The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 7

The question is not whether women want or do not want to vote, but how can republican inconsistencies be wiped out, justice universally recognized and impartially administered, and the civil and political errors of the past effectually repaired.

Whoever admits that men have a right to the franchise must include in the admission women also, for there are no reasons capable of demonstrating an abstract right in behalf of one s.e.x which are not equally applicable to the other....

The a.s.sertion that women do not want to vote is absolutely without authority, so long as each individual woman does not speak out for herself. In Ohio 225,000, and in Illinois 185,000, have signified a desire to use the ballot for home protection, and yet it is still a.s.serted in those States that women do not want it. Over 100,000 women have already notified this Congress that they desire equality of political rights, and still it is declared all around us that women do not want to vote. Gentlemen, this is most emphatically an a.s.sertion which no individual can be justified in making for another.

Since the elective franchise is the parent stem from which branch out legal, industrial, social and educational enterprises necessary to the welfare of the citizens, it will be readily seen how women engaged in reforms, public charities, social enterprises, are hampered and trammeled in their progress without the ballot. Women have beheld their plans frustrated, their Herculean labor undone, their lives wasted, for want of legislative power through the citizen's emblem of sovereignty....

All ranks and occupations are beginning to realize that monstrous evils must ever crowd upon both cla.s.ses while one side of humanity only is represented, and while one s.e.x has the irresponsible keeping of the rights and privileges of the other.

To-day, throughout the length and breadth of our land, woman finds the greatest need of the ballot through an almost overpowering desire to have her wishes and opinions crystallized into law.

I have no hesitancy in saying that if the conditions which surround the women of this nation to-day were the conditions of the male citizens of the country, they would rise up and p.r.o.nounce them the exact definition of civil and political slavery, instead of the true interpretation of natural justice and civil equity.

Many persons claim that men are born with the right to vote, as they are to the right of life, liberty and happiness; that suffrage is the gift of the State, and that the State has a right to regulate it in any way that it may deem best for the common good. If men are born with the right to life, liberty and happiness, they are also born with the right to give expression as to how these are to be maintained; and in this nation, which professes to rest upon the consent of the governed, this expression is given through the ballot. Consequently the expression of a freeman's will is as G.o.d-given as his right to be free. Since the year of Magna Charta we have repudiated the idea of representation by proxy.

We all know that there are thousands of women in this nation who are owners of property, mothers of children, devoted to their homes and families and to all the duties and responsibilities which grow out of social life, and hence are most deeply interested in the public welfare. They have just as much at stake in this Government, which affords them no opportunity of giving or withholding their consent, as men who are consulted.

John Quincy Adams said in that grand speech in defense of the pet.i.tions of the women of Plymouth: "The women are not only justified, but exhibit the most exalted virtue, when they do depart from the domestic sphere and enter upon the concerns of their country, of humanity and of G.o.d."

Miss Phoebe W. Couzins (Mo.) in closing her address said: "At the gateway of this nation, the harbor of New York, there soon shall stand a statue of the G.o.ddess of Liberty, presented by the republic of France--a magnificent figure of a woman, typifying all that is grand and glorious and free in self-government. She will hold aloft an electric torch of great power which is to beam an effulgent light far out to sea, that ships sailing towards this goodly land may ride safely into harbor. So should you thus uplift the women of this nation, and teach these men, at the very threshold, when first their feet shall touch the sh.o.r.e of this republic, that here woman is exalted, enn.o.bled and honored; that here she bears aloft the torch of intelligence and purity which guides our Ship of State into the safe harbor of wise laws, pure morals and secure inst.i.tutions."

It had been the custom of these committees, when they reported at all, to delay doing so until the following year. In 1884, however, those of both Senate and House submitted reports soon after the hearings. The favorable recommendation was presented March 28, 1884, signed by Thomas W. Palmer, Henry W. Blair, Elbridge G. Lapham and Henry B.

