The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 10

Hon. Wm. D. Kelly, of Pennsylvania, performed like service in the House:

Mr. KELLY asked leave to offer a resolution, reciting that pet.i.tions were about to be presented to the House of Representatives from citizens of thirty-five States of the Union, asking for the adoption of an amendment to the const.i.tution to prohibit the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of any citizen of any State; and that there be a session of the House on Sat.u.r.day, January 12, at which time the advocates of the const.i.tutional amendment may be heard at the bar. These pet.i.tions ask the House to originate a movement which it cannot consumate, but which it can only submit to the States for their action. The resolution only asks that the House will hear a limited number of the advocates of this amendment, who are now in the city, and on a day when there is not likely to be a session for business. They only ask the privilege of stating the grounds of their belief why the const.i.tution should be amended in the direction they indicate.

Many of these ladies who pet.i.tion are tax-payers, and they believe their rights have been infringed upon.

Mr. CRITTENDEN of Missouri, objected, and the resolution was not entertained.

This refusal to women pleading for their own freedom was the more noticeable, as not only had Mesdames Sherman and Dahlgren been heard upon the floor of the Senate in opposition, but the floor of the House was shortly after granted to Charles Stewart Parnell, M.

P., that he might plead the cause of oppressed Ireland. The Washington _Union_ of January 11, 1878, largely sustained by federal patronage, commented as follows:

To allow the advocates of woman suffrage to plead their cause on the floor of the Senate, as proposed yesterday by Mr. Sargent, would be a decided innovation upon the established usages of parliamentary bodies. If the privilege were granted in this case it would next be claimed by the friends and the enemies of the silver bill, by the supporters and opponents of resumption, by hard money men and soft money men, by protectionists and free-traders, by labor-reformers, prohibitionists and the Lord knows whom besides. In fact, the admission of the ladies to speak on the floor of the Senate would be the beginning of lively times in that body.

The convention was held in Lincoln Hall, January, 8, 9, 1878. The house was filled to overflowing at the first session. A large number of representative women occupied the platform.[25] In opening the meeting the president, Dr. Clemence Lozier, gave a resume of the progress of the cause. Mrs. Stanton made an argument on "National Protection for National Citizens."[26] Mrs. Lockwood presented the following resolutions, which called out an amusing debate on the "man idea"--that he can best represent the home, the church, the State, the industries, etc., etc.:

_Resolved_, That the president of this convention appoint a committee to select three intelligent women who shall be paid commissioners to the Paris exposition; and also six other women who shall be volunteer commissioners to said exposition to represent the industries of American women.

_Resolved_, That to further this object the committee be instructed to confer with the President, the Secretary of State, and Commissioner McCormick.

A committee was appointed[27] and at once repaired to the white-house, where they were pleasantly received by President Hayes. After learning the object of their visit, the president named the different cla.s.ses of industries for which no commissioners had been appointed, asked the ladies to nominate their candidates, and a.s.sured them he would favor a representation by women.

Miss JULIA SMITH of Glas...o...b..ry, Conn., the veteran defender of the maxim of our fathers, "no taxation without representation,"

narrated the experience of herself and her sister Abby with the tax-gatherers. They attended the town-meeting and protested against unjust taxation, but finally their cows went into the treasury to satisfy the tax-collector.

ELIZABETH BOYNTON HARBERT of the Chicago _Inter-Ocean_, spoke on the temperance work being done in Chicago, in connection with the advocacy of the sixteenth amendment.

LILLIE DEVEREUX BLAKE reviewed the work in New York in getting the bill through the legislature to appoint women on school boards, which was finally vetoed by Governor Robinson.

Dr. MARY THOMPSON of Oregon, and Mrs. CROMWELL of Arkansas, gave interesting reports from their States, relating many laughable encounters with the opposition.

ROBERT PURVIS of Philadelphia, read a letter from the suffragists of Pennsylvania, in which congratulations were extended to the convention.

MARY A. S. CAREY, a worthy representative of the District of Columbia, the first colored woman that ever edited a newspaper in the United States, and who had been a worker in the cause for twenty years, expressed her views on the question, and said the colored women would support whatever party would allow them their rights, be it Republican or Democratic.

Rev. OLYMPIA BROWN believed that a proper interpretation of the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments did confer suffrage on women.

But men don't so understand it, and as a consequence when Mahomet would not come to the mountain the mountain must go to Mahomet.

She said the day was coming, and rapidly, too, when women would be given suffrage. There were very few now who did not acknowledge the justice of it.

ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER gave her idea on "A Reconstructed Police," showing how she would rule a police force if in her control. Commencing with the location of the office, she proceeded with her list of feminine and masculine officers, the chief being herself. She would have a superintendent as aid, with coordinate powers, and, besides the police force proper, which she would form of men and women in equal proportions; she would have matrons in charge of all station-houses. Her treatment of vagrants would be to wash, feed, and clothe them, make them st.i.tch, wash and iron, take their history down for future reference, and finally turn them out as skilled laborers. The care of vagrant children would form an item in her system.

