The Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony Volume II Part 47

If once we establish the false principle that United States citizenship does not carry with it the right to vote in every State in this Union, there is no end to the petty tricks and cunning devices which will be attempted to exclude one and another cla.s.s of citizens from the right of suffrage. It will not always be the men combining to disfranchise all women; native born men combining to abridge the rights of all naturalized citizens, as in Rhode Island. It will not always be the rich and educated who may combine to cut off the poor and ignorant; but we may live to see the hard-working, uncultivated day laborers, foreign and native born, learning the power of the ballot and their vast majority of numbers, combine and amend State const.i.tutions so as to disfranchise the Vanderbilts, the Stewarts, the Conklings and the Fentons. It is a poor rule that won't work more ways than one. Establish this precedent, admit the State's right to deny suffrage, and there is no limit to the confusion, discord and disruption that may await us. There is and can be but one safe principle of government--equal rights to all.

Discrimination against any cla.s.s on account of color, race, nativity, s.e.x, property, culture, can but embitter and disaffect that cla.s.s, and thereby endanger the safety of the whole people. Clearly, then, the national government not only must define the rights of citizens, but must stretch out its powerful hand and protect them in every State in this Union.

If, however, you will insist that the Fifteenth Amendment's emphatic interdiction against robbing United States citizens of their suffrage "on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude," is a recognition of the right of either the United States or any State to deprive them of the ballot for any or all other reasons, I will prove to you that the cla.s.s of citizens for whom I now plead are, by all the principles of our government and many of the laws of the States, included under the term "previous condition of servitude."

Consider first married women and their legal status. What is servitude?

"The condition of a slave." What is a slave? "A person who is robbed of the proceeds of his labor; a person who is subject to the will of another." By the laws of Georgia, South Carolina and all the States of the South, the negro had no right to the custody and control of his person. He belonged to his master. If he were disobedient, the master had the right to use correction. If the negro did not like the correction and ran away, the master had the right to use coercion to bring him back. By the laws of almost every State in this Union today, North as well as South, the married woman has no right to the custody and control of her person. The wife belongs to the husband; and if she refuse obedience he may use moderate correction, and if she do not like his moderate correction and leave his "bed and board," the husband may use moderate coercion to bring her back. The little word "moderate," you see, is the saving clause for the wife, and would doubtless be overstepped should her offended husband administer his correction with the "cat-o'-nine-tails," or accomplish his coercion with blood-hounds.

Again the slave had no right to the earnings of his hands, they belonged to his master; no right to the custody of his children, they belonged to his master; no right to sue or be sued, or to testify in the courts. If he committed a crime, it was the master who must sue or be sued. In many of the States there has been special legislation, giving married women the right to property inherited or received by bequest, or earned by the pursuit of any avocation outside the home; also giving them the right to sue and be sued in matters pertaining to such separate property; but not a single State of this Union has ever secured the wife in the enjoyment of her right to equal ownership of the joint earnings of the marriage copartnership. And since, in the nature of things, the vast majority of married women never earn a dollar by work outside their families, or inherit a dollar from their fathers, it follows that from the day of their marriage to the day of the death of their husbands not one of them ever has a dollar, except it shall please her husband to let her have it.

In some of the States, also, laws have been pa.s.sed giving to the mother a joint right with the father in the guardianship of the children.

Twenty-five years ago, when our woman's rights movement commenced, by the laws of all the States the father had the sole custody and control of the children. No matter if he were a brutal, drunken libertine, he had the legal right, without the mother's consent, to apprentice her sons to rumsellers or her daughters to brothel-keepers. He even could will away an unborn child from the mother. In most of the States this law still prevails, and the mothers are utterly powerless.

I doubt if there is, today, a State in this Union where a married woman can sue or be sued for slander of character, and until recently there was not one where she could sue or be sued for injury of person. However damaging to the wife's reputation any slander may be, she is wholly powerless to inst.i.tute legal proceedings against her accuser unless her husband shall join with her; and how often have we heard of the husband conspiring with some outside barbarian to blast the good name of his wife? A married woman can not testify in courts in cases of joint interest with her husband.

