The right of suffrage, like the currency of the post-office department, demands national regulation. We can all remember the losses sustained by citizens in traveling from one State to another under the old system of State banks. We can imagine the confusion if each State regulated its post-offices, and the transit of the mails across its borders. The benefits we find in uniformity and unity in these great interests would pervade all others where equal conditions were secured. Some citizens are asking for a national bankrupt law, that a person released from his debts in one State may be free in every other. Some are for a religious freedom amendment that shall forever separate church and State; forbidding a religious test as a condition of suffrage or a qualification for office; forbidding the reading of the Bible in the schools and the exempting of church property and sectarian inst.i.tutions of learning or charity from taxation. Some are demanding a national marriage law, that a man legally married in one State may not be a bigamist in another. Some are asking a national prohibitory law, that a reformed drunkard who is shielded from temptation in one State may not be environed with dangers in another. And thus many individual interests point to a growing feeling among the people in favor of h.o.m.ogeneous legislation. As several of the States are beginning to legislate on the woman suffrage question, it is of vital moment that there should be some national action.
As the laws now are, a woman who can vote, hold office, be tried by a jury of her own peers--yea, and sit on the bench as justice of the peace in the territory of Wyoming, may be reduced to a political pariah in the State of New York. A woman who can vote and hold office on the school board, and act as county superintendent in Kansas and Minnesota, is denied these rights in pa.s.sing into Pennsylvania. A woman who can be a member of the school board in Maine, Wisconsin, Iowa, and California, loses all these privileges in New Jersey, Maryland, and Delaware. When representatives from the territories are sent to congress by the votes of women, it is time to have some national recognition of this cla.s.s of citizens.
This demand of national protection for national citizens is fated to grow stronger every day. The government of the United States, as the const.i.tution is now interpreted, is powerless to give a just equivalent for the supreme allegiance it claims. One sound democratic principle fully recognized and carried to its logical results in our government, declaring all citizens equal before the law, would soon chase away the metaphysical mists and fogs that cloud our political views in so many directions. When congress is asked to put the name of G.o.d in the const.i.tution, and thereby pledge the nation to some theological faith in which some United States citizens may not believe and thus subject a certain cla.s.s to political ostracism and social persecution, it is asked not to protect but to oppress the citizens of the several States in their most sacred rights--to think, reason, and decide all questions of religion and conscience for themselves, without fear or favor from the government. Popular sentiment and church persecution is all that an advanced thinker in science and religion should be called on to combat. The State should rather throw its shield of protection around those uttering liberal, progressive ideas; for the nation has the same interest in every new thought as it has in the invention of new machinery to lighten labor, in the discovery of wells of oil, or mines of coal, copper, iron, silver or gold. As in the laboratory of nature new forms of beauty are forever revealing themselves, so in the world of thought a higher outlook gives a clearer vision of the heights man in freedom shall yet attain. The day is past for persecuting the philosophers of the physical sciences. But what a holocaust of martyrs bigotry is still making of those bearing the richest treasures of thought, in religion and social ethics, in their efforts to roll off the mountains of superst.i.tion that have so long darkened the human mind!
The numerous demands by the people for national protection in many rights not specified in the const.i.tution, prove that the people have outgrown the compact that satisfied the fathers, and the more it is expounded and understood the more clearly its monarchical features can be traced to its English origin. And it is not at all surprising that, with no chart or compa.s.s for a republic, our fathers, with all their educational prejudices in favor of the mother country, with her literature and systems of jurisprudence, should have also adopted her ideas of government, and in drawing up their national compact engrafted the new republic on the old const.i.tutional monarchy, a union whose incompatibility has involved their sons in continued discussion as to the true meaning of the instrument. A recent writer says:
The Const.i.tution of the United States is the result of a fourfold compromise: _First_--Of unity with individual interests; of national sovereignty with the so-called sovereignty of States; _Second_--Of the republic with monarchy; _Third_--Of freedom with slavery; _Fourth_--Of democracy with aristocracy.