Anthony. Senators Francis Marion c.o.c.krell and Joseph E. Brown dissented.[24] The name of Senator James G. Fair does not appear on either doc.u.ment, but he had signed an adverse report in 1882.

An adverse majority report from the House Judiciary Committee was presented by William C. Maybury (Mich.) and began thus:

The right of suffrage is not and never has, under our system of government, been one of the essential rights of citizenship....

What cla.s.s or portion of the whole people of any State should be admitted to suffrage, and should, by virtue of such admission, exert the active and potential control in the direction of its affairs, was a question reserved exclusively for the determination of the State.

[The report loses sight entirely of the point that this question was not and never has been left to "the people" of a State, but that men alone usurped the right to decide who should be admitted to the suffrage, arbitrarily excluded women and have kept them excluded.]

Under the influence of a just fear that without suffrage as a protective power to the newly-acquired rights and privileges guaranteed to the former slave he might suffer detriment, and with this dominant motive in view, originated the Fifteenth Amendment. It will be noted that by this later amendment the privilege of suffrage is not sought to be _conferred_ on any cla.s.s; but an inhibition is placed upon the States from _excluding_ from the privilege of suffrage any cla.s.s on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

[The Fifteenth Amendment does not mention the "privilege" of suffrage.

It says expressly, "The _right_ of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged." But whether it be a "right" or a "privilege," where did the negro get that which the States are forbidden to deny or abridge, if it does not inhere in citizenship?

The report is incorrect in saying that the State is prohibited from excluding any "cla.s.s;" it is only the "males" of any cla.s.s who are protected from exclusion. The same right or privilege belongs to women, but they are not protected in the exercise of it. Women never have asked Congress to grant them any _new_ right or privilege, but only to prohibit the States from denying or abridging what is already theirs, as it did in the case of negro men.]

Woman's true sphere is not restricted, but is boundless in resources and consequences. In it she may employ every energy of the mind and every affection of the heart, while within its limitless compa.s.s, under Providence, she exercises a power and influence beyond all other agencies for good. She trains and guides the life that is, and forms it for the eternity and immortality that are to be. From the rude contact of life, man is her shield. He is her guardian from its conflicts. He is the defender of her rights in his home, and the avenger of her wrongs everywhere.

[That is, what man considers her true sphere is not restricted, but she is not allowed to decide for herself what shall be its dimensions. "Her power for good is beyond all other agencies," but it is not wanted in affairs of State, where surely it is needed quite as badly as in any place in the world. "Man is her shield, guardian, defender and avenger." Witness the Common Law of England, made by men, under which women lived for centuries and which is still in force in a number of the States; witness the records of the courts with the wife-beaters and slayers, the rapists, the seducers, the husbands who have deserted their families, the schemers who have defrauded widows and orphans--witness all these and then say if all men are the natural protectors of women. But even if they were, witness the millions of women who are not legally ent.i.tled to the protection and a.s.sistance of any man. However, the report does not forget these women.]

The exceptional cases of unmarried females are too rare to change the general policy, while expectancy and hope, constantly being realized in marriage, are happily extinguishing the exceptions and bringing all within the rule which governs wife and matron.

To permit the entrance of political contention into the home would be either useless or pernicious--useless if man and wife agree, and pernicious if they differ. In the former event the volume of ballots alone would be increased without changing results. In the latter, the peace and contentment of home would be exchanged for the bedlam of political debate and become the scene of base and demoralizing intrigue.

[What a breadth of statesmanship, what a grasp of the principles of a republican form of government, to see in the voting of husband and wife only an "increase of ballots"; what a reflection upon men to a.s.sume that if there were an honest difference of opinion "the home would become a scene of base and demoralizing intrigue"; what a recognition of justice to decree that, since possibly there might be a disagreement, the man should do the voting and the woman should be forbidden a voice!]

