The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 16

We all know that man himself has been most willing to grant to women every right, every opportunity. If he has hesitated it has been rather from love and admiration of woman than from any tyrannical desire of oppression. He has said that women must not vote because they can not perform military duty. Can they not serve the nation as well as those men, who during the last war sent subst.i.tutes and to-day hold the highest places in the Government? But we ask one question: Which every year does most for the State, the soldier or the mother who risks her life not to destroy other life but to create it? Of the two it would be better to disfranchise the soldiers and enfranchise the mothers.

For much as the nation owes to the soldiers, she owes far more to the mothers who in endless martyrdom make the nation a possibility....

Man deserves that we should consider his present unhappy condition. In all ages he has proved his reverence for woman by embodying every virtue in female form, and has left none for himself. Truth and chast.i.ty, mercy and peace, charity and justice, all are represented as feminine, and lately, as a proof of his devotion, he has erected at the entrance to the harbor of our greatest metropolis a statue of liberty and this too is represented as a woman.... And so we hail the men, liberty enlightening a world where woman and man shall alike be free.

One interesting address followed another throughout the convention, presenting the question of suffrage for women with appeal, humor, logic, statistics and every variety of argument.

Mrs. Harriette Robinson Shattuck (Ma.s.s.) presented in striking contrast The Women Who Ask and the Women Who Object. Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert in a fine address told of Our Motherless Government.

Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker (Conn.) gave for the first time her masterly speech, The Const.i.tutional Rights of the Women of the United States, which has been so widely circulated in pamphlet form, and which closed with this peroration:

There are those who say we have too many voters already. No, we have not too many. On the contrary, to take away the ballot even from the ignorant and perverse is to invite discontent, social disturbance, and crime. The restraints and benedictions of this little white symbol are so silent and so gentle, so atmospheric, so like the snow-flakes that come down to guard the slumbering forces of the earth and prepare them for springing into bud, blossom, and fruit in due season, that few recognize the divine alchemy, and many impatient souls are saying we are on the wrong path--the Old World was right--the government of the few is safe; the wise, the rich, should rule; the ignorant, the poor, should serve. But G.o.d, sitting between the eternities, has said otherwise, and we of this land are foreordained to prove His word just and true. And we will prove it by inviting every newcomer to our sh.o.r.e to share our liberties so dearly bought and our responsibilities now grown so heavy that the shoulders which bear them are staggering under their weight; that by the joys of freedom and the burdens of responsibility they, with us, may grow into the stature of perfect men, and our country realize at last the dreams of the great souls who, "appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rect.i.tude of their intentions," did "ordain and establish the Const.i.tution for the United States of America"--the grandest charter of human rights that the world has yet conceived.

In an impa.s.sioned address Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell (N. Y.) contrasted The Present and the Past, saying:

The destiny of the world to-day lies in the hearts and brains of her women. The world can not travel upward faster than the feet of her women are climbing the paths of progress. Put us back if you can; veil us in harems; make us beasts of burden; take from us all knowledge; teach us we are only material; and humanity will go back to the dark ages. The nineteenth century is closing over a world arising from bondage. It is the grandest, sublimest spectacle ever beheld. The world has seen and is still looking at the luminous writing in the heavens--"The truth shall make you free"--and for the first time is gathering to itself the true significance of liberty. All the progress of these years has not come easily or from conservatism, but from the persistent efforts of enthusiastic radicals, men and women with ideas in their heads and courage in their hearts to make them practical.

Ever since woman took her life in her own hands, ever since she began to think for herself, the dawning of a great light has flooded the world. We are the mothers of men. Show me the mothers of a country and I will tell you of the sons. If men would ever rise above their sensuality and materialism, they must have mothers whose pure souls, brave hearts and clear intellects have touched them deeply before their birth and equipped them for the journey of life....

It is the evening of the nineteenth century, but the starlight is clearer than the morning of its existence. I look back and see in each year improvement and advancement. I see woman gathering up her soul and personality and claiming them as her own against all odds and the world. I see her asking that this personality may be impressed upon her nation. I see her speaking her soul from platforms, preaching in pulpits of a life of which this is the shadow. I see her pleading before courts, using her brains to solve the knotty questions of the law. Woman's sphere is the wide world, her sceptre the mind that G.o.d has given her, her kingdom the largest place that she has the brains to fill and the will to hold. So is woman influencing the world, and as her sphere widens the world grows better. With the freedom she now has, see how she is arousing the public conscience on all questions of right....

