Aside from the higher ground of our inherent right to self-government, we declare here and now that the women of this District are not safe without the ballot. Our firesides, our liberties are in constant peril, while men who have no concern for our welfare may legislate against our dearest interests. If we would inaugurate any measure of protection for our own s.e.x, we are bound hand and foot by man. The law is his, the treasury is his, the power is his, and he need not even hear our cry, except at his good will and pleasure.
If man had legislated justly and wisely for the interests of this District, if its financial condition was sound, its social and moral atmosphere pure, and all was well, there would be some show of reason in your refusing to hazard a new experiment, even though we could demonstrate it to be founded upon eternal justice. But the history of the successive forms of government in the District of Columbia is a history of failures. So will it continue to be until you adopt a plan founded upon truly republican principles. When, a few years ago, you put the ballot into the hands of the swarming ma.s.ses of freedmen who had gathered here with the ignorance and vices of slaves, and refused to enfranchise women, white or colored, you gave this District no fair trial of a republican form of government. You did not even protect the interests of the colored race. You admitted that the colored man was not really free until he held the ballot in his hand, and therefore you enfranchised him and left the woman twice his slave. I know colored women in Washington far the superiors, intellectually and morally, of the ma.s.ses of men, who declare that they now endure wrongs and abuses unknown in slavery.
There is not an interest in this District that is not as vital to me as to any man in Washington--that is not more vital to me than it can be to any member of this honorable body. As a citizen, seeking the welfare of this community, as a wife and mother desiring the safety of my children, which of you can claim a deeper interest than I in questions of markets, taxes, finance, banks, railroads, highways, the public debt and interest thereon, boards of health, sanitary and police regulations, station-houses (wherein I find many a wreck of womanhood, ruined in her youth and beauty), schools, asylums, and charities? Why deny me a voice in any or all of these? Do you doubt that I would use the ballot in the interests of order, retrenchment, and reform? Do you deny a right of mine, which you will admit I know how to prize, because there are women who do not appreciate its value, do not demand it, possibly might not (any better than men) know how to use it? What a mockery of justice! What a flagrant violation of individual rights! I would cry out against it if no other woman in the land felt the wrong. But among the 10,000,000 of mothers of 14,000,000 of children in this country, vast numbers of thoughtful, philanthropic, and pure women have come to see this truth, and desire to express their mother love and home love at the ballot-box!
Frederick Dougla.s.s once said: "Whole nations have been bathed in blood to establish the simplest possible propositions. For instance, that a man"s head is _his_ head; his body is _his_ body; his feet are _his_ feet, and if he chooses to run away with them it is n.o.body"s business"; and all honor to him, he added, "Now, these propositions have been established for the colored man. Why does not man establish them for woman, his wife, his mother?"
Determined to surround the colored man with every possible guarantee of protection in the possession of his freedom, congress stopped the wheels of legislation, and made the whole country wait, while day after day and night after night his friends fought inch by inch the ground for the civil rights bill.
During that debate Senator Frelinghuysen said:
When I took the oath as senator, I took the oath to support the Const.i.tution of the United States, which declares equality for all: and in advocating this bill I am doing my sworn duty in endeavoring to secure equal rights for every citizen of the United States.
But where slept his "sworn duty" when he recorded his vote in the Senate against woman suffrage? With marvelous inconsistency, as a reason for opposing woman suffrage, during the Pembina debate, May 27, 1874, Senator Merrimon said of the relation of women to the Const.i.tution of the United States:
They have sustained it under all circ.u.mstances with their love, their hands, and their hearts; with their smiles and their tears they have educated their children to live for it, and to die for it.
Therefore the honorable gentleman denies them the right to vote.
Upon the civil rights bill, Senator Howe said:
I do not know but what the pa.s.sage of this bill will break up the common schools. I admit that I have some fear on that point. Every step of this terrible march has been met with a threat; but let justice be done although the common schools and the heavens do fall.
In reply to the point made by Mr. Stockton that the people of the United States would not accept this bill, Mr. Howe said:
I would not turn back if I knew that of the forty million people of the United States not one million would sustain it. If this generation does not accept it there is a generation to come that will accept it. What does this provide? Not that the black man should be helped on his way; not at all; but only that, as he staggers along, he shall not be r.e.t.a.r.ded, shall not be tripped up and made to fall.