A good farmer's wife in Illinois, who had all the rights she wanted, had had made for herself a full set of false teeth. The dentist p.r.o.nounced them an admirable fit, and the wife declared it gave her fits to wear them. The dentist sued the husband for his bill; his counsel brought the wife as witness; the judge ruled her off the stand, saying, "A married woman can not be a witness in matters of joint interest between herself and her husband." Think of it, ye good wives, the false teeth in your mouths are a joint interest with your husbands, about which you are legally incompetent to speak! If a married woman is injured by accident, in nearly all of the States it is her husband who must sue, and it is to him that the damages will be awarded. In Ma.s.sachusetts a married woman was severely injured by a defective sidewalk. Her husband sued the corporation and recovered $13,000 damages, which belong to him absolutely, and whenever that unfortunate wife wishes a dollar of that money she must ask her husband for it; and if he be of a n.i.g.g.ardly nature, she will hear him say, every time, "What have you done with the twenty-five cents I gave you yesterday?" Isn't such a position humiliating enough to be called "servitude?" That husband sued and obtained damages for the loss of the services of his wife, precisely as he would have done had it been his ox, cow or horse; and exactly as the master, under the old regime, would have recovered for the services of his slave.

I submit the question, if the deprivation by law of the ownership of one's own person, wages, property, children, the denial of the right as an individual to sue and be sued and testify in the courts, is not a condition of servitude most bitter and absolute, even though under the sacred name of marriage? Does any lawyer doubt my statement of the legal status of married women? I will remind him of the fact that the common law of England prevails in every State but two in this Union, except where the legislature has enacted special laws annulling it. I am ashamed that not one of the States yet has blotted from its statute books the old law of marriage, which, summed up in the fewest words possible, is in effect "husband and wife are one, and that one the husband."

Thus may all married women and widows, by the laws of the several States, be technically included in the Fifteenth Amendment's specification of "condition of servitude," present or previous. The facts also prove that, by all the great fundamental principles of our free government, not only married women but the entire womanhood of the nation are in a "condition of servitude" as surely as were our Revolutionary fathers when they rebelled against King George. Women are taxed without representation, governed without their consent, tried, convicted and punished without a jury of their peers. Is all this tyranny any less humiliating and degrading to women under our democratic-republican government today than it was to men under their aristocratic, monarchial government one hundred years ago? There is not an utterance of John Adams, John Hanc.o.c.k or Patrick Henry, but finds a living response in the soul of every intelligent, patriotic woman of the nation. Show me a justice-loving woman property-holder, and I will show you one whose soul is fired with all the indignation of 1776 every time the tax-collector presents himself at her door. You will not find one such but feels her condition of servitude as galling as did James Otis when he said:

The very act of taxing exercised over those who are not represented appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights, and if continued seems to be in effect an entire disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of every civil right. For what one civil right is worth a rush after a man's property is subject to be taken from him at pleasure without his consent? If a man is not his own a.s.sessor in person, or by deputy, his liberty is gone, for he is wholly at the mercy of others.

What was the three-penny tax on tea or the paltry tax on paper and sugar to which our Revolutionary fathers were subjected, when compared with the taxation of the women of this republic? And again, to show that disfranchis.e.m.e.nt was precisely the slavery of which the fathers complained, allow me to cite Benjamin Franklin, who in those olden times was admitted to be good authority, not merely in domestic but also in political economy:

Every man of the commonalty, except infants, insane persons and criminals, is, of common right and the law of G.o.d, a freeman and ent.i.tled to the free enjoyment of liberty. That liberty or freedom consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who are to frame the laws, and who are to be the guardians of every man's life, property and peace. For the all of one man is as dear to him as the all of another; and the poor man has an equal right, but more need, to have representatives in the legislature than the rich one. They who have no voice or vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes and to their representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and to be subject to laws made by the representatives of others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf.

Suppose I read it with the feminine gender:

Women who have no voice or vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to men who have votes and to their representatives; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom men have set over us, and to be subject to the laws made by the representatives of men, without having representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf.

And yet one more authority, that of Thomas Paine, than whom not one of the Revolutionary patriots more ably vindicated the principles upon which our government is founded:

The right of voting for representatives is the primary right by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce man to a state of slavery; for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another; and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is in this case. The proposal, therefore, to disfranchise any cla.s.s of men is as criminal as the proposal to take away property.

Is anything further needed to prove woman's condition of servitude sufficient to ent.i.tle her to the guarantees of the Fifteenth Amendment?

Is there a man who will not agree with me that to talk of freedom without the ballot is mockery to the women of this republic, precisely as New England's orator, Wendell Phillips, at the close of the late war declared it to be to the newly emanc.i.p.ated black man? I admit that, prior to the rebellion, by common consent, the right to enslave, as well as to disfranchise both native and foreign born persons, was conceded to the States. But the one grand principle settled by the war and the reconstruction legislation, is the supremacy of the national government to protect the citizens of the United States in their right to freedom and the elective franchise, against any and every interference on the part of the several States; and again and again have the American people a.s.serted the triumph of this principle by their overwhelming majorities for Lincoln and Grant.