What is conservatism? It is the dying faith of a closing century.

What is fanaticism? It is the dawning light of a new era. Yes, a new era will dawn with the twentieth century. I look to that time and see woman the redeeming power of the world.

Mrs. Pearson of Nottingham gave a glowing account of the progress of suffrage in England and the work of the Primrose League; Madame Clara Neymann (N. Y.) made a scholarly address ent.i.tled Skeptics and Skepticism; Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby (Neb.), the Rev. Rush R. Shippen of Washington City and Miss Phoebe W. Couzins (Mo.) were among the speakers. Delegate Joseph M. Carey (Wy.) said in the course of his address:

Eighteen years ago the right of suffrage was given to the women of Wyoming. Women have voted as universally and as conscientiously as men. I have had the honor of voting for women and of being voted for by them. There are not three per cent. of women old enough who do not vote in every part of the Territory.

In intelligence, beauty, grace, in perfection of home and social duties, the women of Wyoming will compare favorably with those of any other State. I have been asked if they neglect home affairs on account of politics. I have never known an instance of this. I have never known a controversy to arise from the wives voting differently from their husbands, which they often do. If women could vote in the States to-day they would vote as wisely as men....

I will say to woman's credit she has not sought office, she is not a natural office-seeker, but she desires to vote, has preferences and exercises her rights. The superintendents in nearly all the counties are women. They have taken a deep interest in school matters and as a rule they control school meetings. Three-fourths of the voters present at these are women.

In Cheyenne they alone seem to have the time to attend. Give woman this right to vote and she will make out of the boys men more capable of exercising it. I have seen the results and am satisfied that every woman should have the suffrage.

Mrs. Carey sat on the platform with Miss Anthony, Mrs. Hooker and other prominent members of the convention. The eloquent address of Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) on The Conditions of Liberty attracted special attention. Mrs. Caroline Gilkey Rogers (N. Y.) proved in an original manner that There is Nothing New under the Sun. In a statesmanlike paper Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage (N. Y.) set forth the authority of Congress to secure to woman her right to the ballot:

To protect all citizens in the use of the ballot by national authority is not to deprive the States of the right of local self-government. When Andrew Jackson, who had been elected as a State's Rights man, a.s.serted the supremacy of the National Government, that a.s.sertion, carried out as it was, did not deprive States of their power of self-government. Neither did the Reconstruction Acts nor the adoption of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. Yet in many ways it is proved that States are not sovereign. Besides their inability to coin money, to declare peace and war, they are proved by their own acts not even to be self-protective. If women as individuals, as one-half of the people, call upon the nation for protection, they are doing no more nor less than so-called sovereign States themselves do.

National aid has been frequently asked to preserve peace, or to insure that protection found impossible under mere local or State authority....

In ratifying an amendment States become factors in the nation, the same as by the acts of their representatives and senators in Congress. A law created by themselves in this way can be no interference with their local rights of self-government; because in helping enact these laws, either through congressional action, or by legislative ratification of amendments, each State has arisen above and beyond itself into a higher national realm.

The one right above all others which is not local is the right of self-government. That right being the corner stone on which the nation was founded, is a strictly national right. It is not local, it is not State....

It does not matter by what instrumentality--whether by State const.i.tution or by statute law--woman has been deprived of her national right of self-government, it is none the less the duty of Congress to protect her in regaining it. Surely her right to govern herself is of as much value as the protection of property, the quelling of riots, the destruction or establishment of banks, the guarding of the polls, the securing of a free ballot for the colored race or the taking of it from a Mormon voter.

In her address on The Work of Women, Miss Mary F. Eastman (Ma.s.s.) said: "Men say the work of the State is theirs. The State is the people. The origin of government is simply that two men call in a third for umpire. The ideal of the State is gradually rising. No State can be finer in its type of government than the individuals who make it. We enunciate a grand principle, then we are timid and begin restricting its application. We are a nation of infidels to principle."