Brave and tender words these for our black brother; but see how p.r.o.ne men are to invert truth, justice, and mercy in dealing with women. During the Pembina debate, Senator Merrimon said:
I know there are a few women in the country who complain; but those who complain, compared with those who do not complain, are as one to a million.
As a literal fact, the women who have complained, have pet.i.tioned, sued, reasoned, plead, have knocked at the doors of your legislatures and courts, are as one to fifty in this country, as we who watch the record know; and even that is a small proportion of those who would, but dare not; who are bound hand and foot, and will be bound until you make them free. But if no others feel the wrong but those who have dared to complain; if the poor, the ignorant, the betrayed, the ruined do not understand the question, and the well-fed and comfortable "have all the rights they want," do you give that for answer to our just demand? What do we ask? Not that poor woman "shall be helped on her way"--not at all; but only that, "as she staggers along, she shall not be r.e.t.a.r.ded, shall not be tripped up, shall not be made to fall."
And here on this national soil, for the women of this District of Columbia--your peculiar wards--I ask you to try the experiment of exact, even-handed justice; to give us a voice in the laws under which we must live, by which we are tried, judged and condemned.
I ask it for myself, that I may the better help other women. I ask it for other women, that they may the better help themselves.
As you hope for justice and mercy in your hour of need, may you hear and answer.
Rev. Olympia Brown, of Connecticut; Belva A. Lockwood, of Washington; and Phoebe Couzins, of St. Louis, also addressed the committees; enforcing their arguments with wit, humor, pathos and eloquence.
On her way home from Washington, Mrs. Gage stopped in Philadelphia to secure rooms for the National a.s.sociation during the centennial summer, and decided upon Carpenter Hall, in case it could be obtained. This hall belongs to the Carpenter Company of Philadelphia, perhaps the oldest existing a.s.sociation of that city, it having maintained an uninterrupted organization from the year 1724, about forty years after the establishment of the colonial government by William Penn, and was much in use during the early days of the revolution. The doors of the State House, where the continental congress intended to meet, were found closed against it; but the Carpenter Company, numbering many eminent patriots, offered its hall for their use; and here met the first continental congress, September 5, 1774. John Adams, describing its opening ceremonies, said:
Here was a scene worthy of the painter"s art. Washington was kneeling there, and Randolph, Rutledge, Lee and Jay; and by their side there stood, bowed in reverence, the Puritan patriots of New England, who at that moment had reason to believe that an armed soldiery was wasting their humble households. It was believed that Boston had been bombarded and destroyed.[3] They prayed fervently for America, for the congress, for the province of Ma.s.sachusetts Bay, and especially for the town of Boston. Who can realize the emotions with which in that hour of danger they turned imploringly to heaven for Divine interposition. It was enough to melt a heart of stone. I saw the tears gush into the eyes of old, gray, pacific Quakers of Philadelphia.
The action of this congress, which sat but seven weeks, was momentous in the history of the world. "From the moment of their first debate," said De Tocqueville, "Europe was moved." The convention which in 1781 framed the const.i.tution of the United States, also met in Carpenter Hall in secret session for four months before agreeing upon its provisions. This hall seemed the most appropriate place for establishing the centennial rooms of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, but the effort to obtain it proved unavailing[4] as will be seen by the following correspondence:
_To the President and Officers of the Carpenter Company of Philadelphia:_
The National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation will hold its headquarters in Philadelphia the centennial season of 1876, and desires to secure your historic hall for that purpose. We know your habit and custom of denying its use to all societies, yet we make our request because our objects are in accord with the principles which emanated from within its walls a hundred years ago, and we shall use it in carrying out those principles of liberty and equality upon which our government is based.
We design to advertise our headquarters to the world, and old Carpenter Hall, if used by us, would become more widely celebrated as the birth-place of liberty. Our work in it would cause it to be more than ever held in reverence by future ages, and pilgrimages by men and women would be made to it as to another Mecca shrine.
We propose to place a person in charge, with pamphlets, speeches, tracts, etc., and to hold public meetings for the enunciation of our principles and the furtherance of our demands. Hoping you will grant this request,
I am respectfully yours, MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, _President of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation._
Two months afterward, the following reply was received:
HALL, CARPENTER COURT, 322 Chestnut St.,} PHILADELPHIA, April 24, 1876.}
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, _President of the Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation_:
Your communication asking permission to occupy Carpenter Hall for your convention was duly received, and presented to the company at a stated meeting held the 16th instant, when on motion it was unanimously resolved to postpone the subject indefinitely.