Mrs. LAWRENCE of Ma.s.sachusetts, said the country is in danger, and like other republics, unless taken care of, will perish by its own vices. She said twelve hundred thousand men and women of this country now stand with nothing to do, because their legislators of wealth were working not for the many, but the few, drunkenness and vice being superinduced by such a state of things. She insisted that women were to blame for much of the evil of the world--for bringing into life children who grow up in vice from their inborn tendencies.

Dr. CAROLINE B. WINSLOW of Washington, referred to the speech of Mrs. Lawrence, saying she hoped G.o.d would bless her for having the courage to speak as she did. There is no greater reform than for man and woman to be true to the marital relations.

BELVA A. LOCKWOOD said the only way for women to get their rights is to take them. If necessary let there be a domestic insurrection. Let young women refuse to marry, and married women refuse to sew on b.u.t.tons, cook, and rock the cradle until their liege-lords acknowledge the rights they are ent.i.tled to. There were more ways than one to conquer a man; and women, like the strikers in the railroad riots, should carry their demands all along the line. She dwelt at length upon the refusal of the courts in allowing Lavinia Dundore to become a constable, and asked why she should not be appointed.

The Rev. OLYMPIA BROWN said that if they wanted wisdom and prosperity in the nation, health and happiness in the home, they must give woman the power to purify her surroundings; the right to make the outside world fit for her children to live in. Who are more interested than mothers in the sanitary condition of our schools and streets, and in the moral atmosphere of our towns and cities?

Marshal FREDERICK DOUGLa.s.s said his reluctance to come forward was not due to any lack of interest in the subject under discussion. For thirty years he had believed in human rights to all men and women. Nothing that has ever been proposed involved such vital interests as the subject which now invites attention.

When the negro was freed the question was asked if he was capable of voting intelligently. It was answered in this way: that if a sober negro knows as much as a drunken white man he is capable of exercising the elective franchise.

LAVINIA C. DUNDORE, introduced as the lady who had made application for an appointment as a constable and been refused, made a pithy address, in which she alluded to her recent disappointment.

MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE spoke of the influence of the church on woman's liberties, and then referred to a large number of law books--ancient and modern, ecclesiastical and lay--in which the liberties of woman were more or less abridged; the equality of s.e.xes which obtained in Rome before the Christian era, and the gradual discrimination in favor of men which crept in with the growth of the church.

Mrs. DEVEREUX BLAKE said there is no aspect of this question that strikes us so forcibly as the total ignoring of women by public men. However polite they may be in private life, when they come to public affairs they seem to forget that women exist. The men who framed the last amendment to the const.i.tution seemed to have wholly forgotten that women existed or had rights.... Huxley said in reply to an inquiry as to woman suffrage, "Of course I'm in favor of it. Does it become us to lay additional burdens on those who are already overweighted?" It is always the little men who oppose us; the big-hearted men help us along. All in this audience are of the broad-shouldered type, and I hope all will go out prepared to advocate our principles. In reply to the objection that women do not need the right to vote because men represent them so well, she asked if any man in the audience ever asked his wife how he should vote, and told him to stand up if there was such a one. [Here a young man in the back part of the hall stood up amidst loud applause.]

The various resolutions were discussed at great length and adopted, though much difference of opinion was expressed on the last, which demands that intelligence shall be made the basis of suffrage:

_Resolved_, That the National Const.i.tution should be so amended as to secure to United States citizens at home the same protection for their individual rights against State tyranny, as is now guaranteed everywhere against foreign aggressions.

_Resolved_, That the civil and political rights of the educated tax-paying women of this nation should take precedence of all propositions and debates in the present congress as to the future status of the Chinese and Indians under the flag of the United States.

WHEREAS, The essential elements of justice are already recognized in the const.i.tution; and, whereas, our fathers proposed to establish a purely secular government in which all forms of religion should be equally protected, therefore,

_Resolved_, That it is preeminently unjust to tax the property of widows and spinsters to its full value, while the clergy are made a privileged cla.s.s by exempting from taxation $1,500 of their property in some States, while in all States parsonages and other church property, amounting to millions of dollars, are exempted, which, if fairly taxed, would greatly lighten the national debt, and thereby the burdens of the laboring ma.s.ses.

_Resolved_, That thus to exempt one cla.s.s of citizens, one kind of property, from taxation, at the expense of all others, is a great national evil, in a moral as well as a financial point of view. It is an a.s.sumption that the church is a more important inst.i.tution than the family; that the influence of the clergy is of more vital consequence in the progress of civilization than that of the women of this republic; from which we emphatically dissent.

_Resolved_, That universal education is the true basis of universal suffrage; hence the several States should so amend their const.i.tutions as to make education compulsory, and, as a stimulus to the rising generation, declare that after 1885 all who exercise the right of suffrage must be able to read and write the English language. For, while the national government should secure the equal right of suffrage to all citizens, the State should regulate its exercise by proper attainable qualifications.