It is founded, therefore, on the fourfold combination of principles perfectly incompatible and eternally excluding each other; founded for the purpose of equally preserving these principles in spite of their incompatibility, and of carrying out their practical results--in other words, for the purpose of making an impossible thing possible. And a century of discussion has not yet made the const.i.tution understood. It has no settled interpretation. Being a series of compromises, it can be expounded in favor of many directly opposite principles.
A distinguished American statesman remarked that the war of the rebellion was waged "to expound the const.i.tution." It is a pertinent question now, shall all other contradictory principles be retained in the const.i.tution until they, too, are expounded by civil war? On what theory is it less dangerous to defraud twenty million women of their inalienable rights than four million negroes? Is not the same principle involved in both cases? We ask congress to pa.s.s a sixteenth amendment, not only for woman"s protection, but for the safety of the nation. Our people are filled with unrest to-day because there is no fair understanding of the basis of individual rights, nor the legitimate power of the national government. The Republican party took the ground during the war that congress had the right to establish a national currency in every State; that it had the right to emanc.i.p.ate and enfranchise the slaves; to change their political status in one-half the States of the union; to pa.s.s a civil rights bill, securing to the freedman a place in the schools, colleges, trades, professions, hotels, and all public conveyances for travel. And they maintained their right to do all these as the best measures for peace, though compelled by war.
And now, when congress is asked to extend the same protection to the women of the nation, we are told they have not the power, and we are remanded to the States. They say the emanc.i.p.ation of the slave was a war measure, a military necessity; that his enfranchis.e.m.e.nt was a political necessity. We might with propriety ask if the present condition of the nation, with its political outlook, its election frauds daily reported, the corrupt action of men in official position, governors, judges, and boards of canva.s.sers, has not brought us to a moral necessity where some new element is needed in government. But, alas! when women appeal to congress for the protection of their natural rights of person and property, they send us for redress to the courts, and the courts remand us to the States. You did not trust the Southern freedman to the arbitrary will of courts and States!
Why send your mothers, wives and daughters to the unwashed, unlettered, unthinking ma.s.ses that carry popular elections?
We are told by one cla.s.s of philosophers that the growing tendency to increase national power and authority is leading to a dangerous centralization; that the safety of the republic rests in local self-government. Says the editor of the Boston _Index_:
What is local self-government? Briefly, that without any interference from without, every citizen should manage his own personal affairs in his own way, according to his own pleasure; that every town should manage its own town affairs in the same manner and under the same restriction; every county its own county affairs, every State its own State affairs. But the independent exercise of this autonomy, by personal and corporate individuals, has one fundamental condition, viz.: the maintenance of all these individualities intact, each in its own sphere of action, with its rights uninfringed and its freedom uncurtailed in that sphere, yet each also preserving its just relation to all the rest in an all comprehensive social organization.
Every citizen would thus stand, as it were, in the center of several concentric and enlarging circles of relationship to his kind; he would have duties and rights in each relation, not only as an individual but also as a member of town, county, State and national organization. His local self-government will be at his highest possible point of realization, when in each of these relations his individual duties are discharged and his rights maintained.
On the other hand, what is centralization?
It is such a disorganization of this well-balanced, harmonious and natural system as shall result in the absorption of all substantial power by a central authority, to the destruction of the autonomy of the various individualities above mentioned; such as was produced, for instance, when the _municipia_ of the Roman empire lost their corporate independence and melted into the vast imperial despotism which prepared the way for the collapse of society under the blows of Northern barbarism. Such a centralization must inevitably be produced by decay of that stubborn stickling for rights, out of which local self-government has always grown. That is, if individual rights in the citizen, the town, the county, the State, shall not be vindicated as beyond all price, and defended with the utmost jealousy, at whatever cost, the spirit of liberty must have already died out, and the dreary process of centralization be already far advanced. It will thus be evident that the preservation of individual rights is the only possible preventative of centralization, and that free society has no interest to be compared for an instant in importance with that of preserving these individual rights.
