The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 23

One would think the logical conclusion from that which I have last read would be that _all citizens_ are ent.i.tled to equal protection everywhere. It appears to mean that. Then I turn to another piece of legislation--that which is known as "The Enforcement Act"--one which some of you, gentlemen, did not like very much when it was enacted--and there I find another declaration on the same question. The act is ent.i.tled "An Act to Enforce the Right of Citizens of the United States to Vote in the Several States of this Union, and for other purposes." The right of "citizens" to vote appears to be conceded by this act. In the second section it says:

It shall be the duty of every such person and officer to give to all citizens of the United States the same and equal opportunity to perform such prerequisite, and to become qualified to vote, without distinction of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

I ask you, gentlemen of the committee, as lawyers, whether you do not think that, after we have been declared to be citizens, we have the right to claim the protection of this enforcement act?

When you gentlemen from the North rise in your places in the halls of congress and make these walls ring with your eloquence, you are p.r.o.ne to talk a great deal about the right of every United States citizen to the ballot, and the necessity of protecting every such citizen in its exercise. What do you mean by it?

It occurs to me here to call your attention to a matter of recent occurrence. As you know, there has been a little unpleasantness in Maine--a State which is not without a representative among the members of the Judiciary Committee--and certain gentlemen there, especially Mr. Blaine, have been greatly exercised in their minds because, as they allege, the people of Maine have not been permitted to express their will at the polls. Why, gentlemen, I a.s.sert that a majority of the people of Maine have never been permitted to express their will at the polls. A majority of the people of Maine are women, and from the foundation of this government have never exercised any of the inalienable rights of citizens. Mr. Blaine made a speech a day or two ago in Augusta.

He began by reciting the condition of affairs, owing to the effort, as he states, "to subst.i.tute a false count for an honest ballot," and congratulated his audience upon the instrumentalities by which they had triumphed--

Without firing a gun, without shedding a drop of blood, without striking a single blow, without one disorderly a.s.semblage. _The people_ have regained their own right through the might and majesty of their own laws.

He goes on in this vein to speak of those whom he calls "the people of Maine." Well, gentlemen, I do not think you will deny that _women are people_. It appears to me that what Mr. Blaine said in that connection was nonsense, unless indeed he forgot that there were any others than men among the people of the State of Maine. I don't suppose that you, gentlemen, are often so forgetful. Mr. Blaine said further:

The Republicans of Maine and throughout the land felt that they were not merely fighting the battle of a single year, but for all the future of the State; not merely fighting the battle of our own State alone, but for all the States that are attempting the great problem of State government throughout the world. The corruption or destruction of the ballot is a crime against free government, and when successful is a subversion of free government.

Does that mean the ballot _for men only_ or the ballot _for the people_, men and women too? If it is to be received as meaning anything, it ought to mean not for one s.e.x alone, but for both.

Mr. Lincoln declared, in one of his n.o.blest utterances, that no man was good enough to govern another man without that man's consent. Of course he meant it in its broadest terms; he meant that no man or woman was good enough to govern another man or woman without that other man's or woman's consent.

Mr. Blaine, on another occasion, in connection with the same subject-matter, had much to say of the enormity of the oppression practiced by his political opponents in depriving the town of Portland of the right of representation in view of its paying such heavy taxes as it does pay. He expressed the greatest indignation at the attempt, forgetting utterly that great body of women who pay taxes but are deprived of the right of representation. In this connection it may be pertinent for me to express the hope, by way of a suggestion, that hereafter, when making your speeches, you will not use the term "citizens" in a broad sense, unless you mean to include women as well as men, and that when you do not mean to include women you will speak of male citizens as a separate cla.s.s, because the term, in its general application, is illogical and its meaning obscure if not self-contradictory.

President Hayes was so pleased with one of the sentences in his message of a year ago that in his message of this year he has reiterated it. It reads thus:

That no temporary or administrative interests of government will ever displace the zeal of our people in defense of the primary rights of citizenship, and that the power of public opinion will override all political prejudices and all sectional and State attachments in demanding that all over our wide territory the name and character of citizen of the United States shall mean one and the same thing and carry with them unchallenged security and respect.

