In consulting at an early day as to the form in which our claims should be presented, some said by an amendment to the Const.i.tution, others said the Const.i.tution as it is, in spirit and letter, is broad enough to protect the rights of every citizen under our flag. But when the war came and we saw that it took three amendments to make the slaves of the South full-fledged citizens, we thought it would take at least one to make woman"s calling and election sure. So we asked for a Sixteenth Amendment. But learned lawyers, Judges and Congressmen took the ground that women were already enfranchised by the Fourteenth Amendment. The House minority report in 1871, signed by Benjamin F. Butler and William Loughridge, held that view. It is an able, unanswerable argument on the whole question, based on the oft-repeated principles of the Republican party at that time. It stands to-day a living monument of the grossest inconsistencies of which the Republican party ever was guilty.[76] ...
We can not play fast and loose with the eternal principle of justice without being caught sooner or later in the net of our own weaving. The legitimate results of the war have been all frittered away by political maneuvering. While Northern statesmen have made a football of the rights of 12,000,000 women as voters, and by Supreme Court decisions driven them from the polls, why arraign the men in the South for treating 1,000,000 freedmen in the same way? Are the rights of that cla.s.s of citizens more sacred than ours? Are the violations of the fundamental principles of our Government in their case more dangerous than in ours?...
In addressing those who already enjoy the right of suffrage, one naturally would suppose that it would not be necessary to enlarge on the advantages of having a voice in deciding the laws and the rulers under which one lives. And neither would it if each member of this committee understood that woman"s wants and needs are similar to his own; that the cardinal virtues belong to her as well as to him; that personal dignity, the power of self-protection, are as important for her as for him; that woman loves justice, equality, liberty, and wishes the right to give her consent to the Government under which she lives, as much as man does. Matthew Arnold says: "The first desire of every cultured mind is to take part in the great work of government."
If we would rouse new respect for womanhood in the hearts of the ma.s.ses, we must place woman in a position to respect herself, which she can never do as long as her political status is beneath that of the most degraded, ignorant cla.s.ses of men. To make women the political equals of their sons, or even of their gardeners and coachmen, would add new dignity to their position; and to change our laws and const.i.tutions in harmony with the new status would have its influence on the large cla.s.s of young men now devoting themselves to the study of the law. Lord Brougham said long ago that the Common Law of England for women, and all the statutes based on such principles, were a disgrace to the Christianity and civilization of the nineteenth century. Do you think our sons can rise from such studies with a high ideal of womanhood? And with what feelings do you suppose women themselves read these laws, and the articles in the State const.i.tutions, rating them with the disreputable and feeble-minded cla.s.ses? Can you not understand the dignity, the pride, the new-born self-respect which would thrill the hearts of the women of this nation in their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt? It would elevate their sphere of action and every department of labor in which they are occupied; it would give new force to their words as teachers, reformers and missionaries, new strength to their work as guardians of the young, the wayward and the unfortunate. It would transform them from slaves to sovereigns, crowned with the rights of citizenship, with the ballot, that scepter of power, in their own right hands....
If there are any who do not wish to vote, that is the strongest reason for their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt. If all love of liberty has been quenched in their souls by their degraded condition, the duties of citizenship and the responsibility of self-government should be laid upon them at once, for their pitiful indifference is merely the result of their disfranchis.e.m.e.nt. Would that I could awake in the minds of my countrywomen the full significance of this demand for the right of suffrage; what it is to be queens in their own right, intrusted with the power of self-government, possessed of all the privileges and immunities of American citizens....
Whoever heard of an heir apparent to a throne in the Old World abdicating her rights because some conservative politician or austere bishop doubted woman"s capacity to govern? History affords no such example. Those who have had the right to a throne have invariably taken possession of it and, against intriguing cardinals, ambitious n.o.bles and jealous kinsmen, fought even to the death to maintain the royal prerogatives which by inheritance were theirs. When I hear American women, descendants of Jefferson, Hanc.o.c.k and Adams, say they do not want to vote, I feel that the blood of the revolutionary heroes must long since have ceased to flow in their veins.
Suppose when the day dawned for Victoria to be crowned Queen of England she had gone before the House of Commons and begged that such terrible responsibilities might not be laid upon her, declaring that she had not the moral stamina nor intellectual ability for the position; that her natural delicacy and refinement shrank from the encounter; that she was looking forward to the all-absorbing duties of domestic life, to a husband, children, home, to her influence in the social circle where the Christian graces are best employed. Suppose with a tremulous voice and a few stray tears in her blue eyes, her head drooping on one side, she had said she knew nothing of the science of government; that a crown did not befit a woman"s brow; that she had not the physical strength even to wave her nation"s flag, much less to hold the scepter of power over so vast an empire; that in case of war she could not fight and hence could not reign, as there must be force behind the throne, and this force must be centered in the hand which governed. What would her Parliament have thought? What would other nations have thought?...
