The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 36

The Opera House, in which the National a.s.sociation held its meeting, was completely filled during all the sessions. The address of welcome was given by Hon. A. J. Poppleton, one of the most distinguished lawyers in that State. He said:

I deem it no light compliment that, in the face of an explicit declaration that I am not in favor of woman suffrage, I have been asked to make, on behalf of the people of Omaha and the State, an address of welcome to the many distinguished men and women whom this occasion has brought together. Doubtless the consideration shown me is a recognition of the fact that I have been a life-long advocate of the advancement of women through the agencies of equality in education, equality in employment, equality in wages, equality in property-rights and personal liberty, in short, a fair, open, equal field in the struggle for life. That I cannot go beyond this and embrace equal suffrage, is due rather to long adherence to the political philosophy of Edmund Burke than any lack of conviction of the absolute equality of men and women in natural rights.

In the winter of 1852-3, when a student at Poughkeepsie, N. Y., while the spot on which we now stand was Indian country as yet untouched by the formative power of national legislation, I listened to Miss Susan B. Anthony, Miss Antoinette Brown and others in the advocacy of the rights of women. It seems a strange fortune that brings now, nearly thirty years after, one of those speakers, crowned with a national reputation, into a State carved out of that Indian country and containing 60,000 people, in advocacy of equal suffrage for her s.e.x. This single fact proclaims in thunder tones the bravery, the fidelity, the devotion of these pioneers of reform, and challenges for them the sympathy, respect, esteem and admiration of every good man and woman in America.

The thirty years commencing about 1850 have been prolific of momentous changes. It is the era of the sewing machine, of the domestication of steam and electricity, the overthrow of the great rebellion, the destruction of slavery, the consolidation of the German empire, the fall of the second Napoleon, the birth of the French republic, the incorporation of India into the British empire, and the revolution of commerce by the Pacific railways and the Suez ca.n.a.l. Great changes have likewise taken place in the structure of our own State and national legislation, the most conspicuous and p.r.o.nounced result being the centralization of power in the federal government. It has been preeminently a period of amelioration, a long stride in the direction of tolerance of opinion, belief, speech and creed. Hospitals, asylums, schools, colleges and the manifold agencies of an advanced Christian civilization for alleviating the average lot of humanity, have grown and multiplied beyond the experience of former times, and men like Matthew Va.s.sar, George Peabody and John Hopkins have hastened to consecrate the abundant fruits of honorable lives to the exaltation and advancement of the race.

But in no direction have greater changes occurred in this country than in the condition of woman in respect to employment, wages, personal and property rights. In all heathen countries at this hour the ma.s.s of women are slaves or worse, wholly deprived of civil rights. In most Christian countries their legal status is one of absolute subordination in person and property to men. In this republic alone have we attained an alt.i.tude where some small measure of justice is meted out to women by the laws. In 1850 a fair measure of her rights was the grim edict of the common law holding her in guardianship prior to marriage, and upon marriage making her and all her possessions practically the property of her husband, while a cruel, unreasonable and vicious public opinion excluded her from all except menial and ill-paid service.

One by one and year by year these barriers have given way, until in many States her property and personal rights enjoy the complete shelter of the law. Now more than half the occupations and employments of this age of industrial activity and progress are thronged with the faithful, efficient and contented labor of women.

The law has broken forever the thraldom of an odious and hopeless marriage by reasonable laws for divorce for just cause, given her the custody of her children, vested her with the absolute power of disposition and control over her property, inherited or acquired, freed it from the claims of her husband's creditors, and clothed her with ample legal remedies even against her husband. Perhaps Nebraska alone of all the States, by its court of last resort, has upheld the power of the wife to make contracts with her husband and enforce them against him in her own name by the appropriate legal remedies. This surely is progress. Beyond this there lies but one field to win or fortress to reduce. Then surely the worn soldier in the long campaign crowned with the garlands of victory may rest from the battle.

