If that means anything, it is that Congress should pa.s.s a law to require the States 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 women"s votes on precisely the same conditions they do those of men.
Judge Stanley Mathews--a substantial Ohio democrat--in his preliminary speech at the Cincinnati 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 30th, 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_ millions negroes be made voters if _two_ millions were not included?
The California State Republican convention said:
"Among the many practical and substantial triumphs of the principles achieved by the Republican party during the past twelve years, it enumerated 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."
And again, General Butler said:
"It is not laws we want; there are plenty of laws--good enough, too. Administrative ability to enforce law is the great want of the age, in this country especially. Everybody talks of law, law. If everybody would insist on the enforcement of law, the government would stand on a firmer basis, and questions would settle themselves."
And 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 in New York on the 6th of May next, has based all its arguments and action the past five years.
We no longer pet.i.tion Legislature or Congress to give us the right to vote. We appeal to the women everywhere to exercise their too long neglected "citizen"s right to vote." We appeal to the inspectors of election everywhere 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 the inspectors who reject the names and votes of United States citizens, as it is their duty to do, and leave those alone who, like our eighth ward inspectors, perform their duties faithfully and well.
We ask the juries to fail to return verdicts of "guilty" against honest, law-abiding, tax-paying United States citizens for offering their votes at our elections. Or against intelligent, worthy young men, inspectors of elections, for receiving and counting such citizens" votes.
We ask the judges to render true and unprejudiced opinions of the law, and wherever there is room for a doubt to give its benefit on the side of liberty and equal rights to women, remembering that "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."
And it is on this line that we propose to fight our battle for the ballot--all peaceably, but nevertheless persistently through to complete triumph, when all United States citizens shall be recognized as equals before the law.
SPEECH OF
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE,
In Canandaigua and 16 other towns of Ontario county, previous to Miss Anthony"s Trial, June 17th, 1873.
THE UNITED STATES ON TRIAL;
_not_
SUSAN B. ANTHONY.
Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed.
That is the axiom of our republic. From this axiom we understand that powers used by the government without the consent of the governed, are _not just_ powers, but that on the contrary, they are _unjust_ powers, _usurped_ powers, _illegal_ powers.
In what way does the consent of the governed come?
By and through the ballot alone. The ballot answers questions. It says yes, or no. It declares what _principles_ shall rule; it says what _laws_ shall be made, it tells what _taxes_ are to be raised; it places men in office or lays their heads low in the dust. It is the _will_ of a man embodied in that little piece of paper; it is the consent of the governed.
Are women governed? Most certainly; they pay taxes,--they are held amenable to laws; they are tried for crimes; they are fined, imprisoned, hung. The government wields strong power over them. Have they consented to this power of the government? Have they a recognized right to the ballot? Has their consent bean asked through their votes? Have they had a voice in saying what taxes shall be levied on their property,--what penalties they shall pay for crimes? _No._ They are ruled without their consent. The first principles of government are founded on the natural rights of individuals; in order to _secure_ the exercise of these natural, individual rights our government professed to be founded.
Governments never created a single right; rights did not come new-born into the world with our revolutionary fathers. They were men of middle age when they severed their connexion with Great Britain, but that severance did not endow them with a single new right. It was at that time they first entered into the _exercise_ of their natural, individual rights. Neither our Declaration, nor our Const.i.tution created a single right; they merely recognized certain rights as in existence. They recognized those rights as human rights,--as inalienable rights,--as rights existing by virtue of common humanity. Natural rights never change, but the power to perceive these natural rights does change, and various nations have had their own standard.
Three names, said to be the sweetest the world ever knew, are mother, home, and heaven. There is one still sweeter--one for which men have given up mother and home, and for which they have almost sacrificed the hope of heaven; that word is LIBERTY.
When the fires of liberty began to creep through Europe in the middle ages, at a time when hereditary monarchs and the catholic church ruled the world, men placed its safeguards in munic.i.p.al corporations. The idea of munic.i.p.al corporations descended from Rome to the rest of Europe, and "free cities" became the germ of personal freedom. But a new world was needed for the great experiment of individual freedom. Macauley calls government an experimental science and therefore a progressive science; history shows this to be true. Liberty did not spring "full armed" like Minerva from the head of Jove. The liberty possessed by the world has been gradually secured, and it was left for our country first to incorporate in its foundation a recognition of individual rights. A hundred years before the revolutionary war, Ma.s.sachusetts and Virginia resisted English tyranny. Ma.s.sachusetts, in 1664, called herself a "perfect republic." She preserved a neutral harbor by force of arms against opposing English factions; she enacted laws against the supremacy of the English parliament, and she established her own mint.
This last is noticeable, as in the progress of liberty, rights of property, of which money is the exponent, have always been one of the foremost. Bancroft says Virginia was always a land of liberty; that Virginia placed the defense of liberty not in munic.i.p.al corporations, _but in persons_, and that the liberty of the individual was ever highly prized. The difference between a monarchy and a republic is the difference between force and consent; it is the difference between being governed and governing yourself; it is the difference between the _men_ of Russia and the _men_ of the United States; it is the difference between the political rights of one man as the government and the political rights of the people as the government. But the world has never yet seen a true republic, though it has for hundreds of years been taking steps towards one.
The original principles of just governments are five, all of which were acknowledged by the United States at its foundation. These principles are:
_First._ The natural right of each individual to self-government.
_Second._ The exact equality of these rights.
_Third._ That these rights when not delegated by the individual, are retained by the individual.
_Fourth._ That no person can exercise these rights of others without delegated authority.