None of you would admit, honorable gentlemen, that all the great principles of government which center round our theories of justice, liberty and equality in favor of individual sovereignty have not as yet produced as high a type of womanhood as has a monarchy in the Old World. We have a large number of women as well fitted as Victoria for the most responsible positions in the Government, who could fill the highest places with equal dignity and wisdom.
There is no subject more intensely interesting to men than the science of government, and when their wives are intelligent on all the questions it comprises they will be far more valuable companions than they are to-day. Marriage means companionship, a similarity of tastes and opinions, and where one of the parties has no interest in or knowledge of those subjects most absorbing to the other, the bonds of union necessarily are weakened. So long as woman"s thought is centered in personal and family aggrandizement, her strongest influence will be used to keep man"s interest there also. The virtue of patriotism would be far greater among men, their devotion to the public good far more earnest, if the influences of home life were not continually drawing them into a narrow selfishness.
Women naturally take no interest in questions where their opinions have no weight, in a sphere of action from which they are excluded. They are not supposed to know what is necessary for the public good, hence how could they influence their husbands to make that their first duty when in public life? But when women are enfranchised their interest in the State will deepen. They will see that the welfare of their own children depends as much on the conditions of the outside world as on the environments of their own homes. This settled discontent of women is exerting an insidious influence which is undermining the very foundations of the home as well as the State. We must rouse them to new hopes, new ambitions, new aspirations, through the enjoyment of the blessings of freedom and self-government.
Moreover, an active partic.i.p.ation in the practical duties of government by educated women would bring a new and needed element to the State. We can not overestimate the influence women exert, whether for good or ill, hence the immense importance of their having right views on all questions of public interest and some knowledge of the requirements of practical politics. But their power to-day is wholly irresponsible and hence dangerous. Lay on them the responsibility of legislating, with all the criticism and odium of a const.i.tuency and a party, in case they make some blunder, and you render them wiser in judgment and more deliberate in action. To secure this large disfranchised cla.s.s as allies to one of the leading parties would be a wise measure for that party and bring a new element of morality and intelligence into the body politic. Women are now taking a more active part in public affairs than ever before and, with political freedom, always will be the reserved moral power to sustain great men in their best endeavors.
An interesting conversation followed. Chairman Zebulon B. Vance (N.
C.) asked Mrs. Stanton if women would be willing to go to war if they had the ballot. She answered that they would decide whether there should be war. He inquired whether women would not lose their refining influence and moral qualities if they engaged in men"s work. She replied that there would have to be a definition of "men"s work" and that she found the latter in many avocations, such as washing, cooking, and selling needles and tape, which might be considered the work of women. "The moral qualities," she said, "are more apt to grow when a human being is useful, and they increase in the woman who helps to support the family rather than in the one who gives herself to idleness and fashionable frivolities. The consideration of questions of legislation, finance, free trade, etc., certainly would not degrade woman, nor is her refinement so evanescent a virtue that it could be swept away by some work which she might do with her hands. Queen Victoria looked as dignified and refined in opening Parliament as any lady one ever had seen."
Miss Susan B. Anthony, who was never so happy as when her beloved friend was scoring a victory, said there would always be a division of labor, in time of war as in time of peace. Women would do their share in the hospitals and elsewhere, and if they were enfranchised, the only difference would be that they would be paid for their services and pensioned at the close of the war. Mrs. Colby reminded the committee that the report of the U. S. Commissioner of Labor showed that the largest proportion of immoral women came from home life and the more feminine occupations.
Mrs. Stanton drew from the chairman the admission that his wife wanted the franchise, and he laughingly admitted that he had had the worst of the discussion. Senator Allen expressed himself in favor of woman suffrage, and Senator Charles B. Farwell said, "The suffragists have logic, argument, everything on their side."
Another heaping was granted by the Senate Committee, February 24, when they were addressed by the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett, Mrs. Virginia L. Minor and Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby.
Later in the session Senator Henry W. Blair (N. H.) presented the majority report of the Committee (No. 1576), the usual strong, dignified statement. It closed as follows: "To deny the submission of this joint resolution to the action of the Legislatures of the States is a.n.a.logous to the denial of the right of justice in the courts. It is to say that no plaintiff shall bring his suit; no claimant of justice shall be heard; and whatever may be the result to the friends of woman suffrage when they reach the Legislatures of the States, it is, in our belief, the duty of Congress to submit the joint resolution and give them the opportunity to try their case."
