Gentlemen, very few of us are very young women. We have forty, fifty, some of us seventy years of life behind us. We have stood on this eminence where you in your mistaken kindness and gallantry placed us, and we have been all this time looking down upon the battle-field of life where you have been engaged, single-handed and alone. Those of us who have had half a century have seen the ranks of men who started out in life with us shortened one half as they have gone. Here is a husband, there a brother or a father, men as dear to us as drops of our own heart"s blood. We have seen them steadily sacrificed by means more appalling than those of Gettysburg, men literally slaughtered by licentiousness and drunkenness, and all the while we have looked on and been able to do nothing, and our agony has become so great that we exclaim, "Oh, G.o.d! why don"t these brothers of ours call us, the reserves, into action? We could help them."
When I look back to the days of our great war, I remember that women sprang up every day all over the country--women of whom it was not before believed there was any patriotic blood in their veins. We all came together by one common instinct--saying, "What shall we do?" I could tell you of women who have died from exposure and suffering in the war. Hundreds of the very best women of the Northwest went down voluntarily as nurses, and in other capacities, and a.s.sisted suffering and dying men, until they themselves were almost at death"s door. "When women do military duty, they shall vote!" We _did_ do military duty. We did not cease our labors till all the soldiers had come home, wearied with their services. We have earned recognition at the hands of this government, and we ought to have it. Knowing, then, the qualities of woman and her courage and bravery under trials, I can never cease to demand that she shall have just as large a sphere as man has. All we want is, that you shall leave us free to act.
Mrs. LIVERMORE then spoke of the attempts of men to define the sphere of women. Let the sphere of woman be tested by the aspiration and ability of their own minds, and let it be limited only by what we are able to do. Don"t fear that women will not marry and make good wives if allowed legal equality with men.
They even now make as good wives as men do husbands. Trust G.o.d.
This talk of woman getting out of her sphere is sheer lack of faith in G.o.d. He has given us our natures. The gentlest woman is transformed into a tigress when you go between her and her baby.
There"s no sense, therefore, in the fear that the paltry lures of politicians will draw women from the home circle. There is no necessity to enact laws to keep women women. Woman"s sphere is that which she can fill, whether it be sea-captain, merchant, school-teacher, or wife and mother.
Only two millions of women are among the producers of the country--five millions are wives and mothers, and eight millions are rusting out in idleness and frivolity. Take eight millions of men from the world of commerce and productive work; the deficit will be immediately felt. Add to the producers of the world eight millions of skilled women, and the quickening would be felt everywhere. Mrs. Livermore also urged the admission of women to political life from considerations drawn from the increase of the foreign element. East and West is a huge, ignorant, semi-barbarous ma.s.s, brought hither from European and Asiatic sh.o.r.es, needing the enlightenment and the quickening that would come from the addition of educated women to the polls.
The Thursday morning session was called to order by the PRESIDENT, Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER. Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, the Secretary, read, on behalf of the Business Committee, the resolutions.[187]
Mr. BLACKWELL moved their acceptance, and, in support of his motion, said: _Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen_: We have so often heard of the great step that was taken in the war of the Revolution--when our connection with Great Britain was severed--that I fear we have lost sight of the fact that there have been two great revolutions since that day--revolutions which, to my mind, are immeasurably more important than the first. For, when the war of the Revolution ended, a republic in the present sense of the term did not exist in these United States. In almost every State there was a property qualification for voting. It was a government like the government of Great Britain to-day--like the government of other countries--it was an aristocracy of wealth, the privilege of voting being based upon a property qualification. But hardly had the guns of the Revolution ceased action, before the Democratic party of that day, under the lead of Mr. Jefferson, demanded suffrage for poor men as a natural right. The Federal party opposed the change. The Democratic party were a unit in its favor. They advocated suffrage for poor men on the same ground that the Republicans have advocated it more recently for the negro--on the same ground upon which Mr. Beecher advocated it last night for women--_as a natural right_. They said, "All men have equal natural rights to life, liberty, and property; if so, they have a natural right of self-defense in the enjoyment of these rights. Now, in a state of nature, self-defense takes the form of individual violence--of the pistol or the club; but in a state of civilization men appeal to the law, and government is nothing but an organized system of self-defense for the benefit of the individual citizen." The old Democratic party said, "Poor men have rights of life, liberty, and property, poor men have a natural right of self-defense; therefore, in a state of society they have a right to the ballot which is the organized weapon of self-defense for the individual citizen." What was the result? The Democratic party swept the Union on that platform. They obtained a majority in the government of the States and in the Federal Government. For more than a generation they ruled this country as the poor man"s party. That result followed inevitably from their principles, because parties, like individuals, are sure to obtain their deserts in the long run. When any party appeals to that fine sense of justice which is in the heart of every human being, sooner or later its success is certain. The Democratic party obtained the control of the Government for two generations because it appealed to that sense of justice? But what was the result to the country? America became known all over the world as the country of the poor man. In America alone the ma.s.ses had the ballot. That was what brought from the sh.o.r.es of Europe this great influx of foreign labor which has felled our forests, and fenced our prairies, and built up the waste places of our continent. There are to-day in Russia hundreds of thousands of acres of land as good as any in the world, which have never been cultivated, and yet Europeans, by thousands, turn their backs on Russia, coming to America and going far into the interior to make their homes, not because our land is better, or our climate more genial, but because our Government is established upon the basis of equal rights for every human being. The child of the poor man becomes educated, he acquires property, he becomes a member of the commonwealth, he does his own thinking, and, thank G.o.d, his own voting, too.