No nation is free in which this is not the paramount concern. Woe to America when her sons and her daughters begin to sneer at rights! Just so long as the citizens are protected individually in their rights, the towns and counties and States cannot be stripped; but if the former lose all love for their own liberties as equal units of society, the latter will become the empty sh.e.l.ls of creatures long perished. The nation as such, therefore, if it would be itself free and non-centralized, must find its own supreme interest in the protection of its individual citizens in the fullest possible enjoyment of their equal rights and liberties.
As this question of woman"s enfranchis.e.m.e.nt is one of national safety, we ask you to remember that we are citizens of the United States, and, as such, claim the protection of the national flag in the exercise of our national rights, in every lat.i.tude and longitude, on sea, land, at home as well as abroad; against the tyranny of States, as well as against foreign aggressions. Local authorities may regulate the exercise of these rights; they may settle all minor questions of property, but the inalienable personal rights of citizenship should be declared by the const.i.tution, interpreted by the Supreme Court, protected by congress and enforced by the arm of the executive. It is nonsense to talk of State rights until the graver question of personal liberties is first understood and adjusted. President Hayes, in reply to an address of welcome at Charlottesville, Va., September 25, 1877, said:
Equality under the laws for all citizens is the corner-stone of the structure of the restored harmony from which the ancient friendship is to rise. In this pathway I am going, the pathway where your ill.u.s.trious men led--your Jefferson, your Madison, your Monroe, your Washington.
If, in this statement, President Hayes is thoroughly sincere, then he will not hesitate to approve emphatically the principle of national protection for national citizens. He will see that the protection of all the national citizens in all their rights, civil, political, and religious--not by the muskets of United States troops, but by the peaceable authority of United States courts--is not a principle that applies to a single section of the country, but to all sections alike; he will see that the incorporation of such a principle in the const.i.tution cannot be regarded as a measure of force imposed upon the vanquished, since it would be law alike to the vanquished and the victor. In short, he will see that there is no other sufficient guarantee of that equality of all citizens, which he well declares to be the "corner-stone of the structure of restored harmony." The Boston _Journal_ of July 19, said:
There are cases where it seems as if the const.i.tution should empower the federal government to step in and protect the citizen in the State, when the local authorities are in league with the a.s.sa.s.sins; but, as it now reads, no such provision exists.
That the const.i.tution does not make such provision is not the fault of the president; it must be attributed to the leading Republicans who had it in their power once to change the const.i.tution so as to give the most ample powers to the general government. When Attorney-General Devens was charged last May with negligence in not prosecuting the parties accused of the Mountain Meadow ma.s.sacre, his defense was, that this horrible crime was not against the United States, but against the territory of Utah. Yet, it was a great company of industrious, honest, unoffending United States citizens who were foully and brutally murdered in cold blood. When Chief-Justice Waite gave his charge to the jury in the Ellentown conspiracy cases, at Charleston, S. C., June 1, 1877, he said:
That a number of citizens of the United States have been killed, there can be no question; but that is not enough to enable the government of the United States to interfere for their protection. Under the const.i.tution that duty belongs to the State alone. But when an unlawful combination is made to interfere with any of the rights of natural citizenship secured to citizens of the United States by the national const.i.tution, then an offense is committed against the laws of the United States, and it is not only the right but the absolute duty of the national government to interfere and afford the citizens that protection which every good government is bound to give.
General Hawley, in an address before a college last spring, said:
Why, it is asked, does our government permit outrages in a State which it would exert all its authority to redress, even at the risk of war, if they were perpetrated under a foreign government? Are the rights of American citizens more sacred on the soil of Great Britain or France than on the soil of one of our own States? Not at all. But the government of the United States is clothed with power to act with imperial sovereignty in the one case, while in the other its authority is limited to the degree of utter impotency, in certain circ.u.mstances. The State sovereignty excludes the Federal over most matters of dealing between man and man, and if the State laws are properly enforced there is not likely to be any ground of complaint, but if they are not, the federal government, if not specially called on according to the terms of the const.i.tution, is helpless. Citizen A.B., grievously wronged, beaten, robbed, lynched within a hair"s breadth of death, may apply in vain to any and all prosecuting officers of the State. The forms of law that might give him redress are all there; the prosecuting officers, judges, and sheriffs, that might act, are there; but, under an oppressive and tyrannical public sentiment, they refuse to move. In such an exigency the government of the United States can do no more than the government of any neighboring State; that is, unless the State concerned calls for aid, or unless the offense rises to the dignity of insurrection or rebellion. The reason is, that the framers of our governmental system left to the several States the sole guardianship of the personal and relative private rights of the people.
