The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 14

The corner-stone of this republic is G.o.d's own doctrine of liberty and responsibility. Liberty is the steam, responsibility the brakes, and election-day, the safety-valve. The foreigner comes to this country expecting to find it a paradise. He finds, indeed, a ladder reaching to the skies, but resting upon the earth, and he is at the bottom round. But on one day in the year he is as good as the richest man in the land. He can make the banker stand in the line behind him until he votes, and if he has wrongs he learns how to right them. If he has mistaken ideas of liberty, he is instructed what freedom means.

Wire-pulling politicians may well fear to have women enfranchised. There are too many of them, and they have had too much experience in looking after the details of their households to be easily duped by the tricks of politicians. You can't keep women away from primary meetings as you do intelligent men. Women know that every corner in the house must be inspected if the house is to be clean. Fathers and brothers want women to vote so that they can have a decent place for a primary meeting, a decent place to vote in and a decent man to vote for.

The Indian question would have been peacefully and righteously settled long ago without any standing army, if Lucretia Mott could have led in the councils of the nation, and the millions spent in fighting the Indians might have been used in kindergartens for the poor, to some lasting benefit. Down with the army, down with appropriation bills to repair the consequences of wrong-doing, when women vote. Millions more of women would ask for this if it were not for the cruelty and abuse men have heaped upon the advocates of woman suffrage. Men have made it a terrible martyrdom for women even to ask for their rights, and then say to us, "convert the women." No, no, men have put up the bars. They must take them down. Mrs. Hooker reviewed the Chinese question, the labor question, the subjects of compulsory education, reformation, police regulations, the social evil, and many other topics upon which men vainly attempt to legislate without the loving wisdom of mothers, sisters and daughters. The senators most interested in the argument were observed to be those previously most unfriendly to woman suffrage.

It was during this winter that Marilla M. Ricker of New Hampshire, then studying criminal law in Washington and already having quite an extensive practice, applied to the commissioners of the District of Columbia for an appointment as notary public. The question of the eligibility of woman to the office was referred to the district-attorney, Hon. Albert G. Riddle, formerly a member of congress from Ohio, and at that time one of the most prominent criminal and civil lawyers before the bar. Mr. Riddle's reply was an able and exhaustive argument, clearly showing there was no law to prevent women from holding the office. But notwithstanding this opinion from their own attorney, the commissioners rejected Mrs.

Ricker's application.[35]

Bills to prohibit the Supreme Court from denying the admission of lawyers on the ground of s.e.x had been introduced at each session of congress during the past four years. The House bill No. 1,077, ent.i.tled "A bill to relieve certain disabilities of women," was this year championed by Hon. John M. Glover of Missouri, and pa.s.sed by a vote of 169 ayes to 87 nays. In the Senate, Hon. George F.

Edmunds of Vermont, chairman of the Judiciary Committee reported adversely. While the question was pending, Mrs. Lockwood addressed a brief to the Senate, ably refuting the a.s.sertion of the Court that it was contrary to English precedent:

_To the Honorable, the Senate of the United States:_

The provisions of this bill are so stringent, that to the ordinary mind it would seem that the conditions are hard enough for the applicant to have well earned the honor of the preferment, without making _s.e.x_ a disability. The fourteenth amendment to the const.i.tution declares that:

All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are _citizens_ of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.

Nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

To deny the right asked in this bill would be to deny to women citizens the rights guaranteed in the Declaration of Independence to be self-evident and inalienable, "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness"; a denial of one of the fundamental rights of a portion of the citizens of the commonwealth to acquire property in the most honorable profession of the law, thereby perpetuating an invidious distinction between male and female citizens equally amenable to the law, and having an equal interest in all of the inst.i.tutions created and perpetuated by this government. The articles of confederation declare that:

The free inhabitants of each of these States--paupers and fugitives from justice excepted--shall be ent.i.tled to all privileges and immunities of free citizens in the several States.

Article 4 of the const.i.tution says:

Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State.