Not many years ago, coming from Wisconsin, I think, a girl presented herself in the Illinois courts for admission to the bar, and after a rigid and unsparing examination she was admitted with public compliment. She took an office in the great city of Chicago and in the short remnant of an uncertain life so wrought in her profession as to attain an average professional income, and win the undivided respect and esteem of her professional a.s.sociates. And when from a far country, whither she had gone in hope to escape a fell disease, her lifeless corpse was brought back for sepulture, many of the foremost lawyers of Chicago gathered about her bier and bore emphatic testimony to her virtues as a woman and her attainments as a lawyer. To me no greater work has been done by any American woman. When Alta Hulett un.o.btrusively, silently but indomitably pressed her way to the front of the legal profession, and established herself there, she vindicated the right of her s.e.x to contend for the highest prizes of life, and left her countrywomen a legacy which will ultimately blazon her name imperishably in the history of the advancement of women; and every American woman who, like her, goes to the front of any honorable occupation, employment or profession, and stays there, becomes her coadjutor in work and a sharer in her reward.

Laden with the trophies of thirty years of conflict, of progress, of measurable success, the vice-president of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation and her a.s.sociates present themselves to Nebraska and ask a hearing upon the final issue, "Shall this work be crowned by granting to women in this State the highest privilege of the citizen--suffrage?" On behalf of the people of a State whose legislature has granted everything else to women--whose devotion to free speech, untrammeled discussion and an independent press has been conspicuous in its const.i.tutional and legislative history--I welcome them to this city and State, and bespeak for them a patient, candid, respectful, appreciative hearing.

Miss Anthony replied briefly to Mr. Poppleton's eloquent address and returned the thanks of the convention for the courtesy with which its members had been received by the citizens of Omaha.[93]

She then read a letter from the president of the convention:

TOULOUSE, France, September 1, 1882.

_To the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation in Convention a.s.sembled:_

DEAR FRIENDS: People never appreciate the magnitude and importance on any step in progress, at the time it is taken, nor the full moral worth of the characters who inspire it, hence it will be in line with the whole history of reform from the beginning if woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt in Nebraska should in many minds seem puerile and premature, and its advocates fanatical and unreasonable. Nevertheless the proposition speaks for itself. A const.i.tutional amendment to crown one-half of the people of a great State with all their civil and political rights, is the most vital question the citizens of Nebraska have ever been called on to consider; and the fact cannot be gainsaid that some of the purest and ablest women America can boast, are now in the State advocating the measure.

For the last two months I have been a.s.sisting my son in the compilation of a work soon to be published in America, under the t.i.tle, "The Woman Question in Europe," to which distinguished women in different nations have each contributed a sketch of the progress made in their condition. One interesting and significant fact as shown in this work, is, that in the very years we began to agitate the question of equal rights, there was a simultaneous movement by women for various privileges, industrial, social, educational, civil and political, throughout the civilized world.

And this without the slightest concert of action, or knowledge of each other's existence, showing that the time had come in the natural evolution of the species, in the order of human development, for woman to a.s.sert her rights, and to demand the recognition of the feminine element in all the vital interests of life.

To battle against a palpable fact in philosophy and the acc.u.mulated facts in achievement that can be seen on all sides in woman's work for the last forty years, from slavery to equality, is as vain as to fight against the law of gravitation. We shall as surely reach the goal we purposed when we started, as that the rich prairies of Nebraska will ere long feed and educate millions of brave men and women, gathered from every nation on the globe.

Every consideration for the improvement of your home life, for the morality of your towns and cities, for the elevation of your schools and colleges, and the loftiest motives of patriotism should move you, men of Nebraska, to vote for this amendment.

Galton in his great work on Heredity says:

We are in crying want of a greater fund of ability in all stations of life, for neither the cla.s.ses of statesmen, philosophers, artisans nor laborers, are up to the modern complexity of their several professions. An extended civilization like ours comprises more interests than the ordinary statesmen or philosophers of our race are capable of dealing with, and it exacts more intelligent work than our ordinary artisans and laborers, are capable of performing. Our race is overweighted, and appears likely to be dragged into degeneracy by demands that exceed its powers. If its average ability were raised a grade or two, a new cla.s.s of statesmen would conduct our complex affairs at home and abroad, as easily as our best business men now do their own private trades and professions. The needs of centralization, communication, and culture, call for more brains and mental stamina, than the average of our race possesses.