The leading feature of the last evening was the address of Mrs.

Zerelda G. Wallace (Ind.) on Woman's Ballot a Necessity for the Permanence of Free Inst.i.tutions. A Washington paper said: "As she stood upon the platform, holding her hearers as in her hand, she looked a veritable queen in Israel and the personification of womanly dignity and lofty bearing. The line of her argument was irresistible, and her eloquence and pathos perfectly bewildering. Round after round of applause greeted her as she poured out her words with telling effect upon the great congregation before her, who were evidently in perfect accord with her earnest and womanly utterances."

An imperfect extract from a newspaper report will suggest the trend of her argument:

In this Nineteenth annual convention, reviewing what these nineteen years have brought, we find that we have won every position in the field of argument for our cause. By its dignity and justice we have overcome ridicule, although our progress has been impeded by the tyranny of custom and prejudice.

I will ask the American question "will it pay" to enfranchise the women of this nation--I will not say republic? The world has never been blessed with a republic. Those who think this is a narrow struggle for woman's rights have never conceived the height, length and breadth of this momentous question.

The purpose of divinity is enunciated in that it is said He would create humanity in His image. The purpose of the Creator is that the two are to have dominion; woman is included in the original grant. Free she must be before you yourselves will be free. The highest form of development is to govern one's self. No man governs himself who practices injustice to another....

We have pa.s.sed through one Gethsemane because of our refusal to co-operate with the Deity in His purpose to establish justice and liberty on this continent. It took a hundred years and a Civil War to evolve the principle in our nation that all men were created free and equal. Will it require another century and another Civil War before there is secured to humanity the G.o.d-given inalienable right to "life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness?" The most superficial observer can see elements at work, a confusion of forces, that can only be wiped out in blood, unless some new, unifying power is brought into Government. No cla.s.s was ever known to extend a right or share the application of a just principle as long as it could safely retain these exclusively for itself.

We have no quarrel with men. They are grand and just and n.o.ble in exact proportion as their spiritual nature is exalted. As sure as you live down low to the animal that is in you, will the animal dominate your nature. Woman is the first to recognize the Divine. When G.o.d was incarnated in humanity, when the Word was made flesh and born of a woman, the a.r.s.enal of Heaven was exhausted to redeem the race....

Woman is your last resource, and she will not fail you. I have faith that humanity is to be perfected. Examine the record for yourselves. I do not agree with the view of some of our divines.

We find the Creator taking a survey, and man is the only creation he finds imperfect. Therefore a helpmeet is created for him.

According to accepted theology the first thing that helpmeet does is to precipitate him into sin. I have unbounded faith in the plans of G.o.d and in His ability to carry them out, and when He said He would make a helpmeet I believe He did it, and that Eve helped Adam, gave him an impetus toward perfection, instead of causing him to fall. Man was a n.o.ble animal and endowed with intellectual ability, but Eve found him a moral infant and tried to teach him to discriminate between good and evil. That is the first and greatest good which comes to anybody, and Adam, instead of falling down when he ate the apple, rose up. There is no moral or spiritual growth possible without being able to discern good from evil. Adam was an animal superior to all others that preceded him, but it needed a woman to quicken his spiritual perceptions.

Eve having taken it upon herself to teach man to know the difference between good and evil, the responsibility rests upon woman to teach man to choose the good and refuse the evil. She will do this if she has freedom of opportunity.

Man has been given schools to develop brain power, and I do not underrate their value. He has nearly entered into his domain as far as the material forces are concerned, but there is a moral and spiritual element in humanity which eludes his grasp in practically everything he undertakes. This lack of the moral element is to-day our greatest danger. We do not ask for the ballot because men are tyrants, but because G.o.d has made us the conservators of the race. To-day we are queens without a scepter; the penalty to the nation is that men are largely indifferent to its best interests and many do not vote. Men are under the influence of women during the formative period of their lives, first of their mothers, then of women teachers; how can they do otherwise than underestimate the value of citizenship? How can the young men of this nation be inspired with a love of justice?