The one issue of the last two presidential elections was whether the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments should be considered the irrevocable will of the people; and the decision was that they should be, and that it is not only the right, but the duty of the national government to protect all United States citizens in the full enjoyment and free exercise of their privileges and immunities against the attempt of any State to deny or abridge. In this conclusion Republicans and Democrats alike agree. Senator Frelinghuysen said: "The heresy of State rights has been completely buried in these amendments, and as amended, the Const.i.tution confers not only National but State citizenship upon all persons born or naturalized within our limits."

The call for the National Republican Convention of 1872 said: "Equal suffrage has been engrafted on the National Const.i.tution; the privileges and immunities of American citizenship have become a part of the organic law." The National Republican platform said: "Complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political and public rights, should be established and maintained throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate State and Federal legislation."

If that means anything it is that Congress should pa.s.s a law to protect women in their equal political rights, and that the States should enact laws making it the duty of inspectors of elections to receive the votes of women on precisely the same conditions as they do those of men.

Judge Stanley Matthews, a substantial Ohio Democrat, in his preliminary speech at the Cincinnati Liberal Convention, said most emphatically: "The const.i.tutional amendments have established the political equality of all citizens before the law."

President Grant, in his message to Congress, March 30, 1870, on the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment, said, "A measure which makes at once four millions of people voters, is indeed a measure of greater importance than any act of the kind from the foundation of the government to the present time."

How could _four_ million negroes be made voters if two million out of the four were women?

The California Republican platform of 1872 said:

Among the many practical and substantial triumphs of the principles achieved by the Republican party during the past twelve years, it enumerates with pride and pleasure the prohibiting of any State from abridging the privileges of any citizen of the republic, the declaring the civil and political equality of every citizen, and the establishing all these principles in the Federal Const.i.tution, by amendments thereto, as the permanent law.

Benjamin F. Butler, in a recent letter to me, said: "I do not believe anybody in Congress doubts that the Const.i.tution authorizes the right of women to vote, precisely as it authorizes trial by jury and many other like rights guaranteed to citizens."

It is upon this just interpretation of the United States Const.i.tution that our National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, which celebrates the twenty-fifth anniversary of the woman's rights movement next May in New York City, has based all its arguments and action since the pa.s.sage of these amendments. We no longer pet.i.tion legislature or Congress to give us the right to vote, but appeal to women everywhere to exercise their too long neglected "citizen's right." We appeal to the inspectors of election to receive the votes of all United States citizens, as it is their duty to do. We appeal to United States commissioners and marshals to arrest, as is their duty, the inspectors who reject the votes of United States citizens, and leave alone those who perform their duties and accept these votes. We ask the juries to return verdicts of "not guilty" in the cases of law-abiding United States citizens who cast their votes, and inspectors of election who receive and count them.

We ask the judges to render unprejudiced opinions of the law, and whereever there is room for doubt to give the benefit to the side of liberty and equal rights for women, remembering that, as Sumner says, "The true rule of interpretation under our National Const.i.tution, especially since its amendments, is that anything _for_ human rights is const.i.tutional, everything _against_ human rights unconst.i.tutional." It is on this line that we propose to fight our battle for the ballot--peaceably but nevertheless persistently--until we achieve complete triumph and all United States citizens, men and women alike, are recognized as equals in the government.

CHAPTER XXV--PAGE 436

NEWSPAPER COMMENT ON MISS ANTHONY'S TRIAL.

It is perhaps needless to say that whoever listens candidly to Susan B.

Anthony, no matter how he previously regarded her and her sentiments, is certain to respect her and them afterwards.--Geneva Courier.

Miss Susan B. Anthony is sharp enough for a successful politician. She is under arrest in Rochester for voting illegally, and is conducting her case in a way which beats even lawyers. She stumped the county of Monroe and spoke in every post-office district so powerfully that she has actually converted nearly the entire male population to the woman suffrage doctrine. The sentiment is so universal that the United States district-attorney dare not trust his case to a jury drawn from that county, and has changed the venue to Ontario. Now Miss Anthony proposes to stump Ontario immediately, and has procured the services of Matilda Joslyn Gage, of Fayetteville, to a.s.sist her. By the time the case comes on, Miss Anthony will have Ontario county converted to her doctrine.--Syracuse Standard.

