History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 2/Chapter 17
CHAPTER XVII.
CONGRESSIONAL ACTION.
Liberty victorious over slavery on the battle-field had now more powerful enemies to encounter at Washington. The slave set free; the master conquered; the South desolate; the two races standing face to face, sharing alike the sad results of war, turned with appealing looks to the General Government, as if to say, "How stand we now?" "What next? "Questions, our statesmen, beset with dangers, fears for the nation's life, of party divisions, of personal defeat, were wholly unprepared to answer. The reconstruction of the South involved the reconsideration of the fundamental principles of our Government, arid the natural rights of man. The nation's heart was thrilled with prolonged debates in Congress and State Legislatures, in the pulpits and public journals, and at every fireside on these vital questions, which took final shape in three historic amendments. The first point, his emancipation, settled, the political status of the negro was next in order; and to this end various propositions were submitted to Congress. But to demand his enfranchisement on the broad principle of natural rights, was hedged about with difficulties, as the logical result of such action must be the enfranchisement of all ostracised classes; not only the white women of the entire country, but the slave women of the South. Though our Senators and Representatives had an honest aversion to any proscriptive legislation against loyal women, in view of their varied and self-sacrificing work during the war, yet the only way they could open the constitutional door just wide enough to let the black man pass in, was to introduce the word "male" into the national Constitution. After the generous devotion of such women as Anna Carroll and Anna Dickinson in sustaining the policy of the Republicans, both in peace and war, they felt it would come with an ill-grace from that party, to place new barriers in woman's path to freedom. But how could the amendment be written without the word "male"? was the question.
Robert Dale Owen, being at Washington and behind the scenes at the time, sent copies of the various bills to the officers of the Loyal League in New York, and related to them some of the amusing discussions. One of the Committee proposed "persons" instead of "males." "That will never do," said another, "it would enfranchise all the Southern wenches." "Suffrage for black men will be all the strain the Republican party can stand," said another. Charles Sumner said, years afterward, that he wrote over nineteen pages of foolscap to get rid of the word "male" and yet keep "negro suffrage" as a party measure intact; but it could not be done.
Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, ever on the watch-tower for legislation affecting women, were the first to see the full significance of the word "male" in the 14th Amendment, and at once sounded the alarm, and sent out petitions[1] for a constitutional amendment to "prohibit the States from disfranchising any of their citizens on the ground of sex."[2]
Miss Anthony, who had spent the year in Kansas, started for New York the moment she saw the propositions before Congress to put the word "male" into the National Constitution, and made haste to rouse the women in the East to the fact that the time had come to begin vigorous work again for woman's enfranchisement.[3] Mr. Tilton (December 27, 1865) proposed the formation of a National Equal Rights Society, demanding suffrage for black men and women alike, of which "Wendell Phillips should be President, and the National Anti-Slavery Standard its organ. Mr. Beecher promised to give a lecture (January 30th) for the benefit of this universal suffrage movement. The New York Independent (Theodore Tilton, editor) gave the following timely and just rebuke of the proposed retrogressive legislation:
A LAW AGAINST WOMEN.
The spider-crab walks backward. Borrowing this creature's mossy legs, two or three gentlemen in Washington are seeking to fix these upon the Federal Constitution, to make that instrument walk backward in like style. For instance, the Constitution has never laid any legal disabilities upon woman. Whatever denials of rights it formerly made to our slaves, it denied nothing to our wives and daughters. The legal rights of an American woman—for instance, her right to her own property, as against a squandering husband; or her right to her own children, as against a malicious father—have grown, year by year, into a more generous and just statement in American laws. This beautiful result is owing in great measure to the persistent efforts of many noble women who, for years past, both publicly and privately, both by pen and speech, have appealed to legislative committees, and to the whole community, for an enlargement of the legal and civil status of their fellow-country women. Signal, honorable, and beneficent have been the works and words of Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria Child, Paulina W. Davis, Abby Kelly Foster, Frances D. Gage, Lucy Stone, Caroline H. Dall, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and many others. Not in all the land lives a poor woman, or a widow, who does not owe some portion of her present safety under the law to the brave exertions of these faithful laborers in a good cause.
Now, all forward-looking minds know that, sooner or later, the chief public question in this country will be woman's claim to the ballot. The Federal Constitution, as it now stands, leaves this question an open one for the several States to settle as they choose. Two bills, however, now lie before Congress proposing to array the fundamental law of the land against the multitude of American women by ordaining a denial of the political rights of a whole sex. To this injustice we object totally! Such an amendment is a snap judgment before discussion; it is an obstacle to future progress; it is a gratuitous bruise inflicted upon the most tender and humane sentiment that has ever entered into American politics. If the present Congress is not called to legislate for the rights of women, let it not legislate against them.
But Americans now live who shall not go down into the grave till they have left behind them a Republican Government; and no republic is Republican which denies to half its citizens those rights which the Declaration of Independence, and which a true Christian Democracy make equal to all. Meanwhile, let us break the legs of the spider-crab!While the 13th Amendment was pending, Senator Sumner wrote many letters to the officers of the Loyal League, saying, "Send on the petitions; they give me opportunity for speech." "You are doing a noble work." "I am grateful to your Association for what you have done to arouse the country to insist on the extinction of slavery." And our petitions were sent again and again, 300,000 strong, and months after the measure was carried, they still rolled in from every quarter where the tracts and appeals had been scattered. But when the proposition for the 14th Amendment was pending, and the same women petitioned for their own civil and political rights, they received no letters of encouragement from Republicans nor Abolitionists; and now came some of the severest trials the women demanding the right of suffrage were ever called on to endure. Though loyal to the Government and the rights of the colored race, they found themselves in antagonism with all with whom they had heretofore sympathized. Though Unionists, Republicans, and Abolitionists, they could not without protest see themselves robbed of their birth-right as citizens of the republic by the proposed amendment. Republicans presented their petitions in a way to destroy their significance, as petitions for "universal suffrage," which to the public meant "manhood suffrage." Abolitionists refused to sign them, saying, "This is the negro's hour."[4] Colored men themselves opposed us, saying, do not block our chance by lumbering the Republican party with Woman Suffrage.
The Democrats readily saw how completely the Republicans were stultifying themselves and violating every principle urged in the debates on the 13th Amendment, and volunteered to help the women fight their battle. The Republicans had declared again and again that suffrage was a natural right that belonged to every citizen that paid taxes and helped to support the State. They had declared that the ballot was the only weapon by which one class could protect itself against the aggressions of another. Charles Sumner had rounded out one of his eloquent periods, by saying, "The ballot is the Columbiad of our political life, and every citizen who holds it is a full-armed monitor."
The Democrats had listened to all the glowing debates on these great principles of freedom until the argument was as familiar as a, b, c, and continually pressed the Republicans with their own weapons. Then those loyal women were taunted with having gone over to the Democrats and the Disunionists. But neither taunts nor persuasions moved them from their purpose to prevent, if possible, the introduction of the word "male "into the Federal Constitution, where it never had been before. They could not see the progress—in purging the Constitution of all invidious distinctions on the ground of color—while creating such distinctions for the first time in regard to sex.
In the face of all opposition they scattered their petitions broadcast, and in one session of Congress they rolled in upwards of ten thousand. The Democrats treated the petitioners with respect, and called attention in every way to the question.[5] But even such
Republicans as Charles Sumner presented them, if at all, under protest. A petition from Massachusetts, with the name of Lydia Maria Child at the head, was presented by the great Senator under protest as "most inopportune!" As if there could be a more fitting time for action than when the bills were pending.
During the morning hour of February 21st, Senator Henderson, of Missouri, presented a petition from New York.
SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN
Mr. Henderson: I present the petition of Mrs. Gerrit Smith and twenty-seven other ladies of the United States, the most of them from the State of New York, praying that the right of suffrage be granted to women. Along with the petition I received a note, stating as follows:
The right of petition is a sacred right, and whatever may be thought of giving the ballot to women, the right to ask it of the Government can not be denied them. I present this petition without any apology. Indeed, I present it with pleasure. It is respectful in its terms, and is signed by ladies occupying so high a place in the moral, social, and intellectual world, that it challenges at our hands, at least a respectful consideration. The distinguished Senators from Massachusetts and from Illinois must make their own defense against the assumed inconsistency of their position. They are abundantly able to give reasons for their faith in all things; whether they can give reasons satisfactory to the ladies in this case, I do not know. The Senators may possibly argue that if women vote at all, the right should not be exercised before the age of twenty-one; that they are generally married at or before that age, and that when married, they become, or ought to become, merged in their husbands; that the act of one must be regarded as the act of the other; that the good of society demands this unity for purposes of social order; that political differences should not be permitted to disturb the peace of a relation so sacred. The honorable Senators will be able to find authority for this position, not only in the common law, approved as it is by the wisdom and experience of ages, but in the declaration of the first man, on the occasion of the first marriage, when he said, "This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." It may be answered, however, that the wife, though one with her husband, at least constitutes his better half, and if the married man be entitled to but one vote, the unmarried man should be satisfied with less than half a vote. [Laughter]. Having some doubts, myself, whether beyond a certain age, to which I have not yet arrived, such a man should be entitled to a vote or even half a vote, I leave the difficulty to be settled by my friend from Massachusetts and the fair petitioners. The petitioners claim, that as we are proposing to enfranchise four million emancipated slaves, equal and impartial justice alike demands the suffrage for fifteen million women . At first view the proposition can scarcely be met with denial, yet reasons "thick as blackberries" and strong as truth itself may be urged in favor of the ballot in the one case, which can not be urged in the other.
Mr. Saulsbury: I rise to a point of order. My point of order is, that a man who has lived an old bachelor as long as the Senator from Missouri has, has no right to talk about women's rights. [Laughter].
The President pro tem.: The chair moves that is not a point of order; and the Senator from Missouri will proceed.
Mr. Henderson: I had no idea that that was a point of order, sir. Whatever may be said theoretically about the elective franchise as a natural right, in practice at least, it has always been denied in the most liberal States to more than half the population. It is withheld from those whose crimes prove them devoid of respect for social order, and generally from those whose ignorance or imbecility unfits them for an intelligent appreciation of the duties of citizens and the blessings of good government. To women the suffrage has been denied in almost all Governments, not for the reasons just stated, but because it is wholly unnecessary as a means of their protection. In the government of nature the weaker animals and insects, dependent on themselves for safety and life, are provided with means of defense. The bee has its sting and the despised serpent its deadly poison. So, in the Governments of men, the weak must be provided with power to inspire fear at least in the strong, if not to command their respect. Political power was claimed originally by the people as a means of protecting themselves against the usurpations of those in power, whose interests or caprices might lead to their oppression. Hence came the republican system. But it was never thought the interests or caprices of men could lead to a denial of the civil rights or social supremacy of woman. People of one race have always been unjust to those of another. The ignorant and sordid Jew despised the Samaritan and scoffed at the idea of his equality. To him the learned and accomplished Greek was a barbarian, and all rights were denied him except those simple rights accorded to the most degraded Gentile. Chinamen, to-day, believe as firmly in the superiority of the celestial race as Americans do in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon. All races of men are unjust to other races. They are unjust because of pride. That very pride makes them just to the women of their own race. There may be men who have prejudice against race; they are less than men who have prejudice against sex. The social position of woman in the United States is such that no civil right can be denied her. The women here have entire charge of the social and moral world. Hence she must be educated. First impressions are those which bend the mind to noble or ignoble action, and these impressions are made by mothers. To have intelligent voters we must have intelligent mothers. To have free men we must have free women. The voter from this source receives his moral and intellectual training. Woman makes the voter, and should not descend from her lofty sphere to engage in the angry contests of her creatures. She makes statesmen, and her gentle influence, like the finger of the angel pointing to the path of duty, would be lost in the controversies of political strife. She makes the soldier, infuses courage and patriotism in his youthful heart, and hovers like an invisible spirit over the field of battle, urging him on to victory or death in defense of the right. Hence woman takes no musket to the battle-field. Here, as in politics, her personal presence would detract from her power. Galileo, Newton, and La Place could not fitly discuss the laws of planetary motion with ignorant rustics at a country inn. The learned divine who descends from the theological seminary to wrangle upon doctrinal points with the illiterate, stubborn teacher of a small country flock must lose half his influence for good. Our Government is built as our Capitol is built. The strong and brawny arms of men, like granite blocks, support its arches; but woman, lovely woman, the true goddess of Liberty, crowns its dome.
Mr. Yates: I wish to ask the Senator from Missouri a question. I understand that he has introduced a resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States so that there shall be no distinction on account of color. Will the gentleman accept an amendment to that resolution that there shall be no distinction in regard to sex?
Mr. Henderson: I have given my views, I think, very distinctly, as the Senator would have found if he had listened, in the latter part of what I have just stated in reference to the question of voting. In reply to what he has said, I will say that I do not think that on the mere presentation of a petition it is in order to discuss the merits of the petition. I hope, therefore, that the Senator will not insist upon entering into a question of that sort now.
Mr. Yates: I shall not do so. I only wish to say that I am not proposing to amend the Constitution. I simply desire to give rights to those who have rights under the Constitution as it has been amended. When I propose to amend the Constitution then the question will come up whether I will allow women to vote or not.
Mr. Sumner: Before this petition passes out of sight I wish to make one observation, and only one. The Senator from Missouri began by an allusion to myself and to a remark which fell from me when I presented the other day a petition from women of the United States praying for the ballot. I took occasion then to remark that in my opinion the petition at that time was not judicious. That was all that I said. I did not undertake to express my opinion on the great question whether women should vote or should not vote. I did venture to say that in my opinion it was not judicious for them at this moment to bring forward their claims so as to compromise in any way the great question of equal rights for an enfranchised race now before Congress. The Senator has quoted a letter suggesting that I did not present the petition in a creditable way. I have now to felicitate my excellent friend on the creditable way in which he has performed his duty. [Laughter].
Mr. Yates: Allow me to say that I think the two gentlemen, one of whom has arrived at the age of forty-nine and the other sixty-three, have no right to discuss the question of women's rights in the Senate. [Laughter].
The President pro tem.: Will the Senator from Missouri suggest the disposition he wishes made of this petition? Mr. Henderson: Let it lie on the table.
The President pro tem.: That order will be made.
The wriggling, the twisting, the squirming of the Republicans at this crisis under the double fire of the Democrats and the women, would have been laughable, had not their proposed action been so outrageously unjust and ungrateful. The tone of the Republican press[6] was stale, flat, and unprofitable. But while their journals were thus unsparing in their ridicule and criticism of the loyal women who had proved themselves so patriotic and self-sacrificing, they would grant them no space in their columns to reply.[7]
The second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress is memorable for an able debate in the Senate on the enfranchisement of woman, on the bill[8] "to regulate the franchise in the District of Columbia," which proposed extending the suffrage to the "males" of the colored race. On Monday, December 10, 1866, Senator Cowan, of Pennsylvania, moved to amend the amendment by striking out the word "male" before the word person. This debate in the Senate lasted three entire days, and during that time the comments of the press were as varied as they were multitudinous. Even Horace Greeley,[9] who had ever been a true friend to woman, in favor of all her rights, industrial, educational, and political, said the time had not yet come for her enfranchisement.
From The Congressional Globe of December 11th, 12th, 13th, 1866, we give the debates on Mr. Cowan's amendment. In moving to drop the word "male" from the District of Columbia Suffrage bill, he said:
Mr. President: It is very well known that I have always heretofore been opposed to any change of the kind contemplated by this bill; but while opposing that change I have uniformly asserted that if it became inevitable, if the change was certain, I should insist upon this change as an accompaniment. It is agreed—for I suppose when my honorable friend from Rhode Island [Mr. Anthony] and myself agree to it, it will be taken to be the universal sentiment of the body—that the right of suffrage is not a natural right, but a conventional right, and that it may be limited by the community, the body-politic, in any manner they see fit and consistent with their sense of propriety and safety.
The proposition now before the Senate is to confer on the colored people of this District the right of franchise; that is, the advocates of the bill say that that will be safe and prudent and proper, and will contribute, of course, to the happiness of the mass of the inhabitants of the District; and they further say that no reason can be given why a man of one color should not vote as well as a man of another color, especially when both are equally members of the same society, equally subjected to its burdens, equally to be called upon to defend it in the field, and all that. I agree to a great portion of that. I do not know and never did know any very good reason why a black man should not vote as well as a white man, except simply that all the white men said, "We do not like it." I do not know of any very good reason why a black woman should not marry a white man, but I suppose the white man would give about the same reason, he does not like to do it. There are certain things in which we do not like to go into partnership with the people of different races and between whom and ourselves there are tribal antipathies. It is now proposed to break down that barrier, so far as political power may be concerned, and admit both equally to share in this privilege; and since the barrier is to be broken down, and since there is to be a change, I desire another change, for which I think there is quite as good a reason, and a little better, perhaps, than that offered for this. I propose to extend this privilege not only to males, but to females as well: and I should like to hear even the most astute and learned Senator upon this floor give any better reason for the exclusion of females from the right of suffrage than there is for the exclusion of negroes. I want to hear that reason. I should like to know it.
Now, for my part, I very much prefer, if the franchise is to be widened, if more people are to be admitted to the exercise of it, to allow females to participate than I would negroes; but certainly I shall never give my consent to the disfranchisement of females who live in society, who pay taxes, who are governed by the laws, and who have a right, I think, even in that respect, at times to throw their weight in the balance for the purpose of correcting the corruptions and the viciousness to which the male portions of the family tend. I think they have a right to throw their influence into the scale; and I should like to hear any reason to be offered why this should not be. Taxation and representation ought to go hand in hand. That we have heard here until all ears have been wearied with it. If taxation and representation are to go hand in hand, why should they not go hand in hand with regard to the female as well as the male? Is there any reason why Mrs. Smith should be governed by a goat-head of a mayor any more than John Smith, if he could correct it? He is paid by taxes levied and assessed on her property just in the same way as he is paid out of taxes levied on the property of John. If she commits an offense she is subjected to be tried, convicted, and punished by the other sex alone; and she has no protection whatever in any way either as to her property, her person, or to her liberty very often. There is another thing, too. A great many reflections have been made upon the white race keeping the black in slavery. I should like to know whether we have not partially kept the female sex in a condition of slavery, particularly that part of them who labor for a living? I do not know of any reason in the world why a woman should be confined to two dollars a week when a man gets two dollars a day and does not do any more work than she does, and does not do that which he does do quite so well at all times.
Mr. President, if we are to venture upon this wide sea of universal suffrage, I object to manhood suffrage. I do not know anything specially about manhood which dedicates it to this purpose more than exists about womanhood. Womanhood to me is rather the more exalted of the two. It is purer; it is higher; it is holier; and it is not purchasable at the same price that the other is, in my judgment. If you want to widen the franchise so as to purify your ballot-box, throw the virtue of the country into it; throw the temperance of the country into it; throw the purity of the country into it; throw the angel element, if I may so express myself, into it. [Laughter]. Let there be as little diabolism as possible, but as much of the divinity as you can get. Therefore, Mr. President, I put this as a serious question for the consideration of this body. In the presence of the tendencies of the age and in recognition of this movement, which my honorable friend from Massachusetts is always talking about, and of which he seems to have had premonition long before it came to any of the rest of us—I say in the face of this movement and in recognition of it, I earnestly beg all patriots here to think of this proposition. It is inevitable. How are you to resist when it is made the demand of fifteen million American females for this right, which can be granted and which can be as safely exercised in their hands as it can in the hands of negroes? And I would ask gentlemen while they are bestowing this ballot which has such merit in it, which has such a healing efficacy for all ills, which educates people, and which elevates them above the common level of mankind, and which, above all, protects them, how they will go home and look in the face their sewing women, their laboring women, their single women, their taxed women, their overburdened women, their women who toil till midnight for the barest subsistence, and say to them, "We have it not for you; we could give it to the negro, but we could not give it to you."
