The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 22

The committee a.s.sembled at half-past 10 o'clock A.M. Present, Mr.

Thurman, _chairman_, Mr. McDonald, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Davis of Illinois, Mr. Edmunds.

The CHAIRMAN: Several members of the committee are unable to be here. Mr. Lamar is detained at his home in Mississippi by sickness; Mr. Carpenter is confined to his room by sickness; Mr.

Conkling has been unwell; I do not know how he is this morning; and Mr. Garland is chairman of the Committee on Territories, which has a meeting this morning that he could not fail to attend. I do not think we are likely to have any more members of the committee than are here now, and we will hear you, ladies.

Mrs. ZERELDA G. WALLACE of Indiana said: _Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee_: It is scarcely necessary to say that there is not an effect without a cause. Therefore it would be well for the statesmen of this nation to ask themselves the question, What has brought the women from all parts of this nation to the capital at this time? What has been the strong motive that has taken us away from the quiet and comfort of our own homes and brought us before you to-day? As an answer to that question I will read an extract from a speech made by one of Indiana's statesmen. He found out by experience and gave us the benefit of it:

You can go to meetings; you can vote resolutions; you can attend great demonstrations in the street; but, after all, the only occasion where the American citizen expresses his acts, his opinions, and his power is at the ballot-box; and that little ballot that he drops in there is the written sentiment of the times, and it is the power that he has as a citizen of this great republic.

That is the reason why we are here; the reason why we want to vote. We are not seditious women, clamoring for any peculiar rights; it is not the woman question that brings us before you to-day; it is the human question underlying this movement. We love and appreciate our country; we value its inst.i.tutions. We realize that we owe great obligations to the men of this nation for what they have done. To their strength we owe the subjugation of all the material forces of the universe which give us comfort and luxury in our homes. To their brains we owe the machinery that gives us leisure for intellectual culture and achievement.

To their education we owe the opening of our colleges and the establishment of our public schools, which give us these great and glorious privileges. This movement is the legitimate result of this development, and of the suffering that woman has undergone in the ages past.

A short time ago I went before the legislature of Indiana with a pet.i.tion signed by 25,000 of the best women in the State. I appeal to the memory of Judge McDonald to substantiate the truth of what I say. Judge McDonald knows that I am a home-loving, law-abiding, tax-paying woman of Indiana, and have been for fifty years. When I went before our legislature and found that one hundred of the vilest men in our State, merely by the possession of the ballot, had more influence with our lawmakers than the wives and mothers it was a startling revelation.

You must admit that in popular government the ballot is the most potent means for all moral and social reforms. As members of society, we are deeply interested in all the social problems with which you have grappled so long unsuccessfully. We do not intend to depreciate your efforts, but you have attempted to do an impossible thing; to represent the whole by one-half, and because we are the other half we ask you to recognize our rights as citizens of this republic.

JULIA SMITH PARKER of Glas...o...b..ry, Conn., said: _Gentlemen_: You may be surprised to see a woman of over four-score years appear before you at this time. She came into the world and reached years of discretion before any person in this room was born. She now comes before you to plead that she can vote and have all the privileges that men have. She has suffered so much individually that she thought when she was young she had no right to speak before the men; but still she had courage to get an education equal to that of any man at the college, and she had to suffer a great deal on that account. She went to New Haven to school, and it was noised around that she had studied the languages. It was such an astonishing thing for girls at that time to have the advantages of education, that I had actually to go to cotillon parties to let people see that I had common sense. [Laughter.]

She has had to pay $200 a year in taxes without knowing what becomes of it. She does not know but that it goes to support grog-shops. She knows nothing about it. She has had to suffer her cows to be sold at the sign-post six times. She suffered her meadow land, worth $2,000, to be sold for a tax less than $50. If she could vote as the men do she would not have suffered this insult; and so much would not have been said against her as has been said if men did not have the whole power. I was told that they had the power to take anything that I owned if I would not exert myself to pay the money. I felt that I ought to have some little voice in determining what should be done with what I paid.

I felt that I ought to own my own property; that it ought not to be in these men's hands; and I now come to plead that I may have the same privileges before the law that men have. I have seen what a difference there is, when I have had my cows sold, by having a voter to take my part.