Illinois, Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri, North Carolina, Wyoming, Utah, and the District of Columbia admit women to the bar. What then? Shall the second coordinate branch of the government, the judiciary, refuse to grant what it will not permit the States to deny, the privileges and immunities of citizens, and say to women-attorneys when they have followed their cases through the State courts to that tribunal beyond which there is no appeal, "You cannot come in here we are too holy," or in the words of the learned chancellor declare that:

By the uniform practice of the court from its organization to the present time, and by a fair construction of its rules, none but men are admitted to practice before it as attorneys and counselors. This is in accordance with immemorial usage in England, and the law and practice in all the States until within a recent period, and the court does not feel called upon to make a change until such a change is required by statute, or a more extended practice in the highest courts of the States.

With all due respect for this opinion, we beg leave to quote the rule for admission to the bar of that court as laid down in the rule book:

RULE NO. 2.--_Attorneys_: It shall be requisite to the admission of attorneys or counselors to practice in this court, that they shall have been such for three years past in the Supreme Courts of the States to which they respectively belong, and that their private and professional character shall appear to be fair.

There is nothing in this rule or in the oath which follows it, either express or implied, which confines the membership of the bar of the United States Supreme Court to the male s.e.x. Had any such term been included therein it would virtually be nullified by the first paragraph of the United States Revised Statutes, ratified by the forty-third congress, June 20, 1875, in which occur the following words:

In determining the meaning of the Revised Statutes, or of any act or resolution of congress pa.s.sed subsequent to February 25, 1871, words importing the singular number may extend and be applied to several persons or things; words importing the masculine gender may be applied to _females_, etc., etc.

Now, as to "immemorial usage in England." The executive branch of that government has been vested in an honored and honorable woman for the past forty years. Is it to be supposed if this distinguished lady or any one of her accomplished daughters should ask to be heard at the bar of the Court of the Queen's Bench, the practice of which the United States Supreme Court has set up as its model, that she would be refused?

Blackstone recounts that Ann, Countess of Pembroke, held the office of sheriff of Westmoreland and exercised its duties in person. At the a.s.sizes at Appleby she sat with the judges on the bench. (See c.o.ke on Lit., p. 326.) The Scotch sheriff is properly a judge, and by the statute 20, Geo., II, c. 43, he must be a lawyer of three years standing.

Eleanor, Queen of Henry III. of England, in the year 1253, was appointed lady-keeper of the great seal, or the supreme chancellor of England, and sat in the _Aula Regia_, or King's Court. She in turn appointed Kilkenny, arch-deacon of Coventry, as the sealer of writs and common-law instruments, but the more important matters she executed in person.

Queen Elizabeth held the great seal at three several times during her remarkable reign. After the death of Lord-keeper Bacon she presided for two months in the _Aula Regia_.

It is claimed that "admission to the bar const.i.tutes an office."

Every woman postmaster, pension agent and notary public throughout the land is a bonded officer of the government. The Western States have elected women as school superintendents and appointed them as enrolling and engrossing clerks in their several legislatures, and as State librarians. Of what use are our seminaries and colleges for women if after they have pa.s.sed through the curriculum of the schools there is for them no preferment, and no emolument; no application of the knowledge of the arts and sciences acquired, and no recognition of the excellence attained?

But this country, now in the second year of the second century of her history, is no longer in her leading strings, that she should look to Mother England for a precedent to do justice to the daughters of the land. She had to make a precedent when the first male lawyer was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court. Ah! this country is one that has not hesitated when the necessity has arisen to make precedents and write them in blood.

There was no precedent for this free republican government and the war of the rebellion; no precedent for the emanc.i.p.ation of the slave; no precedent for the labor strikes of last summer. The more extended practice, and the more extended public opinion referred to by the learned chancellor have already been accomplished. Ah! that very opinion, telegraphed throughout the land by the a.s.sociated press, brought back the response of the people as on the wings of the wind asking you for that special act now so nearly consummated, which shall open this professional door to women.

BELVA A. LOCKWOOD, _Attorney and Solicitor_.

_Washington, D. C._, March 7, 1878.

Mrs. Lockwood's bill, with Senator Edmond's adverse report, was reached on the Senate calendar April 22, 1878, and provoked a spirited discussion. Hon. A. A. Sargent, made a gallant fight in favor of the bill, introducing the following amendment:

No person shall be excluded from practicing as an attorney and counselor at law in any court of the United States on account of s.e.x.

