Let me state the political situation. The radical principles of the North are immovably fixed upon negro suffrage as a condition of Southern State reconstruction. The proposed Const.i.tutional Amendment is not regarded as a finality. It satisfies n.o.body, not even its authors. In the minds of the Northern people the negroes are now a.s.sociated with the idea of loyalty to the Union. They are considered citizens. They are respected as "our allies." It is believed in the North that a majority of the white people of the South are at heart the enemies of the Union. The advocates of negro suffrage daily grow stronger and more numerous.
On the other hand, a majority of the Southern white population are inflexibly opposed to negro suffrage in any form, universal or qualified, and are prepared to resist its introduction by every means in their power. In alliance with the President and the Northern Democracy, they protest against any and all terms of reconstruction, demand unconditional readmission, and await in gloomy silence the Republican initiative.
This absolute and growing antagonism can only end, if continued, in one of two results, either in a renewal of civil war, or in a concession by the South of political equality to the negro. But in case of war, the South can not possibly succeed. The North is to-day far stronger in men and money, in farms and factories, than she was in 1860. She is now trained to war, conscious of overwhelming strength, flushed with victory, and respected, as never before, by the nations of Europe. Moreover, she is much more united in political sentiment.
Do not again deceive yourselves. If you should resort to arms, the North would be practically unanimous. The President would instantly be impeached and a radical successor appointed. The South has lost social unity with the loss of slavery. She can not fight better than before.
And the braver her action, the more terrible would be her fate.
Gentlemen, these are facts--not theories. Wise men try to see things as they are, uncolored by opinion or preference. The interest of both North and South, since they must live together, is peace, harmony, and real fraternity. No adjustment can fully succeed unless it is acceptable to both sections. Therefore the statesman and patriot must find a common ground as a basis of permanent reconciliation.
Now the radicalism of the North is actual, organic, and progressive.
Recognize the fact. But if "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed"--if "taxation without representation is tyranny"--and "on these two commandments hang all the (Republican) law and the prophets"--then these propositions are as applicable to women as to negroes. "Consistency is a jewel." The principle is so broad that, if you accept it in its entirety, you can afford to lead--not follow.
The population of the late slave States is about 12,000,000; 8,000,000 white, 4,000,000 black. The radicals demand suffrage for the black men on the ground named above. Very good. Say to them, as Mr. Cowan said to the advocates of negro male suffrage in the District, "Apply your principle! Give suffrage to all men and women of mature age and sound mind, and we will accept it as the basis of State and National reconstruction."
Consider the result from the Southern standpoint. Your 4,000,000 of Southern white women will counterbalance your 4,000,000 of negro men and women, and thus the political supremacy of your white race will remain unchanged.
Think well of this. It is a calculation of the relative political influences of white women and of negroes which perhaps your people have not yet considered. Let us make the statement in figures.
Estimating one male voter to every five persons, your present vote is:
White males 1,600,000 Add white females 1,600,000 --------- Total white voters 3,200,000
Negro males 800,000 Negro females 800,000 --------- Total negro voters 1,600,000
Suppose all the negroes vote one way and all the whites the other, your white majority would be 1,600,000--equal to your present total vote. Thus you would control your own State legislation. Meanwhile, your influence in the councils of the nation will be greater than ever before, because your emanc.i.p.ated slaves will be counted in the basis of representation, instead of as formerly, in the ratio of five for three. In the light of the history of your Confederacy, can any Southerner fear to trust the women of the South with the ballot?
But the propriety of your making the proposal lies deeper than any consideration of sectional expediency. If you must try the Republican experiment, try it fully and fairly. Since you are compelled to union with the North, remove every seed of future controversy. If you are to share the future government of your States with a race you deem naturally and hopelessly inferior, avert the social chaos, which seems to you so imminent, by utilizing the intelligence and patriotism of the wives and daughters of the South. Plant yourselves upon the logical Northern principle. Then no new demands can ever be made upon you. No future inroads of fanaticism can renew sectional discord.
The effect upon the North would be to revolutionize political parties.
"Justice satisfies everybody." The negro, thus protected against oppression by possessing the ballot, would cease to be the prominent object of philanthropic interest. Northern distrust, disarmed by Southern magnanimity, would give place to the liveliest sentiments of confidence and regard. The great political desideratum would be attained. The negro question would be forever removed from the political arena. National parties would again crystallize upon legitimate questions of National interest--questions of tariff, finance, and foreign relations. The disastrous conflict between Federal and State jurisdiction would cease. North and South, no longer hammer and anvil, would forget and forgive the past.
