The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume I Part 21

She spoke at Lawrence in the Unitarian and the Congregational churches, and August 1, the thirty-first anniversary of England's emanc.i.p.ation of the slaves in the West Indies, she addressed an immense audience in a grove near Leavenworth. She discussed the changed condition of the colored people and their new rights and duties, and called their attention to the fact that not one of the prominent politicians advertised was there; pointed out that if they possessed the ballot and could vote these men into or out of office, all would be eager for an opportunity to address them; and then drew a parallel between their political condition and that of women. At this time she received a second intimation of what was to come, when prominent Republicans called upon her and insisted that hereafter she should not bring the question of woman's rights into her speeches on behalf of the negro.

A few days afterwards Miss Anthony was seated in her brother's office reading the papers when she learned to her amazement that several resolutions had been offered in the House of Representatives sanctioning disfranchis.e.m.e.nt on account of s.e.x. Up to this time the Const.i.tution of the United States never had been desecrated by the word "male," and she saw instantly that such action would create a more formidable barrier than any now existing against the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. She hesitated no longer but started immediately on her homeward journey, stopping in Atchison, where she was the guest of ex-Mayor Crowell. Senator Pomeroy called, accompanied her to church and arranged for her to address the colored people next day. She lectured also in St. Joseph, Mo. At Chillicothe one of the editors sent word that if she would not "lash" him he would print her handbills free of charge. Here she addressed a great crowd of colored people in a tobacco factory. At Macon City she spoke to them in an abandoned barracks, and slept in a slab house. Her night's experience at Ottumwa was repeated here, except that the army of invaders were fleas. The next day she was invited to the Methodist minister's home and his church placed at her disposal, where she addressed a large white audience. Of her speech in St. Louis she wrote:

Sunday afternoon I spoke to the colored people in an old slave church in which priests used to preach "Servants, obey your masters;" and in which slaves never dared breathe aloud their hearts' deepest prayer for freedom. The church was built by actual slaves with money they earned working odd hours allowed them by their masters. The greatest danger for these people now lies in being duped by the priests and Levites who used to pa.s.s them by on the other side but who, now that they have become popular prey, wildly run to and fro to do them good--that is, get their money and give themselves easy, fat posts as superintendents, missionaries, teachers, etc. The country is full of these soul-sharks, men who haven't had brains enough to find pulpits or places in the free States.

As Miss Anthony took the train for Chicago, a woman-thief picked her pocket but she caught her and, without any appeal to the police, compelled her to deliver up the stolen goods. At Chicago she lectured several times, visited the Freedmen's Commission, heard General Howard, called on General Sherman, went to the board of trade, where she was greatly shocked at the roaring of the "bulls and bears," and had pleasant visits with relatives in the city and adjacent towns, speaking at a number of these places. She lectured at Battle Creek and Ann Arbor, arriving at Rochester September 23. Pausing only for a brief visit, she went on to New York to fulfill the purpose which brought her eastward. She stopped at Auburn to counsel with Mrs. Wright and Mrs.

Worden, but found both very dubious about reviving interest in woman's rights at this critical moment. After a night of mapping out the campaign with Mrs. Stanton, she started out bright and early the next morning on that mission which she was to follow faithfully and steadfastly, without cessation or turning aside, for the next thirty years--to compel the Const.i.tution of the United States to recognize the political rights of woman! The days were spent in hunting up old friends and supporters of the years before the war and enlisting their sympathies in the great work now at hand; and the evenings were occupied with Mrs. Stanton in preparing an appeal and a form of pet.i.tion praying Congress to confer the suffrage on women.[35] This was the first demand ever made for Congressional action on this question.

The Fourteenth Amendment, as proposed, contained in Section 2, to which the women objected, the word "male" three times, and read as follows:

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for president and vice-president of the United States, representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a State, or the members of the legislature thereof, is denied to any of the _male_ inhabitants of such state, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for partic.i.p.ation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such _male_ citizens shall bear to the whole number of _male_ citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

If it had been adopted without this word "male," all women would have been virtually enfranchised, as men would have let women vote rather than have them counted out of the basis of representation. Thaddeus Stevens made a vigorous attempt to have women included in the provisions of this amendment.

