The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 13

At the close of these two day's hearings before the Committee on Privileges and Elections,[30] Senator h.o.a.r of Ma.s.sachusetts, offered, and the committee adopted the following complimentary resolution:

_Resolved_, That the arguments upon the very important questions discussed before the committee have been presented with propriety, dignity and ability, and that the committee will consider the same on Tuesday next, at 10 A.M.

The Washington _Evening Star_ of January 11, 1876, said:

The woman suffrage question will be a great political issue some day. A movement in the direction of alleged rights by a body of American citizens cannot be forever checked, even though its progress may for many years be very gradual. Now that the advocates of suffrage for woman have become convinced that the thirteenth, fourteenth and fifteenth amendments are not sufficiently explicit to make woman's right to vote unquestioned, and that a sixteenth amendment is necessary to effect the practical exercise of the right, the millennial period that they look for is to all intents and purposes indefinitely postponed, for const.i.tutional amendments are not pa.s.sed in a day. But there are so many sound arguments to be advanced in favor of woman suffrage that it cannot fail in time to be weighed as a matter of policy, after it shall have been overwhelmingly conceded as a matter of right. And it is noticeable that the arguments of the opponents are coming more and more to be based on expediency, and hardly attempt to answer the claim that as American citizens women are ent.i.tled to the right. If the whole body of American women desired the practical exercise of this right, it is hard to see what valid opposition to their claims could be made. All this however does not amend the const.i.tution. Woman suffrage must become a matter of policy for a political party before it can be realized. Congress does not pa.s.s revolutionary measures on abstract considerations of right. This question is of a nature to become a living political issue after it has been sufficiently ridiculed.

On Sat.u.r.day evening, January 12, a reception was given to the delegates to the convention by Hon. Alexander H. Stephens of Georgia, at the National Hotel. The suite of rooms so long occupied by this liberal representative of the South, was thus opened to unwonted guests--women asking for the same rights gained at the point of the sword by his former slaves! Seated in his wheel-chair, from which he had so often been carried by a faithful attendant to his place in the House of Representatives, he cordially welcomed the ladies as they gathered about him, a.s.suring them of his interest in this question and promising his aid.

For the first time Miss Julia Smith of anti-tax fame, of Glas...o...b..ry, Connecticut, was present at a Washington convention.

She was the recipient of much social attention. A reception was tendered her by Mrs. Spofford of the Riggs House, giving people an opportunity to meet this heroic woman of eighty-three, who, with her younger sister Abby, had year after year suffered the sale of their fine Jersey cows and beautiful meadow lands, rather than pay taxes while unrepresented. Many women, notable in art, science and literature, and men high in political station were present on this occasion. All crowded about Miss Smith, as, supported by Mrs.

Hooker, in response to a call for a speech, particularly in regard to the Glads...o...b..ry cows, as famous as herself, she said:

There are but two of our cows left at present, Taxey and Votey.

It is something a little peculiar that Taxey is very obtrusive; why, I can scarcely step out of doors without being confronted by her, while Votey is quiet and shy, but she is growing more docile and domesticated every day, and it is my opinion that in a very short time, wherever you find Taxey there Votey will be also.

At the close of Miss Smith's remarks, Abby Hutchinson Patton sang "Auld Lang Syne" in a very effective manner; one or two readings followed, a few modern ballads were sung, and thus closed the first of the many delightful receptions given by Mr. and Mrs.

Spofford to the officers and members of the National a.s.sociation.

Mrs. Hooker spent several weeks at the Riggs House, holding frequent woman suffrage conversazioni in its elegant parlors; also speaking upon the question at receptions given in her honor by the wives of members of congress, or residents of Washington.[31]

During the week of the convention, public attention was called to a scarcely known Anti-Woman Suffrage Society, formed in 1871, of which Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren and Mrs. Almira Lincoln Phelps were officers, by the publication of an undelivered letter from Mrs. Phelps to Mrs. Hooker:

_To the Editor of the Post:_

The following was written nearly seven years since, but was never sent to Mrs. Hooker. The letter chanced to appear among old papers, and as there is a meeting of women suffragists, with Mrs.

Hooker present, and, moreover, as they have mentioned the names of Mrs. Dahlgren and Mrs. General Sherman, opposers, I am willing to bear my share of the opposition, as I acted as corresponding secretary to the Anti-Suffrage Society, which was formed under the auspices of these ladies.