I have come from an obscure town on the banks of the Connecticut, where I was born. I was brought up on a farm. I never had an idea that I should come all the way to Washington to speak before those who had not come into existence when I was born. Now, I plead that there may be a sixteenth amendment, and that women may be allowed the privilege of owning their own property. I have suffered so much myself that I felt it might have some effect to plead before this honorable committee. I thank you, gentlemen, for hearing me so kindly.

ELIZABETH L. SAXON of Louisiana, said: _Gentlemen_: I feel that after Mrs. Wallace's plea there is no necessity for me to say anything. I come from the extreme South, she from the West.

People have asked me why I came. I care nothing for suffrage merely to stand beside men, or rush to the polls, or to take any privilege outside of my home, only, as Mrs. Wallace says, for humanity. I never realized the importance of this cause, until we were beaten back on every side in the work of reform. If we attempted to put women in charge of prisons, believing that wherever woman sins and suffers women should be there to teach, help and guide, every place was in the hands of men. If we made an effort to get women on the school-boards we were combated and could do nothing.

In the State of Texas, I had a niece living whose father was an inmate of a lunatic asylum. She exerted as wide an influence as any woman in that State; I allude to Miss Mollie Moore, who was the ward of Mr. Cushing. I give this ill.u.s.tration as a reason why Southern women are taking part in this movement. Mr. Wallace had charge of that lunatic asylum for years. He was a good, honorable, able man. Every one was endeared to him; the State appreciated him as superintendent of this asylum. When a political change was made and Gov. Robinson came in, Dr. Wallace was ousted for political purposes. It almost broke the hearts of some of the women who had sons, daughters or husbands there. They determined at once to try and have him reinstated. It was impossible, he was out, and what could they do?

A gentleman said to me a few days ago, "These women ought to marry." I am married; I am a mother; and in our home the sons and brothers are all standing like a wall of steel at my back. I have cast aside the prejudices of the past. They lie like rotted hulks behind me.

After the fever of 1878, when our const.i.tutional convention was about to convene, I suppressed the agony and grief of my own heart (for one of my children had died) and took part in the suffrage movement in Louisiana with the wife of Chief-Justice Merrick, Mrs. Sarah A. Dorsey, and Mrs. Harriet Keating of New York, the niece of Dr. Lozier. These three ladies aided me faithfully and ably. I went to Lieutenant-Governor Wiltz, and asked him if he would present or consider a pet.i.tion which I wished to bring before the convention. He read the pet.i.tion. One clause of our State law is that no woman can sign a will. Some ladies donated property to an asylum. They wrote the will and signed it themselves, and it was null and void, because they were women. That clause, perhaps, will be wiped out. Many gentlemen signed the pet.i.tion on that account. Governor Wiltz, then lieutenant-governor, told me he would present the pet.i.tion. He was elected president of the convention. I presented my first pet.i.tion, signed by the best names in the city of New Orleans and in the State. I had the names of seven of the most prominent physicians. Three prominent ministers signed it for moral purposes alone. When Mrs. Dorsey was on her dying bed the last time she ever signed her name was to a letter to go before that convention. Mrs. Merrick and myself addressed the convention. We made the pet.i.tion then that we make here; that we, the mothers of the land, should not be barred on every side in the cause of reform. I pledged my father on his dying bed that I would never cease work until woman stood with man equal before the law.

I beg of you, gentlemen, to consider this question seriously. We stand precisely in the position of the colonies when they plead, and, in the words of Patrick Henry, were "spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne." We have been jeered and laughed at; but the question has pa.s.sed out of the region of ridicule. This clamor for woman suffrage, for woman's rights, for equal representation, is extending all over the land.

I plead because my work has been combated in the cause of reform everywhere that I have tried to accomplish anything. The children that fill the houses of prost.i.tution are not of foreign blood and race. They come from sweet American homes, and for every woman that went down some mother's heart broke. I plead by the power of the ballot to be allowed to help reform women and benefit mankind.

MARY A. STEWART of Delaware said: The negroes are a race inferior, you must admit, to your daughters, and yet that race has the ballot, and why? It is said they earned it and paid for it with their blood. Whose blood paid for yours? The blood of your forefathers and our forefathers. Does a man earn a hundred thousand dollars and lie down and die, saying, "It is all my boys'"? Not a bit of it. He dies saying, "Let my children, be they cripples, be they idiots, be they boys, or be they girls, inherit all my property alike." Then let us inherit the sweet boon of the ballot alike. When our fathers were driving the great ship of State we were willing to sail as deck or cabin pa.s.sengers, just as we felt disposed; we had nothing to say; but to-day the boys are about to run the ship aground, and it is high time that the mothers should be asking, "What do you mean to do?"