[Autograph: Thaddeus Stevens]

A letter written by Mrs. Stanton to Martha Wright is a sample of hundreds which were sent to friends in all parts of the country:

I enclose you the proof of the memorial which Susan and I have just been getting up for Congress. I have been writing to Mr. Garrison to make some mention of us, "the only disfranchised cla.s.s now remaining," in his last Liberator. It is fitting that we should be recognized in his valedictory. We have now boosted the negro over our own heads, and we had better begin to remember that self-preservation is the first law of nature. Will you see if you can get our pet.i.tion in your city and county papers? Sign it yourself and send it to your representatives in Senate and Congress, and then try to galvanize the women of your district into life. Some say: "Be still; wait; this is the negro's hour." We believe this is the hour for everybody to do the best thing for reconstruction.

Miss Anthony found the leaders among the men so absorbed with their interest in the male negro that they had given little thought to the suffrage as related to women; but the Hovey Committee appropriated $500 to begin the pet.i.tion work. She went to Concord and held a parlor meeting attended by Emerson, Alcott, Sanborn and other sages of that intellectual center, stating what the women desired to accomplish.

After she finished, Emerson was appealed to for an opinion but said: "Ask my wife. I can philosophize, but I always look to her to decide for me in practical matters." Mrs. Emerson replied without hesitation that she fully agreed with Miss Anthony in regard to the necessity for pet.i.tioning Congress at once to enfranchise women, either before this great body of negroes was invested with the ballot or at the same time.

Mr. Emerson and the other gentlemen then a.s.sured her of their sympathy and support.

[Autograph: R. Waldo Emerson]

She presented her claims at the annual anti-slavery meeting in Westchester and at many other gatherings. She went also to Philadelphia to visit James and Lucretia Mott and interest Mary Grew and Sarah Pugh and all the friends in that locality; then back to New York with tireless energy and unflagging zeal. She wrote articles for the Anti-Slavery Standard, sent out pet.i.tions and left no stone unturned to accomplish her purpose. The diary shows the days to have been well filled:

Went to Tilton's office to express regrets at not being able to attend their tin wedding. He read us his editorial on Seward and Beecher. Splendid!... Went to hear Beecher, morning and evening.

There is no one like him.... Spent the day at Mrs. Tilton's and went with her to Mrs. Bowen's.... Listened to O.B. Frothingham, "Justice the Mother of Wisdom."... Put some new b.u.t.tons on my cloak. This is its third winter.... Excellent audience in Friends'

meeting house, at Milton-on-the-Hudson. Visited the grave of Eliza W. Farnham.... Went over to New Jersey to confer with Lucy Stone and Antoinette Blackwell.... Called at Dr. Cheever's, and also had an interview with Robert Dale Owen.... Went to Worcester to see Abby Kelly Foster and from there to Boston.... Found Dr. Harriot K.

Hunt ready for woman suffrage work. Took dinner at Garrison's. Saw Whipple and May, then went to Wendell Phillips'.... Spent the day with Caroline M. Severance, at West Newton. She is earnest in the cause of women.... Returned to New York and commenced work in earnest. Spent nearly all the Christmas holidays addressing and sending off pet.i.tions.

Henry Ward Beecher and Theodore Tilton entered heartily into the plans of Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton. Mr. Tilton proposed that they should form a National Equal Rights a.s.sociation, demanding suffrage for negroes and for women, that Mr. Phillips should be its president, the Anti-Slavery Standard its official organ; and Mr. Beecher agreed to lecture in behalf of this new movement. Mr. Tilton came out with a strong editorial in the Independent, advocating suffrage for women and paying a beautiful tribute to the efficient services in the past of those who were now demanding recognition of their political rights:

A LAW AGAINST WOMEN.--The spider-crab walks backward. Borrowing this creature's mossy legs, two or three gentlemen in Washington are seeking to fix these upon the Federal Const.i.tution, to make that instrument walk backward in like style. For instance, the Const.i.tution has never laid any legal disabilities upon woman.

