The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 20

In the absence of Mrs. Stanton Miss Anthony presided, opening her address with the sentence, "Here we have stood for the last twenty-one years, demanding of Congress to take the necessary step to secure to the women of this nation protection in the exercise of their const.i.tutional right to a voice in the government." She introduced the Hon. Albert G. Riddle (D. C.), who in 1871 had made an argument before the Joint Judiciary Committee in favor of woman's right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment; and later had argued before the Supreme Court her right to vote in the District. In the course of his remarks he said: "All the changes in favor of woman--everything indeed that has been achieved--has been in consequence of this contest for woman suffrage. Its advocates began it; they traveled along with it; and all that has been gained in the statutes of the various States and of the United States has been by their efforts; whatever has taken a crystallized form of irrepealable law is because of this discussion, because of this agitation."

Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker (Conn.) read the resolution demanding a representation of women in the Centennial Celebration of the Adoption of the United States Const.i.tution soon to be held in New York City.

Miss Anthony then introduced Senator Henry W. Blair (N. H.), who was received with much applause, as the unswerving champion of woman suffrage. In an address considering the const.i.tutional phase of the question, he said:

There has been such progress in the formulation of the State and the national law that it has become necessary for the Supreme Court of the United States to decide that we are not a sovereign people, that we have no nation at all, in order to prevent woman from exercising the right of suffrage throughout this country. In that decision which deprived Mrs. Virginia L. Minor of her right, the Supreme Court was driven to the necessity of deciding in express terms, "The United States has no voters of its own creation." If the United States has no voters, then the old doctrine of State sovereignty is the true one and there is no nation. We are subservient and subordinate to the power of the States to-day by virtue of this decision just exactly as it was claimed we were prior to the recent war. We thought the war established the fact that we were a nation; that the controversy which led up to the war had been decided in favor of the sovereignty of the nation. Under our republican form of government the sovereignty is lodged in the ma.s.ses of the people.

If, therefore, it is not in the man who votes by virtue of his membership in the a.s.sociation of the people known as the United States, then there is no sovereignty there....

As the law now is, in the Federal Const.i.tution there must always have been such a voter of the United States, for in the second clause of the first article it is provided that there shall be a House of Representatives "elected by the people in the States."

Where that provision is made it says that the electors shall have the qualifications of the electors in the States. But it does not say that they shall be the same individuals; it does not say that they are to act in the same capacity. They might vary in different portions of the country, in different States; but nevertheless, in giving to the people of the States the right to specify the qualifications which should belong to the electors of the United States, the Const.i.tution did not give up the power to create electors itself....

Take the Fifteenth Amendment. There is the first instance in the entire Const.i.tution where we find the franchise declared to be a "right," and in specific terms alluded to as such. And there it is provided that a right already recognized as existing shall not be abridged by the United States or by the States--a right already _existing_, not _established_. And by virtue of that amendment and the provision that this existing right shall not be denied or abridged on account of "race, color or previous condition of servitude," either by the United States or by the States, the _national existence_ of the voter is established....

I think our great difficulty about this is that women perhaps do not, to the extent that they should, place their cause upon the platform that it is a right; that to uphold that it is not a right is a wrong greater than any which has been perpetrated in the past; that freedom to half the human race is a glorious achievement which it still remains for mankind to accomplish....

There is no way in which you can do so much for this world as by giving liberty to those who are the mothers of the generations past and to come; so that freedom to think, freedom to formulate opinions, freedom to decide by the majority of the whole of mature human nature, shall be the universal boon as far as the human race extends....

Miss Anthony then read a letter from Mrs. Stanton which embodied that spirit of independence possessed by her almost beyond all other women:

I notice that in some of our conventions resolutions of thanks are pa.s.sed to senators, congressmen and legislators for advocating some minor privileges which have been conceded to women, such as admission to colleges and professions, limited forms of suffrage, etc. Now I do not see any occasion for grat.i.tude to these honorable gentlemen who, after robbing us of all our fundamental rights as citizens, propose to restore a few minor privileges. There is not one impulse of grat.i.tude in my soul for any of the fragmentary privileges which by slow degrees we have wrung out of our oppressors during the last half century, nor will there be so long as woman is robbed of all the essential rights of citizenship.