In our own little State the laws have been very much modified in regard to women. My father was the first man to blot out the old English law allowing the eldest son the right of inheritance to the real-estate. He took the first step, and like all those who take first steps in reform he received a mountain of curses from the oldest male heirs.

Since 1868 I have, by my own individual efforts, by the use of hard-earned money, gone to our legislature time after time and have had this law and that law pa.s.sed for the benefit of women; and the same little ship of State has sailed on. To-day our men are just as well satisfied with the laws in force in our State for the benefit of women as they were years ago. A woman now has a right to make a will. She can hold bonds and mortgages of her own. She has a right to her own property. She cannot sell it though, if it is real-estate, simply because the moment she marries, her husband has his right of courtesy. The woman does not grumble at that; but still when he dies owning real-estate, she gets only the rental value of one-third, which is called the widow's dower. Now I think the man ought to have the rental value of one-third of the woman's maiden property or real-estate, and it ought to be called the widower's dower. It would be just as fair for one as for the other. All that I want is equality.

The women of our State, as I said before, are taxed without representation. The tax-gatherer comes every year and demands taxes. For twenty years I have paid tax under protest, and if I live twenty years longer I shall pay it under protest every time.

The tax-gatherer came to my place not long since. "Well," said I, "good morning, sir." Said he, "Good morning." He smiled and said, "I have come bothering you." Said I, "I know your face well. You have come to get a right nice little woman's tongue-lashing."

Said he, "I suppose so, but if you will just pay your tax I will leave." I paid the tax, "But," said I, "remember I pay it under protest, and if I ever pay another tax I intend to have the protest written and make the tax-gatherer sign it before I pay the tax, and if he will not sign that protest then I shall not pay, and there will be a fight at once," Said he, "Why do you keep all the time protesting against paying this small tax?" Said I, "Why do you pay your tax?" "Well," said he, "I would not pay it if I did not vote." Said I, "That is the very reason why I do not want to pay it. I cannot vote." Who stay at home from the election? The women, and the black and white men who have been to the whipping-post. Nice company to put your wives and daughters in.

It is said that the women do not want to vote. Every woman sitting here wants to vote, and must we be debarred the privilege of voting because some luxurious woman, rolling around in her carriage in her little downy nest that some good, benevolent man has provided for her, does not want to vote? There was a society that existed up in the State of New York called the Covenanters that never voted. Were all you men disfranchised because that cla.s.s or sect up in New York would not vote? Did you all pay your taxes and stay at home and refrain from voting because the Covenanters did not vote? Not a bit of it. You went to the election and told them to stay at home if they wanted to, but that you, as citizens, were going to take care of yourselves.

That was right. We, as citizens, want to take care of ourselves.

One more thought, and I will be through. The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, in my opinion, and in the opinion of a great many smart men in the country, and smart women, too, give the right to women to vote without any "if's" or "and's" about it, and the United States protects us in it; but there are a few who construe the law to suit themselves, and say that those amendments do not mean that, because the congress which pa.s.sed the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments had no such intention.

Well, if that congress overlooked us, let the wiser congress of to-day take the eighth chapter and the fourth verse of the Psalms, which says, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?"

and amend it by adding, "What is woman, that they never thought of her?"

NANCY R. ALLEN of Iowa said: _Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee_: I am a representative of a large cla.s.s of women of Iowa, who are heavy taxpayers. There is now a pet.i.tion being circulated throughout our State, to be presented to the legislature, praying that women be exempted from taxation until they have some voice in the management of the affairs of the State. You may ask, "Do not your husbands protect you? Are not all the men protecting you?" We answer that our husbands are grand, n.o.ble men, who are willing to do all they can for us, but there are many who have no husbands and who own a great deal of property in the State of Iowa. Particularly in great moral reforms the women there feel the need of the ballot. By presenting long pet.i.tions to the legislature they have succeeded in having better temperance laws enacted, but the men have failed to elect the officials who will enforce those laws. Consequently they have become as dead letters upon the statute books.