Such is the imperfect development of our own nationality in this respect that we have really no right as yet to call ourselves a nation in the true sense of the word, nor shall we have while this state of things continues. Thousands have begun to feel this keenly, of which a few ill.u.s.trations may suffice. A communication to the New York _Tribune_, June 9, signed "Merchant," said:
Before getting into a quarrel and perhaps war with Mexico about the treatment of our flag and citizens, would it not be as well, think you, for the government to try and make the flag a protection to the citizens on our own soil?
That is what it has never been since the foundation of our government in a large portion of our common country. The kind of government the people of this country expect and intend to have--State rights or no State rights, no matter how much blood and treasure it may cost--is a government to protect the humblest citizen in the exercise of all his rights.
When the rebellion of the South against the government began, one of the most noted secessionists of Baltimore asked one of the regular army officers what the government expected to gain by making war on the South. "Well," the officer replied, laying his hand on the cannon by which he was standing, "we intend to use these until it is as safe for a Northern man to express his political opinions in the South, as it is for a Southern man to express his in the North." Senator Blaine, at a banquet in Trenton, N. J., July 2, declared that a "government which did not offer protection to every citizen in every State had no right to demand allegiance." Ex-Senator Wade, of Ohio, in a letter to the Washington _National Republican_ of July 16, said of the president"s policy:
I greatly fear this policy, under cover of what is called local self-government, is but an ignominious surrender of the principles of nationality for which our armies fought and for which thousands upon thousands of our brave men died, and without which the war was a failure and our boasted government a myth.
Behind the slavery of the colored race was the principle of State rights. Their emanc.i.p.ation and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt were important, not only as a vindication of our great republican idea of individual rights, but as the first blow in favor of national unity--of a consistent, h.o.m.ogeneous government. As all our difficulties, State and national, are finally referred to the const.i.tution, it is of vital importance that that instrument should not be susceptible of a different interpretation from every possible standpoint. It is folly to spend another century in expounding the equivocal language of the const.i.tution. If under that instrument, supposed to be the _Magna Charta_ of American liberties, all United States citizens do not stand equal before the law, it should without further delay be so amended as in plain, unmistakable language to declare what are the rights, privileges, and immunities that belong to citizens of a republic.
There is no reason why the people of to-day should be governed by the laws and const.i.tutions of men long since dead and buried.
Surely those who understand the vital issues of this hour are better able to legislate for the living present than those who governed a hundred years ago. If the nineteenth century is to be governed by the opinions of the eighteenth, and the twentieth by the nineteenth, the world will always be governed by dead men....
The cry of centralization could have little significance if the const.i.tution were so amended as to protect all United States citizens in their inalienable rights. That national supremacy that holds individual freedom and equality more sacred than State rights and secures representation to all cla.s.ses of people, is a very different form of centralization from that in which all the forces of society are centered in a single arm. But the recognition of the principle of national supremacy, as declared in the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, has been practically nullified and the results of the war surrendered, by remanding woman to the States for the protection of her civil and political rights. The Supreme Court decisions and the congressional reports on this point are in direct conflict with the idea of national unity, and the principle of States rights involved in this discussion must in time remand all United States citizens alike to State authority for the protection of those rights declared to inhere in the people at the foundation of the government.