How would the honorable Senator from Massachusetts face the recent meeting of the Equal Rights Society in Philadelphia? How would he answer the potent arguments which were offered there and which challenge an answer even from the Senate of the United States, when made by women of the highest intellect, perhaps, on the planet, and women who are determined, knowing their rights, to maintain them and to secure them? I ask honorable Senators of his faith how they are to answer those ladies there? If this is refused, how are Senators to answer, especially those who recognize the onward force of this movement, who are up to the tendencies of the times, who desire to keep themselves in front of the great army of humanity which is marching forward just as certainly to universal suffrage as to universal manhood suffrage. Therefore, Mr. President, I offer this amendment and ask for the yeas and nays upon it.
The yeas and nays were ordered.
Mr. Anthony: I move that the Senate do now adjourn. ["Oh, no!"]
Mr. Wilson: I hope not.
The President pro tem.: The motion is not debatable and must be put unless withdrawn.
The motion was agreed to; and the Senate adjourned.
SUFFRAGE IN THE DISTRICT.
In Senate, Tuesday, Dec. 11, 1866.
The President pro tempore: If there be no further morning business, and no motion is interposed, the chair, although the morning hour has not expired, will call up the unfinished business, which is the bill (S, No. 1) to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia, the pending question being on the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan] to strike out the word "male" before the word "person" in the second line of the first section of the amendment, reported by the Committee on the District of Columbia as a substitute for the original bill.
Mr. Anthony: I suppose the Senator from Pennsylvania introduced this amendment rather as a satire upon the bill itself, or if he had any serious intention it was only a mischievous one to injure the bill; but it will not probably have that effect, for I suppose nobody will vote for it except the Senator himself, who can hardly avoid it, and I, who shall vote for it because it accords with a conclusion to which I have been brought by considerable study upon the subject of suffrage. I do not contend for female suffrage on the ground that it is a natural right, because I believe that suffrage is a right derived from society, and that society is competent to impose upon the exercise of that right whatever conditions it chooses. I hold that the suffrage is a delegated trust—a trust delegated to certain designated classes of society—and that the whole body-politic has the same right to withdraw any part of that trust, that we have to withdraw any part of the powers or the trusts that we have imposed upon any executive officer, and that it is no more a punishment to restrict the suffrage, and thereby deprive certain persons of the exercise of that right who have heretofore exercised it, than it is a punishment on the Secretary of the Treasury if we should take from him the appointment of certain persons whose appointment is now vested in him. The power that confers in each case has the right to withdraw.
The true basis of suffrage, of course, is intelligence and virtue; but as we can not define those, as we can not draw the line that shall mark the amount of intelligence and virtue that any individual possesses, we come as near as we can to it by imperfect conditions. It certainly will not be contended that the feminine part of mankind are so much below the masculine in point of intelligence as to disqualify them from exercising the right of suffrage on that account. If it be asserted and conceded that the feminine intellect is less vigorous, it must also be allowed that it is more acute; if it is not so strong to strike, it is quicker to perceive. But at all events, it will not be contended that there is such a difference in the intellectual capacity of the sexes as that that alone should be a disqualification from the exercise of the right of suffrage. Still less will it be contended that the female part of creation is less virtuous than the masculine. On the contrary, it will be conceded by every one that morality and good order, religion, charity, and all good works appertain rather more to the feminine than to the masculine race.
The argument that women do not want to vote is no argument at all, because if the right to vote is conferred upon them they can exercise it or not, as they choose. It is not a compulsory exercise of power on their part. But I think that argument is partly disproved by the Convention to which the Senator from Pennsylvania referred yesterday, whose arguments he said were worthy of consideration even in this Chamber. I think they are, and I think it would be very difficult for any one in this Chamber to disprove them. Nor is it a fair statement of the case to say that the man represents the woman in the exercise of suffrage, because it is an assumption on the part of the man; it is an involuntary representation so far as the woman is concerned. Representation implies a certain delegated power, and a certain responsibility on the part of the representative toward the party represented. A representation to which the represented party does not assent is no representation at all, but is adding insult to injury. When the American Colonies complained that they ought not to be taxed unless they were represented in the British Parliament, it would have been rather a singular answer to tell them that they were represented by Lord North, or even by the Earl of Chatham. The gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber who say that the States lately in rebellion are entitled to immediate representation in this Chamber would hardly be satisfied if we should tell them that my friend from Massachusetts represented South Carolina, and my friend from Michigan represented Alabama. They would hardly be satisfied, I think, with that kind of representation.
Nor have we any more right to assume that the women are satisfied with the representation of the men. Where has been the assembly at which this right of representation was conferred? Where was the compact made? What were the conditions? It is wholly an assumption. A woman is a member of a manufacturing corporation; she is a stockholder in a bank; she is a shareholder in a railroad company; she attends all those meetings in person or by proxy, and she votes, and her vote is received. Suppose a woman offering to vote at a meeting of a railroad corporation should be told by one of the men "we represent you, you can not vote," it would be precisely the argument that is now used—that men represent the women in the exercise of the elective franchise. A woman pays a large tax, and the man who drives her coach, the man who waits upon her table, goes to the polls and decides how much of her property shall go to support the public expenses, and what shall be done with it. She has no voice in the matter whatever; she is taxed without representation. The exercise of political power by women is by no means an experiment. There is hardly a country in Europe—I do not think there is any one—that has not at some time of its history been governed by a woman, and many of them very well governed too. There have been at least three empresses of Russia since Peter the Great, and two of them were very wise rulers. Elizabeth raised England to the very height of greatness, and the reign of Anne was illustrious in arms and not less illustrious in letters. A female sovereign supplied to Columbus the means of discovering this country. He wandered foot-sore and weary from court to court, from convent to convent, from one potentate to another, but no man on a throne listened to him, until a female sovereign pledged her jewels to fit out the expedition which "gave a new world to the kingdoms of Castile and Leon." Nor need we cite Anne of Austria, who governed France for ten years, or Marie Theresa, whose reign was so great and glorious. We have two modern instances. A woman is now on the throne of Spain, and a woman sits upon the throne of the mightiest empire in the world. A woman is the high admiral of the most powerful fleet that rests upon the seas. Princes and nobles bow to her, not in the mere homage of gallantry, but as the representative of a sovereignty which has descended to her from a long line of sovereigns, some of the most illustrious of them of her own sex. And shall we say that a woman may properly command an army, and yet can not vote for a Common Councilman in the city of Washington? I know very well this discussion is idle and of no effect, and I am not going to pursue it. I should not have introduced this question, but as it has been introduced, and I intend to vote for the amendment, I desire to declare here that I shall vote for it in all seriousness, because I think it is right. The discussion of this subject is not confined to visionary enthusiasts. It is now attracting the attention of some of the best thinkers in the world, both in this country and in Europe, and one of the very best of them all, John Stuart Mill, in a most elaborate and able paper, has declared his conviction of the right and justice of female suffrage. The time has not come for it, but the time is coming. It is coming with the progress of civilization and the general amelioration of the race, and the triumph of truth and justice and equal rights.
Mr. Williams:Mr. President, to extend the right of suffrage to the negroes in this country I think is necessary for their protection; but to extend the right of suffrage to women, in my judgment, is not necessary for their protection. For that reason, as well as for others, I shall vote against the amendment proposed by the Senator from Pennsylvania, and for the amendment as it was originally introduced by the Senator from Ohio [Mr. Wade]. Negroes in the United States have been enslaved since the formation of the Government. Degradation and ignorance have been their portion; intelligence has been denied to them; they have been proscribed on account of their color; there is a bitter and cruel prejudice against them everywhere, and a large minority of the people of this country to-day, if they had the power, would deprive them of all political and civil rights and reduce them to a state of abject servitude. Women have not been enslaved. Intelligence has not been denied to them; they have not been degraded; there is no prejudice against them on account of their sex; but, on the contrary, if they deserve to be, they are respected, honored, and loved. Wide as the poles apart are the conditions of these two classes of persons. Exceptions I know there are to all rules; but, as a general proposition, it is true that the sons defend and protect the reputation and rights of their mothers; husbands defend and protect the reputation and rights of their wives; brothers defend and protect the reputation and rights of their sisters; and to honor, cherish, and love the women of this country is the pride and the glory of its sons.
When women ask Congress to extend to them the right of suffrage it will be proper to consider their claims. Not one in a thousand of them at this time wants any such thing, and would not exercise the power if it were granted to them. Some few who are seeking notoriety make a feeble clamor for the right of suffrage, but they do not represent the sex to which they belong, or I am mistaken as to the modesty and delicacy which constitute the chief attraction of the sex. Do our intelligent and refined women desire to plunge into the vortex of political excitement and agitation? Would that policy in any way conduce to their peace, their purity, and their happiness? Sir, it has been said that "the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world"; and there is truth as well as beauty in that expression. Women in this country, by their elevated social position, can exercise more influence upon public affairs than they could coerce by the use of the ballot. When God married our first parents in the garden, according to that ordinance they were made "bone of one bone and flesh of one flesh"; and the whole theory of government and society proceeds upon the assumption that their interests are one, that their relations are so intimate and tender that whatever is for the benefit of the one is for the benefit of the other; whatever works to the injury of the one works to the injury of the other. I say, sir, that the more identical and inseparable these interests and relations can be made, the better for all concerned; and the woman who undertakes to put her sex in an antagonistic position to man, who undertakes by the use of some independent political power to contend and fight against man, displays a spirit which would, if able, convert all the now harmonious elements of society into a state of war, and make every home a hell upon earth. Women do not bear their proportion and share, they can not bear their proportion and share of the public burdens. Men represent them in the Army and in the Navy; men represent them at the polls and in the affairs of the Government; and though it be true that individual women do own property that is taxed, yet nine-tenths of the property and the business from which the revenues of the Government are derived are in the hands and belong to and are controlled by the men. Sir, when the women of this country come to be sailors and soldiers; when they come to navigate the ocean and to follow the plow; when they love to be jostled and crowded by all sorts of men in the thoroughfares of trade and business; when they love the treachery and the turmoil of politics; when they love the dissoluteness of the camp and the smoke and the thunder and the blood of battle better than they love the enjoyments of home and family, then it will be time to talk about making the women voters; but until that time the question is not fairly before the country.
Mr. Cowan: Mr. President, I had not intended to say anything on this subject beyond what I offered to the Senate yesterday evening, and I should not do so if it were not for the suggestion of a friend, and I am glad to say a friend who believes as I do, that it is the general supposition that I am not serious and not in earnest in the amendment which I have moved; and I only rise now for the purpose of disabusing the minds of Senators and others from any impression they may have had of that sort.
I am perfectly free to admit that I have always been opposed to change. I do not know why it is. Whether I have felt myself old or not, I have not ranged myself in the category of "old fogies" as yet. Although I feel an indisposition to exchange the "ills we suffer" for "those we know not of," and am not desirous to launch myself away from that which is ascertained and certain, and adventure myself upon a sea of experiment, at the same time I feel as much of that strength, that elasticity, that vigor, and that desire for the advancement of my race, my countrymen, and my kind as anybody can feel. I yield to no one in that respect. All I have asked, and all I have desired heretofore, is that we go surely. I believe with my fathers and my ancestors that to base suffrage upon the white males of twenty-one years of age and upward was a great stride in the world's affairs; that it would be well for the world if its government could progress, could advance upon that basis, and that all the rest of the world who did not happen to be white males of the age of twenty-one years and upward could very well afford to stand back and witness the effect of our experiment. I was of that opinion, I lived in the light of it, and I rejoiced in its success; and when I saw this Rebellion, when I witnessed the differences of opinion which convulsed this part of the Continent; when I saw the fact that one-half of the United States was upon the one side and the other half upon the other side as to the understanding of the true theory of this Government of ours, simple as it may be to the lawyer, complex as it may be when examined more thoroughly, I was more than ever disinclined to widen the suffrage, to intrust the franchise to a larger number of people. I trembled for the success of the experiment; I hesitated as to where it would end. I may say, Mr. President, that I hesitate yet. The question is by no means settled, the difficulty is by no means ended, the controversy is by no means yet concluded.
But the first step taken, from the very initiative of that step, I have announced my ground and my determination. When a bill was up here before, proposing to enlarge and widen the franchise in this District, I stated that if negroes were to vote I would persist in opening the door to females. I said that if the thing were to be taken away from the feudal realms and from feudal reasons, which went on the idea that the man who bore arms, and he alone, was entitled to the exercise of political power, and if it was to be put upon the ground of logic, and if we were to be asked to give a reason for it, and if we were to be compelled to give that reason, I said then, and I say now, "If I have no reason to offer why a negro man shall not vote, I have no reason to offer why a white woman shall not vote." If the negro man is interested in the Government of the country, if he can not trust to the masses of the people that the Government shall be a fair and just Government and that it shall do right to him, then the woman is also interested that this Government shall be fair to woman and fair to the interests of woman. Why not, Mr. President? Are not these interests equal to those of the negro and of his race? I know it has been said that the woman is represented by her husband, represented by the male; and yet we know how she has been represented by her husband in bygone times; we know how she is represented by her barbarian husband; and let him who wants to know how she is represented by her civilized husband go to her speeches made in the recent Woman's Rights Convention. We know how she has been represented by her barbarian husband in the past and is even at the present. She bears his burdens, she bears his children, she nurses them, she does his work, she chops his wood, and she grinds his corn; while he, forsooth, by virtue of this patent of nobility that he has derived, in consequence of his masculinity, from Heaven, confines himself to the manly occupations of hunting and fishing and war.
I should like to hear my honorable friend from Maine [Mr. Morrill], so apt, so pertinent, so eloquent on all questions, discourse upon the title which the male derives in consequence of the fact that he has been a fisher and a hunter and a warrior all the time; and then I should like to know how he would discriminate between that fisher and hunter and warrior, and those Amazons who burnt their right breasts in order that they might the more readily draw the bow and against whose onset no troops of that day were able to stand. I should also like to know from him how it was that the female veterans of the army of Dahomey recently, within the last three or four years, in the face of an escarpment that would have made European veterans, aye, and I might say American veterans tremble, scrambled over that escarpment and carried the city sword in hand.
Now, Mr. President, it is time that we look at these things; and that we look them full in the face. I am always glad and willing to stand upon institutions that have been established in the past; that have been sanctified by time; that have given to men liberty and protection with which they were satisfied. But, sir, when the time comes that we are to make a step forward, then another and different question arises. I am utterly astonished at my honorable friend from Rhode Island who doubted my sincerity in this movement. Why should I not be sincere? Have I not as many interests at stake as he has?
My honorable friend from Oregon [Mr. Williams] thinks this is entirely preposterous. I have no doubt he does, and I give him all credit for honesty and sincerity in the remarks that he has made; but the trouble with him is, and with a great many others—perhaps it is with myself upon some subjects—is that he directs his gaze too long upon a particular point. It is remarkable that when a man who looks long and steadily upon one subject to the exclusion of every other, that subject at last becomes to him the universe itself. I have met fellow-politicians fellow-Senators, and fellow-coworkers in the great battle of life, who really had so long contemplated one subject that it was not within their capacity to see any others.
But it unfortunately happens that in this world there are others besides the negro who suffer. When you have told of the injuries and outrages which prevail on the earth in regard to the negro you have not finished. Another, and in my judgment a much more important personage, comes upon the scene; she lifts the curtain and reveals to you a new drama, and she tells you distinctly that you have not only been tyrannizing over your brother, your sable brother, your brother at the other end of the national antipodes, your troublesome antipathic brother; you have not only been drenching the earth from the East to the far West with the blood of savages of a different color from yours; you have not only left your blood-stained marks in Japan, in China, in the East Indies, everywhere, and in the West, where one of your Christian bishops boasted that six million Mexicans at one time had been sacrificed, and what for? To make them Christians; to make the rest Christians after the six millions had gone. I say this new personage who makes her appearance upon the drama of human affairs informs you that you and your religion, under the conduct of the male, generative, fecundative principle of the sex, have filled the world with blood from one end to the other of it. What for? To give her liberty. She complains to-day; she complains in your most intelligent high places; she complains in your most refined cities; she complains in your halls decorated with a more than Grecian beauty of architecture; she complains where all of past civilization, all of past adornment, and all of past education comes down to satisfy us that we stand upon the very acmé of human progress; she complains that you have been tyrant to her. Mr. President, let me read from the proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. I propose to read from the remarks of Mrs. Gage, a woman, a lady, a lady of brain and intellect, of courage and force; and whether I am in earnest or not, whether I may be charged with being serious or not, no man dare charge Mrs. Gage with not being serious. Mrs. Frances D. Gage said: "I have read speeches and heard a great deal said about the right of suffrage for the freedmen." So have we all, Mr. President; and the probability is that we have been even more afflicted if that can be said to be a punishment, and there is very great difficulty now to ascertain what is punishment in this world. If that can be said to be a punishment, I think this Senate can with at least equal propriety with Mrs. Gage, complain of its extraordinary infliction upon them without any previous trial and conviction. [Laughter]. "What does it mean? Does it mean the male freedman only, or does it mean the freedwoman also? I was glad to hear the voice of Miss Anthony in behalf of her sex." I am glad, Mr. President, that we have a male of that name in this body who emulates the virtues of his more humble sister [laughter], and stands up equally here for the broad rights of humanity as she does. "I know it is said that this is bringing in a new issue." Yes, that is what was said about me yesterday evening. Gentlemen said it was a new issue; we had not talked about this thing here before; no body had thought about it. Why had nobody thought about it? Because nobody was thinking about the actual, real sufferings which human beings were subjected to in this world. Persons thought about such things just in proportion as they reflected themselves upon their future political career. If it became necessary, in order to elect a dozen Senators to this body this winter, that the women should be treated as women ought to be treated, that they should be put upon an equal footing with the men in all respects and enjoy equal rights with men, then I should have great hopes of carrying my amendment, and carrying it in spite of everybody, because then and in that light it would be seen by Senators, and they would be thereby guided. "I know it is said that this is bringing in a new issue. We must bring in new issues."
Now, I want to know what the honorable Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] will say when he finds me advocating this new issue that must be brought in while he lags behind. My honorable friend from Delaware [Mr. Saulsbury] will have immensely more the advantage of him to-day than he had yesterday if he dares lag, because I put the question to him now distinctly, and I do not leave it to his sense of propriety as to whether he shall speak or not speak on this question; I demand that he do speak. I demand that that voice which has been so potential, that voice which has had so much of solemn, I do not say sepulchral wisdom in it heretofore, shall now be heard on the one side or the other of this important question, which involves the fate, the destiny, the liberty of one-half of the people who inhabit this Continent. I know from the generous upswelling of the bosom, which I almost perceive from here in my brother, that he will respond to this sentiment, and make a response of which his State and her progress, having two negroes in the Legislature now [laughter], will be proud. I feel assured of it, and I feel that when suffering humanity in any shape or form, whether it be male or female, whether it be black or white, red or yellow, appeals to him, the appeal will not be in vain, but that he will come to the rescue, and that he will strike the shield of the foremost knight on the other side and defy him to the combat. "We must [said Mrs. Gage][10]bring in new issues. I sat in the Senate Chamber last winter."