To refer again to taxes. I have a list showing that in my city three women pay more taxes than all the city officials together.

They are good temperance women. Our city council is composed almost entirely of saloon-keepers, brewers and men who patronize them. There are some good men, but they are in the minority, and the voices of these women are but little regarded. All these officials are paid, and we have to help support them. As Sumner said, "Equality of rights is the first of rights." If we can only be equal with man under the law, it is all that we ask. We do not propose to relinquish our domestic life, but we do ask that we may be represented.

Remarks were also made by Mrs. Chandler, Mrs. Archibald and Mrs.

Spencer. The time having expired, the committee voted to give another hour to Miss Anthony to state the reasons why we ask congress to submit a proposition to the several legislatures for a sixteenth amendment, instead of asking the States to submit the question to the popular vote of their electors.[58] When Miss Anthony had finished, the chairman, Senator Thurman of Ohio, said:

I have to say, ladies, that you will admit that we have listened to you with great attention, and I can certainly say, with great interest; your appeals will be duly and earnestly considered by the committee.

Mrs. WALLACE: I wish to make just one remark in reference to what Senator Thurman said as to the popular vote being against woman suffrage. The popular vote is against it, but not the popular voice. Owing to the temperance agitation in the last six years, the growth of the suffrage sentiment among the wives and mothers of this nation has largely increased.

HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D. C., Jan. 24, 1880.

The CHAIRMAN _pro tem._ (Mr. HARRIS of Virginia): The order of business for the present session of the committee is the delivery of arguments by delegates of the Woman Suffrage Convention now holding its sessions in Washington. I am informed that the delegates are in attendance upon the committee. We will be pleased to hear them. A list of the names, of the ladies proposing to speak, with a memorandum of the limit of time allotted to each, has been handed to me for my guidance; and, in the absence of the chairman [Mr. Knott] it will be my duty to confine the speakers to the number of minutes apportioned to them respectively upon the paper before me. As an additional consideration for adhering to the regulation, I will mention that members of the committee have informed me that, having made engagements to be at the departments and elsewhere on business appointments, they will be compelled to leave the committee-room upon the expiration of the time a.s.signed. The first name upon the list is that of Mrs. Emma Mont. McRae of Indiana, to whom five minutes are allowed.

Mrs. MCRAE said: _Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee_: In Indiana the cause of woman has made marked advancement. At the same time we realize that we need the right to vote in order that we may have protection. We need the ballot because through the medium of its power alone we can hope to wield that influence in the making of laws affecting our own and our children's interests.

Some recent occurences in Indiana, one in particular in the section of the State from which I come, have impressed us more sensibly than ever before with the necessity of this right. The particular incident to which I refer was this: In the town of Muncie, where I reside, a young girl, who for the past five years had been employed as a clerk in the post-office, and upon whom a widowed mother was dependent for support, was told on the first of January that she was no longer needed in the office. She had filled her place well; no complaint had been made against her.

She very modestly asked the postmaster the cause of her discharge, and he replied: "We have a man who has done work for the party and we must give that man a place; I haven't room for both of you." Now, there you have at once the reason why we want the ballot; we want to be able to do something for the party in a substantial way, so that men may not tell us they have no room for us because we do nothing _for the party_. When they have the ballot women will work for "the party" as a means of enabling them to hold places in which they may get bread for their mothers and for their children if necessity requires.

Miss JESSIE T. WAITE of Illinois said: _Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee_: In the State of Illinois we have attained to almost every right except that of the ballot.

We have been admitted to all the schools and colleges; we have become accustomed to parliamentary usages; to voting in literary societies and in all matters connected with the interests of the colleges and schools; we are considered members in good standing of the a.s.sociations, and, in some cases, the young ladies in the inst.i.tutes have been told they hold the balance of power. The same reason for woman suffrage that has been given by the delegate from Indiana [Mrs. McRae] holds good with reference to the State of Illinois. Women must have the ballot that they may have protection in getting bread for themselves and their families, by giving to the party that looks for their support some substantial evidence of their strength. Experience has demonstrated, especially in the temperance movement, how fruitless are all their efforts while the ballot is withheld from their hands. They have prayed; they have pet.i.tioned; they have talked; they have lectured; they have done all they could do, except to vote; and yet all avails them nothing. Miss Frances Williard presented to the legislature of Illinois a pet.i.tion of such length that it would have reached around this room. It contained over 180,000 signatures. The purpose of the pet.i.tion was to have the legislature give the women of the State the right to vote upon the question of license or no license in their respective districts.