Mr. SARGENT: Mr. President, the best evidence that members of the legal profession have no jealousy against the admission of women to the bar who have the proper learning, is shown by this doc.u.ment which I hold in my hand, signed by one hundred and fifty-five lawyers of the District of Columbia, embracing the most eminent men in the ranks of that profession. That there is no jealousy or consideration of impropriety on the part of the various States is shown by the fact that the legislatures of many of the States have recently admitted women to the bar; and my own State, California, has pa.s.sed such a law within the last week or two; Illinois has done the same thing; so have Michigan, Minnesota, Missouri and North Carolina; and Wyoming, Utah and the District of Columbia among the territories have also done it.

There is no reason in principle why women should not be admitted to this profession or the profession of medicine, provided they have the learning to enable them to be useful in those professions, and useful to themselves. Where is the propriety in opening our colleges, our higher inst.i.tutions of learning, or any inst.i.tutions of learning, to women, and then when they have acquired in the race with men the cultivation for higher employment, to shut them out? There certainly is none. We should either restrict the laws allowing the liberal education of women, or, we should allow them to exercise the talents which are cultivated at the public expense in such departments of enterprise and knowledge as will be useful to society and will enable them to gain a living. The tendency is in this direction.

I believe the time has pa.s.sed to consider it a ridiculous thing for women to appear upon the lecture platform or in the pulpit, for women to attend to the treatment of diseases as physicians and nurses, to engage in any literary employment, or appear at the bar. Some excellent women in the United States are now practicing at the bar, acceptably received before courts and juries; and when they have conducted their cases to a successful issue or an unsuccessful one in any court below, why should the United States courts to which an appeal may be taken and where their adversaries of the male s.e.x may follow the case up, why should these courts be closed to these women? * * *

Mr. GARLAND: I should like to ask the senator from California if the courts of the United States cannot admit them upon their own motion anyhow?

Mr. SARGENT: I think there is nothing in the law prohibiting it, but the Supreme Court of the United States recently in pa.s.sing upon the question of the admission of a certain lady, said that until some legislation took place they did not like to depart from the precedent set in England, or until there was more general practice among the States. The learned chief-justice, perhaps, did not sufficiently reflect when he stated that there were no English precedents. The fact is that Elizabeth herself sat in the _Aula Regia_ and administered the law, and in both Scotland and England women have fulfilled the function of judges.

The instances are not numerous but they are well established in history. I myself have had my attention called to the fact that in the various States the women are now admitted by special legislation to the bar. I do not think there is anything in the law, properly considered, that would debar a woman from coming into this profession. I think the Supreme Court should not have required further legislation, but it seems to have done so, and that makes the necessity for the amendment which I have now offered.

The chairman of the committee in reporting this bill back from the Judiciary Committee said that the bill as it pa.s.sed the House of Representatives gave privileges to women which men did not enjoy; that is to say, the Supreme Court can by a change of rule require further qualification of men, whereas in regard to women, if this provision were put into the statute, the Supreme Court could not rule them out even though it may be necessary in its judgment to get a higher standard of qualifications than its present rules prescribe. Although I observe that my time is up, I ask indulgence for a moment or two longer. As this is a question of some interest and women cannot appear here to speak for themselves, I hope I may be allowed to speak for them a moment.

Now, there is something in the objection stated by the chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary--that is to say, the bill would take the rule of the Supreme Court and put it in the statute and apply it to women, thereby conferring exceptional privileges; but that is not my intention at all, and therefore I have proposed that women shall not be excluded from practicing law, if they are otherwise qualified, on account of s.e.x, and that is the provision which I want to send back to the Judiciary Committee.

Mr. GARLAND: I wish to ask one question of the senator from California. Suppose the court should exclude women, but not on account of s.e.x, then what is their remedy?

Mr. SARGENT: I do not see any pretense that the court could exclude them on except on account of s.e.x.

Mr. GARLAND: If I recollect the rule of the Supreme Court in regard to the admission of pract.i.tioners (and I had to appear there twice to present my claim before I could carry on my profession in that court), I do not think any legislation is necessary to aid them by giving them any more access to that court than they have at present under the rules of the Supreme Court.