Whatever denials of rights it formerly made to our slaves, it denied nothing to our wives and daughters. The legal rights of an American woman--for instance, her right to her own property, as against a squandering husband; or her right to her own children as against a malicious father--have grown, year by year, into a more generous and just statement in American laws. This beautiful result is owing in great measure to the persistent efforts of many n.o.ble women who, for years past, both publicly and privately, by pen and speech, have appealed to legislative committees and to the whole community for an enlargement of the legal and civil status of their fellow-countrywomen. Signal, honorable and beneficent have been the works and words of Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria Child, Paulina Wright Davis, Abby Kelly Foster, Frances D. Gage, Lucy Stone, Caroline H.

Ball, Antoinette Blackwell, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and many others. Not in all the land lives a poor woman or a widow who does not owe some portion of her present safety under the law to the brave exertions of these faithful laborers.

All forward-looking minds know that, sooner or later, the chief public question in this country will be woman's claim to the ballot. The Federal Const.i.tution, as it now stands, leaves this question an open one for the several States to settle as they choose. Two bills, however, now lie before Congress proposing to array the fundamental law of the land against the mult.i.tude of American women by ordaining a denial of the political rights of a whole s.e.x. To this injustice we object totally! Such an amendment is a snap judgment before discussion; it is an obstacle to future progress; it is a gratuitous bruise inflicted on the most tender and humane sentiment that has ever entered into American politics.

If the present Congress is not called to legislate _for_ the rights of women, let it not legislate _against_ them. Americans now live who shall not go down into the grave till they have left behind them a republican government; and no republic is republican that denies to half its citizens those rights which the Declaration of Independence and a true Christian democracy make equal to all.

Meanwhile, let us break the legs of the spider-crab.

[Footnote 34: See Appendix for full speech.]

[Footnote 35: As the question of suffrage is now agitating the public mind, it is the hour for woman to make her demand. Propositions already have been made on the floor of Congress to so amend the Const.i.tution as to exclude women from a voice in the government. As this would be to turn the wheels of legislation backward, let the women of the nation now unitedly protest against such a desecration of the Const.i.tution, and pet.i.tion for that right which is at the foundation of all government, the right of representation. Send your pet.i.tion when signed to your representative in Congress, at your earliest convenience.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, SUSAN B. ANTHONY, LUCY STONE.]

CHAPTER XVI.

THE NEGRO'S HOUR.

1866.

The reconstruction period of our government was no less trying a time than the four years of warfare which preceded it. The Union had been preserved but the disorganization of the Southern States was complete.

Lincoln, whose cool judgment, restraining wisdom and remarkable genius for understanding and persuading men never had been more needed, was dead by the hand of an a.s.sa.s.sin. In his place was a man, rash, headlong, aggressive, stubborn, distrusted by the party which had placed him in power. This chief executive had to deal not only with the great, perplexing questions which always follow upon the close of a war, but with these rendered still more difficult by the great ma.s.s of bewildered and helpless negroes, ignorant of how to care for themselves, with no further claims upon their former owners, and yet destined to live among them. The immense Republican majority in Congress found itself opposed by a President, southern in birth and sympathy and an uncompromising believer in State Rights.

The southern legislatures, while accepting the Thirteenth Amendment, which prohibited slavery, pa.s.sed various laws whose effect could not be other than to keep the negro in a condition of "involuntary servitude."

To the South these measures seemed to be demanded by ordinary prudence to retain at least temporary control of a race unfitted for a wise use of liberty; to the North they appeared a determination to evade the provisions of the Thirteenth Amendment, and Congress decided upon more radical measures. One wing of the old Abolitionists, under the leadership of Phillips, had steadfastly insisted that there could be no real freedom without the ballot. Several attempts had been made to secure congressional action for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro, which the majority of Republicans had now come to see was essential for his protection, and these resulted finally in the submission of the Fourteenth Amendment. Charles Sumner stated that he covered nineteen pages of foolscap in his effort so to formulate it as to omit the word "male" and, at the same time, secure the ballot for the negro.

When Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton sounded the alarm, the old leaders in the movement for woman's rights came at once to their aid, but they were soon to meet with an unexpected and serious disappointment. In January Miss Anthony went to the anti-slavery meeting at Boston, full of the new idea of consolidating the old Anti-Slavery and the Woman's Rights Societies under one name, that of the Equal Rights a.s.sociation.

She was warmly supported by Tilton, Lucy Stone, Powell and others, but to their amazement they found Mr. Phillips very cool and discouraging.

He said this could be done only by amending the const.i.tution of the Anti-Slavery Society, which required three months' notice. Still they did not dream of his opposing the proposition and so deputized Mr.

Powell to give the formal notice, in order that it might be acted upon at the coming May Anniversary. On the way back the New York delegation discussed this new plan enthusiastically, and Miss Anthony wrote home that there was a strong wish in the society to widen its object so as to include universal suffrage, believing this to be the case. The necessary steps at once were taken for calling a national woman's rights meeting to convene in New York the same week as the Anti-Slavery Anniversary, and the following call was issued setting forth its princ.i.p.al objects:

Those who tell us the republican idea is a failure, do not see the deep gulf between our broad theory and our partial legislation; do not see that our government for the last century has been but a repet.i.tion of the old experiments of cla.s.s and caste. Hence the failure is not in the principle, but in the lack of virtue on our part to apply it. The question now is, have we the wisdom and conscience, from the present upheavings of our political system to reconstruct a government on the one enduring basis which never yet has been tried--Equal Rights to All?

From the proposed cla.s.s legislation in Congress, it is evident we have not yet learned wisdom from the experience of the past; for, while our representatives at Washington are discussing the right of suffrage for the black man as the only protection to life, liberty and happiness, they deny that "necessity of citizenship" to woman, by proposing to introduce the word "male" into the Federal Const.i.tution. In securing suffrage but to another shade of manhood, while disfranchising 15,000,000 women, we come not one line nearer the republican idea. Can a ballot in the hand of woman and dignity on her brow, more uns.e.x her than do a scepter and a crown? Shall an American Congress pay less honor to the daughter of a President than a British Parliament to the daughter of a King? Should not our pet.i.tions command as respectful a hearing in a republican Senate as a speech of Victoria in the House of Lords? Do we not claim that here all men and women are n.o.bles--all heirs apparent to the throne? The fact that this backward legislation has roused so little thought or protest from the women of the country but proves what some of our ablest thinkers already have declared, that the greatest barrier to a government of equality is the aristocracy of its women; for while woman holds an ideal position above man and the work of life, poorly imitating the pomp, heraldry and distinction of an effete European civilization, we as a nation never can realize the divine idea of equality.

To build a true republic, the church and the home must undergo the same upheavings we now see in the state; for while our egotism, selfishness, luxury and ease are baptized in the name of Him whose life was a sacrifice, while at the family altar we are taught to worship wealth, power and position, rather than humanity, it is vain to talk of a republican government. The fair fruits of liberty, equality and fraternity must be blighted in the bud till cherished in the heart of woman. At this hour the nation needs the highest thought and inspiration of a true womanhood infused into every vein and artery of its life; and woman needs a broader, deeper education such as a pure religion and lofty patriotism alone can give. From the baptism of this second Revolution should she not rise up with new strength and dignity, clothed in all those "rights, privileges and immunities" which shall best enable her to fulfill her highest duties to humanity, her country, her family and herself?

On behalf of the National Woman's Rights Central Committee,

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, _President_; SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Secretary_.

Letters both encouraging and discouraging were received. Robert Purvis, one of the most elegant and scholarly colored men our country has known, whose father was a Scotchman and mother a West Indian with no slave blood, sent this n.o.ble response: "....I can not agree that this or any hour is 'especially the negro's.' I am an anti-slavery man because I hate tyranny and in my nature revolt against oppression, whatever its form or character. As an Abolitionist, therefore, I am for the equal rights movement, and as one of the confessedly oppressed race, how could I be otherwise? With what grace could I ask the women of this country to labor for my enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, and at the same time be unwilling to put forth a hand to remove the tyranny, in some respects greater, to which they are subjected? Again wishing you a successful meeting, I am very gratefully yours."