[Extract of minutes]. GEORGE WATSON, _Secretary_.
It was a matter of no moment to those men that women were soon to a.s.semble in Philadelphia, whose love of liberty was as deep, whose patriotism was as pure as that of the fathers who met within its walls in 1774, and whose deliberations had given that hall its historic interest.
In the midst of these preparations the usual May anniversary was held:
CALL FOR THE MAY ANNIVERSARY, 1876.--The National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation will hold its Ninth Annual Convention in Masonic Hall, New York, corner of Sixth avenue and Twenty-third street, May 10, 11, 1876.
This convention occuring in the centennial year of the republic, will be a most important one. The underlying principles of government will this year be discussed as never before; both foreigners and citizens will query as to how closely this country has lived up to its own principles. The long-debated question as to the source of the governing power was answered a century ago by the famous Declaration of Independence which shook to the foundation all recognized power and proclaimed the right of the individual as above all forms of government; but while thus declaring itself, it has held the women of the nation accountable to laws they have had no share in making, and taught as their one duty, that doctrine of tyrants, unquestioning obedience. Liberty to-day is, therefore, but the heritage of one-half the people, and the centennial will be but the celebration of the independence of one-half the nation. The men alone of this country live in a republic, the women enter the second hundred years of national life as political slaves.
That no structure is stronger than its weakest point is a law of mechanics that will apply equally to government. In so far as this government has denied justice to woman, it is weak, and preparing for its own downfall. All the insurrections, rebellions, and martyrdoms of history have grown out of the desire for liberty, and in woman"s heart this desire is as strong as in man"s. At every vital time in the nation"s life, men and women have worked together; everywhere has woman stood by the side of father, brother, husband, son in defense of liberty; without her aid the republic could never have been established; and yet women are still suffering under all the oppressions complained of in 1776; which can only be remedied by securing impartial suffrage to all citizens without distinction of s.e.x.
All persons who believe republican principles should be carried out in spirit and in truth, are invited to be present at the May convention.
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, _President_.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Chairman Executive Committee_.
This May anniversary, commencing on the same day with the opening of the centennial exhibition, was marked with more than usual earnestness. As popular thought naturally turned with increasing interest at such an hour to the underlying principles of government, woman"s demand for political equality received a new impulse. The famous Smith sisters, of Glas...o...b..ry, Connecticut, attended this convention, and were most cordially welcomed. The officers[5] for the centennial year were chosen and a campaign[6]
and congressional[7] committee appointed to take charge of affairs at Philadelphia and Washington. The resolutions show the general drift of the discussions:[8]
WHEREAS, The right of self-government inheres in the individual before governments are founded, const.i.tutions framed, or courts created; and
WHEREAS, Governments exist to protect the people in the enjoyment of their natural rights, and when any government becomes destructive of this end, it is the right of the people to resist and abolish it; and
WHEREAS, The women of the United States, for one hundred years, have been denied the exercise of their natural right of self-government and self-protection; therefore,
_Resolved_, That it is the natural right and most sacred duty of the women of these United States to rebel against the injustice, usurpation and tyranny of our present government.
WHEREAS, The men of 1776 rebelled against a government which did not claim to be of the people, but, on the contrary, upheld the "divine right of kings"; and
WHEREAS, The women of this nation to-day, under a government which claims to be based upon individual rights, to be "of the people, by the people, and for the people," in an infinitely greater degree are suffering all the wrongs which led to the war of the revolution; and WHEREAS, The oppression is all the more keenly felt because our masters, instead of dwelling in a foreign land, are our husbands, our fathers, our brothers and our sons; therefore,
_Resolved_, That the women of this nation, in 1876, have greater cause for discontent, rebellion and revolution, than the men of 1776.
_Resolved_, That with Abigail Adams, in 1776, we believe that "the pa.s.sion for liberty cannot be strong in the b.r.e.a.s.t.s of those who are accustomed to deprive their fellow-creatures of liberty"; that, as Abigail Adams predicted, "We are determined to foment a rebellion, and will not hold ourselves bound by laws in which we have no voice or representation."