It is a dangerous thing that the education of citizens is given over to women, unless these teachers have themselves the rights of citizens. How can you expect such women as have addressed you here in this convention to teach the youth to honor a Government which thus dishonors women?

The world has never known but one Susan B. Anthony. G.o.d and the world needed her and G.o.d gave her to the world and to humanity.

The next Statue of Liberty will have her features. Of all the newspaper criticisms and remarks which have been made about her I read one the other day which exactly suited me; it called her "that grand old champion of progress."

The women are coming and the men will be better for their coming.

Men say women are not fit to govern because they can not fight.

When men live upon a very low plane so there is only one way to manage them and that is to knock them on the head, that is true.

It probably was true of government in the beginning, but we are to grow up out of this low state.

When we reach the highest development, moral and spiritual forces will govern. That women can and do govern even in our present undeveloped condition is shown by the fact that three-fourths of our educators are women. I remember when it used to be said, "You can not put the boys and girls into the hands of women, because they can not thrash them." To-day brute force is almost entirely eliminated from our schools. That women should not take part in government because they can not fight was probably true in ages gone by when governments were maintained by brute force, but it does not obtain in a government ruled by public opinion expressed on a little piece of paper. Women as a cla.s.s do not fight, and that is the reason they are needed to introduce into government a power of another kind, the power with which women govern their children and their husbands, that beautiful law of love which is to be the only thing that remains forever....

Our statesmen are doubting the success of self-government. They say universal suffrage is a failure, forgetting that we have never had universal suffrage. The majority of the race has never expressed its sense in government. We are a living falsehood when we compare the basic principles of our Government with things as they are now. It is becoming a common expression, "The voice of the people is not the voice of G.o.d." If you do not find G.o.d in the voice of the people you can not find him anywhere. It is said, "Power inheres in the people," and the nation is shorn of half its power for progress as long as the ballot is not in the hands of women.

What has caused heretofore the downfall of nations? The lack of morality in government. It will eat out the life of a nation as it does the heart of an individual. This question of woman's equal rights, equal duties, equal responsibilities, is the greatest which has come before us. The destiny of the whole race is comprised in four things: Religion, education, morals, politics. Woman is a religious being; she is becoming educated; she has a high code of morals; she will yet purify politics.

I want to impress upon the audience this thought, that every man is a direct factor in the legislation of this land. Every woman is not a direct factor, but yet is more or less responsible for every evil existing in the community. I have nothing but pity for that woman who can fold her hands and say she has all the rights she wants. How can she think of the great problem G.o.d has given us to solve--to redeem the race from superst.i.tion and crime--and not want to put her hand to the wheel of progress and help move the world?

Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith (Penn.) p.r.o.nounced the benediction at the closing session.

Sixteen States were represented at this Nineteenth convention, and reports were sent from many more. Mrs. Sewall, chairman of the executive committee, presented a comprehensive report of the past year's work, which included appeals to many gatherings of religious bodies. Conventions had been held in each congressional district of Kansas and Wisconsin. She referred particularly to the completion of the last of the three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage by Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage. An elaborate plan of work was adopted for the coming year, which included the placing of this History in public libraries, a continuation of the appeals to religious a.s.semblies, the appointment of delegates to all of the approaching national political conventions, and the holding by each vice-president of a series of conventions in the congressional districts of her State. It was especially desired that arrangements should be made for the enrollment in every State of the women who want to vote, and Mrs. Colby was appointed to mature a suitable plan.

Among the extended resolutions adopted were the following:

WHEREAS, For the first time a vote has been taken in the Senate of the United States on an amendment to the National Const.i.tution enfranchising women; and

WHEREAS, Nearly one-third of the Senators voted for the amendment; therefore,

_Resolved_, That we rejoice in this evidence that our demand is forcing itself upon the attention and action of Congress, and that when a new Congress shall have a.s.sembled, with new men and new ideas, we may hope to change this minority into a majority.

WHEREAS, The Anti-Polygamy bill pa.s.sed by both Houses of Congress provides for the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the non-polygamous women of Utah; and

WHEREAS, The women thus sought to be disfranchised have been for years in the peaceable exercise of the ballot, and no charge is made against them of any crime by reason of which they should lose their vested rights; therefore,