Then a pet.i.tion of over 300,000 was rolled up by the leaders of the suffrage movement, and presented in the Senate by the Hon.
Charles Sumner. But the statesmen who welcomed woman"s untiring efforts to secure the black man"s freedom, frowned down the same demands when made for herself. Is not liberty as sweet to her as to him? Are not the political disabilities of s.e.x as grievous as those of color? Is not a civil-rights bill that shall open to woman the college doors, the trades and professions--that shall secure her personal and property rights, as necessary for her protection as for that of the colored man? And yet the highest judicial authorities have decided that the spirit and letter of our national const.i.tution are not broad enough to protect woman in her political rights; and for the redress of her wrongs they remand her to the State. If our _Magna Charta_ of human rights can be thus narrowed by judicial interpretations in favor of cla.s.s legislation, then must we demand an amendment that, in clear, unmistakable language, shall declare the equality of all citizens before the law.
Women are citizens, first of the United States, and second of the State wherein they reside; hence, if robbed by State authorities of any right founded in nature or secured by law, they have the same right to national protection against the State, as against the infringements of any foreign power. If the United States government can punish a woman for voting in one State, why has it not the same power to protect her in the exercise of that right in every State? The const.i.tution declares it the duty of congress to guarantee to every State a republican form of government, to every citizen, equality of rights. This is not done in States where women, thoroughly qualified, are denied admission into colleges which their property is taxed to build and endow; where they are denied the right to practice law and are thus debarred from one of the most lucrative professions; where they are denied a voice in the government, and thus, while suffering all the ills that grow out of the giant evils of intemperance, prost.i.tution, war, heavy taxation and political corruption, stand powerless to effect any reform. Prayers, tears, psalm-singing and expostulation are light in the balance compared with that power at the ballot-box that coins opinions into law. If women who are laboring for peace, temperance, social purity and the rights of labor, would take the speediest way to accomplish what they propose, let them demand the ballot in their own hands, that they may have a direct power in the government. Thus only can they improve the conditions of the outside world and purify the home.
As political equality is the door to civil, religious and social liberty, here must our work begin.
Const.i.tuting, as we do, one-half the people, bearing the burdens of one-half the national debt, equally responsible with man for the education, religion and morals of the rising generation, let us with united voice send forth a protest against the present political status of woman, that shall echo and reecho through the land. In view of the numbers and character of those making the demand, this should be the largest pet.i.tion ever yet rolled up in the old world or the new; a pet.i.tion that shall settle forever the popular objection that "women do not want to vote."
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, _President._ MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, _Chairman Executive Committee._ SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Corresponding Secretary._
_Tenafly, N. J._, November 10, 1876.
_To the Senate and House of Representatives in Congress a.s.sembled:_
The undersigned citizens of the United States, residents of the State of ----, earnestly pray your honorable bodies to adopt measures for so amending the const.i.tution as to prohibit the several States from disfranchising United States citizens on account of s.e.x.
In addition to the general pet.i.tion asking for a sixteenth amendment, Matilda Joslyn Gage, this year (1877) sent an individual pet.i.tion, similar in form to those offered by disfranchised male citizens, asking to be relieved from her political disabilities.
This pet.i.tion was presented by Hon. Elias W. Leavenworth, of the House of Representatives, member from the thirty-third New York congressional district. It read as follows:
_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress a.s.sembled:_
Matilda Joslyn Gage, a native born citizen of the United States, and of the State of New York, wherein she resides, most earnestly pet.i.tions your honorable body for the removal of her political disabilities and that she may be declared invested with full power to exercise her right of self government at the ballot-box, all State const.i.tutions, or statute laws to the contrary notwithstanding.
The above pet.i.tion was presented January 24, and the following bill introduced February 5:
AN ACT _to relieve the political disabilities of Matilda Joslyn Gage_:
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in congress a.s.sembled, that all political disabilities heretofore existing in reference to Matilda Joslyn Gage, of Fayetteville, Onondaga county, State of New York, be removed and she be declared a citizen of the United States, clothed with all the political rights and powers of citizenship, namely: the right to vote and to hold office to the same extent and in the same degree that male citizens enjoy these rights. This act to take effect immediately.
The following year a large number of similar pet.i.tions were sent from different parts of the country, the National a.s.sociation distributing printed forms to its members in the various States.
The power of congress to thus enfranchise women upon their individual pet.i.tions is as undoubted as the power to grant individual amnesty, to remove the political disabilities of men disfranchised for crime against United States laws, or to clothe foreigners, honorably discharged from the army, with the ballot.