And now I beg pardon of my honorable friend from Massachusetts, the other Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner], for any offence that I may do to his modesty; but when I come to consider the recent change which has taken place in his life and habits, I am the better assured that he will endure it. At any other time I should not have dared to introduce this quotation: "I sat in the Senate Chamber last winter [said Mrs. Gage. Last winter, remember] "and heard Charles Sumner's grand speech, which the whole country applauded."
And Mr. President, they did, too, and they did it properly. It was a great, a grand, and a glorious speech; it was the ultimate of all speeches in that direction; and I too applauded with the country, although I too might not have agreed with every part of the speech. I might not have agreed with the speech in general, but it was a great, grand, proud, high, and intellectual effort, at which every American might applaud, and I pardon Mrs. Gage for the manner in which she speaks of it. She has not excelled me in the tribute which I offer here to the honorable Senator from Massachusetts, and which I am glad to lay at his feet: "I sat in the Senate Chamber last winter, and heard Charles Sumner's grand speech which the whole country applauded; and I heard him declare that taxation without representation was tyranny to the freedman."
That was the ring of that speech; that was its key-note; it was the same key-note which stirred his forefathers in 1776; it was the same bugle-blast which called them to the field of Lexington and Bunker Hill ninety years ago; and it is no wonder that Mrs. Gage picks that out as being the residuum, that which was left upon her ear of substance after the music of the honorable Senator's tones had died away, after the brilliancy of his metaphors had faded, after the light which always encircles him upon this subject had gone away. It is no wonder that all that remained of it was that taxation without representation was tyranny. Let me commend it to the honorable Senator, with his keen eye, his good taste, his appreciation of that which is effective, and that which strikes the American heart to the core; let me commend it to him who desires to be the idol of that heart.
"When"—Now, Mr. President, sic transit gloria mundi. "When I afterwards found that he meant only freedom for the male sex, I learned that Charles Sumner fell far short of the great idea of liberty."
All this outpouring, all this magnificent burst of eloquence, all this eclectic combination drawn from all the quarters of the earth, all the sublime talk about the ballot, was merely meant for the question of trousers and petticoats? "Tyranny to the male sex," says Mrs. Gage, and now she goes on, and this right to the point. The proposition here is to give to the male freedman a vote and to ignore the female freedwoman, to be tautological: "I know something of the freedwomen South. Maria—I do not know that she had any other name—when liberated from slavery at Beaufort went to work, and before the year was out she had laid up $1,000."
That is a magnificent Maria, that is a practical Maria. She puts Sterne's Maria and all other Marias, except Ave Maria, in the shade. [Laughter].
"I never heard of any southern white making $1,000 in a year down there. Shall Maria pay a tax and have no voice?" Shall Maria pay a tax and have no voice where the principle is admitted, where the principle is thundered forth, where it is axiomatic, where none dare gainsay it, that taxation without representation is tyranny? "Shall Maria pay a tax and have no voice?" That is the question. That, Mr. President, is the question before the Senate.
"Old Betty"—There is not so much of the classic, not so much of the euphonious, not so much of the salva rosa about Betty as about Maria—"Old Betty, while under my charge, cleared more than that amount free from taxation, and I presume is worth $3,000 to-day."
Think of Betty! "Is she to be taxed in South Carolina to support the aristocracy?" Betty lives in South Carolina, it seems. "Will you be just, or will you be partial to the end of time!"
The marriage relation was alluded to by Mrs. Gage.
And here is a most important part, to which I would direct the attention of my brother Senators as fundamental in two respects—fundamental in the testimony it furnishes of the character of those you now propose to invest with the right of suffrage, fundamental in its character as to the use which they will make of it as to one-half of the people who are in this bill presumed to be the objects of your especial care. The marriage relation was alluded to by Mrs. Gage. "When the positive order was sent to me to compel the marriage of the colored people living together, the women came to me with tears, and said, 'We don't want to be married in the church, because when we are married in the church our husbands treat us just as old massa used to, and whip us if they think we deserve it; but when we ain't married in the church they knows if they tyrannize over us we go and leff 'em.'"
That is the class of male, gentlemen, to whom you propose to give suffrage. These poor women who have to be whipped if the males think they deserve it, are the people to whom you deny it. These are the gentlemen who are to fabricate and make your laws of marriage, who are to fix the causes of divorce in these several States. These are the men, in other words, who are to enact, if it so please them, that upon the marriage the husband becomes seized of all his wife's property, of the personalty absolute and the realty as tenant by courtesy; or perhaps they will have no courtesy about it—and I should not wonder if they had not—and give it to him in fee.
"And the men"—I beg the Senate to remember that I am reading the testimony of Mrs. Gage; unexceptionable testimony: "And the men came to me and said: 'We want you to compel them to be married, for we can't manage them unless you do.'"
I am not certain whether they can always be managed even after they are married. [Laughter]. But this is worse a great deal than before: "'They goes and earns just as much money as we does, and then they goes and spends it, and never asks no questions. Now we wants 'em married in the church, 'cause when they's married in the church we makes em mind.' So in San Domingo establishing the laws of marriage made tyranny for these redeemed slave women."
Mrs. Gage continues: "I would not say one word against marriage, God forbid. It is the noblest institution we have in this country. But let it be a marriage of equality. Let the man and woman stand as equals before the law. Let the freedwoman of the South own the money she earns by her own labor, and give her the right of suffrage; for she knows as much as the freedman. Bring in these elements, and you will achieve a success. But I will stand firmly and determinedly against the oppression that puts the newly emancipated colored woman of South Carolina under subjection to her husband required by the marriage laws of South Carolina. I demand equality on behalf of the freedwoman as well as the freedman."
I might follow Mrs. Gage further; I might detain the Senate here hour after hour reading extracts from the various speeches and essays which have been delivered and made upon this subject within the last few years, and I may again make the challenge which I made yesterday. Let us have a reason why these are not potent to influence our action. Let us be told wherein the object of this argument is defective. Let us be shown why it is, if these things are rights, natural or conventional, that those who have interests are not to participate in them.
I listened to the eloquent and ingenious remarks of my honorable friend from Maine [Mr. Morrill]—old, time-worn, belonging to the region of paleontology, far behind the carboniferous era. I would not undertake to go back there and answer them. All I can do with them is to refer them to the next meeting of the Equal Rights Society, which more than likely will meet in Albany or Boston the next time. There they will be attended to, and there they will be answered in such satisfactory phrase, I have no doubt, as would pale any poor effort of mine in the attempt. I have also listened to my honorable friend from Oregon [Mr. Williams], and still there are the same ancient foot-prints, the same old arguments, the same things that satisfied men thousands of years ago, and which never did satisfy any woman that I know of, the same traveling continually of the tracks of the lion into the cave along with his victim, and nulla "retrorsum vestigia", not a step ever came back. But let me say to my friends that Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mrs. Frances D. Gage, Miss Susan B. Anthony, are upon your heels. They have their banner flung out to the winds; they are after you; and their cry is for justice, and you can not deny it. To deny is to deny the perpetuity of your race.
Now, Mr. President, in regard to this District and this city, here is a fair proposition. It proposes to confer upon all persons above the age of twenty-one years the right to participate in the city government. Is any one afraid of it? Is my honorable friend from Maine afraid of it? He says it shall be confined to the males. He and my friend from Oregon have gone on to tell you that the white males of this city are in a very bad condition; indeed, some of them in such a terrible condition that we are called upon to pass a bill of attainder, or a bill of pains and penalties, and a little ex post facto law in order to reach their tergiversations and perverseness. If that be true, why not incorporate some other element? I do not know much about the female portion of the negroes of this District except what I have seen, and I must confess that although there are a great many respectable persons among the negroes, and many for whom I have considerable regard, yet as a mass they have not impressed me as being a very high style of human development.
When I look along the pavements and about the walks and see them lounging, I am free to say that, without having been previously enlightened on the subject by so much as we have heard upon it recently, I should have had great doubts about conferring on them the right of suffrage. And when I reflect that they have a Freedmen's Bureau to make their contracts for them and to keep them in order, and, it is said, to protect them against the enmity of their white neighbors, even where they have a majority, or nearly a majority, I am not strengthened in my partiality for them by that. And when I reflect that just about this time last year we had great hesitation about adjourning, for fear that the people represented by these males who are now to be invested with the franchise were in an actually starving condition in this District, and that the chief authorities of the District, moved, I have no doubt, by that humanity which ought to characterize them everywhere, investigated the matter and reported to us, we were obliged to appropriate $25,000 to relieve them in their immediate wants; I do not think that speaks so well for the male portion of the African population of this city.
I believe if it were to come to the last resort, that the female Africans of the District of Columbia have more merit, more industry, more of all that which is calculated to make them good and virtuous members of society than the males have. Why should you not throw them in? Why should you throw this batch of males into the ballot-box without any countervailing element which would be efficacious to qualify it and make it better?
To me it is perfectly plain. I have reconciled my mind to negro suffrage, but while I reconcile myself to negro suffrage as inevitable, I hold it to be my bounden duty to insist upon female suffrage at the same time. I am happy to say that in this opinion I am not alone; that while I favor universal suffrage limited by the age of twenty-one years so far, there are others who have been led to this same train of thought with myself. I beg, therefore, to read a letter dated Jefferson, Ohio, November 14, 1866:
"Madam:—Yours of the 9th instant is received, and I desire to say in reply that I am now and ever have been the advocate of equal and impartial suffrage of all citizens of the United States who have arrived at the age of twenty-one years, who are of sound mind, and who have not disqualified themselves by the commission of any offence, without any distinction on account of race, color, or sex. Every argument that ever has been or ever can be adduced to prove that males should have the right to vote, applies with equal if not greater force to prove that females should possess the same right; and were I a citizen of your State I should labor with whatever of ability I possess to ingraft those principles in its constitution.
Yours, very respectfully,B. F. Wade.
"To Susan B. Anthony, Secretary American Equal Rights Association."
Now, Mr. President, I ask whether this has not an orthodox sanction at least. I should like to know who would question, who would dare to question, the orthodoxy of the honorable Senator from Ohio, and who dares tell me that this is such a novelty that it is not to be introduced here as serious, as in earnest? Sir, I say that I am perfectly in earnest, and I say that if this amendment be incorporated in this bill I shall vote for it with all my heart and soul. I beg to be understood that I would not inaugurate the movement, I would not make the change by my own mere motion, because I would not venture upon the change anywhere. That change must rise out of, spring out of, and come up from society generally. It is that thing which the poet has called the vox populi, and which he likens to the vox Dei. When the community spontaneously demands this call, when the community spontaneously demands this action, I yield to it. It is so in this instance. While I yield to the de mand for negro suffrage, I demand at the same time female suffrage; and when I yield to the question of manhood suffrage, I feel assured I throw along the antidote to all the poison which I suppose would accompany the first proposition.
I am not afraid of negro suffrage if you allow female suffrage to go hand in hand with it. I believe that if there is any one influence in the country which will break down this tribal antipathy, which will make the two races one in political harmony and political action, not in actuality as races by amalgamation, but which will induce that harmony and that co-operation which may bring about the highest state, perhaps, of social civilization and development, it is the fact that woman and not man must interfere in order to smooth the pathway for these two races to go along harmoniously together. And it is for that reason that I insist that when you do make this step, this step forward which once made can never be retrieved, you must do that other thing which assures its success after it is made. Let the negro male vote now, and you open the arena of strife and contention; let both sexes vote, and then you close that arena of strife, you bring in that element which subdues all strife, which has made America what she is, which has made the American political meeting, which has made the American political convention, not the scene of strife or angry contention, where armed men met together to settle political differences, as in the Polish Diet, but a convention where all were subjected to reason, influenced, as it might properly be, by eloquence and by that "feast of reason" which is "the flow of the soul" to those who enjoy it. And therefore, Mr. President, I beg to assure everybody, and especially my honorable friend from Rhode Island, who agrees with me, I know, upon this topic, that I am serious and in earnest in urging this amendment; in dead earnest, in good earnest, and why not? I am not so blind as to mistake the signs of the times.
I might have refused to believe long ago, when my honorable friend from Ohio [Mr. Wade] predicted that this was coming. I might have disbelieved when my honorable friend from Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] predicted this was coming; when he blew his bugle-blast and announced what an army was coming behind to enforce his doctrine and his principles. I might, like Thomas of old, have doubted; but now I have had my fingers in the very wounds of which he spoke. I know of a certainty now that this movement is in progress, and that this movement will go on. I know of a certainty that black men must vote in the District of Columbia. Who can doubt it? Those who are in favor of that measure here are in force sufficient to carry it constitutionally beyond all question. Well, if it is to be I am reconciled to it, but at the same time I want to throw about it as many safeguards as are possible under the circumstances, and among those safeguards I think that of allowing females suffrage to be not only the best, but the only one which will be efficacious in this behalf. Mr. President, I have trespassed a great deal longer upon the Senate than I intended. I beg to return my thanks for the indulgence they have exhibited in listening to what I had to say.
Mr. Morrill: Mr. President, the honorable Senator began by saying that he was in earnest, and he concludes by affirming the same thing. Doubtless he had made the impression upon his own mind that after all he had said, there might be a doubt in the minds of the Senate on that point. Does any one who has heard the speech, somewhat extraordinary, of the honorable Senator, suppose that he is at all in earnest or sincere in a single sentiment he has uttered on this subject? I do not imagine he believes that any one here is idle enough for a moment to suppose so. Now, his attempt at being facetious has not been altogether a failure. I think he has succeeded in being amusing; he has evidently amused himself; and if he could afford the sacrifice, I admit he has amused the galleries and probably the most of us; but that he has convinced anybody that he was arguing to enlighten the Senate or the public mind on a question which he says is important, he does not believe and he does not expect anybody else to believe it. If it is true, as he intimates, that he is desirous of becoming a Radical, I am not clear that I should not be willing to accept his service, although there is a good deal to be repented of before he can be taken into full confidence. [Laughter].
When a man has seen the error of his ways and confesses it, what more is there to be done except to receive him seventy and seven times? Now if this is an indication that the honorable Senator means to out-radical the Radicals, "Come on, Macduff," nobody will object provided you can show us you are sincere. That is the point. If it is mischief you are at, you will have a hard time to get ahead. While we are radical we mean to be rational. While we intend to give every male citizen of the United States the rights common to all, we do not intend to be forced by our enemies into a position so ridiculous and absurd as to be broken down utterly on that question, and whoever comes here in the guise of a Radical and undertakes to practice that, probably will not make much by the motion. I am not surprised that those of our friends who went out from us and have been feeding on the husks, desire to get in ahead; but I am surprised at the indiscretion and the want of common sense exercised in making so profound a plunge at once! If these gentlemen desire to be taken into companionship and restored to good standing, I am the first man to reach out the hand and say, "Welcome back again, so that you are repentant and regenerated;" but, sir, I am the last man to allow that you shall indorse what you call radicalism for the purpose of breaking down measures which we propose!
So much for the radicalism of my honorable friend. Now, sir, what is the sincerity of this proposition? What is the motive of my honorable friend in introducing it? Is it to perfect this bill? Is it to vindicate a principle in which he believes? Not a bit of it. It is the old device of the enemy—if you want to defeat a measure, make it as hateful and odious and absurd as possible and you have done it. That is the proposition. Does he believe in the absolute right of women to vote? Not a bit of it, for he has said here time and again in the beginning, middle, and end of his discourse that he does not believe a word of it.
Mr. Cowan Mr. Cowan: And never did.
Mr. Morrill Mr. Morrill: He says it is no natural right whatever either to man or woman, and therefore he does not stand here to vindicate a right.
Mr. CowanMr. Cowan: I should like to ask the honorable Senator whether he believes it is a natural right either in man or woman.
Mr. Morrill: He says it is no natural right whatever either to man or woman, and therefore he does not stand here to vindicate a right.
Mr. Cowan: I should like to ask the honorable Senator whether he believes it is a natural right either in man or woman. Mr. Morrill: I have said distinctly on a former occasion that I did not; and therefore I am not to be put in the attitude of so arguing. The Senator does not believe that; he is not here urging a principle in which he believes. What is he doing? Trying to do mischief; trying to make somebody believe he is sincere. That is labor lost here. It will not succeed, of course. Now, what is his position? "I do not believe in woman suffrage, and do not believe in negro suffrage, but if you will insist upon male negro suffrage I will insist upon woman negro suffrage." That is his position exactly. "If you insist that the male negro shall vote, I insist the female shall." That is his attitude, nothing more nor less. Mr. President, I do not think there is much force in the position. He has not offered an argument on the subject. He has read from a paper. He has introduced here the discourse of some ladies in some section of the country, upon what they esteem to be their own rights, in illustration; that is all; not as argument; he does not offer it as an argument, but to illustrate his theme and to put us in an attitude, as he supposes, of embarrassment on that subject. He has read papers which are altogether foreign from his view of this subject, and which he for a moment will not indorse. He offers these as an illustration with a view of illustrating his side of the question, and particularly with a view of embarrassing this measure.
Mr. Cowan: Well, now, Mr. President, I desire to answer a question of the Senator. He alleges that I am not serious in the amendment I have moved, that I am not in earnest about it. How does he know? By what warrant does he undertake to say that a brother Senator here is not serious, not in earnest. I should like to know by what warrant he undertakes to do that. He says I do not look serious. I have not perhaps been trained in the same vinegar and persimmon school [laughter]; I have not been doctrinated into the same solemn nasal twang which may characterize the gentleman, and which may be considered to be the evidence of seriousness and earnestness. I generally speak as a man, and as a good-natured man, I think. I hope I entertain no malice toward anybody. But the honorable gentleman thinks I want to become a radical. Why, sir, common charity ought to have taught the honorable Senator better than that. I think no such imputation, even on the part of the most virulent opponent that I may have, can with any justice be laid to my door. I have never yielded to his radicalism; I have never truckled to it. Whether it be right or wrong, I have never bowed the knee to it. From the very word "go" I have been a conservative; I have endeavored to save all in our institutions that I thought worth saving.
I suppose, in the opinion of the gentleman, I have made sacrifices. I suppose I am in the condition of Dr. Caius: "I have had losses." Certainly if any man has given evidence of the sincerity of his doctrines, I have done so; I have lost all of that, perhaps, which the Senator from Maine may think valuable; I have lost all the feathers that might have adorned my cap by opposition to radicalism; and now I stand perfectly free and independent upon this floor; free, as I supposed, not only from all imputation of interest, but free from all imputation of dishonor. I am out of the contest. If I had chosen to play the radical; if I had chosen to out-Herod Herod, I could have out-Heroded Herod perhaps as well as the honorable gentleman, and I could have had quite as stern and vigorous a following as he or any other man, more than likely without asserting any very large amount of vanity to myself [Mr. Morrill rose]; but now, when I stand here, as, I think, free, unquestionably free from all imputation either of interest or dishonor, to be told this is—If the Senator wants to say anything I will hear him.