Mrs. Stanton presented the same address before the House Judiciary Committee, February 11, with the result that for the first time in history a majority House report in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment was submitted. It was presented by Lucien B. Caswell (Wis.) and said in conclusion: "The disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of twelve millions of people, who are citizens of the United States, should command from us an immediate action. Since the women of this country are unjustly deprived of a right so essential to complete citizenship in a republic as the elective franchise, common justice requires that we should submit the proposition for a change in the fundamental law to the State Legislatures, where the correction can be made."[77]
The fiftieth birthday of Susan B. Anthony had been celebrated in New York City in 1870 by a large number of prominent men and women, the first instance of the kind on record. It had been decided by her friends that her seventieth birthday should receive a similar recognition, but that it should be more national in character. The arrangements were made by Mrs. May Wright Sewall and Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, and on the evening of February 15 a distinguished company of two hundred sat around the banquet tables in the great dining-room of the Riggs House. Miss Anthony occupied the place of honor, on her right Senator Blair and Mrs. Stanton, on her left Robert Purvis, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker and Mrs. Sewall, who presided. In addition to the after-dinner speeches of these distinguished guests there were clever and sparkling responses to toasts by the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, Miss Phoebe W. Couzins, the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley, Representative J. A. Pickler (S. D.), Mrs.
Colby, Mrs. Stanton"s two daughters--Mrs. Harriot Blatch and Mrs.
Margaret Lawrence--Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant of England, and others.
Mrs. Stanton began her address by saying: "If there is one part of my life which gives me more intense satisfaction than another, it is my friendship of more than forty years" standing with Susan B. Anthony."
The key-note to Miss Anthony"s touching response was struck in the opening sentence: "The thing I most hope for is that, should I stay on this planet twenty years longer, I still may be worthy of the wonderful respect you have manifested for me to-night."
Among the more than two hundred letters, poems and telegrams received were those of George William Curtis, William Lloyd Garrison, John G.
Whittier, George F. h.o.a.r, Lucy Stone, Frances E. Willard, Speaker Thomas B. Reed, Mrs. John A. Logan, Thomas W. Palmer, the Rev. Olympia Brown, Harriet Hosmer, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Alice Williams Brotherton, Charles Nordhoff, Frank G. Carpenter, U. S. Senator Henry L. Dawes, Neal Dow, Laura M. Johns, T. V. Powderly and Leonora M.
Barry. Most of the prominent newspapers in the country contained editorial congratulations, and the _Woman"s Tribune_ issued a special birthday edition.
The convention opened in Metzerott"s Music Hall, February 18, 1890, continuing four days. The feature of this occasion which will distinguish it in history was the formal union of the National and the American a.s.sociations under the joint name. For the past twenty-one years two distinctive societies had been in existence, both national as to scope but differing as to methods. Negotiations had been in progress for several years toward a uniting of the forces and, the preliminaries having been satisfactorily arranged by committees from the two bodies,[78] the officers and members of both partic.i.p.ated in this national convention of 1890.
Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the newly-elected president of the united societies, faced a brilliant a.s.semblage of men and women as she arose to make the opening address. Having declared that in going to England as president of the National-American a.s.sociation she felt more honored than if sent as minister plenipotentiary of the United States, she spoke to a set of resolutions which she presented to the convention.[79] After reviewing the history of the movement for the rights of woman and naming some of its brilliant leaders she said:
For fifty years we have been plaintiffs in the courts of justice, but as the bench, the bar and the jury are all men, we are nonsuited every time. Some men tell us we must be patient and persuasive; that we must be womanly. My friends, what is man"s idea of womanliness? It is to have a manner which pleases him--quiet, deferential, submissive, approaching him as a subject does a master. He wants no self-a.s.sertion on our part, no defiance, no vehement arraignment of him as a robber and a criminal. While the grand motto, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to G.o.d," has echoed and re-echoed around the globe, electrifying the lovers of liberty in every lat.i.tude and making crowned heads tremble on their thrones; while every right achieved by the oppressed has been wrung from tyrants by force; while the darkest page on human history is the outrages on women--shall men still tell us to be patient, persuasive, womanly?
What do we know as yet of the womanly? The women we have seen thus far have been, with rare exceptions, the mere echoes of men.