Does it need a prophet to tell us where to begin this work? Does not the physical and intellectual condition of the women of a nation decide the capacity and power of its men? If we would give our sons the help and inspiration of woman's thought and interest in the complex questions of our present civilization, we must first give her the power that political responsibility secures.

With the ballot in her own right hand, she would feel a new sense of dignity, and command among men a respect they have never felt before.

Nebraska has now the opportunity of making this grand experiment of securing justice, liberty, equality, for the first time in the world's history, to woman, through her education and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, of lifting man to that higher plane of thought where he may be able wisely to meet all the emergencies of the period in which he is called on to act. Let every man in Nebraska now so do his duty, that, when the sun goes down on the eighth of November, the glad news may be sent round the world that at last one State in the American republic has fully accorded the sacred right of self-government to all her citizens, black and white, men and women. With sincere hope for this victory,

Cordially yours, ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

Many interesting letters were received from friends at home and abroad, of which we give a few. The following is from our Minister Plenipotentiary at the German Court:

BERLIN, September 9, 1882.

Miss ANTHONY: _Esteemed Friend_: At this great distance I can only sympathize with the earnest effort to be made this fall to secure political recognition for women in Nebraska. I am glad that the prospect is so good and that Nebraska, which gave a name, with Kansas, to the first successful resistance to the encroachments of slavery, is the arena where the battle is to be fought under such promise of a just result. By recognizing the right of its women to an equal share in all the duties and responsibilities of life, Nebraska will honor itself while securing for all time wholesome laws and administration.

I believe society would more benefit itself than grant a favor to women by extending the suffrage to them. All the interests of women are promoted by a government that shall guard the family circle, restrain excess, promote education, shield the young from temptation. While the true interests of men lie in the same direction, women more generally appreciate these facts and ill.u.s.trate in their lives a desire for their attainment. Could we bring to the ballot-box the great fund of virtue, intelligence and good intention stored up in the minds and hearts of our wives and sisters, how great the reinforcement would be for all that is n.o.ble, patriotic and pure in public life! Who should fear the result who desires the public welfare? From the stand-point of better principles applied to the direction of public affairs and the best individuals in office, the argument seems impregnable.

It is getting late to resist this measure on the ground that the character of women themselves would be lowered by contact with politics. That objection is identical with the motive which causes the Turk to shut up his women in a harem and closely veil them in public. He fears their delicacy will be tarnished if they speak to any man but their proprietor. So prejudice feared woman would be uns.e.xed if she had equal education with man. The professions were closed to women for the same consideration.

Women have vindicated their ability to endure the education and engage in the dreaded pursuits, yet society is not dissolved, and these fearful imaginings have proved idle dreams. As every advance made by woman since the days when it was a mooted law-point how large could be the stick with which her husband could punish her, down to the day when congress opened to her the bar of the United States Supreme Court, has been accompanied by constantly refuted a.s.sertions that she and society were about to be ruined. I think we can safely trust to her good sense, virtue and delicacy to preserve for us the loved and venerated object we have always known, even if society shall yield the still further measure of complete enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, and thus add to her social dignity, duties and responsibilities.

No cla.s.s has ever been degraded by the ballot. All have rather been elevated by it. We cannot rationally antic.i.p.ate less desirable personal consequences to those whose tendencies are naturally good, than to those on whom the ballot has been conferred belonging to a lower plane of being. But these considerations go only to show the policy of granting suffrage to women. From the stand-point of justice the argument is more pressing. If woman asks for the ballot shall man deny it? By what right? Certainly not by the right of a majority; for women are at least as numerous. Certainly not by any right derived from nature; for our common mother has set no brand on woman. If one woman shall ask for a voice in the regulation of society of which she is at least one-half, who shall say her nay? If any woman shall ask it, who shall deny it because another woman does not ask it? There are many men who do not value their citizenship; shall other men therefore be deprived of the ballot?