Mr. Morrill: The honorable Senator will allow me to say that I do not think this line of argument is open to him, because to-day once or twice he certainly repeated that this was a race of radicalism, and he did not intend to be outdone. My remark was predicated simply on the assumption of the honorable Senator that he was disposed to enter into the race, and rather in a disposition to welcome than discourage him.
Mr. Cowan: Mr. President, I agree that if you will allow the gentleman to put arguments in my mouth, and to furnish me theories as his fancy paints them, he can demolish them. I will not agree that he is my master in any particular; but I do agree that he can take a pair of old pantaloons out in the country and stuff them, and make a man of straw, and that he can overthrow it and trample upon it and kick it about with the utmost impunity. But I do not choose to allow the honorable Senator to make either my theories or my arguments, nor do I allow him to make quotations from me unless he does it fairly. I gave utterance to no such idea as that which he has just attributed to me. I did not say that in this race of radicalism I was determined to be in front. I said no such thing. I said that there was an onward movement, that I yielded to that movement, and that while I yielded to it against my own better opinion that any change was impolitic, yet that change was inevitable, I wanted it to be as perfect as possible, and I wanted it to be made with all the safeguards possible.
That was my argument. I said so yesterday; I said so to-day; I say so now; and I appeal to my friends here who have talked about this onward movement, this progress of things, this inevitable which was in the future, to stand now upon their theories and upon their doctrines. That was my ground, ground simply stated, and for that I am not to be charged here with a desire to conciliate the honorable gentleman, or his faction, or his party, or any other party in this country. Mr. President, I am not a proud man, I hope; not a vain man, I hope; but I would rather be deprived of the right of suffrage, high punishment as it is, I would rather suffer all the penalties that would be inflicted even by the most malignant lawgiver, than to cower or cringe or yield to anything of mortal mould on this planet, except by duress and by force. No man dare charge me with that. I have endeavored to act here as an honest man feeling his own responsibilities, feeling the responsibilities of the oath upon him when he took it; obliged to interpret the Constitution as he himself understands it; feeling that that Constitution was a restraint upon him, a restraint upon the people, a restraint upon everybody; that we were sent here for the purpose of standing upon it even against the rage of the people, even against their desire to trample it under foot. Feeling all these things, I have stood here, and appeal to my fellow-Senators to know if any one of them can say that at any time I have manifested the smallest disposition to yield in any one particular. I scorn the imputation; I would rather have the approval of my own conscience, I would rather walk in the star-light and look up to them and to the God who made me free and independent, than to seek the highest station upon the earth by truckling to any man or to any set of people, or giving up my free opinions.
And yet I propose not to be irrational in this matter. As I said yesterday, and as I said to-day, I have struggled against change; but if it is to be made I wish to direct it properly. I made in my own person, two or three years ago, a motion which passed this body by, I think, a vote of precisely two to one—I believe it was 28 to 14—that the voters of the District of Columbia should be confined to white males; but upon that occasion I stated—and the debates will bear me out, I think—that if the door of the franchise was to be opened, if it was thought that the safety of the country required more people to cast ballots, more people to enjoy this privilege, I would open it to the women of the country sooner than I would open it to the negroes. I say so to-day. You are determined to open it to the negroes. I appeal to you to open it to the women. You say there is no danger in opening it to the negroes. I say there is no danger then in opening it to the women. You say that it is safe in the hands of the negroes. I say it is equally safe in the hands of our sisters, and more safe in the hands of our wives and our mothers. I say more to you. I say you have not demonstrated that it is safe to confer the franchise upon men just emerged from the barbarism of slavery; I say you have not demonstrated that it is safe to give the ballot to men who require a Freedmen's Bureau to take care of them, and who it is not pretended anywhere have that intelligence which is necessary to enable them to comprehend the questions which agitate the people of this nation, and of which the people are supposed to have an intelligent understanding. I say you have not demonstrated all that; but you have expressed your determination. You are determined to do it, and when you are determined to do it I want to put along with that element, that doubtful element, that ignorant element, that debased element, that element just emerged from slavery, I want you to put along with it into the ballot-box, to neutralize its poison if poison there be, to correct its dangers if danger there be, the female element of the country.
That is my position. If you abandon the whole project I have no objection. I am willing to rest the safety of the country where it is and has been so far. I am open to conviction, open to argument, open to reason even upon that subject; but I am willing to leave this question of suffrage where our fathers left it, where the world leaves it today, where all wise men leave it. If, however, it is to be opened, if there is to be a new era, if political power is to be distributed per capita according to a particular age, then I am for extending it to women as well as men. Let me tell the honorable Senator I am not alone in this opinion; the Senator from Ohio with me is not alone; one of the first intellects of this age, perhaps the first man of the first country of the earth, is of the same opinion. I allude to John Stuart Mill, of Great Britain. He is now agitating for this very thing in England. So that it need not seem surprising that I should be in earnest in this; and I trust that after the explanation I have made of my position and my doctrines. I shall not be charged either with insincerity or with a desire to ingratiate myself with the majority of this body, with the majority of the people, or with any one, because, thank God, I am free from all entanglements of that kind at this present speaking, and if I retain my senses I think I shall keep free.
Mr. Wade: Mr. President, I did not intend to say a word upon this subject, because on the first day of the last session of Congress I introduced the original bill now before the Senate, to which the Committee have proposed several amendments, and that action on my part I supposed demonstrated sufficiently to all who might read the bill what were my views and sentiments upon the question of suffrage; and, sir, they are of no sudden growth. I have always been of the opinion that in a republican government the right of voting ought to be limited only by the years of discretion. I have always believed that when a person arrived at the age when by the laws of the country he was remitted to the rights of citizens, when the laws fixed the age of majority when the person was supposed to be competent to manage his own affairs, then he ought to be suffered to participate in the Government under which he lives. Nor do I believe that any such rule is unsafe. I imagine that safety is entirely on the other side, for just in proportion as you limit the franchise, you create in the same degree an aristocracy, an irresponsible Government; and gentlemen must be a little tinctured with a fear of republican sentiment when they fear the extension of the right of suffrage.
If I believed, as some gentlemen do, that to participate in Government required intellect of the highest character, the greatest perspicacity of mind, the greatest discipline derived from education and experience, I should be convinced that a republican form of government could not live. It is because I believe that all that is essential in government for the welfare of the community is plain, simple, level with the weakest intellects, that I am satisfied this Government ought to stand and will stand forever. Who is it that ought to be protected by these republican governments? Certainly it is the weak and ignorant, who have no other manner of defending their rights except through the ballot-box.
The argument for aristocracies and monarchies has ever been that the masses of the people do not know enough to take care of the high concerns of government. If they do not, the human race is in a miserable condition. If, indeed, the great masses of mankind, who are permitted to transact their own business, are incompetent to participate in government, then farewell to the republican system of government; it can not stand a day; it is a wrong foundation. Our principles of government are radically wrong if gentlemen's fears on this subject are well grounded. Thank God, I know they are not. I know that all the defects and evils of our Government have not come from the ignorant masses; but the frauds and the devices of the higher intellects and the more cultivated minds have brought upon our Government all those scars by which it has been disfigured.
Why, sir, look at the administration of the Southern governments in the seceded States, where their public men were advocates of the doctrine that suffrage should be restricted, and generally that republican governments were wrong. I had a great deal of private conversation with the gentlemen who were formerly in these halls representing those governments, and I hardly ever conversed with a single man of them from that part of the country who believed that a republican government could or ought to stand. Some of them used to say, "How can the mechanic, how can the laboring man understandingly participate in these high and complicated affairs of Government?" Those men at heart were aristocrats or monarchists; they did not believe in your republican Government. I, on the other hand, believe that the safety of our Government depends on unlimited franchise, or, rather, I should say, on franchise limited only by that discretion which fits a man to manage his own concerns. Let a man arrive at the years of majority, when the Government and the experience of the world say that he has attained to such an age and such discretion that it is safe to intrust him with his own affairs, and then if he can not be permitted to participate in the Government, I say again, farewell to republican government; it can not stand.
It was for these reasons that, when I introduced the original bill, I put it upon the most liberal principles of franchise except as to females. The question of female suffrage had not then been much agitated, and I knew the community had not thought sufficiently upon it to be ready to introduce it as an element in our political system. While I am aware of that fact, I think it will puzzle any gentleman to draw a line of demarkation between the right of the male and the female on this subject. Both are liable to all the laws you pass; their property, their persons, and their lives are affected by the laws. Why, then, should not the females have a right to participate in their construction as well as the male part of the community? There is no argument that I can conceive or that I have yet heard, that makes any discrimination between the two on the question of right.
Why should there be any restriction? Is it because gentlemen apprehend that the female portion of the community are not as virtuous, that they are not as well-calculated to consider what laws and principles of the Government will conduce to their welfare as men are? The great mass of our educated females understand all these great concerns of government infinitely better than that great mass of ignorant population from other countries which you admit to the polls without hesitation.
But, sir, the right of suffrage, in my judgment, has bearings altogether beyond any rights of persons or property that are to be vindicated by it. I lay it down that in any free community, if any particular class of that community are excluded from this right they can not maintain their dignity; it is a brand of Cain upon their foreheads that will sink them into contempt, even in their own estimation. My judgment is that if this right was accorded to females, you would find that they would be elevated in their minds and in their intellects. The best discipline you can offer them would be to permit and to require them to participate in these great concerns of Government, so that their rights and the rights of their children should depend in a manner upon the way in which they understand these great things.
What would be the effect upon their minds? Would it not be, I ask you, sir, to lead them from that miserable amusement of reading frivolous books and novels and romances that consume two-thirds of their time now, from which they learn nothing, and draw their attention to matters of more moment, more substance, better calculated to well-discipline the mind? In my judgment it would. I believe it would tend to educate them as well as the male part of the population. Take the negroes, who, it is said, are ignorant, the moment you confer the franchise on them it will lead them to struggle to get an understanding of the affairs of Government, so as to be able to participate intelligently in them. They will then understand that they are made responsible for the Government under which they live. In my judgment, this is the reason why the fact exists, which is acknowledged everywhere, that the great mass of our population rise immensely higher in intellect and every quality that should adorn human nature, above the peasantry and working-classes of the Old World. Why is this? I think much of it results from the fact that the people of this country are compelled to serve on juries, to participate in the government of their own localities in various capacities, and finally to take part in all the great concerns of Government. That elevates a man, and makes him feel his own consequence in the community in which he lives.
It is for these reasons as much as any other, that I wish to see the franchise extended to every person of mature age and discretion who has committed no crime. I know very well that prejudices against female voting have descended legitimately to us from the Old World; yea, more than anything else, from that common law which we lawyers have all studied as the first element in jurisprudence. That system of law really sank the female to total contempt and insignificance, almost annihilated her from the face of the earth. It made her responsible for nothing. So far was she removed from participating in anything or being responsible for anything, that if she even committed a crime in the presence of her husband she was not by that old law answerable for it. He was her guardian; he had the right to correct her as the master did his slave in the South. Such was the chivalry of that old common law from which we derive our judicial education. A vast remnant of that old prejudice is still lurking in the minds of our community. It is a mere figment of proscription and nothing else, descended to us, and we have not overcome it. It is not founded in reason; it is not founded in common sense; and it is being done away with very fast too.
I know that those women who have taken these things into consideration, with minds as enlightened and as intelligent as our own, have done immense good to their sex by agitating these great subjects against all the ridicule and all the contempt that has been wielded against them from the time they commenced the agitation. I know that in my own State we had, a few years ago, a great many laws on our statute-book depriving females of a great many rights without the least reason upon earth. Perhaps it was because the question was not agitated, and because it did not particularly concern the males, that they did not turn their attention to it; but when agitated in the Women's Rights Conventions that have been so abused and ridiculed throughout the country, man could no longer shut his eyes to the glaring defects that existed in our system, and our Legislature has corrected many of those abuses, and placed the rights of the female upon infinitely higher grounds than they occupied there thirty years ago; I believe this remark is as applicable to many other States as it is to Ohio. I tell you the agitation of these subjects has been salutary and good; and our male population would no more go back to divest women of the rights they have acquired, than they would go back now to slavery itself, in the advance we have lately made.
What do I infer, then, from all this? Seeing that their rights rest upon the same foundation and are only kept down by proscription and prejudice, I think I know that the time will come—not to-day, but the time is approaching—when every female in the country will be made responsible for the just government of our country as much as the male; her right to participate in the Government will be just as unquestioned as that of the male. I know that my opinions on this subject are a little in advance of the great mass, probably, of the community in which I live; but I am advancing a principle. I shall give a vote on this amendment that will be deemed an unpopular vote, but I am not frightened by that. I have been accustomed to give such votes all my life almost, but I believe they have been given in the cause of human liberty and right and in the way of the advancing intelligence of our age; and whenever the landmark has been set up the community have marched up to it. I think I am advocating now the same kind of a principle, and I have no doubt that sooner or later it will become a fixed fact, and the community will think it just as absurd to exclude females from the ballot-box as males.
I do not believe it will have any unfavorable effect upon the female character, if women are permitted to come up to the polls and vote. I believe it would exercise a most humane and civilizing influence upon the roughness and rudeness with which men meet on these occasions, if the polished ladies of the land would come up to the ballot-box clothed with these rights and participate in the exercise of the franchise. It has not been found that association with ladies is apt to make men rude and uncivilized; and I do not think the reflex of it prevents that lady-like character which we all prize so highly. I do not think it has that effect. On the other hand, in my judgment, if it was popular to-day for ladies to go to the polls, no man would regret their presence there, and the districts where their ballots were given would be harmonized, civilized, and rendered more gentlemanly, if I may say so, on the one side and on the other, and it would prevent the rude collisions that are apt to occur at these places, while it would reflect back no uncivilizing or unlady-like influence upon the female part of the community. That is the way I judge it. Of course, as it has never been tried in this country, it is more or less of an experiment; but here in this District is the very place to try your experiment.
I know that the same things were said about the abolition of slavery. I was here. Gentlemen know very well that there was a strong desire entertained by many gentlemen on this floor that emancipation, if it took place, should be very gradual, very conservative, a little at a time. I was the advocate of striking off the shackles at one blow, and I said that the moment you settled on that the community would settle down upon this principle of righteousness, justice, and liberty, and be satisfied with it, but just as long as you kept it in a state of doubt and uncertainty, going only half way, just so long it would be an irritating element in our proceedings. It is just so now with this question. Do not understand that I expect that this amendment will be carried. I do not. I do not know that I would have agitated it now, although it is as clear to me as the sun at noonday, that the time is approaching when females will be admitted to this franchise as much as males, because I can see no reason for the distinction. I agree, however, that there is not the same pressing necessity for allowing females as there is for allowing the colored people to vote, because the ladies of the land are not under the ban of a hostile race grinding them to powder. They are in high fellowship with those who do govern, who, to a great extent, act as their agents, their friends, promoting their interests in every vote they give, and, therefore, communities get along very well without conferring this right upon the female. But when you speak of it as a right, and as a great educational power in the hands of females, and I am called on to vote on the subject, I will vote that which I think under all circumstances is right, just, and proper. I shrink not from the question because I am told by gentlemen that it is unpopular. The question with me is, is it right? Show me that it is wrong, and then I will withhold my vote; but I have heard no argument that convinces me that the thing is not right.
There has been something said about this right of voting, as to whether it is a natural or a conventional right. I do not know that there is much difference between a natural and a conventional right. Right has its hold upon the conscience in the inevitable fitness of things, and whether it springs from nature or from any other cause right is right, and a conventional right is as sacred as a natural right. I can not distinguish them; I know of no difference between them. It certainly does not seem to me that it would be right now if a new community is about to set up a government, for one-third of them to seize upon that government and say they will govern, and the rest shall have nothing to do with it. It seems to me there is a wrong done to those who are shut out from any participation in the Government, and that it is a violation of their rights; and what odds does it make whether you call it a natural, or conventional, or artificial right? I contend that when you set up a Government you shall call every man who has arrived at the years of discretion, who has committed no crime, into your community and ask him to participate in setting up that Government; and if you shut him out without any reason, you do him a wrong, one of the greatest wrongs that you can inflict upon a man. If it is to be done to me or to my posterity, I say to you take their lives, but do not deprive them of the right of standing upon the same foothold, upon the same platform in their political rights with any other man in the community. I will compromise no such principles. I contend before God and man ever, always, that they shall stand upon the same platform in setting up their governments, and in continuing them after they are set up, and I will brand it as a wrong and an injustice in any man to deprive any portion of the population, unless it be for crime or offence, from participating in the Government to the same extent that he participates himself. If they are ignorant, so much the greater necessity that they have this weapon in their hands to guard themselves against the strong. The weaker, the more ignorant, and the more liable they are to be imposed upon, the greater the necessity of having this great weapon of self-defence in their hands.
I know very well that great prejudices have existed against colored people; but my word for it, the moment they are admitted to the ballot-box, especially about the second Tuesday of October in our State, you will find them as genteel a set of men as you know anywhere; as much consideration will be awarded to them; they will be men; they will be courted; their rights will be awarded to them; they will be made to feel, and it will go abroad that they are not the subjects of utter contempt that can be treated as men see fit to treat them; but they will rise in the scale of the community, and finally occupy a platform according to their merits, which they never can obtain; and you will never be able to make anything of any portion of the community black or white, while you exclude them from the ballot-box.
These, sir, are the reasons why I introduce this bill, and to vindicate them I have spoken. I know I am not able to set forth anything new on this subject. Every American citizen has reflected upon it until his mind is made up, and the thing itself is so universally approved by our community, that the only wonder is that when we propose to extend this franchise to all the people alike anybody is found in opposition to it.
Mr. Yates: Mr. President, I propose to occupy the time of the Senate for but a few moments by way of explanation of my position on this subject. Honorable Senators seem to think there is some little embarrassment in the position in which we are placed upon this question. There is certainly none whatever to my mind. I must confess, after an examination of this question, that logically there are no reasons in my mind which would not permit women to vote as well as men, according to the theory of our Government—a Government of the people, by the people, and for the people.
But, sir, that question as to whether ladies shall vote or not is not an issue now. That was not the question at the last election. That was not the question that was argued in another part of this Capitol. That was not embraced in the bill now before us for consideration. Questions of a different character engross our attention; and, sir, we have but one straightforward course to pursue in this matter. While I may and do indorse, I believe, substantially all that my honorable friend from Ohio has said, and while I can not state perhaps a good reason why under our form of government all persona, male and female, should not exercise the right of suffrage, yet we have another matter on hand now. We have fought the fight, and our banners blaze victoriously in the sky. The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania stands humbled and overcome at his defeat, and he might just as well bow his head before the wheels of that Juggernaut of which he spoke, which has crushed him to the earth, and say, let the vox populi, which is the vox Dei, be the rule of this land.
I believe that this issue will come, and if the gentleman proposes to make it in the next elections, I shall be with him perhaps on the question of universal suffrage; for, sir, I am for universal suffrage. I am not for qualified suffrage; I am not for property suffrage; T am not for intelligent suffrage, as it is termed; but I am for universal suffrage. That is my doctrine. But, sir, when it is proposed to crush out the will of the American people by an issue which certainly is not made in sincerity and truth, then I have no difficulty whatever. While I do not commit myself against the progress of human civilization, because I believe that time is coming, in voting "no" on this amendment I only vote to maintain the position for which I have fought, and for which my State has fought. My notions are peculiar on this subject. I confess that I am for universal suffrage, and when the time comes I am for suffrage by females as well as males; but that is not the point before us.