If strong appeals could induce the highway robber to return a modic.u.m of what he had stolen, it might mitigate the miseries of his victim, but surely there would be no reason for grat.i.tude, and an expression of thanks to him would be quite as much out of place as are complimentary resolutions pa.s.sed in our conventions to legislators for their concessions to women. They deserve nothing at our hands until they make full rest.i.tution of all we possessed in the original compact under the colonial const.i.tutions--rights over which in the nature of things men could have no lawful jurisdiction whatever.... Woman has the same right to a voice in this government that man has, and it is based on the same natural desire and capacity for self-government and self-protection....

Until woman is recognized as an equal factor in civilization, and is possessed of her personal property, civil and political rights, all minor privileges and concessions are but so many added aggravations, and are insulting mockeries of that justice, liberty and equality which are the birthright of every citizen of a republic. "Universal suffrage," said Charles Sumner, "is the first proof and only basis of a genuine republic."

Mrs. Stanton referred to the bravery of recent women writers in attacking social problems, citing Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Margaret Deland, Olive Schreiner, Mona Caird and Helen Gardiner. She closed with a tribute to the co-laborers who had died during the past year, among them the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Judge Samuel E. Sewall, Dr.

Clemence S. Lozier, Dr. Mary F. Thomas, Miss Abby W. May and numerous others.

During the second day's proceedings the Rev. Alexander Kent, of the Church of Our Father (Universalist), addressed the convention, saying in part:

It is not uncommon among writers on woman suffrage to find the root of the trouble in those notions of the creation and fall set forth in the ancient Jewish Scriptures--notions which have very generally prevailed throughout Christendom until recently, and which even yet have a large hold upon many people professing to be Christians. In the account of the origin of evil given by the ancient Hebrew writer, woman is the chief offender, and upon her falls the burden of the penalty. In sorrow she is to bring forth her children; her desire is to be to her husband and he is to rule over her. Unquestionably this has tended to prolong the reign of brute force in Christendom by perpetuating a belief in the rightful headship of man in the family and State. But it is a great mistake to see in this Scripture the root of the evil. It is only the record of a theory offered to explain a fact--which antedated both the theory and the record. We find the fact to-day even where we do not find the record--the woman ruled by the man in places where there is no knowledge whatever of the Hebrew Scriptures. I doubt not that among the founders of our Government--meaning the people generally--this doctrine of the rightful headship of man and the subordination of woman was sacredly held as a part of the revealed word of G.o.d, and that as such it operated to keep the women as well as the men of that day from perceiving the full significance, the comprehensive scope of the principles affirmed by their leaders, in the Const.i.tution and the Declaration of Independence....

If the ballot in the hands of woman is to do a great work for society, it will be first and foremost because of its wholesome influence on herself--because it rouses in her more of hope, more of laudable ambition, more of earnest purpose, more of self-reliance, more independence of the fashions, frivolities and conventionalities of society and the dictates of the church....

Praying for the speedy coming of this day, and hoping it may work gradually toward a purer and happier social life, and a further companionship in thought and feeling, in purpose and effort, between men and women, and especially between husbands and wives in the life of the home, I express my sympathy with the purpose of this convention.

Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.) took the ground that, after fifty years of argument, women now should unite in a continuous demand for the rights of citizenship.