But the Democratic party has lost power. To-day the Republicans control three-fourths of the States of this Union. There was a reason for these reverses. Before the abolition of slavery, a certain race was denied the advantages of the Democratic principle. It was a "white man"s government." In the course of time the inevitable collision came. Slavery was abolished, and the Republican party attempted a new application of the Jeffersonian principle. It demanded suffrage for the negro and the Chinese. The principles of justice again prevailed. The sentiment of liberty came to the support of the Republican party; manhood suffrage is forever fixed in the Const.i.tution of the country, and to-day every man, whether learned or ignorant, rich or poor, white, yellow, or black, whether he can read the English language or not, is by the Const.i.tution of the United States forever made a voter. Now, ladies and gentlemen, every argument through which an extension of the suffrage has been already accomplished, applies with still greater force in the case of women. The extension of the suffrage to woman, will be the last crowning step in political progress, the final application of the principles of Christianity and human brotherhood to the political structure.
We do not advocate a new principle. We only desire to make a wider application of our admitted American principles. That application is sure to be made. I do not know what party is going to accomplish it, but this widening of the political basis is as certain as the rising of the sun or the flowing of the tide. Woe be to the party that works against it! I know not whether the Republicans or the Democrats, or the good men of both parties, or an altogether new party, will take it up; but this I do know, that the political party which takes up woman suffrage, and unfolds its banner to the breeze, holds in its hand the key to political success on this continent.
I appeal to every man and woman in this audience to go to work for the great object we have at heart. Let Republicans go to their primary meetings, and offer woman suffrage resolutions there. Let Democrats go and do likewise. Let every woman take tracts bearing on the subject and give her influence and labor to the work. Let us all stand up as faithful representatives of a great idea. Sooner or later, we shall see a n.o.ble reform party in this country--I care not what its name--which will sweep away forever the dens of immorality and drunkenness by which we are surrounded, which will build up a Christian commonwealth--and rule over it--not because it is powerful in numbers, but because it is based upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence, of universal justice and of impartial liberty.
Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER said: I heartily concur with every word spoken by Mr. Blackwell, and while on this point I wish to call your attention to an argument used as against woman suffrage, by men who perhaps might otherwise be with us. They argue that universal suffrage is itself not a good but an evil, and that to add to the evil is not to correct it. "It is bad," say they, "that every white man shall vote," and it had to be pledged, for political reasons, to give the ballot to 800,000 ignorant blacks; but two bad things are not to be made right by now extending the vote to women, a great majority of whom are in the lower walks of life, and are not supposed to be competent to inform themselves.