You may listen to our demands, gentlemen, with dull ears, and smile incredulously at the idea of danger to our inst.i.tutions from continued violation of the civil and political rights of women, but the question of what citizens shall enjoy the rights of suffrage involves our national existence; for, if the const.i.tutional rights of the humblest citizen may be invaded with impunity, laws interpreted on the side of injustice, judicial decisions based not on reason, sound argument, nor the spirit and letter of our declarations and theories of government, but on the customs of society and what dead men are supposed to have thought, not what they said--what will the rights of the ruling powers even be in the future with a people educated into such modes of thought and action? The treatment of every individual in a community--in our courts, prisons, asylums, of every cla.s.s of pet.i.tioners before congress--strengthens or undermines the foundations of that temple of liberty whose corner-stones were laid one century ago with bleeding hands and anxious hearts, with the hardships, privations, and sacrifices of a seven years" war.
He who is able from the conflicts of the present to forecast the future events, cannot but contemplate with anxiety the fate of this republic, unless our const.i.tution be at once subjected to a thorough emendation, making it more comprehensively democratic.
A review of the history of our nation during the century will show the American people that all the obstacles that have impeded their political, moral and material progress from the dominion of slavery down to the present epidemic of political corruptions, are directly and indirectly traceable to the federal const.i.tution as their source and support. Hence the necessity of prompt and appropriate amendments. Nothing that is incorrect in principle can ever be productive of beneficial results, and no custom or authority is able to alter or overrule this inviolate law of development. The catch-phrases of politicians, such as "organic development," "the logic of events," and "things will regulate themselves," have deceived the thoughtless long enough. There is just one road to safety, and that is to understand the law governing the situation and to bring the nation in line with it.
Grave political problems are solved in two ways--by a wise forethought, and reformation; or by general dissatisfaction, resistance, and revolution.
In closing, let me remind you, gentlemen, that woman has not been a heedless spectator of all the great events of the century, nor a dull listener to the grand debates on human freedom and equality. She has learned the lesson of self-sacrifice, self-discipline, and self-government in the same school with the heroes of American liberty.[29]
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, of New York, corresponding secretary of the a.s.sociation, said: _Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee_--You have heard the general argument for woman from Mrs. Stanton, but there are women here from all parts of the Union, and each one feels that she must say a word to show how united we stand. It is because we have respect for law that we come before you to-day. We recognize the fact that in good law lies the security of all our rights, but as woman has been denied the constructive rights of the declaration and const.i.tution, she is obliged to ask for a direct recognition in the adoption of a sixteenth amendment.
The first principle of liberty is division of power. In the country of the czar or the sultan there is no liberty of thought or action. In limited monarchies power is somewhat divided, and we find larger liberty and a broader civilization. Coming to the United States we find a still greater division of power, a still more extended liberty--civil, religious, political. No nation in the world is as respected as our own; no t.i.tle so proud as that of American citizen; it carries with it abroad a protection as large as did that of Rome two thousand years ago. But as proud as is this name of American citizen, it brings with it only shame and humiliation to one-half of the nation. Woman has no part nor lot in the matter. The pride of citizenship is not for her, for woman is still a political slave. While the form of our government seems to include the whole people, one-half of them are denied a right to partic.i.p.ate in its benefits, are denied the right of self-government. Woman equally with man has natural rights; woman equally with man is a responsible being.
It is said women are not fit for freedom. Well, then, secure us freedom and make us fit for it. Macaulay said many politicians of his time were in the habit of laying it down as a self-evident proposition that no people were fit to be free till they were in a condition to use their freedom; "but," said Macaulay, "this maxim is worthy of the fool in the old story, who resolved not to go into the water till he had learned to swim. If men [or women]
are to wait for liberty till they become good and wise in slavery, they may indeed wait forever."