Mrs. DAHLGREN.

EUTAW PLACE, BALTIMORE, January, 30, 1871.

_To Mrs. Beecher Hooker:_

DEAR MADAM--Hoping you will receive kindly what I am about to write, I will proceed without apologies. I have confidence in your n.o.bleness of soul, and that you know enough of me to believe in my devotion to the best interests of woman. I can scarcely realize that you are giving your name and influence to a cause, which, with some good but, as I think, misguided women, numbers among its advocates others with loose morals. * * * We are, my dear madam, as I suppose, related through our common ancester Thomas Hooker. * * * Your husband, I believe, stands in the same relation to that good and n.o.ble man. Perhaps he may think with you on this woman suffrage question, but it does seem to me that a wife honoring her husband would not wish to join in such a crusade as is now going on to put woman on an equality with the rabble at the "hustings." If we could with propriety pet.i.tion the Almighty to change the condition of the s.e.xes and let men take a turn in bearing children and in suffering the physical ailments peculiar to women, which render them unfit for certain positions and business, why, in this case, if we really wish to be men, and thought G.o.d would change the established order, we might make our pet.i.tion; but why ask congress to make us men? Circ.u.mstances drew me from the quiet of domestic life while I was yet young; but success in labors which involved publicity, and which may have been of advantage to society, was never considered as an equivalent to my own heart for the loss of such retirement. In the name of my sainted sister, Emma Willard, and of my friend Lydia Sigourney, and I think I might say in the name of the women of the past generation, who have been prominent as writers and educators (the exception may be made of Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances Wright, and a few licentious French writers) in our own country and in Europe, let me urge the high-souled and honorable of our s.e.x to turn their energies into that channel which will enable them to act for the true interests of their s.e.x.

Yours respectfully, ALMIRA LINCOLN PHELPS.

To which Mrs. Hooker, through _The Post_, replied:

WASHINGTON, January 15, 1878.

Mrs. DAHLGREN--_Dear Madam_: Permit me to thank you for the opportunity to exonerate myself and the women of the suffrage movement all over the United States from the charge of favoring immorality in any form. I did not know before that Mrs. Phelps, whom I have always held in highest esteem as an educator and as one of the most advanced thinkers of her day, had so misconceived the drift of our movement; and you will pardon me, dear madam, for saying that it is hardly possible that Mrs. Sherman and yourself, in your opposition to it, can have been influenced by any apprehension that the women suffragists of the United States would, if entrusted with legislative power, proceed to use it for the desecration of their own s.e.x, and the pollution of the souls of their husbands, brothers and sons. But having been publicly accused through your instrumentality of sympathy with the licentious practices of men, I shall take the liberty to send you a dozen copies of a little book ent.i.tled, "Womanhood; its Sanct.i.ties and Fidelities," which I published in 1874 for the specific purpose of bringing to the notice of American women the wonderful work being done across the water in the suppression of "State Patronage of Vice." * * * It is with a deep sense of grat.i.tude to G.o.d that I am able to say that, according to my knowledge and belief, every woman in our movement, whether officer or private, is in sympathy with the spirit of this little book. I know of no inharmony here, however we may differ upon minor points of expediency as to the best methods of working for the political advancement of woman. And further, it is the deep conviction of us all that the chief stumbling-block in the way of our obtaining the use of the ballot, is the apprehension among men of low degree that they will surely be limited in their base and brutal and sensual indulgencies when women are armed with equal political power.

As to my husband, to whose ancestry Mrs. Phelps so kindly alludes, permit me to say that he is not only descended from Thomas Hooker, the beloved first pastor of the old Centre Church in Hartford, and founder of the State of Connecticut, but further back his lineage takes root in one of England's most honored names, Richard Hooker, surnamed "The Judicious"; and I have been accustomed to say that, however it may be as to learning and position, the characteristic of judiciousness has not departed from the American stock. I will only add that Mr. Hooker is treasurer of our State suffrage a.s.sociation, and has spoken on the platform with me as president, whenever his professional duties would permit, and that he is the author of a tract on "The Bible and Woman Suffrage." Our society has printed several thousand copies of this tract, and the London National Women's Suffrage Society has reprinted it with words of high commendation for distribution in Great Britain. * * * And now, dear madam, thanking you once more for this most unexpected and most grateful opportunity for correcting misapprehensions that others may have entertained as well as Mrs. Phelps in regard to the design and tendencies of our movement, may I not ask that you will kindly read and consider the papers I shall take the liberty to send you, and hand them to your co-workers at your convenience?