Mr. Wilson: The Senator from Pennsylvania demands that I shall express my concurrence in or my opposition to his amendment. I tell him, without the least hesitation, I shall vote against it. I am opposed to connecting together these two questions, enfranchisement of black men and the enfranchisement of women, and therefore shall vote against his amendment. These ladies in the conventions recently held seem to have made a great impression upon the Senator from Pennsylvania. While I heard him reading their speeches, I could not but regret that the Senator had not read the speeches of some of those ladies and the speeches of some of those gentlemen who attended those recent meetings, before he came into the Senate. If he had read the speeches of the ladies and gentlemen who have attended these conventions during the past few years, their speeches might have made as great an impression on him at an earlier day as they seem to have done at this; and if they had done so, the Senator might have made a record for liberty, justice, and humanity he would have been proud of after he leaves the Senate. I have, sir, quite the advantage of the honorable Senator. I have been accustomed to attend the meetings of some of these ladies and gentlemen for many years, and read their speeches too. I read these speeches for the freedom of all, and for the enfranchisement of all, woman included. Before I came to the Senate of the United States, I entertained the conviction that it would be better for this country, that our legislation would be more humane, more for liberty, more for a high civilization, if the women of the country were permitted to vote, and every year of my life has confirmed that conviction. I have been' more than ever convinced of it since I have read the opinions of one of the foremost men of this or any other age—John Stuart Mill.
But I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania that while these are my opinions, while I will vote now or at any time for woman suffrage, if he or any other Senator will offer it as a distinct, separate measure, I am unalterably opposed to connecting that question with the pending question of negro suffrage. The question of negro suffrage is now an imperative necessity; a necessity that the negro should possess it for his own protection; a necessity that he should possess it that the nation may preserve its power, its strength, and its unity. We have fought that battle, as has been stated by the Senator from Illinois; we have won negro suffrage for the District of Columbia, and I say I believe we have won for all the States; and before the 4th of March, 1869, before this Administration shall close, I hope that the negro in all the loyal States will be clothed with the right of suffrage. That they will be in the ten rebel States I can not doubt, for patriotism, liberty, justice, and humanity demand it.
This bill, embodying pure manhood suffrage, is destined to become the Jaw in spite of all opposition and all lamentations. I am opposed, therefore, to associating with this achieved measure the question of suffrage for women. That question has been discussed for many years by ladies of high intelligence and of stainless character ladies who have given years of their lives to the cause of liberty, to the cause of the bondman, to the cause of justice and humanity, to the improvement of all and the elevation of all. No one could have heard them or have read their speeches years ago, without feeling that they were in earnest. They have made progress ; these women have instructed the country; women, and men too, have been instructed; progress is making in that direction; but the public judgment is not so pronounced in any one State to-day in favor of woman suffrage, as to create any large and general movement for it. Time is required to instruct the public mind and to carry forward and to concentrate the public judgment in favor of woman suffrage. All public men are not in its favor as is the Senator from Ohio, as has already been proved in this debate. I am, therefore, sir. for keeping these questions apart. I am for securing the needed suffrage for the colored race. I am for enfranchising the black man, and then if this other question shall come up in due time, and I have a vote to give, I shall be ready to give my vote for it. But to vote for it now is to couple it with the great measure now pressing upon us, to weaken that measure and to endanger its immediate triumph, and therefore I shall vote against the amendment proposed by the Senator from Pennsylvania, made, it is too apparent, not for the enfranchisement of woman,but against the enfranchisement of the black man.
Mr. Johnson; The immediate question before the Senate, I understand, is upon the amendment offered by the honorable member from Pennsylvania, which, if I am correctly informed, is to strike out the word "male," so as to give to all persons, independent of sex, the right of voting. It is, therefore, a proposition to admit to the right of suffrage all the females in the District of Columbia who may have the required residence and are of the required age. I am not aware that the right is given to that class anywhere in the United States. I believe for a very short time my friend from New Jersey will inform me if I am correct it was more or Jess extended to the women of New Jersey; but, if that be an exception, it is, as far as I am informed, the only exception; and there are a variety of reasons why, as I suppose, the right has never been extended as now proposed. Ladies have duties peculiar to themselves which can not be discharged by anybody else; the nurture and education of their children, the demands upon them consequent upon the preservation of their household; and they are supposed to be more or less in their proper vocation when they are attending to those particular duties. But independent of tbat, I think if it was submitted to the ladies I mean the ladies in the true acceptation of the term of the United States, the privilege would not only not be asked for, but would be rejected. I do not think the ladies of the United States would agree to enter into a canvass, and to undergo what is often the degradation of seeking to vote, particularly in the cities, getting up to the polls, crowded out and crowded in. I rather think they would feel it, instead of a privilege, a dishonor. There is another reason why the right should not be extended to them, unless it is the purpose of the honorable member and of the Senate to go a step further. The reason why the males are accorded the privilege, and why it was almost universal in the United States with reference to those of a certain age, is that they may be called upon to defend the country in time of war or in time of insurrection. I do not suppose it is pretended that the ladies should be included in the militia organization or be compelled to take up arms to defend the country. That must be done by the male sex, I hope.
But I rose not so much- for the purpose of expressing my own opinion, or reasoning rather upon the opinion, as to refer to a sentence or two in a letter written many years ago, by the elder Adams, to a correspondent in Massachu- setts. It was proposed at that time in Massachusetts to alter the suffrage. It was then limited in that State. That limitation, it was suggested, should be taken away in whole or in part, and the correspondent to whom this letter was addressed seems to have been in favor of that change. Mr. Adams, under date of the 26th of May, 1776, writes to his correspondent, Mr. James Sullivan, a name famous in the annals of Massachusetts, and well known to the United States, a long letter, of which I shall read only a sentence or two. It is to be found in the ninth volume of the works of John Adams, beginning at page 375. In that letter Mr. Adams, among other things, says: "But let us first suppose that the whole community, of every age, rank, sex, and condition, has a right to vote. This community is assembled. A motion is made and carried by a majority of one voice. The minority will not agree to this. Whence arises the right of the majority to govern and the obligation of the minority to obey?
"From necessity, you will say, because there can be no other rule. But why exclude women?
"You will say, because their delicacy renders them unfit for practice and experience in the great businesses of life and the hardy enterprises of war, as well as the arduous cares of state. Besides, their attention is so much engaged with the necessary nurture of their children, that nature has made them fittest for domestic cares. And children have not judgment or will of their own. True."
And he closes the letter by saying: "Society can be governed only by general rules. Government can not accommodate itself to every particular case as it happens, nor to the circumstances of particular persons. It must establish general comprehensive regulations for cases and persons. The only question is, which general rule will accommodate most cases and most persons. Depend upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of controversy and altercation as would be opened by attempting to alter the qualifications of voters; there will be no end of it. New claims will arise; women will demand a vote; lads from twelve to twenty-one will think their rights not enough attended to; and every man who has not a farthing will demand an equal voice with any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks to one common level."
The honorable member from Ohio seems to suppose that the right should be given as a means, if I understood him, of protecting themselves and as a means of elevating them intellectually. I had supposed the theory was that the woman was protected by the man. If she is insulted she is not expected to knock the man who insults her down, or during the days of the duello to send him a challenge. She goes to her male friend, her husband or brother or acquaintance. Nature has not made her for the rough and tumble, so to speak, of life. She is intended to be delicate. She is intended to soften the asperities and roughness of the male sex. She is intended to comfort him in the days of his trial, not to participate herself actively in the contest either in the forum, in the council chamber, or on the battle-field. As to her not being protected, what lady has ever said that her rights were not protected because she had not the right of suffrage? There are women, respectable I have no doubt in point of character, moral and virtuous women no doubt, but they are called, and properly called, the "strong-minded"; they are in the public estimation contradistinguished from the delicate; they are men in women's garb, ready, I have no doubt, such people would be—and I deem it no disparagement to them; I have no doubt they are conscientious—to go upon the battle-field. Such things have happened. They are willing to take an insult, and horse-whip and chastise the man who has extended the rudeness to them; but they are exceptions to the softness which is the charm of the female character. I appeal to my friend from New York [Mr. Morgan]—I can speak for Baltimore—and to the member from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan] who I suppose can speak for Philadelphia, would they have their wives and their daughters seeking to get up to the poll on a hotly-contested election, driven with indignation at times from it, insulted, violence used to them, as is often the case, rudeness of speech sure to be indulged in
Mr. Wade: I should like to know if that is the character of your city?
Mr. Johnson: Yes.
Mr. Wade: Then it is very different from the community in which I live.
Mr. Johnson: I rather think you might make Cincinnati an exception from what I have heard. I am not speaking for the country, though I have seen it pretty rough in the country; and they have been rough occasionally in Ohio. If they were all of the same temper with my honorable friend who interrupts me of course it would be different, and all could have their rights accorded them.
Mr. Cowan: I should like to ask whether the presence of ladies on an occasion of that kind would not tend to suppress everything of that sort? Would it not turn the blackguard into a gentleman, so that we should have nothing but good conduct?
Mr. Johnson: No, sir; you can not turn a blackguard into a gentleman.
Mr. Cowan: Except by a lady.
Mr. Johnson: No, sir; by no means known to human power. There may be some revulsion that will cause him to cease to be a blackguard for the moment, but as to a lady making a gentleman of a man who insults her it has not happened that I know of anywhere. He may be made somewhat of a gentleman by being cowhided. But the question I put I put in all seriousness. I have seen the elections in Baltimore, where they are just as orderly as they are in other cities; but we all know that in times of high party excitement it is impossible to preserve that order which would be sufficient to protect a delicate female from insult, and no lady would venture to run the hazard of being subjected to the insults that she would be almost certain to receive.
They do not want this privilege. As to protecting themselves, as to taking a part in the Government in order to protect themselves, if they govern those who govern, is not that protection enough? And who does not know that they govern us? Thank God they do. But what more right has a woman, as a mere matter of right independent of all delicacy, to the suffrage than a boy who is just one day short of twenty-one? You put him in your military service when he is eighteen; you may put him in it at a younger age if you think proper; but you will not let him vote. Why? Only upon moral grounds; that is all; not because that boy may not be able to exercise the right, but because, in the language of Mr. Adams, there must be some general rule, which must be observed, because in the absence of such general rule, if you permit excepted cases you might as well abolish all rules, and then where are we, as he properly asks.
I like to learn wisdom from the men of 1776. I know we have had the advantage of living in an age which they did not witness. I have lived a good many years and watched the public men of the day, and I do not think, and I have never been able with all my disposition to think that we are any better than were the men of 1776 and our predecessors on this floor, the men who participated in the deliberations of the Convention which led to the adoption of the Constitution of the United States, the men who were the authors of the State papers which were issued during that period, and which filled the world with admiration and amazement.
From the days of colonization down to the present hour no such proposition as this has received, so far as I am aware, any support, unless it was for a short time in the State of New Jersey. It has nothing to do with the right of negroes to vote. That is perfectly independent. If I desired because I am opposed to that to defeat the bill, I might perhaps, as a mere party scheme, as a measure known to party tactics which govern occasionally some—I do not say that they have not governed me heretofore—vote for this amendment with a view to defeat the bill: but I have lived to be too old and have become too well satisfied of what I think is my duty to the country to give any vote which I do not believe, if it should be supported by the votes of a sufficient number to carry the measure into operation, would redound to the interests and safety and honor of the country.
Mr. Wade: The gentleman seems to suppose that the only reason females should have the right to vote is that they might defend themselves with a cowhide against those who insult them. I do not suppose that giving them the right to vote will add anything to their physical strength or courage. That is the argument of the Senator, and the whole of his argument: but I did not propose that they should vote on such hypothesis or with any view that it should have any such effect. But I do know that as the law stood until very recently in many of the States a husband was not the best guardian for his wife in many cases, and frequently the greatest hardships that I have ever known in the community have arisen from the fact that a good-for-nothing, drunken, miserable man had married a respectable lady with property, and your law turned the whole of it right over to him and left her a pauper at his will. While I was at the bar I was more conversant with the manner in which these domestic affairs were transacted than I am now; and I knew instances of the greatest hardship arising from the fact that the law permitted such things to be done. I have known a drunken, miserable wretch of a husband take possession of a large property of a virtuous, excellent woman, who had a family of small children depending upon her, and turn her out to support her family by sewing and by manual labor; and it is not an uncommon case. The legislators, the males having the law-making power in their hands, especially were not very prompt to correct these evils; they were very slow in doing so. They continued from the old common law, when the memory of man did not run to the contrary, down to a time that is within the recollection of us all; and I do not know but that in some of the States this absurd rule prevails even now. It would not have prevailed if ladies had been permitted to vote for their legislators. They would have instructed them, and would have withheld their votes from every one who would not correct these most glaring evils.
The Senator tells us that the community in which he lives is so barbarous and rude that a lady could not go to the polls to perform a duty which the law permitted without insult and rudeness. That is a state of things that I did not believe existed anywhere. I do not believe that it exists in Baltimore to-day. I do not believe if the ladies of Baltimore should go up to the polls clothed with the legal right to select their own legislators that there is anybody in Baltimore who would insult them on their way in performing that duty. I do not believe that our communities have got to that degree of depravity yet that such kind of rascally prudence is necessary to be exercised in making laws. On the other hand, I have always found wherever I have gone that the rude and the rough in their conduct were civilized and ameliorated by the presence of females; for I do believe, as much as I believe anything else, that, take the world as it is, the female part of it are really more virtuous than the males. I think so; and I think if we were to permit them to have this right, it would tend to a universal reform instead of the reverse; and I do not believe any lady would be insulted in any community that I know anything about while on her way to perform this duty.
As I can see no good reason to the contrary, I shall vote for this proposition. I shall vote as I have often voted, as the Senator from Massachusetts has often voted, what he believed to be right; not because he believed a majority were with him, but because he believed the proposition which he was called upon to vote for was right, just, and proper. It is because I can not see that this is not so that I vote for it. It comes from a Senator who does not generally vote with us; it is a proposition unlooked for from his general course of action in this body, being, as he says, on the conservative list, and generally for holding things just as they are. Well, sir, I am for holding them just as they are, when I think they are right, and when I think they are not, I am for changing them and making them right. I do not think it is right to exclude females from the right of suffrage. As I said before, I do not expect that public opinion will be so correct at this time that my vote will be effective; but nevertheless it would be no excuse for me that I did not do my part toward effecting a reform that I think the community requires, because I did not see that the whole world was going with me. I do not wait for that. I am frequently in minorities. I would as lief be there as anywhere else, provided I see that I am right; and I do not wait for the majority to go with me when I think a proposition is right. Therefore I shall vote for this amendment if nobody else votes for it, trusting that if I am right the world will finally see it and come up to the mark where I am; if I am wrong, on further investigation and further thought I shall be left in the lurch. Believing that I am right, and believing that the world will come up to this standard finally, I am ambitious to make my mark upon it right here.
Mr. Frelinghuysen: Mr. President, the Senator from Maryland has made an inquiry as to the law of New Jersey in reference to women voting. There was a period in New Jersey when, in reference to some local matters, and those only, women voted; but that period has long since passed away; and I think I am authorized in saying that the women of New Jersey to-day do not desire to vote. Sir, I confess a little surprise at the remark which has been so frequently made in the Senate, that there is no difference between granting suffrage to colored citizens and extending it to the women of America. The difference, to my mind, is as wide as the earth. As I understand it, we legislate for classes, and the women of America as a class do vote now, though there are exceptions from the peculiar circumstances of individuals. Do not the American people vote in this Senate to-day on this question? Do they not vote in the House of Representatives? So the women of America vote by their faithful and true representatives, their husbands, their brothers, their sons; and no true man will go to the polls and deposit his ballot without remembering that true and loving constituency that he has at home. More than that, sir, ninety-nine out of a hundred, I believe nine hundred and ninety-nine out of a thousand, of the women in America do not want the privilege of voting in any other manner than that which I have stated. In both these regards there is a vast difference between the situation of the colored citizen and the women of America.
But Mr. President, besides that, the women of America are not called upon to serve the Government as the men of America are. They do not bear the bayonet, and have not that reason why they should be entitled to the ballot; and it seems to me as if the God of our race has stamped upon them a milder, gentler nature, which not only makes them shrink from, but disqualifies them for the turmoil and battle of public life. They have a higher and a holier mission. It is in retirement, to make the character of the coming men. Their mission is at home, by their blandishments and their love to assuage the passions of men as they come in from the battle of life, and not themselves by joining in the contest to add fuel to the very flames. The learned and eloquent Senator from Pennsylvania said, yesterday, with great beauty, that he wanted to cast the angel element into the suffrage system of America. Sir, it seems to me that it would be ruthlessly tearing the angel element from the homes of America, for the homes of the people of America are infinitely more valuable than any suffrage system. It will be a sorry day for this country when those vestal fires of piety and love are put out. Mr. President, it seems to me that the Christian religion, which has elevated woman to her true position as a peer by the side of man from which she was taken; that religion which is a part of the common law of this land, in its very spirit and declarations recognizes man as the representative of woman. The very structure of that religion which for centuries has been being built recognizes that principle, and it is written on its very door-posts. The woman, it is true, was first tempted; but it was in Adam that we all died. The angel, it is true, appeared to Mary; but it is in the God-man that we are all made alive. I do not see that there is any parity of reasoning between the case of the women of America, entitling them or making it desirable that they should have suffrage, and that of the colored citizens of the United States.
Mr. Conness: It does not appear that we can come to a vote to-night upon this proposition, and I therefore rise to propose an adjournment.
Mr. Morrill: Perhaps we can get a vote on this simple amendment.
Mr. Brown and others: Oh, no; let us adjourn.
Mr. Morrill: I doubt whether there is any inclination to talk further on this amendment, and I should be glad to get a vote on it before we adjourn.
Mr. Conness: If the Senate will come to a vote, I will not move an adjournment.
Mr. Brown: Mr. President
Mr. Doolittle: If the honorable Senator from Missouri will give way, I will renew the motion to adjourn.
Mr. Brown: I do not care particularly to detain the Senate. I have but a very few remarks to make.
Several Senators: Let us adjourn.
Mr. Doolittle: If the honorable Senator will give way, I will renew the motion to adjourn. The President pro tem.: Does the Chair understand the Senator from Missouri as yielding the floor?
Mr. Brown: Yes, sir.
Mr. Doolittle: I move that the Senate do now adjourn.
The motion was agreed to; and the Senate adjourned.
In Senate, Wednesday, December 12, 1866.
Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. E. H. Gray.
The Journal of yesterday was read and approved.
PETITIONS AND MEMORIALS.
The President pro tem.: The Chair has received, and takes this opportunity to lay before the Senate, the memorial of William Boyd, of Washington City, District of Columbia, the substance of which, stated in his own words, is:
I humbly ask your Honorable Body that you make no distinctions in regard to either color or sex if you should think proper to extend the elective franchise in this District, which I beg of your Honorable Body to do immediately; so that hereafter there shall be no distinction of race or sex. I am among those who believe that slavery will never die, until all laws are so constructed as to hold all mankind as equal before the law.