This is a most plausible argument to those who are under the unconscious influence of Pharisaism, to those who think that wisdom lives and dies with them. It is a strong argument, too; I don"t know that you can put any stronger; but I am bold to make the statement that, low and bad as human nature may be in some of its phases, there is nothing in this world that is so safe to trust or to believe in. And though governments may grow, and gain experience here and there with perpetually shifting dynasties and times, yet after all it is human nature that keeps governments up and gives to the world its laws. The great underlying force is genuine human nature with all its mistakes. We have recently had a great ill.u.s.tration of this. I wish to call your attention to one fact. If there was anything in this world that the ma.s.s of the Northern people were unprepared for it was to take up arms for the purpose of going to war with the South. Yet when the time came, and it was flashed over the country that an attack was made at the life of the Government, take notice that while the South grew weaker and weaker in furnishing material for the army, the North grew stronger and stronger, and had only got to its full strength at the close of the war. Now during that time, by the votes of the people, with a great party to back up the opposition, with all the old predilections in favor of the South, and the natural unwillingness of men to burden themselves with taxation, this country, in which there was substantially a universal manhood suffrage, voted to burden itself until three thousand millions of debt was rolled up. There is an instance of what men will do with universal suffrage. Yes, and that among the common people; for the large copperhead element was to be found among capitalists, not among the ma.s.ses. "Well, but," it may be said, "sober second thought will come; wait until the people come to pay the debt, when currency depreciates and greenbacks become scarce!" Now as they had gone to the war for a sentiment, a patriotic sentiment, not because they had received material damage or expected any pecuniary damage from the South, but purely from the glorious sentiment of a united country, as they fought through four years of the war backed up by votes at home, so when the question came up, "Will you sustain the honor of the Government? Will you pay the debt that has been incurred?" look at the answer. Never did trap of dishonesty, so concealed in its interior structure, present so tempting a bit of cheese to humanity. Yet when the question came, after full discussion and trial in all the States of the North successively, by majorities that no man will choose now to gainsay or resist, by overwhelming majorities, they said, "The debt shall be paid, every penny of it!" The North so voted. It was the common people that voted it; men that live on wages. By that experiment two things were shown; one that when the whole people are appealed to, they do stand up to the interests of the States better than educated cla.s.ses do; and the other, that when it comes to the question of sentiment or National integrity, the common people are to be trusted; and it is not the day, in the face of the magnificent disclosures of that trying time, to say that it is unsafe to trust the welfare of a country in the hands of such people. I say there is no man that comes to years of discretion who is not fit for the responsibilities of citizenship. Women will also improve when we welcome them to the open air of liberty.
The sum of all these remarks is simply this, "Amen" to Brother Blackwell.
LUCY STONE came forward and reminded the audience that a bill is now before Congress which provides that the employees in the Government departments at Washington and in both Houses of Congress shall be equally paid irrespective of s.e.x, and that pet.i.tions should be sent to Congress advocating the pa.s.sage of the bill; that blanks for the purpose would be found in the hall, and she hoped the friends of the cause would sign them. She read a letter from Mr. Giles B. Stebbins regretting his inability to be present, and expressing confidence in the ultimate triumphant success of the cause.
Mr. POWELL, of the _Anti-Slavery Standard_, was introduced: Ladies and gentlemen--My first feeling this morning was one of congratulation in view of the encouraging auspices under which we meet here to advocate the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. I regard this movement to-day as just entering upon its earliest efficient practical work. The era of curiosity and novelty is past. There is no longer in the public mind that feeling which has. .h.i.therto manifested itself in connection with the discussion of the proposition that women should vote. We have now to contend with the more difficult and solid portion of the problem. The right of woman to speak has been argued and settled; the right of woman to the ballot has been quite generally admitted--indeed, almost universally so--as it must be by any one who observes carefully the arguments used to justify the extension of the ballot to men.
By the ratification of the XV. Amendment the question has been finally settled in regard to all men, excepting perhaps the Indians and Chinese, who may, however, be interpreted by and by as having citizenship under this amendment. Logically and inevitably, therefore, we come at this time to the consideration of Mr. Julian"s XVI. Amendment, as something which, if we were not arguing for it, somebody else would be. It is the logical sequence of what has gone before in the way of the experiment of republican government in this country. There is no one--either American or foreign-born--who has observed the workings of our inst.i.tutions and the progress of our country, who will say that we must stand still. We must either go forward in our work of extending suffrage until we finally reach universal suffrage, or go back to a one-man power. The victims of the slave power are to-day standing erect in the possession of equal citizenship on the basis of absolute legal equality with the white men of the country. Therefore, with slavery abolished, with our free-school system, with newspapers scattered all over like snow-flakes throughout the country, with free thought and free education, there is not such a thing probable or possible as our going backward to the system of one-man power. The question now to be decided is the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women. And this question is at last fairly before the world--not in newspapers alone, but in State Legislatures, and even in Congress. Propositions are pending in Washington for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the women of the District of Columbia, and for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt by Congressional authority of the women of the Territories. There is also a Const.i.tutional amendment proposed, which, if successful, will abolish all political proscription on account of s.e.x everywhere throughout the country. My advice would be to concentrate directly our chief energy on the larger part of the problem. I believe in State action. I think it would be well to go to Albany and to the Ma.s.sachusetts Legislature and to the Ohio Legislature, and to the Legislatures of all the States, and to urge that the States take the initiative and enfranchise their women. But I do not expect that any one State, whatever may be the political opinion of that State, will go much in advance of the nation at large. It seems to me that no political party existing in any one State can establish the precedent of woman"s enfranchis.e.m.e.nt much in advance of the National Government. I think it therefore the part of wisdom to concentrate directly upon the National Legislature. I believe that one object of this Convention to-day should be to concentrate its voice in an emphatic resolution, asking that Mr. Julian"s amendment be not allowed to slumber into the hot weather of July, and then be pa.s.sed over entirely. I think we should make the voice of this a.s.sociation felt as a power for immediate effective work in the direction I have indicated; and, if we speak earnestly, we shall be felt and heard. Let us concentrate first upon the XVI.