The first convention[20] after the all-engrossing events of the centennial celebration a.s.sembled in Lincoln Hall, Washington, January 16, with a good array of speakers, Mrs. Stanton presiding.
After an inspiring song by the Hutchinsons and reports from the various States, Sara Andrews Spencer, chairman of the congressional committee, gave some encouraging facts in regard to the large number of pet.i.tions being presented to congress daily, and read many interesting letters from those who had been active in their circulation. Over 10,000 were presented during this last session of the forty-fourth congress. At the special request of the chairman, Senator Morton of Indiana, they were referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections; heretofore they had always been placed in the hands of the Judiciary Committee in both Senate and House. A list of committees[21] was reported by Mrs. Gage which was adopted.
Mrs. Swisshelm of Pennsylvania, was introduced. She said:
In 1846 she inherited an estate from her parents, and then she learned the injustice of the husband holding the wife"s property.
In 1848, however, she got a law pa.s.sed giving equal rights to both men and women, and everybody decried her for the injury she had done to all homes by thus throwing the apple of discord into families. So in Pennsylvania women now hold property absolutely, and can sell without the consent of the husband. But actually no woman is free. As in the days of slavery the master owned the services, not the body of his slaves, so it is with the wife. The husband owns the services and all that can be earned by his wife.
It is quite possible, as things now stand, to legislate a woman out of her home, and yet she cooks, and bakes, and works, and saves, but it all belongs to the man, and if she dies the second wife gets it all, for she always manages him. The extravagance of dress is due alone to-day to the fact that from what woman saves in her own expenses and those of her house she gets no benefit at all, nor do her children, for it goes to the second wife, who, perhaps, turns the children out of doors.
The resolutions called out a prolonged discussion, especially the one on compulsory education, and that finally pa.s.sed with a few dissenting voices:
WHEREAS one-half of the citizens of the republic being disfranchised are everywhere subjects of legislative caprice, and may be anywhere robbed of their most sacred rights; therefore,
_Resolved_, That it is the duty of the Congress of the United States to submit a proposition for a sixteenth amendment to the national const.i.tution prohibiting the several States from disfranchising citizens on account of s.e.x.
WHEREAS a monarchial government lives only through the ignorance of the ma.s.ses, and a republican government can live only through the intelligence of the people; therefore,
_Resolved_, That it is the duty of Congress to submit to the State legislatures propositions to so amend the Const.i.tution of the United States as to make education compulsory, and to make intelligence a qualification for citizenship and suffrage in the United States; said amendments to take effect January 1, 1880, when all citizens of legal age, without distinction of s.e.x, who can read and write the English language, may be admitted to citizenship.
WHEREAS a century of experience has proven that the safety and stability of free inst.i.tutions and the protection of all United States citizens in the exercise of their inalienable rights and the proper expression of the will of the whole people, are not guaranteed by the present form of the Const.i.tution of the United States; therefore,
_Resolved_, That it is the duty of the several States to call a national convention to revise the Const.i.tution of the United States, which, notwithstanding its fifteen amendments, does not establish justice, insure domestic tranquility, promote the general welfare, nor secure the blessings of liberty to us and to our posterity.
_Resolved_, That the thanks of the women of this nation are due to the Rev. Isaac M. See, of the Presbytery of Newark, for his n.o.ble stand in behalf of woman"s right to preach.
_Resolved_, That the action of the Presbytery of Newark in condemning the Rev. I. M. See for his liberal course is an indication of the tyranny of the clergy over the consciences of women, and a determination to fetter the spirit of freedom.
Among the many letters to the convention we give the following:
BOSTON, 16th January, 1877.
DEAR FRIEND: These lines will not reach you in time to be of use.
I am sorry. But absence and cares must apologize for me. I think you are on the right track--the best method to agitate the question; and I am with you. I mean always to help everywhere and every one.
WENDELL PHILLIPS.
Miss ANTHONY.
MANCHESTER, Eng., January 3, 1877.
MY DEAR MISS ANTHONY: It is with great pleasure that I write a word of sympathy and encouragement, on the occasion of your Ninth Annual Convention of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation.
Beyond wishing you a successful gathering, I will say nothing about the movement in the United States. Women of either country can do nothing directly in promoting the movement in the other; and if they attempt to do so, there is danger that they may hinder and embarra.s.s those who are bearing the burden and heat of the day. The only way in which mutual help can be given is through the women of each nation working to gain ground in their own country. Then, every step so gained, every actual advance of the boundaries of civil and political rights for women is a gain, not only to the country which has secured it, but to the cause of human freedom all over the world.