Man has spoken in the State, the Church and the Home, and made the codes, creeds and customs which govern every relation in life, and women have simply echoed all his thoughts and walked in the paths he prescribed. And this they call womanly! When Joan of Arc led the French army to victory I dare say the carpet knights of England thought her unwomanly. When Florence Nightingale, in search of blankets for the soldiers in the Crimean War, cut her way through all orders and red tape, commanded with vehemence and determination those who guarded the supplies to "unlock the doors and not talk to her of proper authorities when brave men were shivering in their beds," no doubt she was called unwomanly. To me, "unlock the doors" sounds better than any words of circ.u.mlocution, however sweet and persuasive, and I consider that she took the most womanly way of accomplishing her object.
Patience and persuasiveness are beautiful virtues in dealing with children and feeble-minded adults, but those who have the gift of reason and understand the principles of justice, it is our duty to compel to act up to the highest light that is in them, and as promptly as possible.
Mrs. Stanton urged that women should have more power in church management, saying:
As women are taking an active part in pressing on the consideration of Congress many narrow sectarian measures, such as more rigid Sunday laws, the stopping of travel, the distribution of the mail on that day, and the introduction of the name of G.o.d into the Const.i.tution; and as this action on the part of some women is used as an argument for the disfranchis.e.m.e.nt of all, I hope this convention will declare that the Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation is opposed to all union of Church and State, and pledges itself as far as possible to maintain the secular nature of our Government. As Sunday is the only day that the laboring man can escape from the cities, to stop the street-cars, omnibuses and railroad trains would indeed be a lamentable exercise of arbitrary authority. No, no, the duty of the State is to protect those who do the work of the world, in the largest liberty, and instead of shutting them up in their gloomy tenement houses on Sunday, to open wide the parks, horticultural gardens, museums, libraries, galleries of art and the music halls where they can listen to the divine melodies of the great masters.
She demanded that women declare boldly and decisively on all the vital issues of the day, and said:
In this way we make ourselves mediums through which the great souls of the past may speak again. The moment we begin to fear the opinions of others and hesitate to tell the truth that is in us, and from motives of policy are silent when we should speak, the divine floods of light and life flow no longer into our souls. Every truth we see is ours to give the world, not to keep for ourselves alone, for in so doing we cheat humanity out of their rights and check our own development.
As Mrs. Stanton finished she introduced her daughter, Mrs. Blatch, a resident of England, who in a few impressive remarks showed that on the great socialistic questions of the day--capital and labor, woman suffrage, race prejudice--England was liberal and the United States conservative; that the latter had beautiful ideas but did not apply them, and tended too much to the worship of legislation.
The Hon. Wm. Dudley Foulke, retiring president of the American a.s.sociation, an uncompromising advocate of woman"s enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, then made a strong and scholarly address in the course of which he said:
The fundamental rights of self-government, the right of each man to cast his single vote and have it counted as it is cast, is of greater and more lasting importance than any of the temporary consequences which flow from the result of any election. Beyond all matters of expediency and good administration lies the great question of human liberty and equality, which can only be maintained by the uncorrupted equal suffrage of every citizen; and so sacred is this in the eyes of the law that years of penitentiary service are prescribed for the interference with the right of a single human being of the male s.e.x to cast the vote which the law allows him.
But there may be a moral guilt outside the law, of a character quite similar to that which is so punished when it comes within the terms of the statute, and it may be the crime, not of a single lawbreaker, but of the entire community that establishes the const.i.tutions and enacts the statutes, which denies these equal rights to citizens who are subject to equal burdens.
Wherever the rule of power is subst.i.tuted for the just and equitable principle that all who are subject to government should have a voice in controlling it, we are guilty under the form of law of the same violation of the just rights of others for which the corruptor of elections and the forger of tally-sheets is tried, convicted and incarcerated. Yet from the remotest times the world has done this thing, for equal rights have never been conceded to women, and so warped are our convictions by custom and prejudice that a denial of their political equality seems as natural as the breath we draw....
Paternalism in government, which seeks to do good to the people against their will, is wrong in the Czar of Russia and in old King George, but is quite right and just when it affects only our wives, sisters and daughters! They have everything they need, why ask the ballot? Ah, my friends, so long as they have not the right to determine the thing they need, so long as the ultimate sovereignty remains with men to say what is good and what is bad for them, they are deprived of that which we, as men, esteem the most precious of all rights. I suppose there never was a time when men did not believe that women had everything they ought to want; that they had as much as was good for them. The woman must obey in consideration of the kind protection which her lord vouchsafes to her. The wife"s property ought to belong to the husband, because upon him the law casts the burden of sustaining the family. There must be a ruler, and the husband ought to be that one. But this is the same principle which, during thousands of years, maintained the divine right of kings. When we apply it to our system of suffrage the number of sovereigns is increased, that is all. It is a recognition of the divine right of man to legislate for himself and woman too. It is only a difference in the number of autocrats and the manner in which their decrees are promulgated....