[Autograph: Robert Purvis]

Anna d.i.c.kinson, who had come upon the scene of action since the last woman's rights convention five years before, wrote Miss Anthony that she should be present but was not sure that she was yet ready to speak: "I'm a great deal of a Quaker--I don't like to take up any work till I feel called to it. My personal interest is perhaps stronger in that of which thee writes me than in any other, but my hands are so full just now. I see what I shall do in the future, and I hope the near future.

Wait for me a little--forbear, and I honestly believe I'll do thee some good and faithful service; I don't mean wait for me, but be patient with me. I write this out of my large love for and confidence in thee.

I will talk to thee more of it by end of the month when I see thee in Boston and put my mite in thy hands; till then believe me, dear friend, affectionately and truly thine."

At the business meeting of the anti-slavery convention the proposition was made by the National Woman's Rights Committee that, as all there was left for the society to do was to secure suffrage for the negro, and as the woman's society also was working for universal suffrage, they should merge the two into one, and in that way the same conventions, appeals, pet.i.tions, etc., would answer for both. To this Mr. Phillips vigorously objected because the necessary three months'

notice had not been given! As Mr. Powell had been delegated the previous January to give this, there could be no other conclusion than that he had refrained from doing so. There was considerable discussion on the question but, as president of the Anti-Slavery Society, Mr.

Phillips' influence was supreme and the coalition was declined.

The Woman's Rights Convention met in Dr. Cheever's church, May 10, 1866, with a large audience present. It was their first meeting since before the war, and while it had many elements of gladness, yet it was not unmixed with sorrow. Mr. Garrison was absent, the first rift had been made in the love and grat.i.tude in which for many years Mr.

Phillips had been held, and a vague feeling of distrust and alarm was beginning to creep over the women, lest, after all these years of patient work, they were again to be sacrificed.

Miss Anthony presented a ringing set of resolutions, and splendid addresses were given by Mrs. Stanton, Theodore Tilton and Henry Ward Beecher. Mr. Phillips then made a long and eloquent speech which was rapturously received by the audience, but which filled the leaders with sadness, because of the skillful evasion of the disputed question which they never had expected from this staunch friend. Miss Anthony read an address to Congress[36] which was adopted with unanimous approval. At the close of the convention a business session was held, at which she offered a resolution declaring that, since by the act of emanc.i.p.ation and the Civil Rights Bill, the negro and woman now had the same civil and political status, alike needing only the ballot, therefore the time had come for an organization which should demand universal suffrage; and that hereafter their society should be known as the American Equal Rights a.s.sociation. She supported this by an able speech in which she said:

For twenty years we have pressed the claims of woman to the right of representation in the government. Each successive year after 1848, conventions were held in different States, until the beginning of the war. Up to this hour we have looked only to State action for the recognition of our rights; but now, by the results of the war, the whole question of suffrage reverts back to the United States Const.i.tution. The duty of Congress at this moment is to declare what shall be the basis of representation in a republican form of government. There is, there can be, but one true basis, viz.: that taxation and representation must be inseparable; hence our demand must now go beyond woman--it must extend to the farthest limit of the principle of the "consent of the governed,"

as the only authorized or just government. We therefore wish to broaden our woman's rights platform and make it in name what it ever has been in spirit, a human rights platform. As women we can no longer claim for ourselves what we do not for others, nor can we work in two separate movements to get the ballot for the two disfranchised cla.s.ses, negroes and women, since to do so must be at double cost of time, energy and money.... Therefore, that we may henceforth concentrate all our forces for the practical application of our one grand, distinctive, national idea--universal suffrage--I hope we will unanimously adopt the resolution before us, thus resolving ourselves into the American Equal Eights a.s.sociation.