_Fifth._ That the non-use of these rights does not destroy them.
These five underlying principles are the admitted basis of all governmental rights, and the old revolutionists acted upon them. They were men of middle life; they were under an old and established form of government to which they had not delegated authority, and during all these years they had made no use of their natural, equal rights. When they chose to a.s.sume the exercise of these rights, they at once took them up.
The women of that day were no less in earnest than were the men. Mercy Otis Warren, sister of that James Otis whose fiery words did so much towards rousing the colonies, was herself no less in earnest, had no less influence than her brother. She was a member of the famous committee of correspondence, and was constantly consulted by Adams, Jefferson, Franklin, Hanc.o.c.k, Washington and all the foremost men of that day. Through her lips was first whispered the word, separation. No less active were the women of New England, and in 1770, five years before the breaking out of the revolutionary war, the women of Boston held a public meeting, and formed themselves into a league to resist taxation. As tea was the article upon which Great Britain was then making her stand, in order to sustain the _principle_ of taxation, these women declared they would use no more tea until the tax upon it was repealed. This league was first formed by the married women, but the next day the young women met "in innumerable numbers," and took similar action. They expressly stated, they did not do this so much for themselves, as for the benefit of their posterity. In the country, the women of that hour went abroad over the fields and sowed their tea, as men sow wheat. This action of the women of the revolution was taken three years before the famous Tea Party of Boston harbor, and was the real origin of that "Tea Party." The women of the present day, the "posterity" of these women of the revolution, are now following the example then set, and are protesting against taxation without representation. A few weeks ago I attended a meeting of the tax-paying women of Rochester who met in the Mayor"s office in that city, and there, like their revolutionary mothers, formed a league against taxation without representation. Meetings for the discussion of measures are regularly held by them, and they have issued an address, which I will read you.
_To the Women of the City of Rochester and the County of Monroe_:
After twenty-five years of discussion, appeal and work, the Women of Rochester a.s.sembled, are prompted to advise and urge tax-paying women of the City and County, that the time has come to act, as our patriot mothers acted in 1770, _in protest against unjust government_, and the action appropriate and suited to the time, is strong and earnest protest against the violation of the Republican principles, which compels the payment of taxes by women, while they are denied the ballot.
By order of "THE WOMEN TAX PAYERS" a.s.sOCIATION of the City of Rochester and County of Monroe."
They have also issued this memorial and protest, addressed
_To the Board of Supervisors of the County of Monroe, and to the Hon. the Common Council of the City of Rochester_:
The payment of taxes is exacted in direct violation of the principles that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed," and that "there shall be no taxation without representation." Therefore we earnestly protest against the payment of taxes, either Munic.i.p.al, County, or State, until the ballot secures us in the right of representation, just and equal with other citizens.
By order of "THE WOMEN TAX PAYERS" a.s.sOCIATION of the City of Rochester and County of Monroe."
Thus women are everywhere going back to fundamental principles, and this action of the women of Rochester is but the commencement of a protest which will soon become a resistance, and which will extend from the St.
Lawrence to the Gulf of Mexico, from the Atlantic to the Pacific. The women of the city of Rochester pay taxes on seven millions of property, and yet not one of these tax payers is consulted as to how, or when that tax shall be raised, or for what purpose used. This seven millions is but a small proportion of property on which the women of that city really pay taxes, as it does not include that much larger amount of property of which they have been robbed, and over which they are a.s.sumed to have no control. The foundation of a new city hall has recently been laid in that city. Women"s property, without their consent, has been used for this purpose. Water is soon to be brought in from Hemlock Lake, and a dozen other projects are on foot, all of which require money, and towards all of which, the money of tax-paying women will be taken without their consent.
To ill.u.s.trate the extreme injustice with which women are treated in this matter of taxation, to show you how contrary it is to all natural right, let us suppose that all the taxable property in the city of Rochester belonged to women, with the exception of a single small house and lot, which were owned by a man. As the law is now interpreted, the man who owned that house and lot could vote a tax upon the property of all those women at his own will, to build CITY HALLS, COURT HOUSES, JAILS, could call an election and vote an extraordinary tax to bring in water from a dozen different lakes, erect fountains at every corner, fence in twenty parks, vote himself in, Mayor, Alderman, a.s.sessor, Collector with a fat salary from these women"s money, attached to each one of these offices, and in the end elect himself the sole policeman of the city, to protect the women from--himself; and this you call just government. It is no more unjust, no more unrepublican, to take the property of fifty, or a hundred, or a thousand women in this way, than it would be to take the property of a single one; the principle is still the same. The women of to-day, protest, as did their fore-mothers, for principle. Women come into the world endowed with the same natural rights as men, and this by virtue of their common humanity, and when prevented or restrained from their exercise, they are enslaved. Old Ben Franklin once said, "those that have no vote or voice in the laws, or the election of those who administer them, do not enjoy liberty, but are _absolutely enslaved_ to those who have votes, and their representatives." That sentiment is as true to-day as when uttered. While the women of this nation are restrained from the exercise of their natural rights of self-government, they are held enslaved to those who do administer the laws. Said an old minister of revolutionary fame, "One who is bound to obey the will of another is as really a slave, though he may have a good master, as if he had a bad one." Those of you who remember Adolph in Uncle Tom"s Cabin, will recall his apparent freedom. Dressed in style, wearing his master"s garments before the first gloss was off, viewing Uncle Tom, superciliously through his eye gla.s.s, he was a petted companion of his master and did not feel his bonds. But one day the scene changed. St.