Amendment and the proposition to enfranchise the women of the District of Columbia. I hold that that District should be the first battle-ground for the women of America to a national precedent, as it was in the prior struggle for the abolition of slavery. The District is immediately under the supervision of your Representatives and mine, and members of Congress are to be held personally responsible for the government which prevails there. Let us then demand of Congress--demand, I say, because that is the language of earnest reform--that it give us forthwith, before the adjournment of the present session, a law of equal suffrage for the women of the District of Columbia. In the light of the recent action of the British Parliament, is this asking too much? Should not we Americans be up to the level of a test vote on this question--which has never yet been reached either in the Senate or House of Representatives?
The President introduced GRACE GREENWOOD, who said: "I rise to a personal explanation," as we say in Washington. When Colonel Higginson yesterday overwhelmed me with his compliment, by the proposition that I should belong to the Congress of the United States, I wanted to say--had I not been so overwhelmed--in order to set myself "right before the country," that there had been no previous understanding between Colonel Higginson and myself; and that as I didn"t want to encourage any false hopes, and in fact didn"t want to go, I should decline the nomination. I prefer the position he referred to--absolutely prefer my place in the reporters" gallery. I know that a white reporter is as good as a colored Senator, if he or she behaves himself or herself. I like to look down upon that scene of legislation and feel that I am out of it; though sometimes I feel like echoing Coldstream"s opinion in looking into Vesuvius, "There is nothing in it." I like to sit in the gallery of the House and watch our few true men. When women sit there, there will be justice done to them; and, while I have the honor of reporting for the _Tribune_, there will be justice done to women when any question concerning her interests comes up in Washington. And here I would like to refer, as others who have spoken have already referred, to the work to be done in the Church. I think that many of our earnest, eloquent, high-minded, religious women should make for the pulpit. I have always felt that there was great point in the doctrine of the orthodox Church on the birth of Christ. We have a greater share in Him than men can have, as He received His humanity--His sweet, tender, suffering humanity--wholly from woman. And yet we have been made to keep silence in the house of our Father even on such festivals as Christmas and Thanksgiving.
How would it seem if on these occasions the sons only were allowed to thank our heavenly Father for His care and love, and the daughters were allowed to sit quiet? But woman"s piety, you know, is a very good thing for home consumption, and is supposed to consist in her quietly sitting at home and praying for her husband and sons. Goodness knows, she always has enough to pray for! There is an anecdote told of a loving son who once spoke of the inestimable blessing of a fine mother. He was a preacher in Illinois, and he said to his congregation, "Oh, my friends, I have such a mother. I remember when I was a little lad, standing by my mother"s side on a Sabbath afternoon, as she sat with her Bible open before her, how she turned from the blessed Word to lay her hand upon my sunny head, and pray that I might grow up to be a minister of the Gospel and a great man; and, brethren and sisters, I stand before you to-day a living example of the efficacy of that prayer." While Mrs. Livermore was speaking so gloriously last night out of her mother"s heart, of mothers robbed by the law of their little ones, what mother"s heart didn"t stir within her? My little one--she is about my height now--but I never have been able to get rid of the sweet weight of that baby head on my breast! My arms always have the feel of the baby in them yet; and I can not express to you the horror--the almost rage--with which I hear every story of such outrages on the maternal heart. It was this feature of mother-robbery in the system of slavery that always enraged me most against it. It was just at that point that the system dipped deepest into h.e.l.l.