If Miss Anthony has converted every man in Monroe county to her views of the suffrage question, as the district-attorney intimates in his recent efforts to have her case adjourned, it is pretty good evidence--unless every man in Monroe county is a fool--that the lady has done no wrong.

"Her case," remarks the Auburn Bulletin, "will probably be carried over to another term, and all she has to do is to canva.s.s and convert another county. A shrewd woman that! Again we say she ought to vote."--Rochester Democrat and Chronicle.

There is perplexity in the northern district of New York. It was in that jurisdiction that Miss Susan B. Anthony and sundry "erring sisters"

voted at the November election. For this they were arrested and indicted. The venue was laid in Monroe county and there the trial was to take place. Miss Anthony then proceeded to stump Monroe county and every town and village thereof, asking her bucolic hearers the solemn conundrum, "Is it a crime for a United States citizen to vote?" The answer is supposed generally to be in the negative, and so convincing is Sister Anthony's rhetoric regarded that it is supposed no jury can be found to convict her. Her case has gone to the jurymen of Monroe, in her own persuasive pleadings, before they are summoned. The district-attorney has, therefore, postponed the trial to another term of the court, and changed the place thereof to Ontario county; whereupon the brave Susan takes the stump in Ontario, and personally makes known her woes and wants. It is a regular St. Anthony's dance she leads the district-attorney; and, in spite of winter cold or summer heat, she will carry her case from county to county precisely as fast as the venue is changed. One must rise very early in the morning to get the start of this active apostle of the sisterhood.--New York Commercial Advertiser.

It seems likely that the decision of the court will be in Miss Anthony's favor. If such be the result the advocates of woman suffrage will change places with the public. They will no longer be forced to obtain hearings from congressional and legislative committees for their claims, but will exercise their right to vote by the authority of a legal precedent against which positive laws forbidding them from voting will be the only remedy. It is a question whether such laws can be pa.s.sed in this country. A careful examination of the subject must precede any such legislation, and the inference from the result of Judge Selden's investigation is that the more the subject is studied the less likely will any legislative body be to forbid those women who want to vote from so doing.--New York Evening Post.

Miss Susan B. Anthony, whatever else she may be, is evidently of the right stuff for a reformer. Of all the woman suffragists she has the most courage and resource, and fights her own and her sisters' battle with the most wonderful energy, resolution and hopefulness. It is well known that she is now under indictment for voting illegally in Rochester last November. Voting illegally in her case means simply voting, for it is held that women can not lawfully vote at all. She is to be tried soon, but in the meantime, while at large on bail, she has devoted her time to missionary work on behalf of woman suffrage, and has spoken, it is said, in every post-office district in Monroe county, where her trial would have been held in the natural course of things. She has argued her cause so well that almost all the male population of the county have been converted to her views on this subject. The district-attorney is afraid to trust the case to a jury from that county, and has obtained a change of venue to Ontario on the ground that a fair trial can not be had in Monroe.

Miss Anthony, rather cheered than discouraged by this unwilling testimony to the strength of her cause and her powers of persuasion, has made arrangements to canva.s.s Ontario county as thoroughly as Monroe.

Some foolish and bigoted people who edit newspapers are complaining that Miss Anthony's proceedings are highly improper, inasmuch as they are intended to influence the decision of a cause pending in the courts.

They even talk about contempt of court, and declare that Miss Anthony should be compelled to desist from making these invidious harangues. We suspect that the courts will not venture to interfere with this lady's speech-making tour, but will be of the opinion that she has the same right which other people, male or female, have to explain her political views and make converts to them if she can. We have never known it claimed before that a person accused of an offense was thereby deprived of the common right of free speech on political and other questions.--Worcester Spy.

The vapid efforts of a part of the newspaper press to entertain the public, of late, by descriptions, criticisms and comments, founded upon pretended interviews with Miss Anthony, reveal a standard of courtesy and truth discreditable to the American press, and a meagerness of interesting matter suggesting the propriety of the suspension of such sheets altogether. The Pittsburg Leader, among others, disgraces itself by a scurrilous report of what "the gay old girl said to a reporter;"

and the New York World, of course, waxed very funny in its account of the late convention. These gibes at Miss Anthony's personal appearance, unwillingness to tell her age, "fishy eyes," etc., are read by her friends in Rochester with indignation and with contempt for the press which will publish such misrepresentations as truth.

All Rochester will a.s.sert--at least all of it worth heeding--that Miss Anthony holds here the position of a refined and estimable woman, thoroughly respected and beloved by the large circle of staunch friends who swear by her common sense and loyalty, if not by her peculiar views.