On January 10, 1878, our champion in the Senate, Hon. A. A.

Sargent, of California, by unanimous consent, presented the following joint resolution, which was read twice and referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections:

JOINT RESOLUTION _proposing an Amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States_.--

_Resolved_ by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in congress a.s.sembled, two-thirds of each House concurring therein, That the following article be proposed to the legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said legislatures, shall be valid as part of the said const.i.tution, namely:

ARTICLE 16, SEC. 1.--The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of s.e.x.

SEC. 2.--Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation.

The Committee on Privileges and Elections granted hearings to the National a.s.sociation on January 11, 12, when the delegates,[28]

representing the several States, made their respective arguments and appeals. Clemence S. Lozier, M. D., president of the a.s.sociation, first addressed the committee and read the following extract from a recent letter from Victor Hugo:

Our ill-balanced society seems as if it would take from woman all that nature had endowed her with. In our codes there is something to recast. It is what I call the woman-law. Man has had his law; he has made it for himself. Woman has only the law of man. She by this law is civilly a minor and morally a slave. Her education is embued with this twofold character of inferiority. Hence many sufferings to her which man must justly share. There must be reform here, and it will be to the benefit of civilization, truth, and light.

In concluding, Dr. Lozier said: I have now the honor to introduce Miss Julia E. Smith, of Glas...o...b..ry, Conn., who will speak to you concerning the resistance of her sister and herself to the payment of taxes in her native town, on the ground that they are unrepresented in all town meetings, and therefore have no voice in the expenditure of the taxes which they are compelled to pay.

Miss SMITH said: _Gentlemen of the Committee_--This is the first time in my life that I have trod these halls, and what has brought me here? I say, oppression--oppression of women by men.

Under the law they have taken from us $2,000 worth of meadow-land, and sold it for taxes of less than $50, and we were obliged to redeem it, for we could not lose the most valuable part of our farm. They have come into our house and said, "You must pay so much; we must execute the laws"; and we are not allowed to have a voice in the matter, or to modify laws that are odious.

I have come to Washington, as men cannot address you for us. We have no power at all; we are totally defenseless. [Miss Smith then read two short letters written by her sister Abby to the Springfield _Republican_.] These tell our brief story, and may I not ask, gentlemen, that they shall so plead with you that you will report to the Senate unanimously in favor of the sixteenth amendment, which we ask in order that the women of these United States who shall come after us may be saved the desecration of their homes which we have suffered, and our country may be relieved from the disgrace of refusing representation to that half of its people that men call the better half, because it includes their wives and daughters and mothers?

ELIZABETH BOYNTON HARBERT, vice-president for Illinois: _Gentlemen of the Committee_--We recognize your duty as men intrusted with the control and guidance of the government to carefully weigh every phase of this momentous question. Has the time arrived when it will be safe and expedient to make a practical application of these great principles of our government to one-half of the governed, one-half of the citizens of the United States? The favorite argument of the opposition has been that women are represented by men, hence have no cause for complaint. Any careful student of the progress of liberty must admit that the only possible method for securing justice to the represented is for their representatives to be made entirely responsible to their const.i.tuents, and promptly removable by them. We are only secure in delegating power when we can dictate its use, limit the same, or revoke it. How many of your honorable committee would vote to make the presidency an office for life, said office to descend to the heirs in a male line forever, with no reserved power of impeachment? Yet you would be more fairly represented than are American women, since they have never elected their representatives. So far as women are concerned you are self-const.i.tuted rulers. We cannot hope for complete representation while we are powerless to recall, impeach, or punish our representatives. We meet with a case in point in the history of Virginia. Bancroft gives us the following quotation from the official records:

The freedom of elections was further impaired by "frequent false returns," made by the sheriffs. Against these the people had no sufficient redress, for the sheriffs were responsible neither to them nor to officers of their appointment. And how could a more pregnant cause of discontent exist in a country where the elective franchise was cherished as the dearest civil privilege?--If land is to be taxed, none but landholders should elect the legislature.--The other freemen, who are the more in number, may refuse to be bound by those laws in which they have no representation, and we are so well acquainted with the temper of the people that we have reason to believe they had rather pay their taxes than lose that privilege.

Would those statesmen have dared to tax those landholders and yet deny them the privilege of choosing their representatives? And if, forsooth, they had, would not each one of you have declared such act unconst.i.tutional and unjust? We are the daughters of those liberty-loving patriots. Their blood flows in our veins, and in view of the recognized physiological fact that special characteristics are transmitted from fathers to daughters, do you wonder that we tax-paying, American-born citizens of these United States are here to protest in the name of liberty and justice? We recognize, however, that you are not responsible for the present political condition of women, and that the question confronting you, as statesmen called to administer justice under existing conditions, is, "What are the capacities of this great cla.s.s for self-government?" You have cautiously summoned us to adduce proof that the ballot in the hands of women would prove a help, not a hindrance; would bring wings, not weights.