Let me suggest what he ought to have said unless he intended to include women, although I am afraid that Mr. Hayes, when he wrote this, forgot that there were women in the United States, notwithstanding that his excellent wife, perhaps, stood by his side. He ought to have said:

An act having been pa.s.sed to enforce the rights of _male_ citizens to vote, the true vigor of _half_ the population is thus expressed, and no interests of government will ever displace the zeal of _half_ of our people in defense of the primary rights of our _male_ citizens. _The prosperity of the States depends upon the protection afforded to our male citizens_; and the name and character of _male_ citizens of the United States shall mean one and the same thing and carry with them unchallenged security and respect.

If Mr. Hayes had thus expressed himself, he would have made a perfectly logical and clear statement. Gentlemen, I hope that hereafter, when speaking or voting in behalf of the citizens of the United States, you will bear this in mind and will remember that women are citizens as well as men, and that they claim the same rights.

This question of woman suffrage cannot much longer be ignored. In the State from which I come, although we have not a right to vote, we are confident that the influence which women brought to bear in determining the result of the election last fall had something to do with sending into retirement a Democratic governor who was opposed to our reform, and electing a Republican who was in favor of it. Recollect, gentlemen, that the expenditure of time and money which has been made in this cause will not be without its effect. The time is coming when the demand of an immense number of the women of this country cannot be ignored. When you see these representatives coming from all the States of the Union to ask for this right, can you doubt that, some day, they will succeed in their mission? We do not stand before you to plead as beggars; we ask for that which is our right. We ask it as due to the memory of our ancestors, who fought for the freedom of this country just as bravely as did yours. We ask it on many considerations. Why, gentlemen, the very furniture here, the carpet on this floor, was paid for with our money. We are taxed equally with the men to defray the expenses of this congress, and we have a right equally with them to partic.i.p.ate in the government.

In closing, I have only to ask, is there no man here present who appreciates the emergencies of this hour? Is there no one among you who will rise on the floor of congress as the champion of this unrepresented half of the people of the United States? The time is not far distant when we shall have our liberties, and the politician who can now understand the importance of our cause, the statesman who can now see, and will now appreciate the justice of it, that man, if true to himself, will write his name high on the scroll of fame beside those of the men who have been the saviors of the country. Gentlemen I entreat you not to let this hearing go by without giving due weight to all that we have said. You can no more stay the onward current of this reform than you can fight against the stars in their courses.

Mr. WILLITS of Michigan: _Mr. Chairman_: I would like to make a suggestion here. The regulation amendment, as it has heretofore been submitted, provided that the right of citizens of the United States to vote should not be abridged on account of s.e.x. I notice that the amendment which the ladies here now propose has prefixed to it this phrase: "The right of suffrage in the United States shall be based on citizenship." I call attention to this because I would like to have them explain as fully as they may why they incorporate the phrase, "shall be based on citizenship." Is the meaning this, that all citizens shall have the right to vote, or simply that citizenship shall be the basis of suffrage? The words, "or for any reason not applicable to all citizens of the United States," also seem to require explanation. The proposition in the form in which it is now submitted, I understand, covers a little more than has been covered by the amendment submitted in previous years.

SARA A. SPENCER of Washington, D. C.: If the committee will permit me, I will say that the amendment in its present form is the concentrated wish of the women of the United States. The women of the country sent to congress pet.i.tions asking for three different forms of const.i.tutional amendment, and when preparing the one now before the committee these three were concentrated in the one now before you (identical with that of the resolution offered in the House by Hon. George B. Loring and by Hon. T. W.

Ferry in the Senate), omitting, at the request of each of the three cla.s.ses of pet.i.tioners, all phrases which were regarded by any of them as objectionable. The amendment as now presented is therefore the combined wish of the women of the country, viz., that citizenship in the United States shall mean suffrage, and that no one shall be deprived of the right to vote for reasons not equally applicable to all citizens.

MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE said: It is necessary to refer to a remarkable decision of the Supreme Court. The case of Virginia L.

Minor, claiming the right to vote under the fourteenth amendment, was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States, October term, 1874; decision rendered adversely by Chief-Justice Waite, March, 1875, upon the ground that "the United States had no voters in the States of its own creation." This was a most amazing decision to emanate from the highest judicial authority of the nation, and is but another proof how fully that body is under the influence of the dominant political party.

Contrary to this decision, I unhesitatingly affirm that the United States has possessed voters in States of its own creation from the very date of the const.i.tution. In Article I, Sec. 2, the const.i.tution provides that

The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.