Though slavery is gone, however, there are many evils yet remaining in the laws which should be remedied, and not the least of them is that which gives the father the entire control of the children instead of the mother. Some fathers, however, are quite willing to relinquish that control. I remember a colored woman in Washington, in whose kitchen I once happened to be for a moment, and, seeing several dark olive branches around, I said to her, "Are these your children?" She said, "Yes." "How many have you?"
She said, "Seven, and all to support." I said to her, "Have you no husband?" "Oh, yes," she said, "I have a husband; I was married by a Methodist minister down South." "Well," said I, "why don"t he support the children?" "Oh," she said, "he"s done gone away." "Why has he left you?" "Oh, he was a very bright man," she said (meaning that he was light in color), "and he thought that I was too black." "But," I said, "didn"t he know how black you were before he married you?" "That is just what old Missus said--she said, "Why, you know"d she was black when you married her," and he said, "Yes, but den she didn"t have so many relations about her."" "What relations?" "Children!" Her children, of course, and his, too. "He doesn"t want so many of my relations about, so he"s done gone off." When a man doesn"t want to go, the children are his "property"; when he wants to desert his wife, they are her "relations." I would be willing to have the strictest morality enjoined as a qualification for the ballot. But, as it is a poor rule that would not work both ways, if that test were applied to the male voters, what a frightful disfranchis.e.m.e.nt would take place. The Democratic party would be well-nigh annihilated, and the Republican party would be in a fit state to condole with it.
I think, however, that all these things will adjust themselves when they come. All bugbears seem much more terrible at a distance than when they are close enough to be grappled with.
Mr. OLIVER JOHNSON was then introduced. He said that the true germ of the present woman suffrage agitation was to be found in the foundation of the Anti-slavery Society. At the time that Society was founded, the question arose as to whether women were persons, in the sense in which that word was used in the const.i.tution of that Society. The question gave rise to much discussion, and it was finally decided by a majority of the members that the word "person" did include women; and it was therefore determined that, in the Society, women should have all the rights that men had. And when thirty years ago the anniversary of the Society was held, it became the duty of the presiding officer on that occasion to appoint a business committee, and, in announcing the names of that committee, he included that of Abby Kelly--more lately known as that of Abby Kelly Foster--a Quaker woman of excellent character, and a devoted friend of the anti-slavery cause. The announcement of her name was the signal for much tumult, and the withdrawal for the time being of not less than one hundred and fifty clergymen, who, led by an eminent citizen, left that meeting and went down into the bas.e.m.e.nt of the church and formed a new anti-slavery society, solely because a woman was permitted to serve on a committee. Mr. Johnson said that he had always had a profound belief in the triumph of the anti-slavery cause. So also did he believe in the success of the woman suffrage movement.
Mrs. Hazlett, of Michigan, was the next speaker. G.o.d, she said, says to America to-day, take now the next step in the path of national progress; then come and take thy place as the highest nation of the earth. Will America obey heaven"s voice, or does republicanism exist only in name? Men of America! let the stars and stripes wave over a land true to its principles. It is not because we want to usurp power that we want the ballot. We want justice, for the sake of liberty. But, above all, gentlemen, we hold the welfare of this country our birthright as well as yours.
We wish the vote because it is our right and our duty to have it.
We have duties in life, in society, in the church--duties to ourselves and to our families which can not be discharged without the ballot.
When the Convention re-a.s.sembled, Mrs. Celia Burleigh, in the absence of the President, took the chair.
Miss CATHERINE E. BEECHER, who was now introduced, requested the Secretary, Mr. Blackwell, to read a paper which she had written, containing her objections to woman suffrage, to which objections Mrs. Cutler, of Ohio, would reply. Mr. Blackwell read the following:
I will first state to what I am not opposed. And, first, I am not opposed to women speaking in public to any who are willing to hear, nor do I object to women"s preaching, sanctioned as it is by a prophetic apostle--as one of the millennial results. It is true that no women were appointed among the first twelve, or the seventy disciples sent out by the Lord, nor were women appointed to be apostles or bishops or elders. But they were not forbidden to teach or preach, except in places where it violated a custom that made a woman appear as one of a base and degraded cla.s.s if she thus violated custom.
Nor am I opposed to a woman earning her own independence in any lawful calling, and wish many more were open to her which are now closed.