SUFFRAGE IN THE DISTRICT.
The President pro tem.: The unfinished business is the bill (S. No. 1) to regulate the elective franchise in the District of Columbia which is now before the Senate as in Committee of the Whole. The pending question is on the motion of the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan], to amend the amendment reported by the Committee on the District of Columbia, by striking out in the second line of its first section the word "male" before "person." Upon this question the Senator from Missouri is entitled to the floor.
Mr. Brown: Mr. President, I do not believe that the pending amendment to the bill extending the franchise to women in the District of Columbia, offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania, was designed to be carried out into practical legislation at this time or in this connection. I think it was rather intended to elicit an expression of opinion from members of the Senate upon the general proposition involved. If it were to go into practical effect, I am one of those who believe that it would be necessary to accompany it by a good deal of other legislation to prevent it from degenerating into abuse, and perhaps corrupting many of those it designs to advance in position and influence. But accepting the matter in the light which I have stated, for one I am willing to express an opinion very freely on the subject. I have to say then, sir, here on the floor of the American Senate, I stand for universal suffrage, and as a matter of fundamental principle do not recognize the right of society to limit it on any ground of race, color, or sex. I will go further and say that I recognize the right of franchise as being intrinsically a natural right; and I do not believe that society is authorized to impose any limitation upon it that does not spring out of the necessities of the social state itself. These may seem, Mr. President, extreme views, but they conform to the rigid logic of the question, and I defy any Sena tor here who abides that logic to escape that conclusion. Sir, I have been shocked, yes, shocked, during the course of this debate at expressions which I have heard so often fall from distinguished Senators, and apparently with so little consideration of what the heresy irresistibly leads to, saying in substance that they recognize in this right of franchise only a conventional or political arrangement that may be abrogated at will and taken from any; that it is simply a privilege yielded to you and me and others by society or the Government which represents society; that it is only a gracious boon from some abstract place and abstract body for which we should be proud and thankful; in other words, that it is not a right in any sense, but only a concession. Mr. President, I do not hold my liberties by any such tenure. On the contrary, I believe that whenever you establish that doctrine, whenever you crystalize that idea in the public mind of this country, you ring the death-knell of American liberties. You take from each, what is perhaps the highest safeguard of all, the conviction that there are rights of men embracing their liberty in society, and substitute a skepticism on all matters of personal freedom and popular liberties which will lay them open to be overthrown whenever society shall become sufficiently corrupted by partyism or whenever constitutional majorities shall become sufficiently exasperated by opposition.
Mr. President, so important, yea, so crucial, so to speak, do I deem this position, that I trust I may be pardoned by the Senate if I refer to the abstract grounds, the invincible agreement upon which I deem it to rest. I do this the more readily because in my belief the metaphysical always controls ultimately the practical in all the affairs of life. Now, what are abstract rights? And are there any intrinsic necessary conditions that go to constitute liberty in society? I believe that there are, and that those conditions are as determinable as the liberties they protect. The foundation upon which all free government rests, and out of which all natural rights flow as from a common center, has been well stated by Mr. Herbert Spencer in a late work on "Social Statics," to be "the liberty of each limited by the like liberty of all." As the fundamental truth originating and yet circumscribing the validity of laws and constitutions, it can not be stated in a simpler form. As the rule in conformity with which society must be organized, and which distinguishes where the rightful subordination terminates, and where tyranny, whether of majorities or minorities, begins, it can not be too much commended. "Every man has freedom to do all that he wills, provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man," is stated as the law of just social relationships, and in it the rights of individual liberty of thought, of speech, of action, find their complete expression. It will be observed that equality is the essence of it all. In fact, any recognition of an inequality of rights is fatal to liberty.
Observe, furthermore, that those rights inhere in the individual, are part of his existence, and not the gift of any man or aggregation of men. If they were, equality under a despotism might find its justification in the postulate just as well as equality under a republic. Cæsarean Democracy could claim like paternity with American Democracy. The assumption, then, that freedom in any of its forms is a privilege conceded by society is utterly unwarrantable, because society itself is a concession from the individual—the liberty of each limited by the like liberty of all—and such limitation is what society or Government represents. And it is in this sense, and flowing from this axiom, that the rights of franchise originally appertain to all alike; for franchise is in itself nothing more than a mode of participating in the common Government, and represents only the interest each has therein. That limitations may attach thereto, just as they attach to freedom of speech or freedom of action, is perfectly true; but they must be equal limitations, applicable to all alike, growing out of the social relation, and not leveled at the inherent right of any individual or class. Thus the exclusion of criminals from the franchise, the designation of terms of minority as connected with the exercise of political duties, the regulation of the admission to citizenship of persons coming from foreign countries, find their justification in a principle which, so far from recognizing in Government or society a purely arbitrary control of the rights and exercise of self-government or personal liberty, brings it down within rigid and narrow limits of equality and necessity.
There are those, and I am sorry some such have arisen in the Senate to-day, who seek to escape this conclusion, and put the blush upon all free government by affirming, as I have said, that the right of franchise is a purely political right, neither inherent nor inalienable, and may be divested by the citizen or the State at will. The consideration mentioned, that the right of franchise is neither more nor less than the right of self-government as exercised through a participation in the common government of all, shows, however, that if it be not a natural right it will be difficult to say in what a natural right consists. Indeed, it is perhaps the most natural of any of our rights, inasmuch as its denial is the denial of all right to personal liberty, for how can such latter right exist when the right to maintain it among men and the societies of men is denied? Again, if the right to share in the joint government is not inherent, from whence does it come? Who can give the right to govern another? and how can any give what he has not got? Society is but the aggregate of individuals, and in its authority represents only the conceded limitations on all, not any reservoir of human rights, otherwise human rights would vary with every changing association. Still again, if the right of a man as regards Government can be divested either by himself or Government at will, then Government has no limit to its rightful tyranny—it may divest not only one man, but a hundred or a thousand; indeed, why not all but the chosen few or the imperial one, thus arriving logically at oligarchic or despotic rule. And if a man may divest himself of this right, what right is sacred from his renunciation? That a man may refuse to exercise any right is true, and that in changing his abode he may sever his political and social relations is equally true; but these facts only prove that his natural rights inhere in his person, go with him in his movement, subject always to be exercised under the conditions and limitations before recited. After all, to demonstrate the utter falsity and pernicious consequence of the idea that the right to share in the common Government (which is only a synonym for the right of franchise) is a privilege to be farmed out by Government at discretion and to whom it chooses, it is only necessary to ask, if that be so, whence comes the right to representation? Wherein is the foundation for any democratic society, predicated on the rights of individuals? That various mixed Governments do undertake to limit the franchise to the few as a privilege coming from the body-corporate, has nothing to do with the question, for I am discussing now rights, not practices; republics, not aristocracies.
Such I believe, Mr. President, to be the principles on which our personal rights, our liberties in society repose. It is true the argument carries us very far, but not farther, I apprehend, than republican government must go whenever it undertakes to conform its practice to its logic. And having examined the general reasoning that controls the whole question of franchise, let me now advert more particularly to the bearing of that argument upon the proposition submitted by the Senator from Pennsylvania. I know that many affirm that the results to which such reasoning as that I have adduced would lead are themselves conclusive against its force. But that is scarcely a fair mode of judging of the strength and invincibility of any argument, far less one touching interests so momentous in character. To give the objection its greatest force it may be said, "If suffrage be the right of all men, why is it not also the right of all women, of all children?" "Are they not equally interested in good government, and are they not equally capable of expressing through a vote their wish in relation to public affairs?" "Do they not come within the category, the equal liberty of each limited by the like liberty of all, and if so, can the infringement of their liberty by disfranchisement be justified!" To such questions, and, in fact, to the whole inquiry, it may be replied that as freedom finds the expression of its limits in the social relation itself, so long as the marital and paternal state remain as they are now, essential parts to that social relation, so long will there be more or less of constraint involved in their expression through governmental forms. And it may be added also that in so far as marriage and paternity establish an identity of interest between husband and wife, or parent and child, so far the participation of the one in the Government is virtually the participation of both, the franchise of one the franchise of both. Such identity is not always true or equable, but it nevertheless approximates truth, and is therefore the more readily accepted as such in practical affairs.
That the rights of women, however, are intrinsically the same with those of men, may not be consistently denied; and that all the advance of modern civilization has been toward according them greater equality of condition is attested by the current history of every nation within its pale. Rights of married women and minors are constantly finding new expression in our laws and new force in our public opinion, which is only law in process of formation. While it will not be necessary, therefore, to go into those deeper and anterior questions of social life involving the substitution of voluntary for compulsory modes which are agitating so profoundly the intellect of this age, it is important to note that of the three great departments of control in human affairs, namely, morals or conscience, manners or society, governments or laws, the two former have been unreservedly conceded to the full and equal participation of women. And furthermore, I venture to affirm with all confidence, that although the social relation, as it embraces a recognition of family dependence, may present obstacles to an equal influence under present forms of government and to the full exercise of citizen rights on the part of women, yet that the purity, the refinement, the instinctive reading of character, the elegant culture of the women of our land, if brought to bear upon the conduct of political affairs, would do much to elevate them in all their aims, and conform them to higher standards of justice.
Mr. President, I have listened in vain for the argument on which is predicated the assertion that sex alone affords a rightful ground for exclusion from the rights of franchise. I do not find anything to justify that view, even in the position of those who contend that franchise is a mere political privilege and not founded in any right, for that would apply to men equally as to women, and does not touch the question of relative rights. The position would still remain to be established why the franchise should be given to the one and not to the other. It would remain still to present grounds of principle on which that right as such may be denied to her and not denied to him. I have heard reasons of policy, reasons of sentiment, reasons of precedent advanced to justify this exclusion; but in all frankness, and with no disrespect intended, I must say that those which have been presented during this debate seem to me trivial, illogical, and contradictory of one another.
First, it has been said that if women are entitled to the rights of franchise they would correspondingly come under the obligation to bear arms. But, sir, I do not know that there is any necessary connection between the right of franchise and the requirement of service in your army. On the contrary, I do know that all Governments which have existed among men do now recognize the fact that there is no necessary connection between the two; and I do know that no Government has more distinctly recognized this position than the Government of the United States. Are there not large classes even among men in this country who are exempt from service in our armies for physical incapacity and for other reasons? And if exemptions which appertain to males may be recognized as valid, why not similar exemptions for like reason when applied to females? Does it not prove that there is nothing in the argument so far as it involves the question of right? There are Quakers and other religious sects; there are ministers of the gospel—persons having conscientious scruples; indeed, all men over a certain age who under the laws of many of the States are released from service of that character. Indeed, it is the boast of the republic that ours is a volunteer military establishment. Hence I say there is nothing in the position that because she may not be physically qualified for service in your army, therefore you have the right to deny her the franchise on the score of sex. It might be an inquiry of very great interest and worthy of being pursued much further than I have the time or the ability to pursue it just now, how far, if the ballot should be extended to all the women in this land, it would go to modify existing opinion and action and relationship among States so as to obliterate in a great degree the very necessity for your army and navy. I believe, sir, that a very large majority of the wars that have been waged in this world have been wars that were condemned by the moral sense of the nations on both sides; wars that would have been terminated forthwith if that moral sense could have had its rightful influence in controlling the affairs of Government; and I say it is a question that is worthy of consideration how far such an element introduced into your political control would go to obviate these barbarous resorts to force which you now deem essential and which we all deplore, but which it is a folly, if not a crime, to say constitute a reason woman should be denied any right to which she would be otherwise entitled.
Mr. President, a second objection has been taken to any extension of the franchise in this direction, and it is one that perhaps has more seeming force in it than the other. It has been said with a great deal of pathos by the Senator from New Jersey: what, would you have your wives and your daughters mingle in the scenes at the election-booths, go into the riotous demonstrations that attend upon the exercise of the ballot, and become participants in the angry and turbulent strifes that are so characteristic of our political modes. I say with frankness that I would not have wife or daughter mingle in any such scene; I would be loth to have their purity and their virtue exposed to such demoralized surroundings, surroundings that are only too apt to corrupt even the males that mingle in the political arena. But, sir, I contend that that is an argument against the ballot and the hustings and the polling-booths, and not against the rights of woman. It is an argument against those corruptions that you have permitted to grow and fasten upon your political methods and appliances, and not an argument against her rights as contrasted with the rights of man. What! usurp an exclusive control—then degrade the modes of exercising power, and after that say the degradation is reason why the usurpation should continue unchallenged. What profanation of the very powers of thought is that! On the contrary, I am prepared to say that I see no reason, I never have seen any reason, why there might not be changes introduced in your modes of taking the sense of the community, of ascertaining public opinion upon public measures, of making selection even of its individuals for important offices, that would conform them far more to those refinements and those elevations which should characterize and control them, purifications that must render them appropriate for participation in by the most refined of the land, whether male or female. I see no reason why it should not be done. The change has been constant already from the very rudest forms to the forms which we now have, and which I am sorry to say, are sufficiently rude to disgrace the civilization of the age. Why not further amelioration and adaptation? Are we to have no progress in the modes of government among men? Are we and future generations to be ever imprisoned in the uncouth alternative of monarchical or democratic forms as they now obtain? I can not believe it. For five years past we have had revolution enough among us to satisfy even the most conservative that the present is no ultimatum, either of form or substance in political or social affairs. I will go further and venture to say, that there are now seething underneath all the forms of this Government, revolutions still more striking than any one of us have yet witnessed. Beneath all these methods and appliances of administrations and controls among men, I believe there is under our very feet a heaving, unsteady ocean of aroused questioning in which many modes now practiced will sink to rise no more, and out of which other adaptations will emerge that will render far more perfect the reflection of the will of the people; that will perhaps represent minorities as well as majorities; that will disarm corruptions by dispensing with party organizations. It is the very witching hour of change.
And, sir, I do not dread change. Why should we? Is not change the primal condition on which all life is permitted to exist? Change is the very essence of all things pure, the sign and token of the divinity that is within us, and conservatism per se is infidelity against the ordination of God. When, therefore, we see such change in all things that are around us, in fashions and customs and laws and recognitions and intellectualities, even to the supremest generalizations of science, in all things save the elemental principles of our being and by consequence of our rights, why shall we say that these forms into which we have cast administration and government, shall not obey the great law of development and take upon themselves ameliorations better suited to the changing society of mankind, to the wants of a more truthful representation, to the participation by all in the Government that is over all. Mr. President, I am of those who believe that they will. When I look around on the incongruities and corruptions that surround our present system, when I see what politics and government and administration actually are, if I believed there was to be no progress in that direction I should be bereft of all hope and desolate of faith. On the contrary, methinks I can see in the adown vista of the future the golden apples hanging on the tree of promise. It seems to me that the light of the morning is already streaming in upon us that shall illuminate further advancements in the science of government. And why should not even Republican government take to itself other modes of administration without infraction of its fundamental liberties? Why should not large reductions transpire in those opportunities that invite the most sinister combination for offices and spoils? Is there any reason why the emoluments of place should more than repay the labor it calls for? Is there any reason why large abolitions of executive patronage may not transpire; why Government may not generate through examining commissioners, best agencies of its own for the functional work it is called to perform, leaving appeals to the community to pass rather upon controlling measures and general policies and legislative functionaries? Is there any reason why that should not take place? Sir, already, if I mistake not, in the large cities of this land, which are the local points of your domestic political system, the necessity for such a change is being felt and acted upon, and large branches of executive work and supervision are being necessarily put in commission. Mr. President, I think what I have said sufficiently shows that the argument which is advanced, that the present surroundings are such that woman could not properly participate in your elections, is an argument that does not go to the right of the woman, but does go to the wrong of the man. It is a criticism, perhaps a satire upon the civilization of your political system, not a justification for any exclusions practiced under it.
There is one other line of remark that has been indulged in, and only one other so far as I have heard, which calls for any special rejoinder, and that affirms the precedents of the past to be all against any such proposition as that now submitted. It is said that there is no precedent, that it is not customary in any of our governments, that it is not one of the recognitions of our society, that it has never been signified as such in the past. I do not know that such an argument amounts to anything at best, but I do know that the allegation itself has no foundation in fact. I know that in many cases and on many occasions this impassable barrier that is now set forth as dividing the natural rights of man and woman has been broken down and trampled upon, and that, too, without any injury to the society from so doing. Perhaps I can best illustrate this point by what an accomplished lady, who has given much thought and research to the subject, has presented. I read from a contribution she has made to one of our leading public prints. She says:
I think that is a list of illustrations sufficient to dispose of any argument that may arise on such a score. And now, Mr. President, permit me to say, in concluding the remarks I have felt called upon to make here, that I have spoken rather as indicating my assent to the principle than as expecting any present practical results from the motion in question. In the earliest part of my political life, when first called upon to represent a constituency in the General Assembly of Missouri, in looking around, after my arrival at the seat of Government at those matters that seemed to me of most importance in legislation, I was struck with two great classes of injustices, two great departments in which it seemed to me the laws and the constitutions of my State had done signal wrong. Those were one as respects the rights of colored persons; the other as respects the rights of married women, minors, and females; and I there and then determined that whenever and wherever it should be in my power to aid in relieving them of those inequalities and those injustices, I would do so to the extent of my humble ability. Since then I have labored zealously in those two reforms as far and as fast as a public opinion could be created or elicited to enforce them, and I can say from my own observation that each step of advance taken has been fruitful of all good and productive of no evil. Emancipation of the colored race in Missouri has been achieved in a most thorough manner, substantially achieved even before the war; and to-day the community is ripe for the declaration that all are created equal, and that there is no reason to exclude from any right, civil or political, on the ground of race or color. I feel proud to say likewise that Missouri has gone further, and wiped from her statute-book large portions of that unjust and unfair and illiberal legislation which had been leveled at the rights and the property of the women of the State. Believing that that cause which embraces and embodies the cause of civil liberty will go forward still triumphing and to triumph, I will never, so help me God, cast any vote that may be construed as throwing myself in the face of that progress. Even though I recognize, therefore, the impolicy of coupling these two measures in this manner and at this time, I shall yet record my vote in the affirmative as an earnest indication of my belief in the principle and my faith in the future.
Mr. Davis: Mr. President, our entire population, like that of all other countries, is divided into two great classes, the male and the female. By the census of 1860 the white female population of the United States exceeded thirteen millions, and the aggregate negro population, of both sexes, was below four and a half millions. That great white population, and all its female predecessors, have never had the right of suffrage, or, to use that cant phrase of the day, have never been enfranchised; and such has also been the condition of the negro population. That about one negro in ten thousand in four or five States have been allowed to vote, is too insignificant to be dignified with any consideration as an exception. But now a frenzied party is clamoring to have suffrage given to the negro, while they not only raise no voice for female suffrage, but frown upon and repel every movement and utterance in its favor. Who of the advocates of negro suffrage, in Congress or out of it, dare to stand forth and proclaim to the manhood of America, that the free negroes are fitter and more competent to exercise transcendent political power right of suffrage, than their mothers, their wives, their sisters, and their daughters? The great God who created all the races and in every race gave to man woman, never intended that woman should take part in national government among any people, or that the negro, the lowest, should ever have co-ordinate and equal power with the highest, the white race, in any government, national or domestic. To woman in every race He gave correlative, and as high, as necessary, and as essential, but different faculties and attributes, intellectual and moral, as He gave to man in the same race; and to both, those adapted to the equally important but different parts which they were to play in the dramatic destinies of their people. The instincts, the teachings of the distinct and differing, but harmonious organism of each, led man and woman in every race and people and nation and tribe, savage and civilized, in all countries and ages of the world, to choose their natural, appropriate, and peculiar field of labor and effort. Man assumed the direction of government and war, woman of the domestic and family affairs and the care and the training of the child; and each have always acquiesced in this partition and choice. It has been so from the beginning, throughout the whole history of man, and it will continue to be so to the end, because it is in conformity to nature and its laws, and is sustained and confirmed by the experience and reason of six thousand years.