By what argument can a man defend his own suffrage as a right and not concede an equal right to woman? A just man ought to accord to every other human being, even his own wife, the rights which he demands himself.
"But she has her sphere and she ought not go beyond it." My friend, who gave you the right to determine what that sphere should be? If nature prescribes it, nature will carry out her own ordinances without your prohibitory legislation. I have the greatest contempt for the sort of legislation which seeks to enable nature to carry out her own immutable laws. I would have very little respect for any decree, enacted with whatever solemnity, which should prescribe that an object shall fall towards the earth and not from it; and I have just as little respect for any statute of man which enacts that women shall continue to love and care for their children by shutting them out from political action and preferment lest they should neglect the duties of the household....
"But," say you, "woman is already adequately represented. She does not form a separate cla.s.s. She has no interests different from those of her husband, brother or father." These arguments have been used even by so eminent an authority as John Bright. Is it indeed a fact? Wherever woman owns property which she would relieve from unjust taxation; wherever she has a son whom she would preserve from the temptations of intemperance, or a daughter from the enticements of a libertine, or a husband from the conscriptions of war, she has a separate interest which she is ent.i.tled to protect.
"But she can control legislation by her influence." If it were proposed to take away our right to vote, we would think it a satisfactory answer that our influence would still remain? If she has influence she is ent.i.tled to that and her vote too. You have no right to burn down a man"s house because you leave him his lot.
"But woman does not want the suffrage." How do you know? have you given her an opportunity of saying so? Wherever the right has been accorded it has been generally exercised, and the best proof of her wishes is the actual use which she makes of the ballot when she has it. But it makes no difference whether all women want to vote or whether most women want to vote, so long as there is one woman who insists upon this simple right, the justice of America can not afford to deny it....
At the close of Mr. Foulke"s address Mrs. Stanton was obliged to leave in order to reach New York City in time for her steamer. The entire audience arose, the women waving handkerchiefs and the men joining in three farewell cheers.
One splendid address followed another, morning and evening, while the afternoons were occupied with business meetings, and even here there were many little speeches which were worthy of preservation. Among them was one of Miss Anthony"s, in which she said: "If it is necessary, I will fight forty years more to make our platform free for the Christian to stand upon, whether she be a Catholic and counts her beads, or a Protestant of the straightest orthodox sect, just as I have fought for the rights of the "infidels" the last forty years.
These are the principles I want to maintain--that our platform may be kept as broad as the universe, that upon it may stand the representatives of all creeds and of no creeds--Jew and Christian, Protestant and Catholic, Gentile and Mormon, believer and atheist."
Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker (Conn.) discussed The Centennial of 1892, demanding the recognition of women. Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell (N. Y.) spoke on the Present, the Destiny of To-day. Mrs. Ormiston Chant (Eng.) depicted the glory of The Coming Woman. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt made her first appearance on the national platform with an address on The Symbol of Liberty, describing political conditions with a keen knowledge of the facts and showing their need of the intelligence, morality and independence of women. The subject selected by Miss Phoebe W. Couzins, herself an office-holder, was Woman"s Influence in Official Government.
Henry B. Blackwell made a strong speech on Woman Suffrage a Growth of Civilization. He read a letter from Lucy Stone, his wife, who was to have spoken on The Progress of Women but was prevented by illness, in which she said: "The time is full of encouragement for us. We look back to our small beginnings and over the many years of constant endeavor to secure for women the application of the principles which are the foundation of a representative government. Now we are a host.
Both Houses of Congress and the legislative bodies in nearly all the States, have our questions before them. So has the civilized world.
Surely at no distant day the sense of justice which exists in everybody will secure our claim, and we shall have at last a truly representative government, of the people, by the people and for the people. We may, therefore, rejoicing in what is already gained, look forward with hope to the future."
A large audience listened to the address of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe on The Chivalry of Reform, during which she said:
The political enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman has long been sought upon the ground of abstract right and justice. This ground is surely the soundest and safest basis for any claim to rest upon. But mankind, after yielding a general obedience to the moral law, will reserve for themselves a certain freedom in its application to particular things. Even in so imperative a matter as the salvation of their own souls they will not be content with weights and measures. The touch of sentiment must come in, uplifting what law knocks down, freeing what it trammels, satisfying man"s love for freedom by ministering to his sense of beauty. When this subtle power joins itself to the demonstrations of reason, the victory is sure and lasting.