rochester, N. Y., July 19, 1878--The Last Convention Attended by Lucretia Mott--Letters, William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips--Church Resolution Criticised by Rev. Dr. Strong--International Women's Congress in Paris--Washington Convention, 1879--U.S. Supreme Court Opened to Women--May Anniversary at St. Louis--Address of Welcome by Phoebe Couzins--Women in Council Alone--Letter from Josephine Butler, of England--Mrs. Stanton's Letter to _The National Citizen and Ballot-Box_.

With the close of the centennial year the new departure under the fourteenth amendment ended. Though defeated at the polls, in the courts, in the national celebration, in securing a plank in the platforms of the Republican and Democratic parties, and in our own conventions--so far as the few were able to rouse the many to simultaneous action--nevertheless a wide-spread agitation had been secured by the presentation of this phase of the question.

Although the unanswerable arguments of statesmen and lawyers in the halls of congress and the Supreme Court of the United States, had alike proved unavailing in establishing the civil and political rights of women on a national basis, their efforts had not been in vain. The trials had brought the question before a new order of minds, and secured able const.i.tutional arguments which were reviewed in many law journals. The equally able congressional debates, reported verbatim, read by a large const.i.tuency in every State of the Union, did an educational work on the question of woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt that cannot be overestimated.

But when the final decision of the Supreme Court in the case of Virginia L. Minor made all agitation in that direction hopeless, the National a.s.sociation returned to its former policy, demanding a sixteenth amendment. The women generally came to the conclusion that if in truth there was no protection for them in the original const.i.tution nor the late amendments, the time had come for some clearly-defined recognition of their citizenship by a sixteenth amendment.

The following appeal and pet.i.tion were extensively circulated:

_To the Women of the United States:_

Having celebrated our centennial birthday with a national jubilee, let us now dedicate the dawn of the second century to securing justice to women. For this purpose we ask you to circulate a pet.i.tion to congress, just issued by the National a.s.sociation, asking an amendment to the United States Const.i.tution, that shall prohibit the several States from disfranchising citizens on account of s.e.x. We have already sent this pet.i.tion throughout the country for the signatures of those men and women who believe in the citizen's right to vote.

To see how large a pet.i.tion each State rolls up, and to do the work as expeditiously as possible, it is necessary that some person in each county should take the matter in charge, urging upon all, thoroughness and haste. * * * The pet.i.tions should be returned before January 16, 17, 1877, when we shall hold our Eighth Annual Convention at the capital, and ask a hearing before congress.

Having pet.i.tioned our law-makers, State and national, for years, many from weariness have vowed to appeal no more; for our pet.i.tions, say they, by the tens of thousands, are piled up in the national archives, unheeded and ignored. Yet it is possible to roll up such a mammoth pet.i.tion, borne into congress on the shoulders of stalwart men, that we can no longer be neglected or forgotten. Statesmen and politicians alike are conquered by majorities. We urge the women of this country to make now the same united effort for their own rights that they did for the slaves at the South when the thirteenth amendment was pending.