I therefore, Mr. President, am decidedly and earnestly opposed to the amendment moved by my friend from Pennsylvania. There is no man more deeply impressed with or more highly appreciates the important offices which woman exercises over the destiny of race than I do. I concede that woman, by her teachings and influence, is the source of the large mass of the morality and virtue of man and of the world. The benignant and humanizing and important influence which she exercises upon the whole race of man in the proper discharge of her functions and duties can not be overestimated; but that woman should properly perform these great duties, this inappreciably valuable task, it is necessary that she should be kept pure. The domestic altar is a sacred fane where woman is the high and officiating priestess. This priestess should be virtuous, she should be intelligent, she should be competent to the performance of all her high duties. To keep her in that condition of purity, it is necessary that she should be separated from the exercise of suffrage and from all those stern and contaminating and demoralizing duties that devolves upon the hardier sex—man.
What is the proposition now before the Senate? To make pure, cultivated, noble woman a partisan, a political hack, to lead her among the rabble that surround and control by blackguardism and brute force so many of the hustings of the United States. Mr. President, if one greater evil or curse could befall the American people than any other, in my judgment it would be to confer upon the women of America the right of suffrage. It would be a great step in the line of mischief and evil, and it would lead to other and equally fatal steps—in the same direction. Sir, if ever in the depths and silence of night I send up my secret orisons to my Maker, one of the most fervent of my prayers would be that the women of my country should be saved and sheltered by man from this great contamination. It is not necessary to the proper influence and to the legitimate power of woman. A cultivated, enlightened, delicate, refined, and virtuous woman at the family altar is the persuasive and at the same time plastic power that sways and fashions the principles and character of her children, and thus makes her impress upon the future men of America, the Phocians, the Timoleons, the Washingtons, who are the honor of the race, and whose destiny it is to elevate and ennoble it. Mr. President, in proportion as man becomes civilized so increases the power and the influence of woman. In the tribes and nations of the lowest ignorance and barbarism this influence is least—it is most potent where there is the greatest intellectual and moral cultivation of man. I want this gentle and holy influence to continue pure and uncontaminated by keeping it within the domestic fane and afar from party politics. But, sir, it has become the fashion, the philosophy, the frenzy of the day to coin catch-words that carry a seemingly attractive principle, but at the same time alluring and mischievous, and among them is this cry for woman's rights and also for negro suffrage and manhood suffrage and universal suffrage. It is all nothing but slang and demagoguery, and is fraught with naught but evil, mischief, and degradation, individually and nationally. For these reasons, sir, one of the last propositions, or if gentlemen choose, principles which have been or may be propounded to the people of America, or as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, to which I shall ever give my acceptance, is female suffrage.
I do not deny that our national family properly and wisely comprehends all of the nationalities of Europe who may come here, according to the terms of our naturalization laws, and their posterity; but I assert that negroes, Indians, Mongolians, Chinese, and Tartars ought not and can not safely be admitted to the powers and privileges of citizenship.
I have no doubt that my honorable friend from Pennsylvania desires that the right of suffrage should be given to women; and if he had the power to transfer all the women of the conservative States into and to become residents of the radical States, who imagines that if that were done the Radicals of this House and of the nation would shout in favor of giving to women the right of suffrage? If the Radicals in Congress and out of Congress knew with the certainty of truth that every vote which they will enfranchise by conferring the right of suffrage on the negro, would be cast against that party, in favor of their late southern masters, in favor of the Democracy, in hostility to the schemes of ambition and spoils which are now animating the heart and mind of the great radical organization, who doubts that this party and every mother's son of them would shout for withholding suffrage from the negro?
Mr. Sprague: I know the Senate is impatient for a vote. I know they are determined to vote favorably. When it is necessary that women shall vote for the support of liberty and equality I shall be ready to cast my vote in their favor. The black man's vote is necessary to this at this time....
Mr. Buckalew: I desire to say before the vote is taken on this amendment that I shall vote in favor of it because of the particular position which it occupies. A vote given for this amendment is not a final one. I understand it to pronounce an opinion upon the two propositions which have been undergoing consideration in the Senate, in a comparative manner, if I may use the expression. In voting for this proposition I affirm simply that the principles and the reasonings upon which the bill itself, as reported by the committee, is based, would apply with equal, if not increased force, to the particular proposition contained in the amendment. If that be affirmed, then recurs the question whether it is proper, whether it is expedient at this time to increase, and very extensively increase, suffrage in this country. I do not understand that the general argument on that question is involved in the present motion. I do not understand that it comes up of necessity in considering the proposition covered by the amendment of my colleague which stands simply in contrast with that contained in the bill. I presume there are several gentlemen, members of this body, who will vote with reference to this consideration and who will reserve their opinion, either openly or in their own consciousness, upon the general or indirect question of the extension of suffrage to the females of the United States.
But the occasion invites some remarks beyond the mere statement of this point. The debates which have been going on for three days in this Chamber will go out to the country. They will constitute an element in the popular discussions of the times and awaken a large amount of public attention. This is not the last we shall hear of this subject. It will come to us again; and I am persuaded that one reason why it will come again is that the arguments against the proposed extension of suffrage have not been sufficient; they have been inadequate; they have been placed upon grounds which will not endure debate. Those who are in favor of the extension of suffrage to females can answer what has been said in this Chamber, and they can answer it triumphantly; and you will eventually be obliged to take other grounds than those which have been here stated. From the beginning of this debate there has been either an open or an implied concession of the principle upon which the extension of suffrage is asked; and that is, that there is some natural right or propriety in extending it further than it was extended by those who formed our State and Federal Constitutions; that there is some principle of right or of propriety involved which now appeals powerfully to us in favor of extended and liberal action in behalf of those large classes who have been hitherto disfranchised; upon whom the right of suffrage has not been heretofore conferred.
Having made this concession upon the fundamental ground of the inquiry, or at all events intimated it, the opponents of an extended franchise pass on to particular arguments of inconvenience or inexpediency as constituting the grounds of their opposition.
Now, sir, I venture to say that those who resist the extension of suffrage in this country will be unsuccessful in their opposition; they will be overborne, unless they assume grounds of a more commanding character than those which they have here maintained. This subject of the extension of suffrage must be put upon practical grounds and extricated from the sophisms of theoretical reasoning. Gentlemen must get out of The domain of theory. They must come back again to those principles of action upon which our fathers proceeded in framing our constitutional system. They lodged suffrage in this country simply in those whom they thought most worthy and most fit to exercise it. They did not proceed upon those humanitarian theories which have since obtained and which now seem to have taken a considerable hold on the public mind. They were practical men, and acted with reference to the history and experience of mankind. They were no metaphysicians; they were not reformers in the modern sense of the term; they were men who based their political action upon the experience of mankind, and upon those practical reflections with reference to men and things in which they had indulged in active life. They placed suffrage then upon the broad common-sense principle that it should be lodged in and exercised by those who could use it most wisely and most safely and most efficiently to serve the great ends for which Government was instituted. They had no other ground than this, and their work shows that they proceeded upon it, and not upon any abstract or transcendental notion of human rights which ignored the existing facts of social life.
Now, sir, the objection which I have to a large extension of suffrage in this country, whether by Federal or State power, is this: that thereby you will corrupt and degrade elections, and probably lead to their complete abrogation hereafter. By pouring into the ballot-boxes of the country a large mass of ignorant votes, and votes subjected to pecuniary or social influence, you will corrupt and degrade your elections and lay the foundation for their ultimate destruction. That is a conviction of mine, and it is upon that ground that I resist both negro suffrage and female suffrage, and any other proposed form of suffrage which takes humanity in an unduly broad or enlarged sense as the foundation of an arrangement of political power.
Mr. President, I proposed before the debate concluded, before this subject should be submitted to the Senate for its final decision, to protest against some of the reasoning by which this amendment was resisted. I intended to protest against particular arguments which were submitted; but I was glad this morning that that duty which I had proposed to myself was discharged, and well discharged by the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Brown]. For instance, the argument that the right of suffrage ought not to be conferred upon this particular class because they did not or could not bear arms—a consideration totally foreign and irrelevant, in my opinion, to the question which we are discussing.
But, sir, passing this by, I desire to add a few words before I conclude upon another point which was stated or suggested by the Senator from Missouri, and that is the question of reform or improvement in our election system; I mean in the machinery by which or plans upon which those elections proceed. After due reflection given to this subject, my opinion is that our electoral systems in this country are exceedingly defective, and that they require thorough revision, that to them the hand of reform must be strongly applied if republican institutions are to be ultimately successful with us.
I would see much less objection to your extension of the right of suffrage very largely to classes now excluded if you had a different mode of voting, if you did take or could take the sense of these added classes in a different manner from that which now obtains in popular voting. You proceed at present upon the principle or rule that a mere majority of the electoral community shall possess the whole mass of political power; and what are the inevitable results? First, that the community is divided into parties, and into parties not very unequal in their aggregate numbers. What next? That the balance of power between parties is held by a very small number of voters; and in practical action what is the fact? That the struggle is constantly for that balance of power, and in order to obtain it, all the arts and all the evil influences of elections are called into action. It is this struggle for that balance of power that breeds most of the evils of your system of popular elections. Now, is it not possible to have republican institutions and to eliminate or decrease largely this element of evil? Why, sir, take the State of Pennsylvania, whose voice, perhaps, in this Government is to give direction to its legislation at a given time and take a pecuniary interest in the country largely interested in your laws, looking forward upon the eve of a hotly contested election to some particular measures of Government which shall favor it, with what ease can that interest throw into the State a pecuniary contribution competent to turn the voice of that powerful State and change or determine the policy of your Government. And why so? It is only necessary that this corrupt influence should be exerted very slightly indeed within that State from abroad in order to turn the scale, because you are only to exert your pernicious power upon a small number of persons who hold the balance of power between parties therein. Sir, that organization of our system which allows such a state of things to occur must be inherently vicious. Instead of this being a Government of the whole people, which is our fundamental principle, which is our original idea, it is a Government, in the first place, of a majority only of the people; and in the next place, it is in some sort a Government of that small number of persons who give preponderance to one party over another, and who may be influenced by fanaticism, corruption, or passion.
This being our political state at present with reference to electoral action, what do you propose? We have a great evil. Electoral corruption is the great danger in our path. It is the evil in our system against which we must constantly struggle. Every patriot and every honest man here and in his own State is bound to lift his voice and to strike boldly against it in all its forms, and it requires for its repression all the efforts and all the exertion we can put forth. Now what is proposed by the reformers of the present time? We have our majority rule—it is not a principle; it is an abuse of all terms to call it a principle—we have our majority rule in full action, presenting an invitation to corrupt, base, and sinister influences to attach themselves to our system; we have great difficulties with which we now struggle arising from imperfect arrangements, and what do you propose? To reform existing evils and abuses? To correct your system? To study it as patriots, as men of reflection and good sense? No, sir. You propose to introduce into our electoral bodies new elements of enormous magnitude. You propose to take the base of society, excluded now, and build upon it, and upon it alone or mainly, because the introduction of the enormous mass of voters proposed by the reformers will wholly change the foundations upon which you build.
Will not these new electors you propose to introduce be more approachable than men who now vote to all corrupt influences? Will they not be more passionate, and therefore more easily influenced by the demagogue? Will they not be more easily caught and enraptured by superficial declamation, because more incapable of profound reflection? Will not their weakness render them subservient to the strong and their ignorance to the artful?
I shall not, however, detain you with an elaborate argument upon this question of suffrage. I only feel myself called upon to say enough to indicate the general direction of my reflections upon the questions before us; to show why it is that I am immovably opposed at this time to extending our system of suffrage in the District of Columbia or elsewhere so as to include large classes of persons who are now excluded; and to state my opinion that reform or change should be concerned with the correction of the existing evils of our electoral system, instead of with the enlargement of its boundaries.
Mr. Doolittle: I move that the Senate do now adjourn.
Several Senators: Oh, no; let us have a vote.
The motion was not agreed to.
Mr.Doolittle: Mr. President, this amendment, in my judgment, opens a very grave question; a question graver than it appears at the blush; a question upon which the ablest minds are divided here and elsewhere; a question, however, on which we are called upon to vote, and therefore one upon which I desire very briefly to state the views which control my judgment when I say that I shall vote against the amendment which is now offered.
For myself, sir, after giving some considerable reflection to the subject of suffrage, I have arrived at the conclusion that the true base or foundation upon which to rest suffrage in any republican community is upon the family, the head of the family; because in civilized society the family is the unit, not the individual. What is meant by "man" is man in that relation where he is placed according to nature, reason, and religion. If it were a new question and it were left to me to determine what should be the true qualification of a person to exercise the right of suffrage, I would fix it upon that basis that the head of a family, capable of supporting that family, and who had supported the family, should be permitted to vote, and no other.
While I know that the question is not a new one; while it is impossible for me to treat it as a new question because suffrage everywhere has been extended beyond the heads of families, yet the reason, in my judgment, upon which it has been extended is simply this: if certain men have been permitted to vote who were not the heads of families it was because they were the exceptions to the general rule, and because it was to be presumed that if they were not at the time heads of families they ought to be, and probably would be. I say that according to reason, nature, and religion, the family is the unit of every society. So far as the ballot is concerned, in my judgment, it represents this fundamental element of civilized society, the family. It therefore should be cast by the head of the family, and according to reason, nature, and religion man is the head of the family. In that relation, while every man is king, every woman is queen; but upon him devolves the responsibility of controlling the external relations of this family, and those external relations are controlled by the ballot; for that ballot or vote which he exercises goes to choose the legislators who are to make the laws which are to govern society. Within the family man is supreme; he governs by the law of the family, by the law of reason, nature, religion. Therefore it is that I am not in favor of conferring the right of suffrage upon woman....
Mr. President, I have stated very briefly that I shall not be able to vote for the proposition of my honorable friend from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan]. I shall not be able to vote for this bill if it be a bill to give universal suffrage to the colored men in this District without any restriction or qualification. I have been informed that some other Senator intends before this bill shall have passed in the Senate to propose an amendment which will attach a qualification, and perhaps, should that meet the views of the Senate, I might give my support to the bill. I shall not detain the Senate further now on this subject.
Mr. Pomeroy: I desire to say in just a brief word that I shall vote against the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania, simply because I am in favor of this measure, and I do not want to weigh it down with anything else. There are other measures that I would be glad to support in their proper place and time; but this is a great measure of itself. Since I have been a member of the Senate, there was a law in this District authorizing the selling of colored men. To have traveled in six years from the auction-block to the ballot with these people is an immense stride, and if we can carry this measure alone of itself we should be contented for the present. I am for this measure religiously and earnestly, and I would vote down and vote against everything that I thought weakened or that I thought was opposed to it. It is simply with this view, without expressing any opinion in regard to the merits of the amendment, that I shall vote against it and all other amendments.
The President pro tem.: The question is on the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan], to strike out the word "male" before the word "person," in the second line of the first section of the amendment reported by the Committee on the District of Columbia as a substitute for the whole bill, and on that question the yeas and nays have been ordered. Yeas, 9. Nays, 37.[11]In the House, January 28, 1867, Mr. Noell, of Missouri, introduced a bill to amend the suffrage act of the District of Columbia, which, after the second reading, he moved should be referred to a select committee of five, and on that motion demanded the previous question, and called for the yeas and nays, which resulted in 49 yeas,[12] 74 nays—68 not voting.
- ↑ Form of Petition.—To the Senate and House of Representatives:—The undersigned women of the United States, respectfully ask an amendment of the Constitution that shall prohibit the several States from disfranchising any of their citizens on the ground of sex. In making our demand for Suffrage, we would call your attention to the fact that we represent fifteen million people—one-half the entire population of the country—intelligent, virtuous, native-born American citizens; and yet stand outside the pale of political recognition. The Constitution classes us as "free people," and counts us whole persons in the basis of representation; and yet are we governed without our consent, compelled to pay taxes without appeal, and punished for violations of law without choice of judge or juror. The experience of all ages, the Declarations of the Fathers, the Statute Laws of our own day, and the fearful revolution through which we have just passed, all prove the uncertain tenure of life, liberty, and property so long as the ballot—the only weapon of self-protection—is not in the hand of every citizen. Therefore, as you are now amending the Constitution, and, in harmony with advancing civilization, placing new safeguards round the individual rights of four millions of emancipated slaves, we ask that you extend the right of Suffrage to Woman—the only remaining class of disfranchised citizens—and thus fulfill your constitutional obligation "to guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican form of Government." As all partial application of Republican principles must ever breed a complicated legislation as well as a discontented people, we would pray your Honorable Body, in order to simplify the machinery of Government and ensure domestic tranquillity, that you legislate hereafter for persons, citizens, tax-payers, and not for class or caste. For justice and equality your petitioners will ever pray.
- ↑
JOINT RESOLUTIONS BEFORE CONGRESS AFFECTING WOMEN.
To the Editor of the Standard—Sir:—Mr. Broomall, of Pennsylvania; Mr. Schenck, of Ohio; Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island; Mr. Stevens, of Pennsylvania, have each a resolution before Coagress to amend the Constitution. Article 1st, Section 3d, reads thus: "Representatives and direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included within this UniQn according to their respective number." Mr. Broomall proposes to amend by saying "male electors," Mr. Schenck "male citizens," Mr. Jeuckes "male citizens," Mr. Stevens "legal voters." There is no objection to the amendment proposed by Mr. Stevens, as in process of time women may be made "legal voters" in the several States, and would then meet that requirement of the Constitution. But those urged by the other gentlemen, neither time, effort, nor State Constitutions could enable us to meet, unless, by a liberal interpretation of the amendment, a coat of mail to be worn at the polls might be judged all-sufficient. Mr. Jenckes and Mr. Schenck, in their bills, have the grace not to say a word about taxes, remembering perhaps that "taxation without representation is tyranny." But Mr. Broomall, though unwilling to share with us the honors of Government, would fain secure us a place in its burdens; for while he apportions representatives to "male electors" only, he admits "all the inhabitants" into the rights, privileges, and immunities of taxation. Magnanimous M. C.! I would call the attention of the women of the nation to the fact that under the Federal Constitution, as it now exists, there is not one word that limits the right of suffrage to any privileged class. This attempt to turn the wheels of civilization backward, on the part of Republicans claiming to be the Liberal party, should rouse every woman in the nation to a prompt exercise of the only right she has in the Government, the right of petition. To this end a committee in New York have sent out thousands of petitions, which should be circulated in every district and sent to its Representative at Washington as soon as possible.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
New York, January 2, 1866.