In introducing the Hon. William D. Kelley (Penn.) Miss Anthony said that not only in Congress, where he was known as the Father of the House, but years ago in his own State Legislature, he advocated the political equality of women. After paying a tribute to his mother, to Mary Wollstonecraft and to Frances Wright, he said: "I am here, because I feel that I should again declare publicly the justice of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women, which, having cherished through youth and early manhood, I a.s.serted in a public address in Independence Hall, at high noon on the Fourth of July, 1841, before there was any organization for promoting woman's rights politically." He then sketched results already achieved and urged women to keep the flame burning for the benefits which would come to posterity.

The Rev. Olympia Brown (Wis.) spoke on Foreign Rule, and after pointing out the glory of a country which offered a home to all, and expressing a belief in universal suffrage, she continued:

In Wisconsin we have by the census of 1880 a population of 910,072 native-born, 405,425 foreign-born. Our last vote cast was 149,463 American, 189,469 foreign; thus you see nearly 1,000,000 native-born people are out-voted and out-governed by less than half their number of foreigners. Is that fair to Americans? Is it just to American men? Will they not, under this influence, in a little while be driven to the wall and obliged to step down and out? When the members of our Legislatures are the greater part foreigners, when they sit in the office of mayor and in all the offices of our city, and rule us with a rod of iron, it is time that American men should inquire if we have any rights that foreigners are bound to respect....

The last census shows, I think, that there are in the United States three times as many American-born women as the whole foreign population, men and women together, so that the votes of women will eventually be the only means of overcoming this foreign influence and maintaining our free inst.i.tutions. There is no possible safety for our free school, our free church or our republican government, unless women are given the suffrage and that right speedily.... The question in every political caucus, in every political convention, is not what great principles shall we announce, but what kind of a doc.u.ment can we draw up that will please the foreigners?...

When we remember that the first foot to touch Plymouth Rock was a woman's--that in the first settlement of this country women endured trials and privations and stood bravely at the post of duty, even fighting in the ranks that we might have a republic--and that in our great Western world women came at an early day to make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and rocked their babies' cradles in the log cabins when the Indians'

war-whoop was heard on the prairies and the wolves howled around their doors--when we remember that in the last war thousands of women in the Northwest bravely took upon themselves the work of the households and the fields that their husbands and sons might fight the battles of liberty--when we recollect all this, and then are told that loyal women, pioneer women, the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, are not even to ask for the right of suffrage lest the Scandinavians should be offended, it is time to rise in indignation and ask, Whose country is this? Who made it?

Who have periled their lives for it?

Our American women are property holders and pay large taxes; but the foreigner who has lived only one year in the State, and ten days in the precinct, who does not own a foot of land, may vote away their property in the form of taxes in the most reckless manner, regardless of their interests and their rights. Women are well-educated; they are graduating from our colleges; they are reading and thinking and writing; and yet they are the political inferiors of all the riff-raff of Europe that is poured upon our sh.o.r.es. It is unbearable. There is no language that can express the enormous injustice done to women....

We can not separate subjects and say we will vote on temperance or on school matters, for all these questions are part of government.... When women as well as men are voters, the church will get some recognition. I marvel that all ministers are not in favor of woman suffrage, when I consider that their audiences are almost entirely composed of women and that the church to-day is brought into disrepute because it is made up of disfranchised members. The minister would stand a hundred-fold higher than he does now if women had the suffrage. Everybody would want to know what the minister was saying to those women voters.

We are in danger in this country of Catholic domination, not because the Catholics are more numerous than we are, but because the Catholic church is represented at the polls and the Protestant church is not. The foreigners are Catholic--the greater portion of them; the foreigners are men--the greater part of them, and members of the Catholic church, and they work for it and vote for it. The Protestant church is composed of women. Men for the most part do not belong to it; they do not care much for it except as something to interest the women of their household.

The consequence is the Protestant church is comparatively unrepresented at the ballot-box....

I urge upon you, women, that you put suffrage first and foremost, before every other consideration upon earth. Make it a religious duty and work for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of your s.e.x, which means the growth and development of n.o.ble characters in your children; for you can not educate your children well surrounded by men and women who hold false doctrines of society, of politics, of morals. Leave minor issues, leave your differences of opinion about the Trinity, or the Holy Ghost, or endless misery; about high license and low license; or Dorcas Societies and Chautauqua Circles. Let them all go; they are of no consequence compared with the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women.

Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell gave a humorous series of Suffrage Pictures in New York, which was greatly relished by the audience. Mrs. Laura M.

Johns described Munic.i.p.al Suffrage in Kansas in an enthusiastic and interesting manner. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw then delivered her lecture, which has since become so famous, The Fate of Republics, tracing the rise and fall of the republics of history, which grew because of material prosperity and failed because of moral weakness.

All were in the hands of men, and women were excluded from any share.[73]

Mrs. Harriette R. Shattuck gave an account of the recent school election in Boston where 19,490 women voted, a much higher percentage of those registered than of the men, and thus defeated the dangerous attempt which had been made by the Church to interfere with the State.

Richard W. Blue, State Senator of Kansas, was called to the platform by Mrs. Gougar as one who had greatly aided its Munic.i.p.al Suffrage Bill.

Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) spoke on Women in the Recent Campaign.

In the National Prohibition Convention they sat as delegates and served on committees. In all parts of the country Republican and Democratic women organized clubs and marched in processions; but she called attention to the fact that these methods are not advocated by the suffrage societies so long as women remain disfranchised. Over two hundred clubs were formed for political study. All of the parties placed women on their platforms to speak in behalf of the candidates.

A Central Republican Headquarters was opened in New York and put in charge of a national committee of women who sent out hundreds of thousands of campaign doc.u.ments. When election day came not one of all these women could put her opinion in the ballot-box.

At the evening session Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.) in her trenchant way discussed Political Methods and pointed out the inconsistent and illogical declarations of platforms and speakers when applied to women, also the delight afforded to men by the tin horns and fireworks. She suggested for President Harrison's Cabinet, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Secretary of State; Susan B. Anthony, Secretary of War; May Wright Sewall, Secretary of the Treasury; Zerelda G. Wallace, Secretary of the Navy; Clara Barton, Secretary of the Interior; Laura de Force Gordon, Attorney-General.

Mrs. Sarah M. Perkins (O.) spoke on The Concentration of Forces, showing how p.r.o.ne women are to organize for every object except suffrage, and yet the majority of these workers would rejoice to have the power which lies in the ballot and would be infinitely better equipped for their work.

Mrs. Mary B. Clay (Ky.) opened the last day's session with a forcible address ent.i.tled, Are American Women Civil and Political Slaves? She proved the affirmative of her question by quoting the spoken and written declarations of the greatest statesmen on the right of individual representation and the exceptions made against women, citing Walker, the legal writer: "This language applied to males would be the exact definition of political slavery; applied to females, custom does not so regard it."

Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway (Ore.) described the recent arbitrary and unwarranted disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the women of Washington Territory.

Frederick Dougla.s.s was loudly called for and in responding expressed his grat.i.tude to women, "who were chiefly instrumental in liberating my people from actual chains of bondage," and declared his full belief in their right to the franchise.

Mrs. Helen M. Gougar (Ind.) made a strong speech upon Partisan or Patriot? In her address on Woman in Marriage Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby, editor of the _Woman's Tribune_, said:

It is customary to regard marriage as of even more importance to woman than to man, since the maternal, social and household duties involved in it consume the greater portion of the time and thought of a large majority. Love, it is commonly said, is an incident in a man's life, but makes or mars a woman's whole existence. This, however, is one of the many popular delusions crystallized into opinion by apt phraseology. To one who believes in the divinely intended equality of the s.e.xes it is impossible to consider that any mutual relation is an incident for the one and the total of existence for the other. We may lay it down as a premise upon which to base our whole reasoning that all mutual relations of the s.e.xes are not only divinely intended to, but actually do bring equal joys, pains, pleasures and sacrifices to both. Whatever mistake one has made has acted upon the other, and reacted equally upon the first.