Nor am I opposed to the agitation and organization of women, as women, to set forth the wrongs suffered by great mult.i.tudes of our s.e.x, which are multiform and most humiliating. Nor am I opposed to women"s undertaking to govern both boys and men--they always have done it, and always will. The most absolute and cruel tyrants I have ever known were selfish, obstinate, unreasonable women to whom were chained men of delicacy, honor, and piety, whose only alternatives were helpless submission, or ceaseless and disgraceful broils.
Nor am I opposed to the claim that women have equal rights with men. I rather claim that they have the sacred, superior rights that G.o.d and good men accord to the weak and defenseless, by which they have the easiest work, the most safe and comfortable places, and the largest share of all the most agreeable and desirable enjoyments of this life. My main objection to the woman suffrage organizations is mainly this, that a wrong mode is employed to gain a right object.
The "right object" sought is to remedy the wrongs and relieve the sufferings of great mult.i.tudes of our s.e.x. The "wrong mode" is that which aims to enforce by law instead of by love. It is one which a.s.sumes that man is the author and abetter of all these wrongs, and that he must be restrained and regulated by const.i.tutions and laws, as the chief and most trustworthy method.
In opposition to this, I hold that the fault is as much, or more, with women than with men, inasmuch as that we have all the power we need to remedy all wrongs and sufferings complained of, and yet we do not use it for that end. It is my deep conviction that all reasonable and conscientious men of our age, and especially of our country, are not only willing, but anxious to provide for the best good of our s.e.x, and that they will gladly bestow all that is just, reasonable, and kind, whenever we unite in asking in the proper spirit and manner. It is because we do not ask, or "because we ask amiss," that we do not receive all we need both from G.o.d and men. Let me ill.u.s.trate my meaning by a brief narrative of my own experience. To begin with my earliest: I can not remember a time when I did not find a father"s heart so tender that it was always easier for him to give anything I asked than to deny me. Of my seven brothers, I know not one who would not take as much or more care of my interests than I should myself. The brother who presides is here because it is so hard for him to say "No"
to any woman seeking his aid.
It is half a century this very spring since I began to work for the education and relief of my s.e.x, and I have succeeded so largely by first convincing intelligent and benevolent women that what I aimed at was right and desirable, and then securing their influence with their fathers, brothers, and husbands; and always with success. American women have only to unite in asking for whatever is just and reasonable, in a proper spirit and manner, in order to secure all that they need.
Here, then, I urge my greatest objections to the plan of female suffrage; for my countrywomen are seeking it only as an instrument for redressing wrongs and relieving wants by laws and civil influences. Now, I ask, why not take a shorter course, and ask to have the men do for us what we might do for ourselves if we had the ballot? Suppose we point out to our State Legislatures and to Congress the evils that it is supposed the ballot would remedy, and draw up pet.i.tions for these remedial measures, would not these pet.i.tions be granted much sooner and with far less irritation and conflict than must ensue before we gain the ballot? And in such pet.i.tions thousands of women would unite who now deem that female suffrage would prove a curse rather than a benefit.
And here I will close with my final objection to woman suffrage, and that is that it will prove a measure of injustice and oppression to the women who oppose it. Most of such women believe that the greatest cause of the evils suffered by our s.e.x is that the true profession of woman, in many of its most important departments, is not respected; that women are not trained either to the science or the practice of domestic duties as they need to be, and that, as the consequence, the chief labors of the family state pa.s.s to ignorant foreigners, and by cultivated women are avoided as disgraceful.
They believe the true remedy is to make woman"s work honorable and remunerative, and that the suffrage agitation does not tend to this, but rather to drain off the higher cla.s.ses of cultivated women from those more important duties to take charge of political and civil affairs that are more suitable for men.
Now if women are all made voters, it will be their duty to vote, and also to qualify themselves for this duty. But already women have more than they can do well in all that appropriately belongs to women, and to add the civil and political duties of men would be deemed a measure of injustice and oppression.
Mrs. H. M. T. CUTLER, of Ohio, then rose to reply. She said: I account myself happy to be allowed to stand here to reply to the objections of my friend, Miss Beecher. There is one point where I feel that her argument is not as strong as most of her arguments are. We enjoy things of privilege, if privileges are granted; but we enjoy things of right, because they are right--not otherwise.
All that she says of good men, and of what good men will do for women, only goes to show what everybody has already known, that she had for a father one of the first Christian gentlemen in the United States or in the world; and for brothers seven men of princely virtue, and highest and n.o.blest Christian attainments.