School-houses and churches would be our fortifications and intrenchments. Capital and population would flow, like the Mississippi, toward the Gulf. The black race would gravitate by the law of nature toward the tropics. The memory and spirit of Washington would be cherished; and every deed of genuine gallantry and humanity would be treasured as the common glory of the republic.
Do you say that Northern Republicans would not accept such a proposition? They can not avoid it. The matter is in your own hands.
In New Jersey (then a slave State) from 1776 to 1807, a period of thirty-one years, women and negroes voted on precisely the same footing as white men. No catastrophe, social or political, ensued. The following is an extract from the New Jersey election law of 1797:
"SEC. 9. Every voter shall openly and in full view deliver his or her ballot, which shall be a single written ticket containing the names of the person, or persons, for whom he or she votes," etc.
Your Southern Legislatures can extend suffrage on equal terms to "all inhabitants," as the New Jersey State Convention did in 1776. Then let the Republicans in Congress refuse to admit your Senators and Representatives, if they dare. If so, they will go under. Upon that issue fairly made up, the men of positive convictions would rally round the new and consistent Democratic party. The very element which has destroyed slavery would side with the victorious South, and "out of the nettle danger you would pluck the flower safety."
Respectfully yours, HENRY B. BLACKWELL.
NEW YORK, January 15, 1867.
SUPPRESSED PROCEEDINGS.
The Republican State Central Committee met last week in Leavenworth.
The Leavenworth papers published or pretended to publish the proceedings of the Committee, but suppressed an important portion.
Fortunately, Mr. Taylor, the honest and able editor of the Wyandotte _Gazette_, is a member of the Committee, and was present at the meeting. From his paper we get the following that was for some cause or other suppressed:
"Mr. Taylor offered the following resolution:
"_Resolved_, That the Republican State Central Committee do not indorse, but distinctly repudiate, as speakers, in behalf and under the auspices of the Republican party, such persons as have defamed, or do hereafter defame, in their public addresses, the women of Kansas, or those ladies who have been urging upon the people of Kansas the propriety of enfranchising the women of the State.
"Whiting moved to lay the resolution on the table.
"_Ayes_--Whiting, Eskridge--2.
"_Noes_--Taylor--1.
"Taylor moved to strike the name of I. S. Kalloch from the list of speakers in the Republican State Canva.s.s.
"_Ayes_--Taylor--1.
"_Noes_--Whiting, Eskridge--2.
PROTEST OF MR. TAYLOR.
"The undersigned, a member of the Republican State Central Committee of Kansas, protests against the action of the Committee this day had so far as relates to the placing of the names of I. S. Kalloch, C. V.
Eskridge, and P. B. Plumb, on the list of speakers to canva.s.s the State in behalf of Republican principles, for the reason that they have within the last few weeks, in public addresses, published articles, used ungentlemanly, indecent, and infamously defamatory language, when alluding to a large and respectable portion of the women of Kansas, or to women now engaged in canva.s.sing the State in favor of impartial suffrage.
"R. B. TAYLOR.
"LEAVENWORTH, Sept. 18, 1867.
_Address by the Women"s Impartial Suffrage a.s.sociation of Lawrence, Kansas._
TO THE WOMEN OF KANSAS:--At the coming election on the 5th of November, questions of the greatest importance to every citizen of Kansas, whether man or woman, will be presented for the action of the people. Shall the right of suffrage be extended to negroes? Shall the right of suffrage be extended to women?
The question of the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro now mainly occupies the attention of the Republican party. Upon the same principle, viz: that of equal rights and equal justice to all, we ask the ballot for woman, and expect to obtain it.
One great obstacle that the advocates of female suffrage have to contend with is the declaration on the part of many good and intelligent women that they do not want to vote. They say they are contented with their present condition; they have all the rights they want, and do not need the ballot; and they will take no interest in the matter, except to deprecate its agitation by women. Women of Kansas, let us reason together for a little concerning this matter.
Honored wives and mothers, dwelling at ease in the comfortable homes your husbands provide for you, declare you do not want to vote, and would consider it almost a reflection on your husbands to desire such a thing, do you consider yourselves capable of forming a correct judgment in reference to any matter of public interest? You read the newspapers and are familiar with the literature of the day, and pride yourselves upon your general information and intelligence; can you then form a judgment as to the justness of any law, or the character of any candidate for office? Were any one to a.s.sert that you were not capable of this, you would resent it as an insult.