Suppose many women would not avail themselves of such a function, are those with higher, or other views, to be therefore kept in tutelage?

I trust you may succeed in this work in Nebraska. It is of supreme importance to the cause. The example of Nebraska would soon be followed by other States. The current of such a reform knows no retiring ebb. The suffrage once acquired will never be relinquished; first, because it will recommend itself, as it has in Wyoming, by its results; second, because the women will jealously guard their rights, and defend them with their ballots.

Wishing I could do more than send you good wishes for the cause,[94] I am, respectfully yours,

A. A. SARGENT.

The following letter is from a daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton (a graduate of Va.s.sar College, and cla.s.smate of Miss Elizabeth Poppleton), who two years before, on the eve of her departure for Europe, gave her eloquent address on Edmund Burke in that city:

TOULOUSE, France, September 3, 1882.

_To the Voters of my Generation in Nebraska:_

It is not my desire to present to you any argument, but only to give you an episode in my own life. I desire to lay before you a fact, not a fiction; a reality, not a supposition; an experience not a theory.

I was born in a free republic and in my veins runs very rebellious blood. An ancestor of my father was one of those intrepid men who left the sh.o.r.es of old England and sailed forth to establish on a distant continent the grandest republic that has ever yet been known. That, you see, is not good blood to submit to injustice. And on my mother's side we find a st.u.r.dy old Puritan from whom our stock is traced, fleeing from England because of the faith that was in him, and joining his rebellious life to one of that honest Holland nation which had defied so n.o.bly the oppressions of the Catholic church and Spanish inquisition. As if this were not sufficiently independent blood to pa.s.s on to other generations, my own father became an abolitionist, and step by step fought his belief to victory, and my mother early gave her efforts to the elevation of woman. It is all this, together with my living in the freest land on the globe and in a century rife with discussions of all principles of government, that has made me in every fiber a believer in republican inst.i.tutions.

Having been reared in a large family of boys where we enjoyed equal freedom, and having received the same collegiate education as my brothers, it is not until lately that I have felt the crime of my womanhood. I have dwelt thus upon the antecedents and influences of my life in order to ask you one question: Do you not think I can appreciate the real meaning, the true sacredness of a republic? Do you not believe I feel the duties it demands of its citizens? But I want you to hold your reply in abeyance, till I give you one bit more of history.

A ship at sea crossing on the Atlantic between Europe and America. Of two persons on this vessel I wish to speak to you. Of one I have already told you much; I need but add that my two years spent in Europe,[95] previous to my return to America for a few months last winter, had not made me less American, less a lover of republicanism. And now this ship, baffling the February storm, was sweeping nearer the land where the people reign. My heart beat high as I thought it was in my native country where women were free, more honored than in any nation in the world. As I stood on the deck, the strong sea-wind blowing wildly about me, and the ocean bearing on its heart-wave mountains, visions of the grandeur of the nation lying off beyond the western horizon, rose before me. And it was a proud heart that cried--"My Country!"

And the other person I want to speak of? It is a man, a German, coming to the United States to escape military service in Prussia. He came in the steerage; was poor and ignorant. He could speak no English, not one word of your language and mine. His fellows were all Irish, so I offered to be an interpreter for him. I visited the steerage quarters, and returned with a heavy heart. Such brutal faces as I saw! Ignorance, cruelty, subserviency, were everywhere depicted. Herds of human beings that I feared, they looked so dull and brutal. The full meaning of a terrible truth rushed upon me. Soon these men would be my sovereigns--I their subject!