This year marks the decennial of the movement in the United Kingdom. In the current number of our journal, there is a sketch of the political history of the movement here, which I commend to the attention of your convention, and which I need not repeat.
The record will be seen to be one of great and rapid advance in the political rights of women, but there has been an equally marked change in other directions; women"s interests in education, and women"s questions generally, are treated now with much more respectful consideration than they were ten years ago.
We are gratified in believing that much of this consideration is due to the attention roused by our energetic and persistent demand for the suffrage, and in believing that infinitely greater benefits of the same kind will accrue when women shall be in possession of the franchise. Beyond the material gains in legislation, we find a general improvement in the tone of feeling and thought toward women--an approach, indeed, to the sentiment recently expressed by Victor Hugo, that as man was the problem of the eighteenth century, woman is the problem of the nineteenth century. May our efforts to solve this problem lead to a happy issue.
Yours truly, LYDIA E. BECKER.
BOSTON, Ma.s.s., January 10, 1877.
DEAR MRS. STANTON: It is with some little pain, I confess, that I accept your very courteous invitation to write a letter for your Washington convention on the 19th instant; for what I must say, if I say anything at all, is what I know will be very unacceptable--I fear very displeasing--to the majority of those to whom you will read it. If you conclude that my letter will obstruct, and not facilitate the advancement of the cause you have so faithfully labored for these many years, you have my most cheerful consent to deliver it over to that general asylum of profitless productions--the waste-basket.
Running this risk, however, I have this brief message to send to those who now meet on behalf of woman"s full recognition as politically the equal of man, namely: that every woman suffragist who upholds Christianity, tears down with one hand what she seeks to build up with the other--that the Bible sanctions the slavery principle itself, and applies it to woman as the divinely ordained subordinate of man--and that by making herself the great support and mainstay of inst.i.tuted Christianity, woman rivets the chain of superst.i.tion on her own soul and on man"s soul alike, and justifies him in obeying this religion by keeping her in subjection to himself. If Christianity and the Bible are true, woman is man"s servant, and ought to be. The Bible gave to negro-slavery its most terrible power--that of summoning the consciences of the Christians to its defense; and the Bible gives to woman-slavery the same terrible power. So plain is this to me that I take it as a mere matter of course, when all the eloquence of the woman-suffrage platform fails to arouse the Christian women of this country to a proper a.s.sertion of their rights. What else could one expect? Women will remain contented subjects and subordinates just so long as they remain devoted believers in Christianity; and no amount of argument, or appeal, or agitation can change this fact. If you cannot educate women as a whole out of Christianity, you cannot educate them as a whole into the demand for equal rights.
The reason of this is short: Christianity teaches the rights of G.o.d, not the rights of man or woman. You may search the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, and not find one clear, strong, bold affirmation of _human rights as such_; yet it is on human rights as such--on the equality of all individuals, man or woman, with respect to natural rights--that the demand for woman suffrage must ultimately rest. I know I stand nearly alone in this, but I believe from my soul that the woman movement is fundamentally _anti-Christian_, and can find no deep justification but in the ideas, the spirit, and the faith of free religion. Until women come to see this too, and to give their united influence to this latter faith, political power in their hands would destroy even that measure of liberty which free-thinkers of both s.e.xes have painfully established by the sacrifices of many generations. Yet I should vote for woman suffrage all the same, because it is woman"s right.
Yours very cordially, FRANCIS E. ABBOT.
WASHINGTON, D. C., January 16, 1877.
MY DEAR FRIENDS: I thank you for your generous recognition of me as an humble co-worker in the cause of equal rights, and regret deeply my inability to be present at this anniversary of your a.s.sociation. I tender to you, however, my hearty congratulations on the marked progress of our cause. Wherever I have been, and with whomsoever I have talked, making equal rights invariably the subject, I find no opposing feeling to the simple and just demands we make for our cause. The chief difficulty in the way is the indifference of the people; they need an awakening. Some Stephen S. Foster or Anna d.i.c.kinson should come forward, and with their thunder and lightning, arouse the people from their deadly apathy. I am glad to know that you are to have with you our valued friend, E. M. Davis, of Philadelphia. We are indebted to him more than all besides for whatever of life is found in the movement in Pennsylvania. He has spared neither time, money, nor personal efforts. Hoping you will have abundant success, I am, dear friends, with you and the cause for which you have so n.o.bly labored, a humble and sincere worker.
ROBERT PURVIS.