But, say you, we feel no interest in public measures, laws, candidates, etc.; our sphere, cares, and duties are at home. So thought thousands of American women five years ago; but war, as the result of public measures, laws and candidates, called from the hearthstones and hearts of these same women, husbands, brothers, sons, and slew them on the field of battle--in crowded hospitals--in rebel prisons. Think you the women of America then had no interest in public measures? Can it be that any woman who has given one of her household to save our country will declare that she takes no interest in the government and affairs of that country? Consider a moment whether you have any interest in matters more immediately pressing upon our attention. Is it of any importance to you whether the dram-shops be closed or not? Perhaps your husbands are safe--above suspicion or fear of temptation; but those little sons playing around your knee, that young brother who is about to leave the paternal roof, when the hour comes that they shall go forth into the world, is it of any concern to you whether temptation meet them at every corner? Said a rumseller who is bitterly opposed to female suffrage, "What more do you want? a man can not now get license to sell liquor without the names of a majority of all the women of the ward upon his pet.i.tion." Very true, but mark this, unless the women of Kansas obtain the ballot, that law will soon be blotted from the statute book.
Again: the women of Kansas now vote on questions concerning the erection of school-houses and matters pertaining to the facilities for the education of their children. Where has this provision wrought anything but good? How many school districts now have commodious school-houses because the women of the district, who were mothers and wanted schools for their children, outnumbered the men, who, though large landholders, are not residents or had no children and did not want schools? Can it be that any woman who has felt and wielded the power for good that the ballot gave her, in this respect, will yet declare that she does not want to vote?
If, then, you are capable of forming opinions on matters of public interest, and if you admit that you are in some degree liable to be affected by public affairs, in the name of Heaven, of Right, of Home--in the name of Husband, Brothers, Sons, can you not--will you not, give your voice in favor of right, and against wrong? Begin now, if you have never done so before, to inquire into the character of our law-makers, the justness of our laws, the regard our country pays to the rights of all. If you do not feel the need of so doing for yourselves, yet for the sake of generations yet to come, interest yourselves, "that our officers may be peace and our exactors righteousness." If you are in circ.u.mstances of ease and comfort, because shielded from every rude wind by n.o.ble protectors--father husband, son--yet listen to the cry of thousands of women less favored than yourselves, whose natural protectors, as we style them, the licensed dram-shop transforms into abusive tyrants, from whom they must be protected, or who, being deprived of husband and father, cry aloud of the injustice inflicted upon them in their dependent condition by laws framed in unrighteousness. Listen, we say, to their cry, and will you not desire, yea will you not demand the right to give your voice on all these questions in the only way in which you can effectually do so--the use of the ballot? Why, it would seem that every earnest, philanthropic woman would desire to do so, even were she obliged to go to the polls in their present condition instead of the reformed and purified state that will inevitably result from the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women.
The women of Kansas who, next to the Pilgrim mothers of America, have endured more privations and taken a more active part in public affairs than any other women of America, should of all others have a voice in controlling the affairs of State and framing the laws by which they shall be governed. Say some opposers, "the good and true women would not vote, but only the ignorant and vicious." What a monstrous libel upon the intelligence and public spirit of the women of Kansas! and just so certainly as women obtain the ballot, as far as the intelligent and virtuous outnumber the ignorant and abandoned, will the vote of women swell the majority for just and righteous measures--for the moral and upright man--the man who has never imbrued his hands in blood--who has never robbed woman of her virtue--whose senses are never drowned in the intoxicating bowl. Why! this is the great moral question of the day! It is not that the prominent opposers of this measure fear that it will drag women down; it is because they fear, and justly, that women will lift suffrage so far into the realm of purity and morality that they can never be able even to offer themselves as candidates for office. Then will the destinies of our country be no more decided at drunken orgies, amid scenes that our opponents say it would degrade us to witness, but all questions of public weal will be decided in the hearts and at the firesides of pure-hearted men and women, surrounded by those whose destinies are dearer than life, and that decision shall be enforced when men and women shall together go up to the temple of justice to deposit their ballots.
Whatever, then, may be the opinion of fair ladies who dwell in ceiled houses in our older Eastern States and cities, who like lilies, neither toil nor spin, whose fair hands would gather close their silken apparel at the thought of touching the homelier garments of many a heroine of Kansas--whatever they may say in reference to this question, we, the women of the Spartan State, declare, we want to vote.