In respect to married women, it may well be doubted whether the influences which result from the laws of property between husband and wife, would not make it improbable that the woman should exercise her suffrage with freedom and independence. This, too, in despite of the fact that the dependence of woman under the Common Law has been almost entirely obliterated by statutory enactments.

[Almost, but not quite, and it would still prevail everywhere had its obliteration depended upon the committee making this report. Think of saying in cold blood that, as the husband holds the purse-strings, the wife would not dare vote with freedom and independence!]

Your committee are of the opinion that while a few intelligent women, such as appeared before the committee in advocacy of the pending measure, would defy all obstacles in the way of their casting the ballot, yet the great ma.s.s of the intelligent, refined and judicious, with the becoming modesty of their s.e.x, would shrink from the rude contact of the crowd and, with the exceptions mentioned, leave the ignorant and vile the exclusive right to speak for the gentler s.e.x in public affairs.

[This opinion has been wholly disproved by the experience of States where women do vote. The "intelligent and judicious" have learned that there is more "rude contact" in going to the market, the theater, the train and the ferry-boat, than in a quiet booth where no man is permitted to come within a hundred feet. But women are not so "modest and refined" as to shrink from "rude contact" even, if it would give them the opportunity to control the conditions which surround and influence their husbands, their children, their homes and their community.]

Your committee are of the opinion that the general policy of female suffrage should remain in abeyance, in so far as the general Government is concerned, until the States and communities directly chargeable under our system of government with the exercise and regulation of this privilege, shall put the seal of affirmation upon it; and there certainly can be no reason for an amendment of the Const.i.tution to settle a question within the jurisdiction of the States, and which they should first settle for themselves.

[Of course, according to this logic, after the States settle the question and put the seal of affirmation on it, then the general Government will take a hand!]

This House Report (No. 1330) was not drastic enough to suit the Hon.

Luke P. Poland (Vt.), so he made his own, in which he said:

No government founded upon the principle that sovereignty resides in the people has ever allowed all the people to vote, or to directly partic.i.p.ate in making or administering the laws.

Suffrage has never been regarded as the natural right of all the people or of any particular cla.s.s or portion of the people.

Suffrage is representation, and it has been given in free governments to such cla.s.s of persons as in their judgment [whose judgment?] would fairly and safely represent the rights and interests of the whole. The right has generally, if not universally, been conferred on men above twenty-one years of age, and often this has been restricted by requiring the ownership of property or the payment of taxes. [Which?]

The great majority of women are either under the age of twenty-one, or are married and therefore _under such influence and control_ as that relation implies and confers. Is there any necessity for the protection and preservation of the rights of women, that they must be allowed to vote and, of course, to hold office and directly to partic.i.p.ate in the administration of the laws?

Nearly every man who votes has a wife or mother or sisters or daughters; some sustain all these relations or more than one. I think it certain that the great majority of men when voting or when engaged as legislators or in administering the laws in some official character, are fully mindful of the interests of all that cla.s.s with whom they are so closely connected, and whose interests are so bound up with their own, and that, therefore, they fairly represent all the rights and interests of women as well as their own. Persons who have been accustomed to see legal proceedings in the courts, and occasionally to see a female litigant in court, know very well whether they are apt to suffer wrong because their rights are determined wholly by men.[25]

There is just as little reason for suspicion that their rights are not carefully guarded in legislation, and in every way where legislation can operate.

There is another reason why I think this proposal to enlist the women of the country as a part of its active political force, and to cast upon them an equal duty in the political meetings, campaigns and elections--to make them legislators, jurors, judges and executive officers--is all wrong. I believe it to be utterly inconsistent with the very nature and const.i.tution of woman, and wholly subversive of the sphere and function she was designed to fill in the home and in society. The office and duty which nature has devolved upon woman during _all the active and vigorous portion_ of her life would often render it impossible, and still more often indelicate, for her to appear and act in caucuses, conventions or elections, or to act as a member of the Legislature or as a juror or judge.