The one great mistake of the ages--since woman lost her primal independence and supremacy--to which is due all the sins and sorrows growing out of the a.s.sociation of the s.e.xes, has been in making woman a pa.s.sive agent instead of an equal factor in arranging the laws, customs and conditions of this mutual state.

Whether marriage be a purely business partnership for the care and maintenance of children, or whether it be a sacrament to which the benediction of the church gives peculiar sanct.i.ty and perpetuity and makes the parties "no more twain but one flesh,"

in either case it is an absurdity, which we only tolerate because of custom, for men alone to make all the regulations and stipulations concerning it.

This unnatural and strained a.s.sumption by one s.e.x of the control of everything relating to marriage, and the equally unnatural and mischievous pa.s.sivity on the part of the other, have given birth to the meek maiden waiting for her fate, to the typical disconsolate and forlorn "superfluous woman," to the two standards of morality for the s.e.xes, to the mercenary marriage with all its attendant miseries, to the selfish, exacting, querulous wife, to the disappointed or tyrannical husband; and of late, with the wider possibilities of individual pleasure and satisfaction, to the growing aversion of young people to matrimony, and the rush of women to the divorce courts for freedom from the galling bonds; all these and a thousand variations of each, until the nature of both s.e.xes is so perverted that it is impossible to decide what is nature.

A letter was read from Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage (N. Y.) urging women individually to pet.i.tion Senators and Representatives for the removal of their political disabilities, because by this means these men were compelled to think on the question.

Mrs. Virginia L. Minor (Mo.) addressed the convention on The Law of Federal Suffrage, a legal argument on the right to vote conferred by the Const.i.tution. Miss Anthony supplemented Mrs. Minor's argument with a history of the Fourteenth Amendment, in which she said:

When that Fourteenth Amendment was under discussion--when it was proposed to put the word "male" into the second section--it read: "If any State shall disfranchise any of its citizens on account of color, all of that cla.s.s shall be counted out of the basis of representation." But there were timid souls on the floor of Congress at the close of the war, as well as at other periods of our history, and to prevent the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women by this amendment they moved to make it read: "If any State shall disfranchise any of its _male_ citizens, all of that cla.s.s shall be counted out of the basis of representation." Male citizens!

For the first time in the history of our Government that discriminating adjective was placed in the Const.i.tution, and yet the men on the floor of Congress, from Charles Sumner down, all declared that this amendment would not in any wise change the status of women!

We at once a.s.serted our right to vote under this amendment: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." Our first trial was on civil rights, when Mrs. Myra Bradwell of Chicago, who had been for some time publishing a law journal which every lawyer in the State said he could not afford to do without, applied for admission to the bar, and these same lawyers denied it. She appealed to the Illinois Supreme Court and it confirmed the denial, because she was not only a woman but a married woman. Then she appealed her case to the Supreme Court of the United States, and a majority of this court decided that the right to be a lawyer was not especially a citizen's right and that therefore the State of Illinois could legally abridge the privileges and immunities of its women by denying them admission to the bar.

I shall never forget how our hearts sank when in 1871 that decision came, declaring the powerlessness of the Federal Const.i.tution to protect women in their civil right of being eligible to the legal profession. When we said if these rights which it is meant to protect are not civil they must be political rights, we thought we had the Supreme Court in a corner. But when my trial for voting came on, Justice Hunt said that the right to vote was a special right belonging to men alone. We didn't believe that this decision could be confirmed, but it was, when Mrs. Minor, who attempted to vote at the same election in her State of Missouri, appealed her case to the Supreme Court of the United States. It was argued by her husband, the ablest of lawyers, and when the Judges brought in their decision it was to the effect that the Const.i.tution of the United States has no voters. Thus it is that we have two Supreme Court decisions relative to the powers of the Fourteenth Amendment to protect women, and in both cases they have been excluded absolutely from its provisions.