That we all, as women who love our country and our kind, may be led to honor each other in our personal relations, while we work each in her respective way for that higher order of manhood and womanhood that alone can exalt our nation to the ideal of the fathers and mothers of the early republic, and preserve us an honored place among the peoples of the earth, is the prayer of

Yours sincerely, ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER.

Evidently left without even the name of Mrs. Sherman or the Anti-Suffrage Society to sustain her, Mrs. Dahlgren memorialized the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections against the submission of the sixteenth amendment:

_To the Honorable Committee on Privileges and Elections:_

GENTLEMEN--Allow me, in courtesy, as a pet.i.tioner, to present one or two considerations regarding a sixteenth amendment, by which it is proposed to confer the right of suffrage upon the women of the United States. I ask this favor also in the interests of the ma.s.ses of silent women, whose silence does not give consent, but who, in most modest earnestness, deprecate having the political life forced upon them.

This grave question is not one of simple expediency or the reverse; it might properly be held, were this the case, as a legitimate subject for agitation. Our reasons of dissent to this dangerous inroad upon all precedent, lie deeper and strike higher. They are based upon that which in all Christian nations must be recognized as the higher law, the fundamental law upon which Christian society in its very construction must rest; and that law, as defined by the Almighty, is immutable. Through it the women of this Christian land, as mothers, wives, sisters, daughters, have distinct duties to perform of the most complex order, yet of the very highest and most sacred nature.

If in addition to all these responsibilities, others, appertaining to the domain a.s.signed to men, are allotted to us, we shall be made the victims of an oppression not intended by a kind and wise Providence, and from which the refining influences of Christian civilization have emanc.i.p.ated us. We have but to look at the condition of our Indian sister, upon whose bended back the heavy pack is laid by her lord and master; who treads in subjection the beaten pathway of equal rights, and compare her situation with our own, to thank the G.o.d of Christian nations who has placed us above that plane, where right is might, and might is tyranny. We cannot without prayer and protest see our cherished privileges endangered, and have granted us only in exchange the so-called equal rights. We need more, and we claim, through our physical weakness and your courtesy as Christian gentlemen, that protection which we need for the proper discharge of those sacred and inalienable functions and rights conferred upon us by G.o.d. To these the vote, which is not a natural right (otherwise why not confer it upon idiots, lunatics, and adult boys) would be adverse.

When women ask for a distinct political life, a separate vote, they forget or they willfully ignore the higher law, whose logic may be thus condensed: Marriage is a sacred unity. The family, through it, is the foundation of the State. Each family is represented by its head, just as the State ultimately finds the same unity, through a series of representations. Out of this come peace, concord, proper representation, and adjustment--union.

The new doctrine, which is illusive, may be thus defined: Marriage is a mere compact, and means diversity. Each family, therefore, must have a separate individual representation, out of which arises diversity or division, and discord is the corner-stone of the State.

Gentlemen, we cannot displace the corner-stone without destruction to the edifice itself! The subject is so vast, has so many side issues, that a volume might as readily be laid before your honorable committee as these few words hastily written with an aching woman's heart. Personally, if any woman in this vast land has a grievance by not having a vote, I may claim that grievance to be mine. With father, brother, husband, son, taken away by death, I stand utterly alone, with minor children to educate and considerable property interests to guard. But I would deem it unpatriotic to ask for a general law which must prove disastrous to my country, in order to meet that exceptional position in which, by the adorable will of G.o.d, I am placed. I prefer, indeed, to trust to that moral influence over men which intelligence never fails to exercise, and which is really more potent in the management of business affairs than the direct vote. In this I am doubtless as old-fashioned as were our grandmothers, who a.s.sisted to mold this vast republic. They knew that the greatest good for the greatest number was the only safe legislative law, and that to it all exceptional cases must submit.

Gentlemen, in conclusion, a sophism in legislation is not a mere abstraction; it must speedily bear fruit in material results of the most disastrous nature, and I implore your honorable committee, in behalf of our common country, not to open a Pandora's box by way of experiment from whence so much evil must issue, and which once opened may never again be closed.