The persons so designated are voters under State laws; but by this section of the national const.i.tution they are made United States voters. It is directed under what conditions of State qualification they may cast votes in their respective States for members of the lower house of congress. The const.i.tution here created a cla.s.s of United States voters by adoption of an already voting cla.s.s. Did but this single instance exist, it would be sufficient to nullify Chief-Justice Waite's decision, as Article VI, Sec. 2, declares

The const.i.tution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof * * * shall be the supreme law of the land.

This supreme law at its very inception created a cla.s.s of United States voters. If in the Minor case alone, the premises of the Supreme Court and Chief-Justice Waite were wrong, the decision possesses no legal value; but in addition to this cla.s.s, the United States, by special laws and amendments has from time to time created other cla.s.ses of United States voters.

Under the naturalization laws citizenship is recognized as the basis of suffrage. No State can admit a foreigner to the right of the ballot, even under United States laws, unless he is already a citizen, or has formally declared his intention of becoming a citizen of the United States. The creation of the right here is national; its regulation, local.

Men who commit crimes against the civil laws of the United States forfeit their rights of citizenship. State law cannot re-habilitate them, but within the last five years 2,500 such men have been pardoned by congressional enactment, and thus again been made voters in States by United States law. Is it not strange that with a knowledge of these facts before him Chief-Justice Waite could base his decision against the right of a woman to the ballot, on the ground that the United States had no voters in the States of its own creation?

Criminals against the military law of the United States, who receive pardon, are still another cla.s.s of voters thus created. A very large body of men, several hundred thousand, forfeited their rights of citizenship, their ballot, by partic.i.p.ation in the rebellion; they were political criminals. When general amnesty was proclaimed they again secured the ballot. They had been deprived of the suffrage by United States law and it was restored to them by the same law.

It may be replied that the rebellious States had been reduced to the condition of territories, over whose suffrage the general government had control. But let me ask why, then, a large cla.s.s of men remained disfranchised after these States again took up local government? A large cla.s.s of men were especially exempted from general amnesty and for the restoration of their political rights were obliged to individually pet.i.tion congress for the removal of their political disabilities, and these men then became "voters in States," by action of the United States. Here, again, the United States recognized citizenship and suffrage as synonymous. If the United States has no voters of its own creation in the States, what are these men? A few, the leaders in the rebellion, are yet disfranchised, and no State has power to change this condition. Only the United States can again make them voters in States.

Under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments the colored men of the South, who never had possessed the ballot, and those colored men of the North over whom some special disqualification hung, were alike made voters by United States law. It required no action of Delaware, Indiana, New York, or any of those States in which the colored man was not upon voting equality with the white men, to change their const.i.tutions or statutes in order to do away with such disqualifications. The fourteenth amendment created another cla.s.s of United States voters in States, to the number of a million or more. The fourteenth amendment, and the act of congress to enforce it, were at once recognized to be superior to State law--abrogating and repealing State const.i.tutions and State laws contradictory to its provisions.

By an act of congress March 3, and a presidential proclamation of March 11, 1865, all deserters who failed to report themselves to a provost marshall within sixty days, forfeited their rights of citizenship as an additional penalty for the crime of desertion, thus losing their ballot without possibility of its restoration except by an act of congress. Whenever this may be done collectively or individually, these men will become State voters by and through the United States law.

As proving the sophistry used by legal minds in order to hide from themselves and the world the fact that the United States has power over the ballot in States, mention may be made of a case which, in 1866, came before Justice Strong, then a member of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, but since a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. For sophistical reasoning it is a curiosity in legal decisions. One point made by Judge Strong was, that congress may deprive a citizen of the opportunity to enjoy a right belonging to him as a citizen of a State even the right of voting, but cannot deprive him of the right itself. This is on a par with saying that congress may deprive a citizen of the opportunity to enjoy a right belonging to him as an individual, even the right of life, but cannot deprive him of life itself.

A still more remarkable cla.s.s of United States voters than any yet mentioned, exists. Soon after the close of the war congress enacted a law that foreigners having served in the civil war and been honorably discharged from the army, should be allowed to vote. And this, too, without the announcement of their intention of becoming citizens of the republic. A cla.s.s of United States voters were thus created out of a cla.s.s of non-citizens.