There has been much talk about precedent. Many women in this country vote upon school questions, and in England at all munic.i.p.al elections. I wish to call your attention a little further back, to the time that the Saxons first established free government in England. Women, as well as men, took part in the Witenagemote, the great national council of our Saxon ancestors in England. When Whightred, king of Kent, in the seventh century, a.s.sembled the national legislature at Baghamstead to enact a new code of laws, the queen, abbesses, and many ladies of quality signed the decrees. Also, at Beaconsfield, the abbesses took part in the council. In the reign of Henry III. four women took seats in parliament, and in the reign of Edward I. ten ladies were called to parliament and helped to govern Great Britain. Also, in 1252, Henry left his Queen Elinor as keeper of the great seal, or lord chancellor, while he went abroad. She sat in the Aula Regia, the highest court of the kingdom, holding the highest judicial power in great Britain. Not only among our forefathers in Britain do we find that women took part in government, but, going back to the Roman Empire, we find the Emperor Heliogabalus introducing his mother into the senate, and giving her a seat near the consuls. He also established a senate of women, which met on the Collis Quirinalis. When Aurelian was emperor he favored the representation of women, and determined to revive this senate, which in lapse of time had fallen to decay. Plutarch mentions that women sat and deliberated in councils, and on questions of peace and war. Hence we have precedents extending very far back into history.
It is sometimes said that women do not desire freedom. But I tell you the desire for freedom lives in every heart. It may be hidden as the water of the never-freezing, rapid-flowing river Neva is hidden. In the winter the ice from Lake LaG.o.da floats down till it is met by the ice setting up from the sea, when they unite and form a compact ma.s.s over it. Men stand upon it, sledges run over it, splendid palaces are built upon it; but beneath all the Neva still rapidly flows, itself unfrozen. The presence of these women before you shows their desire for freedom. They have come from the North, from the South, from the East, from the West, and from the far Pacific slope, demanding freedom for themselves and for all women.
Our demands are often met by the most intolerable tyranny. The Albany _Law Journal_, one of the most influential legal journals of the great State of New York, had the a.s.surance a few years ago to tell Miss Anthony and myself if we were not suited with "our laws" we could leave the country. What laws did they mean? Men"s laws. If we were not suited with these men"s laws, made by them to protect themselves, we could leave the country. We were advised to expatriate ourselves, to banish ourselves. But we shall not do it. It is our country, and we shall stay here and change the laws. We shall secure their amendment, so that under them there shall be exact and permanent political equality between men and women. Change is not only a law of life; it is an essential proof of the existence of life. This country has attained its greatness by ever enlarging the bounds of freedom.
In our hearts we feel that there is a word sweeter than mother, home, or heaven. That word is LIBERTY. We ask it of you now. We say to you, secure to us this liberty--the same liberty you have yourselves. In doing this you will not render yourselves poor, but will make us rich indeed.
Mrs. STEWART of Delaware, in ill.u.s.trating the folly of adverse arguments based on woman"s ignorance of political affairs, gave an amusing account of her colored man servant the first time he voted. He had been full of bright antic.i.p.ations of the coming election day, and when it dawned at last, he asked if he could be spared from his work an hour or so, to vote. "Certainly, Jo,"
said she, "by all means; go to the polls and do your duty as a citizen." Elated with his new-found dignity, Jo ran down the road, and with a light heart and shining face deposited his vote.
On his return Mrs. Stewart questioned him as to his success at the polls. "Well," said he, "first one man nabbed me and gave me the tickets he said I ought to vote, and then another man did the same. I said yes to both and put the tickets in my pocket. I had no use for those Republican or Democratic bits of paper." "Well, Jo," said Mrs. Stewart, "what did you do?" "Why I took that piece of paper that I paid $2.50 for and put it in the box. I knew that was worth something." "Alas! Jo," said his mistress, "you voted your tax receipt, so your first vote has counted nothing." Do you think, gentlemen, said Mrs. Stewart, that such women as attend our conventions, and speak from our platform, could make so ludicrous a blunder? I think not.
The Rev. OLYMPIA BROWN, a delegate from Connecticut, addressed the committee as follows: _Gentlemen of the Committee_--I would not intrude upon your time and exhaust your patience by any further hearing upon this subject if it were not that men are continually saying to us that we do not want the ballot; that it is only a handful of women that have ever asked for it; and I think by our coming up from these different States, from Delaware, from Oregon, from Missouri, from Connecticut, from New Hampshire, and giving our testimony, we shall convince you that it is not a few merely, but that it is a general demand from the women in all the different States of the Union; and if we come here with stammering tongues, causing you to laugh by the very absurdity of the manner in which we advocate our opinions, it will only convince you that it is not a few "gifted" women, but the rank and file of the women of our country unaccustomed to such proceedings as these, who come here to tell you that we all desire the right of suffrage. Nor shall our mistakes and inability to advocate our cause in an effective manner be an argument against us, because it is not the province of voters to conduct meetings in Washington. It is rather their province to stay at home and quietly read the proceeding of members of congress, and if they find these proceedings correct, to vote to return them another year. So that our very mistakes shall argue for us and not against us.