Mr. SARGENT: I believe if the laws now existing were properly construed (of course I speak with all deference to the Supreme Court, but I express the opinion) they would be admitted, but unfortunately the court does not take that view of it, and it will wait for legislation. I purpose that the legislation shall follow. If there is anything in principle why this privilege should not be granted to women who are otherwise qualified, then let the bill be defeated on that ground; but I say there is no difference in principle whatever, not the slightest. There is no reason because a citizen of the United States is a woman that she should be deprived of her rights as a citizen, and these are rights of a citizen. She has the same right to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness and employment, commensurate with her capacities, as a man has; and, as to the question of capacity, the history of the world shows from Queen Elizabeth and Queen Isabella down to Madame Dudevant and Mrs. Stowe, that capacity is not a question of s.e.x.

Mr. MCDONALD: I have simply to say, Mr. President, that a number of States and territories have authorized the admission of women to the legal profession, and they have become members of the bar of the highest courts of judicature. It may very frequently occur, and has in some instances I believe really occurred, that cases in which they have been thus employed have been brought to the Supreme Court of the United States. To have the door closed against them when the cause is brought here, not by them, or when in the prosecution of the suits of their clients they find it necessary to come here, seems to me entirely unjust. I therefore favor the bill with the amendment. The proposed amendment is perhaps better because it does away with any tendency to discrimination in regard to the admissibility of women to practice in the Supreme Court.

The PRESIDING OFFICER: The senator from California moves that the bill be recommitted to the Committee on Judiciary.

Mr. SARGENT: I have the promise of the chairman of the committee that the bill will soon be reported back, and therefore I am willing that it go to the committee, and I make the motion that it be recommitted. [The motion was agreed to.]

Mr. SARGENT: I ask that the amendment which I propose be printed.

The PRESIDING OFFICER: The order to print will be made.

Mary Clemmer, the gifted correspondent of the New York _Independent_, learning that Senator Wadleigh was about to report adversely upon the sixteenth amendment, wrote the following private letter, which, as a record of her own sentiments on the question, she gave to Miss Anthony for publication in this history:

Hon. BAINBRIDGE WADLEIGH--_Dear Sir_: The more I think of it the more I regret that, as chairman of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, you regard with less favor the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women than did your distinguished predecessor, Senator Morton. At this moment, when your committee is discussing that subject, I sigh for the large outlook, the just mind, the unselfish decision of that great legislator. You were his friend, you respected his intellect, you believed in his integrity, you sit in his seat.

You are to prepare the report that he would prepare were he still upon the earth. May I ask you to bring to that labor as fair a spirit, as unprejudiced an outlook, as just a decision as he would have done?

I ask this not as a partisan of woman's rights, but as a lover of the human race. In this faint dawn of woman's day, I discern not woman's development of freedom merely, but the promise of that higher, finer, purer civilization which is to redeem the world, the lack of which makes men tyrants and women slaves. You cannot be unconscious of the fact that a new race of women is born into the world, who, while they lack no womanly attribute, are the peers of any man in intellect and aspiration. It will be impossible long to deny to such women that equality before the law granted to the lowest creature that crawls, if he happens to be a man; denied to the highest creature that asks it, if she happens to be a woman.

On what authority, save that of the gross regality of physical strength, do you deny to a thoughtful, educated, tax-paying person the common rights of citizenship because she is a woman? I am a property-owner, the head of a household. By what right do you a.s.sume to define and curtail for me my prerogatives as a citizen, while as a tax-payer you make not the slightest distinction between me and a man? Leave to my own perception what is proper for me as a lady, to my own discretion what is wise for me as a woman, to my own conscience what is my duty to my race and to my G.o.d. Leave to unerring nature to protect the subtle boundaries which define the distinctive life and action of the s.e.xes, while you as a legislator do everything in your power to secure to every creature of G.o.d an equal chance to make the best and most of himself.

If American men could say as Huxley says, "I scorn to lay a single obstacle in the way of those whom nature from the beginning has so heavily burdened," the s.e.xes would cease to war, men and women would reign together, the equal companions, friends, helpers, and lovers that nature intended they should be.