I had just spent a year in that German's native land, and I remembered that I had seen their women doing the work of men in the fields, husbands returning from their day's labor empty-handed, and their wives toiling on behind bent under heavy burdens, and as I thought on this, our ship bore him and me towards the land that glories in having given birth to Lucretia Mott. In the country where he had been reared, I had seen women harnessed with beasts of burden, dragging laden wagons, and yet our vessel carried him and me at each moment towards a safe harbor, in a land that pays homage to the memory of Margaret Fuller. Our ship sailed on, taking him from a land where he had been taught to worship royalty, whatever its worth or crime; where he had paid cringing submission to an arbitrary rule of police; where he had been surrounded by the degrading effects of the mightiest military system on the globe. The ship plowed on and on through the waves, bringing him to a republic, not one principle of which he comprehended.

And now we sail up New York bay. The day is bright, and a softening haze hangs over all. Surely this is some vision-land.

Yes, it is indeed a vision-land, for it has never known the presence of a royal line; against its oppressors it fought in no mean rebellious spirit, but rose in revolution with its motto, "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," written on its brow to be known of all men. And I think as we slowly sail up the bay on our vessel, Does that deadened soul respond to what lies before him? Does there in his heart rise the prayer, Oh, G.o.d! make me true to the duties about to be laid upon me; make me worthy of being free? Yes, then, for the first time I felt the full depth of the indignity offered to my womanhood. I felt my enthusiasm for America wavering--love of country dead. _My_ country!--I have no country.

Young men of Nebraska, I ask you to free your minds from prejudice, to be just towards the demands of another human soul, to be frank, to be wholly truthful, and answer my demand: Why should I not be a citizen of this republic? In replying, read between the lines of my tedious story and bear in mind the words of Voltaire: "Who would dare change a law that time has consecrated? Is there anything more respectable than an ancient abuse! Reason is more ancient, replied Zadig."

Respectfully, HARRIOT STANTON.

MANCHESTER NATIONAL SOCIETY FOR WOMAN SUFFRAGE, } MANCHESTER, England, September 5, 1882. }

DEAR MISS ANTHONY: Will you accept a word of cheer and G.o.d-speed from your sisters in England in your crusade for the emanc.i.p.ation of woman in Nebraska? You carry with you the hopes and sympathetic wishes of all on this side of the water. If you win, as I trust you may, your victory will have a distinct influence on the future of our parliamentary campaign, which we hope to begin in early spring in England. In the name of English women I would appeal to the men of Nebraska to a.s.sent to the great act of justice to women which is proposed to them by their elected representatives, and by so doing to aid in the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women all over the world.

Yours faithfully, LYDIA E. BECKER.

LONDON, September 1, 1882.

DEAR MISS ANTHONY: Having heard that the next convention of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation will meet at Omaha this month, I cannot refrain from sending a few lines to a.s.sure our friends who are working so steadfastly in America for the same sacred cause as our own, of our loving sympathy and good-wishes for success in the coming struggle. The eyes and hearts of hundreds of women are, like my own, turned to Nebraska, where so momentous an issue is to be decided two months hence. The news of their vote, if rightly given, will "echo round the world" like the first shot fired at Concord. It will be the expression of their determination to establish their freedom by giving freedom to others, and their example will be followed by Indiana and Oregon, and soon by the other States of the Union and by England.

Everything points with us to a speedy triumph of the principle of equal justice for woman. Next November, about the time when Nebraska will be voting for equal suffrage, the women in Scotland will be voting for the first time in their munic.i.p.al elections.

The session of 1882 will be memorable in future for having pa.s.sed the act which gives a married woman the right to hold her own property, make contracts, sue and be sued, in the same manner as if she were a single woman. It is nearly thirty years since we first began our efforts in this matter, and each succeeding step has been won very slowly and with great difficulty through the efforts of those who are working to obtain the suffrage. Mr.

Gladstone still expresses the hope that next session will place the franchise on a "fair" basis, meaning thereby the same right of voting for counties as for boroughs. We maintain that the franchise can never be said to be on a fair basis while women are debarred from the right of voting. Our progress and your progress will keep even pace together, for if women are free in America no long time can elapse before they are free here. We can but offer you our sympathy and we beg this favor of you, that as soon as you have the returns of the vote ascertained, you will telegraph the news to us, that our English societies may keep the day of rejoicing heart in heart with the American National a.s.sociation.