In the ages past the right of citizenship meant the right to enjoy or possess or attain all those civil and political rights that are enjoyed by any other citizen. But here we have a cla.s.s who can bear the burdens and punishments of citizens, but cannot enjoy their privileges and rights. But even the meanest may pet.i.tion, and so we come with our thousands of pet.i.tions, asking you to protect us against the unjust discriminations imposed by State laws. Nor do we find that there is any conflict between the duties of the national government and the functions of the State.
The United States government has to do with general interests, but everything that is special, has to do with sectional interests, belongs to the State. Said Charles Sumner:
The State exercises its proper functions when it makes local laws, promotes local charities, and by its local knowledge brings the guardianship of government to the homes of its citizens; but the State transcends its proper functions when in any manner it interferes with those equal rights recorded in the Declaration of Independence.
The State is local, the United States is universal. And, says Charles Sumner, "What can be more universal than the rights of man?" I would add, "What can be more universal than the rights of woman?" extending further than the rights of man, because woman is the heaven-appointed guardian of the home; because woman by her influence and in her office as an educator makes the character of man; because women are to be found wherever men are to be found, as their mothers bringing them into the world, watching them, teaching them, guiding them into manhood. Wherever there is a home, wherever there is a human interest, there is to be felt the interest of women, and so this cause is the most universal of any cause under the sun; and, therefore, it has a claim upon the general government. Therefore we come pet.i.tioning that you will protect us in our rights, by aiding us in the pa.s.sage of the sixteenth amendment, which will make the const.i.tution plain in our favor, or by such actions as will enable us to cast our ballots at the polls without being interfered with by State authorities. And we hope you will do this at no distant day. I hope you will not send my sister, the honorable lady from Delaware, to the boy, Jo, to ask him to define her position in the republic. I hope you will not bid any of these women at home to ask ignorant men whether they may be allowed to discharge their obligations as citizens in the matter of suffrage. I hope you will not put your wives and mothers in the power of men who have never given a half hour"s consideration to the subject of government, and who are wholly unfit to exercise their judgment as to whether women should have the right of suffrage.
I will not insult your common sense by bringing up the old arguments as to whether we have the right to vote. I believe every man of you knows we have that right--that our right to vote is based upon the same authority as yours. I believe every man understands that, according to the declaration and the const.i.tution, women should be allowed to exercise the right of suffrage, and therefore it is not necessary for me to do more than bear my testimony from the State of Connecticut, and tell you that the women from the rank and file, the law-abiding women, desire the ballot; not only that they desire it, but they mean to have it. And to accomplish this result I need not remind you that they will work year in and year out, that they will besiege members of congress everywhere, and that they will come here year after year asking you to protect them in their rights and to see that justice is done in the republic. Therefore, for your own peace, we hope you will not keep us waiting a long time. The fact that some States have made, temporarily, some good laws, does not weaken our demand upon you for the protection which the ballot gives to every citizen. Our interests are still uncared for, and we do not wish to be thus sent from pillar to post to get our rights. We wish to take our stand as citizens of the United States, as we have been declared to be by the Supreme Court, and we wish to be protected in the rights of citizenship. We hope the day is at hand when our prayers will be heard by you. Let us have at an early day in the _Congressional Record_, a report of the proceedings of this committee, and the action of the Senate in favor of woman"s right to vote.
Brief remarks were also made by Mrs. Lawrence of Ma.s.sachusetts, Mary A. Thompson, M. D., of Oregon, Mary Powers Filley of New Hampshire, Mrs. Blake of New York, Mrs. Hooker of Connecticut, and Sara Andrews Spencer of Washington.