I can not bring myself to believe that any large portion of the intelligent women of this country desire any such thing granted them, or would perform any such duties if the chance were offered them.

[To comment upon this would be "to gild refined gold, to paint the lily, to throw a perfume on the violet." It would be positively "indelicate."]

William Dorsheimer (N. Y.) agreed with the committee to table the resolution, but did not endorse their arguments. He signed the following statement: "I think it probable that the interests of society will some time require that women should have the right of suffrage, and I am not willing to say more than that the present is not an opportune time for submission to the States of the proposed amendment."

In this, it will be observed, there is no recognition of woman's right to represent herself, no disposition to grant her pet.i.tion for her own sake, but simply the opinion that should there ever be a crisis when her suffrage was needed it should be allowed as a matter of expediency.

In the eyes of posterity the Judiciary Committee of this Forty-eighth Congress will be redeemed from the disgrace of these reports by that of the minority, signed by Thomas B. Reed, afterwards for many years Speaker of the House; Ezra B. Taylor (O.); Moses A. McCoid (Ia.); Thomas M. Browne (Ind.). The question of woman suffrage never has been and never can be more concisely and logically stated.

No one who listens to the reasons given by the superior cla.s.s for the continuance of any system of subjection can fail to be impressed with the n.o.ble disinterestedness of mankind. When the subjection of persons of African descent was to be maintained, the good of those persons was always the main object. When it was the fashion to beat children, to regard them as little animals who had no rights, it was always for their good that they were treated with severity, and never on account of the bad temper of their parents. Hence, when it is proposed to give to the women of this country an opportunity to present their case to the various State Legislatures to demand equality of political rights, it is not surprising to find that the reasons on which the continuance of the inferiority of women is urged are drawn almost entirely from a tender consideration of their own good. The anxiety felt lest they should thereby deteriorate would be an honor to human nature were it not an historical fact that the same sweet solicitude has been put up as a barrier against all the progress which women have made since civilization began.

There is no doubt that if to-day in Turkey or Algiers, countries where woman's sphere is most thoroughly confined to the home circle, it was proposed to admit them to social life, to remove the veil from their faces and permit them to converse in open day with the friends of their husbands and brothers, the conservative and judicious Turk or Algerine of the period, if he could be brought even to consider such a horrible proposition, would point out that the sphere of woman was to make home happy by those gentle insipidities which education would destroy; that by partic.i.p.ating in conversation with men they would debase their natures, and men would thereby lose that ameliorating influence which still leaves them unfit to a.s.sociate with women. He would point out that "nature" had determined that women should be secluded; that their sphere was to raise and educate the man-child, and that any change would be a violation of the divine law which, in the opinion of all conservative men, ordains the present but never the future.

So in civilized countries when it was proposed that women should own their own property, that they should have the earnings of their own labor, there were not wanting those who were sure that such a proposition could work only evil to women, and that continually. It would destroy the family, discordant interests would provoke dispute, and the only real safety for woman was in the headship of man; not that man wanted superiority for any selfish reason, but to preserve intact the family relation for woman's good. To-day a woman's property belongs to herself; her earnings are her own; she has been emanc.i.p.ated beyond the wildest hopes of any reformer of twenty-five years ago. Almost every vocation is open to her. She is proving her usefulness in spheres which the "nature" worshiped by the conservative of the last generation absolutely forbade her to enter. Notwithstanding all these changes the family circle remains unbroken, the man-child gets as well educated as before, and the ameliorating influence of woman has become only the more marked.

Thirty years ago hardly any political a.s.semblage of the people was graced by the presence of women. Had it needed a law to enable them to be present, what an argument could have been made against it! How easily it could have been shown that the coa.r.s.eness, the dubious expressions, the general vulgarity of the scene, could have had no other effect than to break down that purity of thought and word which women have, and which conservative and radical are alike sedulous to preserve. And yet the actual presence of women at political meetings has not debased them but has raised the other s.e.x. Coa.r.s.eness has not become diffused through both s.e.xes but has fled from both. To put the whole matter in a short phrase: The a.s.sociation of the s.e.xes in the family circle, in society, and in business, having improved both, there is neither history, reason nor sense to justify the a.s.sertion that a.s.sociation in politics will lower the one or demoralize the other.