In some of the counties of our State we have ladies as superintendents of schools and professors in colleges. One of the professors in the Industrial University at Champaign is a lady.

Throughout the State you may find ladies who excel in every branch of study and in every trade. It was a lady who took the prize at "the Exposition" for the most beautiful piece of cabinet-work. This is said to have been a marvel of beauty and extraordinary as a specimen of fine art. She was a foreigner; a Scandinavian, I believe. Another lady is a teacher of wood-carving. We have physicians, and there are two attorneys, Perry and Martin, now practicing in the city of Chicago.

Representatives of our s.e.x are also to be found among real-estate agents and journalists, while, in one or two instances as preachers they have been recognized in the churches.

CATHERINE A. STEBBINS of Michigan said: "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay!" So said the poet; and I say, Better a week with these inspired women in conference than years of an indifferent, conventional society! Their presence has been a blessing to the people of this District, and will prove in the future a blessing to our government. These women from all sections of our country, with a moral and spiritual enthusiasm which seeks to lift the burdens of our government, come to you, telling of the obstacles that have beset their path. They have tried to heal the stricken in vice and ignorance; to save our land from disintegration. One has sought to reform the drunkard, to save the moderate drinker, to convert the liquor-seller; another, to shelter the homeless; another, to lift and save the abandoned woman. "Abandoned?" once asked a prophet-like man of our time, who added, "There never was an abandoned woman without an abandoned man!" Abandoned of whom? let us ask. Surely not by the merciful Father. No; neither man nor woman is ever abandoned by him, and he sends his instruments in the persons of some of these great-hearted women, to appeal to you to restore their G.o.d-given freedom of action, that "the least of these" may be remembered.

But in our councils no one has dwelt upon _one_ of the great evils of our civilization, the scourge of war; though it has been said that women will fight. It is true there are instances in which they have considered it a duty; there were such in the rebellion. But the majority of women would not declare war, would not enlist soldiers and would not vote supplies and equipments, because many of the most thoughtful believe there _is_ a better way, and that women can bring a moral power to bear that shall make war needless.

Let us take one picture representative of the general features of the war--we say nothing of our convictions in regard to the conflict. Ulysses S. Grant or Anna Ella Carroll makes plans and maps for the campaign; McClellan and Meade are commanded to collect the columbiads, muskets and ammunition, and move their men to the attack. At the same time the saintly Clara Barton collects her cordials, medicines and delicacies, her lint and bandages, and, putting them in the ambulance a.s.signed, joins the same moving train. McClellan's men meet the enemy, and men--brothers--on both sides fall by the death-dealing missiles.

Miss Barton and her aids bear off the sufferers, staunch their bleeding wounds, soothe the reeling brain, bandage the crippled limbs, pour in the oil and wine, and make as easy as may be the soldier's bed. What a solemn and heartrending farce is here enacted! And yet in our present development men and women seek to reconcile it with the requirements of religion and the necessities of our conflicting lives. So few recognize the absolute truth!

Mrs. DEVEREUX BLAKE said: _Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee_: I come here with your own laws in my hands--and the volume is quite a heavy one, too--to ask you whether women are citizens of this nation? I find in this book, under the heading of the chapter on "Citizenship," the following:

Sec. 1,992. All persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citizens of the United States.

I suppose you will admit that women are, in the language of the section, "persons," and that we cannot reasonably be included in the cla.s.s spoken of as "Indians not taxed." Therefore I claim that we are "citizens." The same chapter also contains the following:

Sec. 1,994. Any woman who is now or may hereafter be married to a citizen of the United States, and who might herself be lawfully naturalized, shall be deemed a citizen.

Under this section also we are citizens. I am myself, as indeed are most of the ladies present, married to a citizen of the United States; so that we are citizens under this count if we were not citizens before. Then, further, in the legislation known as "The Civil Rights Bill," I find this language:

All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right, in every State and territory, to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the full and equal benefit of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishments, pains, penalties, etc.