- ↑ Leaving Rochester October 11th, she called on Martha Wright, Auburn; Phebe Jones and Lydia Mott, Albany; Mrs. Rose, Gibbons, Davis, Stanton, New York; Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Black well, New Jersey; Stephen and Abby Foster, Worcester; Mrs. Severance, Dall, Nowell, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Dr. Zakzyewska, Mr. Phillips and Garrison, in Boston, urging them to join in sending protests to Washington against the pending legislation. Mr. Phillips at once consented to vote $500 from the "Jackson Fund" to commence the work. Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton spent all their "Christmas holidays" in writing letters and addressing appeals and petitions to every part of the country, and before the close of the session of 1865-66 ten thousand signatures were poured into Congress.
- ↑
This Is The Negro's Hour."
To the Editor of the Standard—Sir:—By an amendment of the Constitution, ratified by three-fourths of the loyal States, the black man is declared free. The largest and most influential political party is demanding suffrage for him throughout the Union, which right in many of the States is already conceded. Although this may remain a question for politicians to wrangle over for five or ten years, the black man is still, in a political point of view, far above the educated women of the country. The representative women of the nation have done their uttermost for the last thirty years to secure freedom for the negro, and so long as he was lowest in the scale of being we were willing to press his claims; but now, as the celestial gate to civil rights is slowly moving on its hinges, it becomes a serious question whether we had better stand aside and see "Sambo" walk into the kingdom first. As self-preservation is the first law of nature, would it not be wiser to keep our lamps trimmed and burning, and when the constitutional door is open, avail ourselves of the strong arm and blue uniform of the black soldier to walk in by his side, and thus make the gap so wide that no privileged class could ever again close it against the humblest citizen of the republic? "This is the negro's hour." Are we sure that he, once entrenched in all his inalienable rights, may not be an added power to hold us at bay? Have not "black male citizens" been heard to say they doubted the wisdom of extending the right of suffrage to women? Why should the African prove more just and generous than his Saxon compeers? If the two millions of Southern black women are not to be secured in their rights of person, property, wages, and children, their emancipation is but another form of slavery. In fact, it is better to be the slave of an educated white man, than of a degraded, ignorant black one. We who know what absolute power the statute laws of most of the States give man, in all his civil, political, and social relations, demand that in changing the status of the four millions of Africans, the women as well as the men shall be secured in all the rights, privileges, and immunities of citizens. It is all very well for the privileged order to look down complacently and tell us, "This is the negro's hour; do not clog his way; do not embarrass the Republican party with any new issue; be generous and magnanimous; the negro once safe, the woman comes next." Now, if our prayer involved a new set of measures, or a new train of thought, it would be cruel to tax "white male citizens" with even two simple questions at a time; but the disfranchised all make the same demand, and the same logic and tice that secures suffrage to one class gives it to all. The struggle of the last thirty years has not been merely on the black man as such, but on the broader ground of his humanity. Our Fathers, at the end of the first revolution, in their desire for a speedy readjustment of all their difficulties, and in order to present to Great Britain, their common enemy, an united front, accepted the compromise urged on them by South Carolina, and a century of wrong, ending in another revolution, has been the result of their action. This is our opportunity to retrieve the errors of the past and mould anew the elements of Democracy. The nation is ready for a long step in the right direction; party lines are obliterated, and all men are thinking for themselves. If our rulers have the justice to give the black man suffrage, woman should avail herself of that new-born virtue to secure her rights; if not, she should begin with renewed earnestness to educate the people into the idea of universal suffrage.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
New York, December 26, 1865. - ↑
From the New York Evening Express,
Scenes in the House of Representatives.—Negroes are to Vote—Why not Coolies in California—Indians everywhere, and First of all, Fifteen Millions of our Country women. The following occurred in the House, Tuesday, upon Thaddeus Stevens' resolution, from the Reconstruction Committee, to deprive the South of representation, unless the South lets the negroes vote there . . . . . Mr. Chandler, of New York, having the floor for an hour, said: Before proceeding with my remarks, I will yield the floor for ten minutes to my colleague [Mr. Brooks]. Mr. Brooks: Mr. Speaker, I do not rise, of course, to debate this resolution, in the few minutes allowed me by my colleague, nor, in my judgment, does the resolution need any discussion unless it may be for the mere purpose of agitation. I do not suppose that there is an honorable gentleman upon the floor of this House who believes for a moment that any movement of this character is likely to become the fundamental law of the land, and these propositions are, therefore, introduced only for the purpose of agitation. If the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] had been quite confident of adopting this amendment, he would at the start have named what are States of this Union. The opinion of the honorable gentleman himself, that there are no States in this Union but those that are now represented upon this floor, I know full well but he knows as well that the President of the United States recognizes thirty-six States of this Union, and that it is necessary to obtain the consent of three-fourths of those thirty-six States, which number it is not possible to obtain. He knows very well that if his amendment should be adopted by the Legislatures of States enough, in his judgment, to carry it, before it could pass the tribunal of the Executive Chamber it would be obliged to receive the assent of twenty-seven States in order to become an amendment to the Constitution. The whole resolution, therefore, is for the purpose of mere agitation. It is an appeal from this House to the outside constituencies that we know by the name of buncombe. Here it was born, and here, after its agitation in the States, it will die. Hence, I asked the gentleman from Pennsylvania this morning to be consistent in his proposition. In one thing he is consistent, and that is in admitting the whole of the Asiatic immigration, which, by the connection of our steamers with China and Japan and the East Indies, is about to pour forth in mighty masses upon the Pacific coast to the overwhelming even of the white population there. Mr. Stevens: I wish to correct the gentleman. I said it excluded Chinese. Mr. Brooks: How exclude them, when Chinese are to be included in the basis of representation? Mr. Stevens: I say it excludes them. Mr. Brooks: How exclude them? Mr. Stevens: They are not included in the basis of representation. Mr. Brooks: Yes, if the States exclude them from the elective franchise; and the States of California and Oregon and Nevada are to be deprived of representation according to their population upon the floor of this House by this amendment. I asked him, also, if the Indian was not a man and a brother, and I obtained no satisfactory answer from the honorable gentleman. I speak now, in order to make his resolution consistent; for no one hundred thousand coolies or wild savages, but I raise my voice here in behalf of fifteen million of our countrywomen, the fairest, brightest portion of creation, and I ask why they are not permitted to vote for Representatives under this resolution? Why, in organizing a system of liberality and justice, not recognize in the case of free women as well as free negroes the right of representation? Mr. Stevens: The gentleman will allow me to say that this bill does not exclude women. It does not say who shall vote. Mr. Brooks: I comprehend all that; but the whole object of this amendment is to obtain votes for the negroes. That is its purport, tendency, and meaning; and it punishes those who will not give a vote to the negroes in the Southern States of our Union. That is the object of the resolution, and the ground upon which it is presented to this House and to the country. This is a new era; this is an age of progress. Indians are not only Indians, but men and brothers; and why not, in a resolution like this, include the fair sex too, and give them the right to representation? Will it be said that this sex does not claim a right to representation? Many members here have petitions from these fifteen millions of women, or a large portion of them, for representation, and for the right to vote on equal terms with the stronger sex, who they say are now depriving them of it. To show that such is their wish and desire, I will send to the Clerk's desk to be read certain documents, to which I ask the attention of the honorable gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], for in one of them he will find he is somewhat interested. The Clerk read as follows :
Standard Office, 48 Beekman Street, New York, Jan. 20, 1866.
Dear Sir:—I send you the inclosed copy of petition and signatures sent to Thaddeus Stevens last week. I then urged Mr. Stevens, if their committee of fifteen could not report favorably on our petitions, they would, at least, not interpose any new barrier against woman's right to the ballot. Mrs. Stanton has sent you a petition I trust you will present that at your earliest convenience. The Democrats are now in minority. May they drive the Republicans to do good works not merely to hold the rebel States in check until negro men shall be guaranteed their right to a voice in their governments, but to hold the party to a logical consistency that shall give every responsible citizen in every State equal right to the ballot. Will you, sir, please send me whatever is said or done with our petitions? Will you also give me the names of members whom you think would present petitions for us?
Hon. James Brooks.Respectfully yours,Susan B. Anthony.A PETITION FOR UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE.
To the Senate and House of Representatives:—[The petition here presented has been already in The Express. The following are the signatures to the petition sent to Mr. Stevens]: Elizabeth Cady Stanton, New York; Susan B. Anthony, Rochester, N. Y.; Antoinette Brown Blackwell, New York; Lucy Stone, Newark, N. J.; Ernestine L. Rose, New York; Joanna S. Morse, 48 Livingston St., Brooklyn; Elizabeth R. Tilton, 48 Livingston St., Brooklyn; Ellen Hoxie Squier, 34 St. Felix St., Brooklyn; Mary Fowler Gilbert, 294 West 19th St., New York; Mary E. Gilbert, 294 West 19th St., New York; Mattie Griffith, New York. The Speaker: The ten minutes of the gentleman from New York [Mr. Brooks] have expired Mr. Brooks: I will only say that at the proper time I will move to amend or if I do not I would suggest to some gentleman on the other side to move it this proposed amendment by inserting the words "or sex" after the word "color," so that it will read: Provided, That whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or abridged in any State on account of race or color or sex, all persons of such race or color or sex shall be excluded from the basis of representation. Mr. Stevens: Is the gentleman from N. Y. [Mr. Brooks] in favor of that amendment? Mr. Brooks: I am if negroes are permitted to vote. Mr. Stevens: That does not answer my question. Is the gentleman in favor of the amendment he has indicated? Mr. Brooks: I suggested that I would move it at a convenient time. Mr. Stevens: Is the gentleman in favor of his own amendment? Mr. Brooks: I am in favor of my own color in preference to any other color, and I prefer the white women of my country to the negro. [Applause on the floor and in the galleries promptly checked by the Speaker]. The Speaker said he saw a number of persons clapping in the galleries. He would endeavor, to the best of his ability, whether supported by the House or not, to preserve order. Applause was just as much out of order as manifestations of disapproval, and hisses not more than clapping of hands. Instead of general applause on the floor, gentlemen on the floor should set a good example.
- ↑ Women Politicians.—Mr. Lane, of Kansas, it is reported, has presented to the Senate the petition of "one hundred and twenty-four beautiful, intelligent, and accomplished ladies of Lawrence," praying for a constitutional amendment that shall prohibit States from disfranchising citizens on account of sex. That trick will not do. We wager a big apple that the ladies referred to are not "beautiful" or accomplished. Nine of every ten of them are undoubtedly passe. They have hook-billed noses, crow's-feet under their sunken eyes, and a mellow tinting of the hair. They are connoisseurs in the matter of snuff. They discard hoops, waterfalls, and bandeaux. They hold hen conventions, to discuss and decide, with vociferous expression, the orthodoxy of the minister, the regularity of the doctor, and the morals of the lawyer. They read the Tribune with spectacles, and have flies of The Liberator and Wendell Phillips' orations, bound in sheepskin. Heaven forbid that we should think of any of the number as a married woman, without a fervent aspiration of pity for the weaker vessel who officiates as her spouse. As to rearing children, that is not to be thought of in the connection. Show us a woman who wants to mingle in the exciting and unpurified squabble of politics, and we will show you one who has failed to reach and enjoy that true relation of sovereignty which is held by her "meek and lowly" sisters; who, though destitute of such panting aspirations, hold the scepter of true authority in those high and holy virtues which fascinate while they command in their undisputed empire—the social circle. What iconoclast shall break our idol, by putting the ballot in woman's hand?—Albany Evening Journal. A Cry from the Females.—Mr. Sumner yesterday presented a petition to the Senate from a large number of the women of New England, praying that they may not be debarred from the right of suffrage on account of sex. Our heart warms with pity toward these unfortunate creatures. We fancy that we can see them, deserted of men, and bereft of those rich enjoyments and exalted privileges which belong to women, languishing their unhappy lives away in a mournful singleness, from which they can escape by no art in the construction of waterfalls or the employment of cotton-padding. Talk of a true woman needing the ballot as an accessory of power, when she rules the world by a glance of her eye. There was sound philosophy in the remark of an Eastern monarch, that his wife was sovereign of the Empire, because she ruled his little ones, and his little ones ruled him. The sure panacea for such ills as the Massachusetts petitioners complain of, is a wicker-work cradle and a dimple-cheeked baby.—The New York Tribune.
- ↑ Woman Suffrage.—Editor Commonwealth:—Enclosed is a letter I sent to the editor of The Nation. As I consider his allusion to it insufficient, will you have the kindness to print it, no paper but yours, that I know of, being now open to the subject. All that the editor of The Nation has a right to say is, that he has not investigated the statistics. Most of the women who have signed the petitions are women who have not a male relative in the world interested in the matter. Very truly yours,
Boston, Jan. 20, 1866.Caroline H. Dall.
70 Warren Avenue, Boston, Jan. 6, 1866.
To the Editor of The Nation:—I saw with surprise in The Nation, received to-day, a paragraph on "Universal Suffrage," which contained the following lines:
"We think the women of the United States ought to have the franchise if they desire it, and we think they ought to desire it. But until they do desire it, and show that they do, by a general expression of opinion, we are opposed to their being saddled with it on grounds of theoretical fitness, etc."
Surely, it is difficult to explain such a sentence in a professedly far-seeing and deep-thinking journal! That argument will serve as well for the lately enfranchised blacks as for women, for no one will pretend that of the millions set free, a bare majority would of themselves contend for the franchise. That argument might have refused them freedom itself, for a large majority of Southern slaves knew too little of it to desire it, however they may have longed to be rid of a taskmaster and the pangs which slavery brought. During the last four years women have been silent about their "rights" in the several States, because pressed by severe duties. Desirous to establish a reputation for discretion, we have refrained from complicating the perplexities of any Senator; but now that a constitutional amendment is pending we must be careful, even if we gain no franchise, to lose no opportunity. Hitherto the Constitution of the United States has contained no word that would shut women out from future suffrage. Mr. Schenck, of Ohio, and Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, propose to limit a right to "male citizens" which should rest, as it now does, simply on "legal voters." This would oblige women to move to amend the Constitution of the United States after each separate State was carried. We have no inclination for this unnecessary work, and here, in Boston, we are preparing a petition basing the necessity of our present interference on this fact alone. How much women desire the suffrage, Mr. Editor, you ought to perceive from the conduct of the women of Australia. Carelessly enough, her male legislators omitted the significant adjective from their constitutional amendment, and, without a word of warning, on election day, every woman, properly qualified, was found at the polls. There was no just reason for refusing them the privilege, and The London Times says the precedent is to stand. A very absurd article in The Evening Post has lately given us an idea that New York contains some remarkable women. Women born to be looked at!—women who do their whole duty if they blossom like the roses, and like the roses die. Let us hope they fulfill the functions of this type by as short a sojourn on this earth as may be, lingering, as Malherbe would have it, only for "the space of a morning." It may be among them that you find the women who "look persistently to married life as a means of livelihood." Here, in Massachusetts, we do not acknowledge any such. Fashion has her danglers among men and women, but we pity those whose lot has thrown them into intimate relations with such women as you describe. They are not of our sort. We think that if the writer in The Evening Post were tested, he would be forced to admire most the hands which could do the best work. It would be small comfort to him, when Bridget and John had simultaneously departed, when the baby was crying and the fire out, that his wife sat lonely, in one corner of the apartment, with serene eyes and unstained hands. Men who talk such nonsense in America, must remember that neither wealth nor gentle blood can here protect them from such a dilemma. As to suffrage, we are not now talking of granting it to a distinct race; if we were, they might manifest a "general" desire for it. Women, who love their husbands and brothers, can not all submit to bear the reproach which clings to their demand for justice. A few of us must suffer sharply for the sake of that great future which God shows us to be possible, when goodness shall join hands with power. But we do not like our pain. We would gladly be sheltered, and comforted, and cheered, and we warn you, by what passes in our own hearts, that women will never express a "general" desire for suffrage until men have ceased to ridicule and despise them for it; until the representatives of men have been taught to treat their petitions with respect. There would be no difficulty in obtaining this right of suffrage If it depended on a property qualification. It is consistent democracy which bars our way.
Caroline Healey Dall.
- ↑ Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: That, from and after the passage of this act, each and every male person, excepting paupers and persons under guardianship, of the age of twenty-one years and upward, who has not been convicted of any infamous crime or offence, and who is a citizen of the United States, and who shall have resided in the said District for the period of six months previous to any election therein, shall be entitled to the elective franchise, and shall be deemed an elector and entitled to vote at any election in said District, without any distinction on account of color or race.
- ↑ The New York Tribune, Dec. 12, 1866, contains the following editorial comments: The Senate devoted yesterday to a discussion of the right of women to vote—a side question, which Mr. Cowan, of Pennsylvania, interjected into the debate on suffrage for the District of Columbia. Mr. Cowan chooses to represent himself as an ardent champion of the claim of woman to the elective franchise. It is not necessary to question his sincerity, but the occasion which he selects for the exhibition of his new-born zeal, subjects him to the suspicion of being considerably more anxious to embarrass the bill for enfranchising the blacks, than to amend it by conferring upon women the enjoyment of the same right. Mr. Cowan was once a Republican. He abandoned his party, has been repudiated by his State, and may well be casting about for some new issue by which to divert attention from his faithlessness on the old. We have heard that Mr. Cowan affects the classics; we are sure, therefore, that he will thank us for reminding him of that familiar story out of Plutarch respecting Alcibiades. When the dissolute Athenian had cut off the tail of his dog, which was the dog's principal ornament, and all Athens cried out against him for the act, Alcibiades laughed, and said: "Just what I wanted has happened. I wished the Athenians to talk about this that they might not say something worse of me." We are not to be suspected of indifference to the question whether woman shall vote. At a proper time we mean to urge her claim, but we object to allowing a measure of urgent necessity, and on which the public has made up its mind, to be retarded and imperilled. Nor do we think the Radical majority in the Senate need be beholden to the enemy's camp for suggestions as to their policy. We want to see the ballot put in the hands of the black without one day's delay added to the long postponement of his just claim. When that is done, we shall be ready to take up the next question.
- ↑ Mrs. France Dana Gage, of Ohio
- ↑ Yeas—Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Foster, Nesmith, Patterson, Riddle, Wade—9. Nays—Messrs. Cattell, Chandler, Conness, Creswell, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Edmunds, Fessenden, Fogg, Frelinghuysen, Grimes, Harris, Henderson, Hendricks, Howard, Howe, Kirkwood, Lane, Morgan, Morrill, Norton, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey, Ross, Saulsbury, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, Van Winkle, Willey, Williams, Wilson, Yates—37.
- ↑ Yeas—Ancona, Baker, Barker, Baxter, Benjamin, Boyer, Broomall, Bundy, Campbell, Cooper, Defrees, Denison, Eldridge, Farnsworth, Ferry, Finck, Garfield, Hale, Hawkins, Hise, Chester D. Hubbard, Edwin N. Hubbell, Humphrey, Julian, Kasson, Kelley, Kelso, Le Blond, Coan, McClurg, McKee, Miller, Newell, Niblock, Noell, Orth, Ritter, Rogers, Ross, Sitgreaves, Starr, Stevens, Strouse, Taber, Nathaniel G. Taylor, Trimble, Andrew H. Ward, Henry D. Washburn, Winfield—49.