If the world was made up of all such people, there would be no need of laws. Miss Beecher may well speak for such men as they, and they may well speak for such women as she. If I make a pet.i.tion for something, and that pet.i.tion does not clearly express a right that is due me, but instead, asks for something that may be withheld without moral guilt, that is a privilege; but when I come and demand that which is a right, the condition is altogether changed. I claim the right because it is G.o.d-given.
We have in the advanced age of Christianity, those who do not believe in the use of physical force on any account whatever.
They are non-resistants; but it will not be said that the vicious can be controlled by moral suasion. Society is not yet sufficiently Christianized for men not to demand of each other guarantees for the safety of each other"s rights. Shall we who are in some sense the weaker s.e.x have no guarantee for our rights?
Miss Beecher makes the point that men will give, if we ask them properly. The first asking of American women was not for themselves--not for their own account. They forgot themselves in their anxiety for poor oppressed slaves. They didn"t know what they had lost through long ages, from not having exerted their own powers, and established their own responsibilities. But when they came to do that, they then asked themselves, "Where are our good right hands?" I sent pet.i.tions to Congress again and again, which I had gathered from my neighbors, in regard to the abolishment of slavery in the District of Columbia and in the territories; and I have sent numbers of them in regard to this question of woman suffrage. I sent many of them to Horace Greeley, and he sent me back word, "The only good that these things will do in Congress is to help the janitor to light the fires. They do good to the people perhaps, but they do no good otherwise." We might have pet.i.tioned until the crack of doom, before Congress would have broken the chain. Why should we not demand our right to the vote, when we reflect that one vote, cast in the State of Indiana, was the means of electing a man whose vote in Congress turned the scale, and enacted the "Fugitive Slave Law"--that law which put the collar upon every bondsman"s neck, and branded him the property of every Southern master.
I admit the great responsibility of the ballot, and if we are true women, we shall a.s.sume it with a full appreciation of that responsibility, and a determination to do our whole duty in its exercise. The argument that many women do not desire the ballot reminds me of an old colored woman whom I met soon after the war.
I said to her, "Some people say they think your people are really almost sorry that they have been made free; that they were more comfortable as slaves." She said, "Is it possible that any person thinks like that? Can it be that any colored person feels like that?" I said, "I have heard people say so." "Then," said she, "if anybody feels like that they deserve to be slaves--doubly slaves--slaves in this world and slaves in the next." The woman that is not willing to a.s.sume the responsibility of casting a vote upon a question that may decide whether in her individual neighborhood or precinct there shall be grog-shops and houses of prost.i.tution open, and there shall be no proper care of the poor and needy and infirm--I say that if there is any woman who is not willing to a.s.sume such responsibilities, it seems to me that she must feel that it is a judgment on her, should her own husband or son or the daughter of her heart, or all of them, become sufferers in consequence of the evil that she might have stayed had she been willing to uphold the exercise of that right.
We ask only for the same right that is accorded to the poorest man landing on our sh.o.r.es. Is the giving of the ballot to a foreigner who comes among us a burden so great that he should not have it imposed upon him? And shall an American woman shrink from her duty when there is so much power in her hands for good?
I know that a great many women have not been educated up to a condition that would teach them fully how to act. Like the slave, they have had too much thinking and acting done for them, until now they feel incompetent to discharge these duties for themselves. Our great duty, then, which we who know better should consider imposed upon us, is that of educating women up to the proper standard. Shall we be beggars for that which is, of right, ours? Shall there not be one law for the brothers and the daughters throughout this entire country? As Mr. Beecher has well said, women have borne their full share of martyrdom; and it strikes me that it is now about time for her redemption from the evils of her position. If she has to suffer from the evils of a defective or vicious system of laws, put in her hands the power to protect herself, to mitigate the sufferings of her s.e.x, to preserve and defend the right and to suppress the wrong.
Mrs. MIRIAM M. COLE spoke at some length. The spirit of "76, she said, influenced Mrs. John Adams to write to her husband to inquire if it were generous in American men to keep their wives in thraldom, when they were emanc.i.p.ating the whole earth. Had the spirit of that letter animated the wife of Mr. Lincoln when his emanc.i.p.ation proclamation was issued, how pertinently could she have made the same inquiry! The laws regarding women were written down so plain that those may run who read, and they who read had better run.
Mrs. CELIA BURLEIGH said: Several references have been made to the work of women in the church. I am glad to be able to introduce to you now the pastor of one of the most popular churches of New Haven, and whose church, I am happy to say, is crowded every Sunday--Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford.