I have mentioned eight cla.s.ses of United States voters, and yet not one of the States has been deprived of the powers necessary to local self-government. To States belong all matters of strictly local interest, such as the incorporation of towns and cities, the settlement of county and other boundaries; laws of marriage, divorce, protection of life and property, etc. It has been said, the ordaining and establishment of a const.i.tution for the government of a State is always the act of a State in its highest sovereign capacity, but if any question as to nationality ever existed, it was settled by the war. Even State const.i.tutions were found unable to stand when in conflict with a law of the United States or an amendment to its const.i.tution. All are bound by the authority of the nation.

This theory of State sovereignty must have a word. When the Union was formed several of the States did not even frame a const.i.tution. It was in 1818 that Connecticut adopted her first State const.i.tution. Rhode Island had no const.i.tution until 1842.

Prior to these years the government of these States was administered under the authority of royal charters brought out from England.

Where was their State sovereignty? The rights even of suffrage enjoyed by citizens of these States during these respective periods of forty-two and sixty-six years, were either secured them by monarchial England or republican United States. If by the latter all voters in these two States during these years were United States voters. It is a historical fact that no State save Texas was ever for an hour sovereign or independent. The experience of the country proves there is but one real sovereignty. It has been said, with truth,

There is but one sovereign State on the American continent known to international or const.i.tutional law, and that is the republic itself. This forms the United States and should be so called.

I ask for a sixteenth amendment because this republic is a nation and not a confederacy of States. I ask it because the United States not only possesses inherent power to protect its citizens but also because of its national duty to secure to all its citizens the exercise of their rights of self-government. I ask it because having created cla.s.ses of voters in numberless instances, it is most flagrant injustice to deny this protection to woman. I ask it because the Nation and not the State is supreme.

PHOEBE W. COUZINS of Missouri, to whom had been a.s.signed the next thirty minutes, said: _Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee_: I am invited to speak of the dangers which beset us at this hour in the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Mrs. Minor's case, which not only stultifies its previous interpretation of the recent const.i.tutional amendments and makes them a dead letter, but will rank, in the coming ages, in the history of the judiciary, with the Dred Scott decision.

The law, as explained in the Dred Scott case, was an infamous one, which trampled upon the most solemn rights of the loyal citizens of the government, and declared the const.i.tution to mean anything or nothing, as the case might be. Yet the decision in that case had a saving clause, for it was not the unanimous voice of a Democratic judiciary. Dissenting opinions were n.o.bly uttered from the bench. In the more recent case, under the rule of a Republican judiciary created by a party professing to be one of justice, the rights of one-half of the people were deliberately abrogated without a dissenting voice. This violation of the fundamental principles of our government called forth no protest.

In all of the decisions against woman in the Republican court, there has not been found one Lord Mansfield, who, rising to the supreme height of an unbiased judgment, would give the immortal decree that shall crown with regal dignity the mother of the race: "I care not for the dictates of judges, however eminent, if they be contrary to principle. If the parties will have judgment, let justice be done, though the heavens fall."

The Dred Scott decision declared as the law of citizenship, "to be a citizen is to have actual possession and enjoyment, or the perfect right to the acquisition and enjoyment of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political." But the slave-power was then dominant and the court decided that a black man was not a citizen because he had not the right to vote. But when the const.i.tution was so amended as to make "all persons born or naturalized in the United States citizens thereof," a negro, by virtue of his United States citizenship, was declared, under the amendments, a voter in every State in the Union. And the Supreme Court reaffirmed this right in the celebrated slaughter-house cases (16 Wallace, 71). It said, "The negro, having by the fourteenth amendment, been declared to be a citizen of the United States, is thus made a voter in every State in the Union."

But when the loyal women of Missouri, apprehending that "all persons beneath the flag were made citizens and voters by the fourteenth amendment," through Mrs. Minor, applied to the Supreme Court for protection in the exercise of that same right, this high tribunal, reversing all its former decisions, proclaims State sovereignty superior to national authority. This it does in this strange language: "Being born in the United States, a woman is a person and therefore a citizen"--we are much obliged to them for that definition of our ident.i.ty as persons--"but the const.i.tution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one." And then, in the face of its previous decisions, the court declared: "The United States has no voters in the States of its own creation", that the elective officers of the United States are all elected, directly or indirectly by State voters. It remands woman to the States for her protection, thus giving to the State the supreme authority and overthrowing the entire results of the war, which was fought to maintain national supremacy over any and all subjects in which the rights and privileges of the citizens of the United States are involved.