Very respectfully, MADELEINE VINTON DAHLGREN.

Mrs. Dahlgren was ably reviewed by Virginia L. Minor of St. Louis, and the Toledo Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation. Mrs. Minor said:

In a.s.suming to speak for the "silent ma.s.ses" of women, Mrs.

Dahlgren declares that silence does not give consent; very inconsequently forgetting, that if it does not on one side of the question, it may not on the other, and that she may no more represent them than do we.

The Toledo society, through its president Mrs. Rose L. Segur, said:

We agree with you that this grave question is not one of expediency. It is simply one of right and justice, and therefore a most legitimate subject for agitation. As a moral force woman must have a voice in the government, or partial and unjust legislation is the result from which arise the evils consequent upon a government based upon the enslavement of half its citizens.

To this Mrs. Dahlgren replied briefly, charging the ladies with incapacity to comprehend her.

The week following the convention a hearing was granted by the House Judiciary Committee to Dr. Mary Walker of Washington, Mary A.

Tillotson of New Jersey and Mrs. N. Cromwell of Arkansas, urging a report in favor of woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt. On January 28, the House sub-committee on territories granted a hearing to Dr. Mary Walker and Sara Andrews Spencer, in opposition to the bill proposing the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the women of Utah as a means of suppressing polygamy.

On January 30 the House Judiciary Committee granted Mrs. Hooker a hearing. Of the eleven members of the committee nearly all were present.[32] The room and all the corridors leading to it were crowded with men and women eager to hear Mrs. Hooker's speech. At the close of the two hours occupied in its delivery, Chairman Knott thanked her in the name of the committee for her able argument.

Immediately after this hearing Mr. Frye of Maine, in presenting in the House of Representatives the pet.i.tions of 30,000 persons asking the right of women to vote upon the question of temperance, referred in a very complimentary manner to Mrs. Hooker's argument, to which he had just listened. Upon this prayer a hearing was granted to the president and ex-president of the Woman's Christian Temperance Union, Frances E. Willard and Annie E. Wittenmyer.

Hon. George F. h.o.a.r of Ma.s.sachusetts, February 4, presented in the Senate the 120 pet.i.tions with their 6,261 signatures, which, by special request of its officers, had been returned to the headquarters of the American a.s.sociation, in Boston. In her appeal to the friends to circulate the pet.i.tions, both State and national, Lucy Stone, chairman of its executive committee, said:

The American Suffrage a.s.sociation has always recommended pet.i.tions to congress for a sixteenth amendment. But it recognizes the far greater importance of pet.i.tioning the State legislatures. _First_--Because suffrage is a subject referred by the const.i.tution to the voters of each State. _Second_--Because we cannot expect a congress composed solely of representatives of States which deny suffrage to women, to submit an amendment which their own States have not yet approved. Just so it would have been impossible to secure the submission of negro suffrage by a congress composed solely of representatives from States which restricted suffrage to white men. While therefore we advise our friends to circulate both pet.i.tions together for signature, we urge them to give special prominence to those which apply to their own State legislatures, and to see that these are presented and urged by competent speakers next winter.

By request of a large number of the senators,[33] the Committee on Privileges and Elections granted a special hearing to Mrs. Hooker on Washington's birthday--February 22, 1878. It being understood that the wives of the senators were bringing all the forces of fashionable society to bear in aid of Mrs. Dahlgren's protest against the pending sixteenth amendment, the officers of the National a.s.sociation issued cards of invitation asking their presence at this hearing. We copy from the Washington _Post_:

The conflicting rumors as to who would be admitted to hear Mrs.

Hooker's argument before the Senate Committee on Privileges and Elections, led to the a.s.sembling of large numbers of women in various places about the capitol yesterday morning. At 11 o'clock the doors were opened and the committee-room at once filled.[34]

Mrs. Hooker, with the fervor and eloquence of her family, reviewed all the popular arguments against woman suffrage. She said she once believed that twenty years was little time enough for a foreigner to live in this country before he could cast a ballot. She understands the spirit of our inst.i.tutions better now. If disfranchis.e.m.e.nt meant annihilation, there might be safety in disfranchising the poor, the ignorant, the vicious. But it does not. It means danger to everything we hold dear.