Hence, we would do well to approach the question without trepidation. We can better leave the "sphere" of woman to the future than confine it in the chains of the past. Words change nothing. Prejudices are none the less prejudices because we vaguely call them "nature," and prate about what nature has forbidden, when we only mean that the thing we are opposing has not been hitherto done. "Nature" forbade a steamship to cross the Atlantic the very moment it was crossing, and yet it arrived just the same. What the majority call "nature" has stood in the way of all progress of the past and present, and will stand in the way of all future progress. It is only another name for conservatism.

With conservatism the minority have no quarrel. It is essential to the stability of mankind, of government and of social life.

To every new proposal it rightfully calls a halt, demanding countersign, whether it be friend or foe. The enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women must pa.s.s this ordeal like everything else. It must give good reason for its demand to be, or take its place among the half-forgotten fantasies which have challenged the support of mankind and have not stood the test of argument and discussion.

The majority of the committee claim that suffrage is not a right but a privilege to be guarded by those who have it, and to be by them doled out to those who shall become worthy. That every extension of suffrage has been granted in some form or other by those already holding it is probably true. In some countries, however, it has been extended upon the simple basis of expediency, and in others in obedience to a claim of right. If suffrage be a right, if it be true that no man has a claim to govern any other man except to the extent that the other man has a right to govern him, then there can be no discussion of the question of Woman Suffrage. No reason on earth can be given by those who claim suffrage as a right of manhood which does not make it a right of womanhood also. If the suffrage is to be given man to protect him in his life, liberty and property, the same reasons urge that it be given to woman, for she has the same life, liberty and property to protect. If it be urged that her interests are so bound up in those of man that they are sure to be protected, the answer is that the same argument was urged as to the merging in the husband of the wife's right of property, and was p.r.o.nounced by the judgment of mankind fallacious in practice and in principle. If the natures of men and women are so alike that for that reason no harm is done by suppressing women, what harm can be done by elevating them to equality? If the natures be different, what right can there be in refusing representation to those who might take juster views about many social and political questions?

Our Government is founded, not on the rule of the wisest and best, but upon the rule of all. The learned and the ignorant, the wise and the unwise, the judicious and the injudicious are all invited to a.s.sist in governing, and upon the broad principle that the best government for mankind is not the government which the wisest and best would select, but that which the average of mankind would select. Laws are daily enacted, not because they seem the wisest even to those legislators who pa.s.s them, but because they represent what the whole people wish. And, in the long run, it may be just as bad to enact laws in advance of public sentiment as to hold on to laws behind it. Upon what principle in a Government like ours can one-half the minds be denied expression at the polls? Is it because they are untrained in public affairs? Are they more so than the slaves were when the right of suffrage was conferred on them? It is objected that to admit women would be temporarily to lower the suffrage on account of their lack of training in public duties. What is now asked of us is not immediate admission to the right, but the privilege of presenting to the Legislatures of the different States the amendment, which can not become effective until adopted by three-fourths of them. It may be said that the agitation and discussion of this question will, long before its adoption, have made women as familiar with public affairs as the average of men, for the agitation is hardly likely to be successful until after a majority, at least, of women are in favor of it.

We believe in the educating and improving effect of partic.i.p.ation in government. We believe that every citizen in the United States is made more intelligent, more learned and better educated by his partic.i.p.ation in politics and political campaigns. It must be remembered that education, like all things else, is relative.

While the average American voter may not be all that impatient people desire, and is far behind his own future, yet he is incomparably superior to the average citizen of any other land where the subject does not fully partic.i.p.ate in the government.