Mrs. HANAFORD said: Speaking with Horace Greeley a few weeks ago, he replied to my query why he was not in favor of woman suffrage, by saying that he did not think women would gain the opportunity of suffrage or improve the opportunity if they had it, until they should come to consider suffrage a duty, and he declared that he had never known any one to advocate woman suffrage on the ground of duty.
I was amazed at his a.s.sertion in the face of all the speeches and lectures which such women as Lucretia Mott and her conscientious co-laborers had made and delivered during the last twenty years.
The very next night, I heard Anna d.i.c.kinson in the largest hall in New Haven, and before nearly 3,000 people, urge the women present to consider their duty to this vast Republic in which we dwell, and whose starry banner is as dear to women as to men. The keynote of her bugle-call to the rescue was the idea of duty, and that is the idea which inspires the women on this platform to-day, while thousands of hearts throughout our Union respond, with the same sentiment, to their appeals from the platform, the pulpit, and the press.
Leading reformers of the world are telling us in clarion notes, and in thunder tones, with the voice of warning or of appeal, that woman owes service to the State, and that it is her duty to strive earnestly that she may have that ballot in her own hand which shall be at once her educator and protector, her sceptre and her sword. But I have heard the Master"s voice, speaking through Lucy Stone and her co-workers, and speaking in my own soul also, declaring that I, in common with every other woman in this grand Republic, have a duty to the State that must not be ignored. In the home, and in the church, most women acknowledge they have duties--but as to the State they hesitate. Oh, if they would but "gather into the stillness," as the Friends say, and listen reverently to the voice within, I think they would often hear the solemn utterance, "These ought ye to have done, and not to leave the other undone." Every woman who has tried to do her whole duty in the family, tried faithfully to make home a foretaste of heaven, with its abounding peace and love, tried with a mother"s prayers, a mother"s tears, a mother"s unselfish, self-denying love, to train her darlings for the skies--every such woman deserves the grat.i.tude of humanity, and that sweetest of rewards to a mother"s heart, viz; that "her children shall rise up, and call her blessed;" while every woman who superadds to this unselfish devotion to home and children, a lifelong fidelity to the church in which she was reared, or has adopted; every woman who has worshiped devoutly at the shrine her own soul has accepted, following meekly in the footsteps of Him who went about doing good--every such woman deserves the wreath of immortal amaranths which angel hands are weaving for her brow--but more than all, she who crowns her home work and her religious endeavors with a service to the State, which of necessity touches the great questions of reform, and aids in the settling of vast problems wherein the weal or woe of a nation is concerned--that woman, from the centre of her individual responsibility, reaches out to the circ.u.mference of her individual influence, and desires to receive from the lips of the dear Lord himself, the "Well done, thou good and faithful servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord"--the joy of a completed mission. The recording angel will write such a woman"s name with that of Abou Ben Adhem, who loved his fellows, and in serving humanity served G.o.d.
The single point which I wish to present to the women before me at this hour and in these brief remarks is this, then; that it is your solemn, sacred duty, as you love G.o.d and the truth, and human welfare, to seek the ballot, and, having obtained it, to use it in purifying our statute-books and making them read more like the oracles of G.o.d--the eleven Commandments, and the Golden Rule.
Mrs. MARY F. DAVIS, of New Jersey, observed that in a court room of New York, a lawyer--she understood--recently stated that according to law the husband of a woman has such control over her as to "own" her; that man was made for G.o.d and woman for man! She asked if those present accepted that law [A voice, No!] Do you, said she, own your own persons, according to the law of G.o.d, or do you not? Our brothers tell us that women would be contaminated by going into the court rooms and sitting on juries; that women must be kept from these places because it would impair their delicacy. Well, if women were wholly excluded from our court rooms the case would be different. But when in the mornings we take up the daily papers, how frequently do we read of some poor young creature who has been arrested and taken to the court room, to be tried by a jury of men; and carried perhaps from there to a place of imprisonment, with no pitying woman"s eye or heart or hand to give her a ray of comfort. And these poor, forlorn creatures shall be deprived of our sympathy and left to perish because we are too "delicate" to come to their a.s.sistance! These may be daughters of good people, and may once have been good and pure as any. They might be your daughters or mine. Brothers, they might be your sisters or your daughters! Oh! change the laws that bear so hard on women. Give us such laws as will allow your wives and mothers--those in whom you have confidence and whom you love--to come, with a mother"s heart, and help rescue these deserted and fallen and miserable ones.