No supreme allegiance, gentlemen of the committee, can be claimed for or by a government, if it has no citizens of its own creation, and const.i.tutional amendments cannot confer authority over matters which have no existence in the const.i.tution. Thus, our supreme law-givers hold themselves up for obloquy and ridicule in their interpretation of the most solemn rights of loyal citizens, and make our const.i.tutional law to mean anything or nothing as the case may be. You will see, gentlemen, that the very point which the South contended for as the true one is here acknowledged to be the true one by the Supreme Court--that of State rights superior to national authority. The whole of the recent contest hinged upon this. The appeal to arms and the const.i.tutional amendments were to establish the subordination of the State to national supremacy, to maintain the national authority over any and all subjects in which the rights and privileges of the citizens of the United States were involved; but this decision in Mrs. Minor's case completely nullifies the supreme authority of the government, and gives the States more than has. .h.i.therto been claimed for them by the advocates of State rights. The subject of the franchise is thus wholly withdrawn from federal supervision and control. If "the United States has no citizens of its own creation," of course no supreme allegiance can be claimed over the various citizens of the States.

The const.i.tutional amendments cannot confer authority over a matter which has no existence in the const.i.tution. If it has no voters, it can have nothing whatever to do with the elections and voting in the States; yet the United States invaded the State of New York, sent its officers there to try, convict, and sentence Miss Anthony for exercising a right in her own State which they declared the United States had no jurisdiction over. They send United States troops into the South to protect the negro in his right to vote, and then declare they have no jurisdiction over his voting. Then, mark the grave results which may and can follow this decision and legislation. I do not imagine that the Supreme Court, in its cowardly dodging of woman's right to all the rights and privileges which citizenship involves, designed to completely abrogate the principles established by the recent contest, or to nullify the ensuing legislation on the subject. But it certainly has done all this; for it must logically follow that if the United States has no citizens, it cannot legislate upon the rights of citizens, and the recent amendments are devoid of authority. It has well been suggested by Mr. Minor, in his criticism of the decision, that if members of the House of Representatives are elected by _State_ voters, as the Supreme Court has declared, there is no reason why States may not refuse to elect them as in 1860, and thus deprive congress of its power.

And if a sufficient number could be united to recall at their pleasure these representatives, what authority has the federal government, under this decision, for coercing them into subjection or refusing them a separation, if all these voters in the States desired an independent existence? None whatever. Mr.

Garfield, in the House, in his speech last March, calls attention to this subject, but does not allude to the fact that the Supreme Court has already opened the door. He says:

There are several ways in which our government may be annihilated without the firing of a gun. For example, suppose the people of the United States should say, we will elect no representatives to congress. Of course this is a violent supposition; but suppose that they do not. Is there any remedy? Does our const.i.tution provide any remedy whatever? In two years there would be no House of Representatives; of course, no support of the government and no government. Suppose, again, the States should say, through their legislatures, we will elect no senators. Such abstention alone would absolutely destroy this government; and our system provides no process of compulsion to prevent it. Again, suppose the two houses were to a.s.semble in their usual order, and a majority of one in this body or in the Senate should firmly band themselves together and say, we will vote to adjourn the moment the hour of meeting arrives, and continue so to vote at every session during our two years of existence--the government would perish, and there is no provision of the const.i.tution to prevent it.

The States may inform their representatives that they can do this; and, under this position, they have the power and the right so to do.

Gentlemen, we are now on the verge of one of the most important presidential campaigns. The party in power holds its reins by a very uncertain tenure. If the decision shall favor the one which has been on the anxious bench for lo! these twenty years, and in probation until hope has well-nigh departed, what may be its action if invested again with the control of the destinies of this nation? The next party in power may inquire, and answer, by what right and how far the Southern States are bound by the legislation in which they had no part or consent. And if the Supreme Court of a Republican judiciary now declares, _after_ the war, _after_ the const.i.tutional amendments, that federal suffrage does not exist and never had an existence in the const.i.tution, it follows that the South has the right to regulate and control all of the questions arising upon suffrage in the several States without any interference on the part of an authority which declares it has no jurisdiction. An able writer has said: