History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 3/Chapter 29
CHAPTER XXIX.
CONGRESSIONAL REPORTS AND CONVENTIONS.
1880—1881.
The custom of holding conventions at the seat of government in mid-winter has many advantages. Congress is then in session, the Supreme Court sitting, and society, that mystic, headless, power, at the height of its glory. Being the season for official receptions, where one meets foreign diplomats from every civilized nation, it is the time chosen by strangers to visit our beautiful capital. Washington is the modern Rome to which all roads lead, the bright cynosure of all eyes, and is alike the hope and fear of worn-out politicians and aspiring pilgrims. From this great center varied influences radiate to the vast circumference of our land. Supreme-court decisions, congressional debates, presidential messages and popular opinions on all questions of fashion, etiquette and reform are heralded far and near, awakening new thought in every State in our nation and, through their representatives, in the aristocracies of the old world. Hence to hold a suffrage convention in Washington is to speak to the women of every civilized nation.
The Twelfth Annual Convention of the National Association assembled in Lincoln Hall, January 21, 1880. Many distinguished ladies and gentlemen occupied the platform, which was tastefully decorated with flags and flowers, and around the walls hung familiar mottoes,[1] significant of the demands of the hour. On taking the chair Susan B. Anthony made some appropriate remarks as to the importance of the work of the association during the presidential campaign. Mrs. Spencer called the roll, and delegates[2] from sixteen States responded.
Mrs. Gage read the call:
The question as to whether we are a nation, or simply a confederacy of States, that has agitated the country from the inauguration of the government, was supposed to have been settled by the war and confirmed by the amendments, making United States citizenship and suffrage practically synonymous. Not, however, having been pressed to its logical results, the question as to the limits of State rights and national power is still under discussion, and is the fundamental principle that now divides the great national parties. As the final settlement of this principle involves the enfranchisement of woman, our question is one of national politics, and the real issue of the hour. If it is the duty of the general government to protect the freedmen of South Carolina and Louisiana in the exercise of their rights as United States citizens, the government owes the same protection to the women in Massachusetts and New York. This year will again witness an exciting presidental election, and this question of momentous importance to woman will be the issue then presented. Upon its final decision depends not only woman's speedy enfranchisement, but the existence of the republic.
A sixteenth amendment to the national constitution, prohibiting the States from disfranchising United States citizens on the ground of sex, will be urged upon the forty-sixth congress by petitions, arguments and appeals. The earnest, intelligent and far-seeing women of every State should assemble at the coming convention, and show by their wise counsels that they are worthy to be citizens of a free republic. All associn the United States which believe it is the duty of congress to submit an amendment protecting woman in the exercise of the right of suffrage, are cordially invited to send delegates. Those who cannot attend the convention, are urged to address letters to their representatives in congress, asking them to give as careful attention to the proposed amendment and to the petitions and arguments urged in its behalf, as though the rights of men, only, were involved. A delegate from each section of the country will be heard before the committees of the House and Senate, to whom our petitions will be referred.[3]
Mrs. Spencer presented a series of resolutions which were ably discussed by the speakers and adopted:
Resolved, That while States may have the right to regulate the time, place and manner of elections, and the qualifications of voters upon terms equally applicable to all citizens, they should be forbidden under heavy penalties to deprive any citizen of the right to self-government on account of sex.
Resolved, That it is the duty of the forty-sixth congress to immediately submit to the several States the amendment to the national constitution recently proposed by Senator Ferry and Representative Loring, and approved by the National Suffrage Association.
Resolved, That it is the duty of the House of Representatives to pass immediately the resolution recommended by the Committee on Rules directing the speaker to appoint a committee on the rights of women.
Resolved, That the giant labor reform of this age lies in securing to woman, the great unpaid and unrecognized laborer and producer of the whole earth, the fruits of her toil.
Resolved, That the theory of a masculine head to rule the family, the church, or the State, is contrary to republican principles, and the fruitful source of rebellion and corruption.
Resolved, That the assumption of the clergy, that woman has no right to participate in the ministry and offices of the church is unauthorized theocratic tyranny, placing a masculine mediator between woman and her God, which finds no authority in reason, and should be resisted by all women as an odious form of religious persecution.
Resolved, That it is the duty of the congress of the United States to provide a reform school for girls and a home for the children whom no man owns or protects, and who are left to die upon the streets of the nation's capital, or to grow up in ignorance, vice and crime.
Resolved, That since man has everywhere committed to woman the custody and ownership of the child born out of wedlock, and has required it to bear its mother's name, he should recognize woman's right as a mother to the custody of the child born in marriage, and permit it to bear her name.
Resolved, That the National Association will send a delegate and an alternate to each presidential nominating convention to demand the rights of woman, and to submit to each party the following plank for presidential platform: Resolved, That the right to use the ballot inheres in the citizen of the United States, and we pledge ourselves to secure protection in the exercise of this right to all citizens irrespective of sex.
Resolved, That one-half of the number of the supervisors of the tenth census, and one-half of the collectors of said census, should be educated, intelligent women, who can be safely entrusted to enumerate women and children, their occupations, ages, diseases and deaths, and who would not be likely to overlook ten millions of housekeepers.
Resolved, That Ulysses S. Grant won his first victories through the military plans and rare genius of a woman, Anna Ella Carroll, of Maryland, and while he has been rewarded with the presidential office through two terms, and a royal voyage around the world, crowned with glory and honor, Miss Carroll has for fifteen years been suffering in poverty unrecognized and unrewarded.
Resolved, That the thanks of this association are hereby tendered to Governor Chas. B. Andrews, of Connecticut, for remembering in each annual message to ask for justice to women.
The comments of the press[4]were very complimentary, and their daily reports of the convention full and fair. Among the many letters[5] to the convention, the following from a Southern lady is both novel and amusing:
Memphis, Tenn., December 11, 1889.
Dear Mrs. Spencer: You want petitions. Well I have two which I got up some time ago, but did not send on because I thought the names too few to count much. The one is of white women 130 in number. The other contains 110 names of black women. This last is a curiosity, and was gotten up under the following circumstances:
Some ladies were dining with me and we each promised to get what names we could to petitions for woman suffrage. My servant who waited on table was a coal-black woman. She became interested and after the ladies went away asked me to explain the matter to her, which I did. She then said if I would give her a paper she could get a thousand names among the black women, that many of them felt that they were as much slaves to their husbands as ever they had been to their white masters. I gave her a petition, and said to her, "Tell the women this is to have a law passed that will not allow the men to whip their wives, and will put down drinking saloons." "Every black woman will go for that law!" She took the paper and procured these 110 signatures against the strong opposition of black men who in some cases threatened to whip their wives if they signed. At length the opposition was so great my servant had not courage to face it. She feared some bodily harm would be done her by the black men. You can see this is a genuine negro petition from the odd way the names are written, sometimes the capital letter in the middle of the name, sometimes at the end.
Yours,Elizabeth Avery Meriwether.
In response to 66,000 documents containing appeals to women, issued by the National Association, 250 petitions, signed by over 12,000, arrived in Washington in time for presentation to congress before the assembling of the convention, and were read on the floor of the Senate, with the leading names, January 14, 16, 20, 21, by forty-seven senators.
In the House of Representatives this courtesy (reading petitions and names), requires unanimous consent, and one man, Hon. J. J. Davis of North Carolina, who had no petition from the women of his State, objected. Sixty-five representatives presented the petitions at the clerk's desk, under the rule, January 14, 15, 16. In answer to these appeals to both Houses, on Monday, January 19, Hon. T. W. Ferry, of Michigan, introduced in the Senate a joint resolution for a sixteenth amendment, which with all the petitions was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary. Tuesday, January 20, Hon. George B. Loring, of Massachusetts, introduced the same resolution in the House of Representatives, and it was referred, with all the petitions, to the Committee on the Judiciary. There were also during this congress presented over 300 petitions from law-abiding, tax-paying women, praying for the removal of their political disabilities.
On Friday and Saturday, January 23, 24, these committees granted hearings of two hours each to delegates from ten States who had been in attendance at the convention. Thoughtful attention was given to arguments upon every phase of the question, and senators and representatives expressed a strong determination to bring the subject fairly before the people. The committees especially requested that only the delegates should be present, wishing, as they said, to give their sole attention to the arguments undisturbed by the crowds who usually seek admittance. Even the press was shut out. These private sessions with most of the members present, and the close attention they gave to each speaker, were strong proof of the growth of our reform, as but a few years before representatives sought excuses for absence on all such occasions.
| The Committee on the Judiciary, U. S. Senate, | |
| Friday, Jan. 23, 1880. |
The Chairman: Several members of the committee are unable to be here. Mr. Lamar is detained at his home in Mississippi by sickness; Mr. Carpenter is confined to his room by sickness; Mr. Conkling has been unwell; I do not know how he is this morning; and Mr. Garland is chairman of the Committee on Territories, which has a meeting this morning that he could not fail to attend. I do not think we are likely to have any more members of the committee than are here now, and we will hear you, ladies.
Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace of Indiana said: Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee: It is scarcely necessary to say that there is not an effect without a cause. Therefore it would be well for the statesmen of this nation to ask themselves the question, What has brought the women from all parts of this nation to the capital at this time? What has been the strong motive that has taken us away from the quiet and comfort of our own homes and brought us before you to-day? As an answer to that question I will read an extract from a speech made by one of Indiana's statesmen. He found out by experience and gave us the benefit of it:
That is the reason why we are here; the reason why we want to vote. We are not seditious women, clamoring for any peculiar rights; it is not the woman question that brings us before you to-day; it is the human question underlying this movement. We love and appreciate our country; we value its institutions. We realize that we owe great obligations to the men of this nation for what they have done. To their strength we owe the subjugation of all the material forces of the universe which give us comfort and luxury in our homes. To their brains we owe the machinery that gives us leisure for intellectual culture and achievement. To their education we owe the opening of our colleges and the establishment of our public schools, which give us these great and glorious privileges. This movement is the legitimate result of this development, and of the suffering that woman has undergone in the ages past.
A short time ago I went before the legislature of Indiana with a petition signed by 25,000 of the best women in the State. I appeal to the memory of Judge McDonald to substantiate the truth of what I say. Judge McDonald knows that I am a home-loving, law-abiding, tax-paying woman of Indiana, and have been for fifty years. When I went before our legislature and found that one hundred of the vilest men in our State, merely by the possession of the ballot, had more influence with our lawmakers than the wives and mothers it was a startling revelation.
You must admit that in popular government the ballot is the most potent means for all moral and social reforms. As members of society, we are deeply interested in all the social problems with which you have grappled so long unsuccessfully. We do not intend to depreciate your efforts, but you have attempted to do an impossible thing; to represent the whole by one-half, and because we are the other half we ask you to recognize our rights as citizens of this republic.
Julia Smith Parker of Glastonbury, Conn., said: Gentlemen: You may be surprised to see a woman of over four-score years appear before you at this time. She came into the world and reached years of discretion before any person in this room was born. She now comes before you to plead that she can vote and have all the privileges that men have. She has suffered so much individually that she thought when she was young she had no right to speak before the men; but still she had courage to get an education equal to that of any man at the college, and she had to suffer a great deal on that account. She went to New Haven to school, and it was noised around that she had studied the languages. It was such an astonishing thing for girls at that time to have the advantages of education, that I had actually to go to cotillon parties to let people see that I had common sense. [Laughter.]
She has had to pay $200 a year in taxes without knowing what becomes of it. She does not know but that it goes to support grog-shops. She knows nothing about it. She has had to suffer her cows to be sold at the sign-post six times. She suffered her meadow land, worth $2,000, to be sold for a tax less than $50. If she could vote as the men do she would not have suffered this insult; and so much would not have been said against her as has been said if men did not have the whole power. I was told that they had the power to take anything that I owned if I would not exert myself to pay the money. I felt that I ought to have some little voice in determining what should be done with what I paid. I felt that I ought to own my own property; that it ought not to be in these men's hands; and I now come to plead that I may have the same privileges before the law that men have. I have seen what a difference there is, when I have had my cows sold, by having a voter to take my part.
I have come from an obscure town on the banks of the Connecticut, where I was born. I was brought up on a farm. I never had an idea that I should come all the way to Washington to speak before those who had not come into existence when I was born. Now, I plead that there may be a sixteenth amendment, and that women may be allowed the privilege of owning their own property. I have suffered so much myself that I felt it might have some effect to plead before this honorable committee. I thank you, gentlemen, for hearing me so kindly.
Elizabeth L. Saxon of Louisiana, said: Gentlemen: I feel that after Mrs. Wallace's plea there is no necessity for me to say anything. I come from the extreme South, she from the West. People have asked me why I came. I care nothing for suffrage merely to stand beside men, or rush to the polls, or to take any privilege outside of my home, only, as Mrs. Wallace says, for humanity. I never realized the importance of this cause, until we were beaten back on every side in the work of reform. If we attempted to put women in charge of prisons, believing that wherever woman sins and suffers women should be there to teach, help and guide, every place was in the hands of men. If we made an effort to get women on the school-boards we were combated and could do nothing.
In the State of Texas, I had a niece living whose father was an inmate of a lunatic asylum. She exerted as wide an influence as any woman in that State; I allude to Miss Mollie Moore, who was the ward of Mr. Cushing. I give this illustration as a reason why Southern women are taking part in this movement. Mr. Wallace had charge of that lunatic asylum for years. He was a good, honorable, able man. Every one was endeared to him; the State appreciated him as superintendent of this asylum. When a political change was made and Gov. Robinson came in, Dr. Wallace was ousted for political purposes. It almost broke the hearts of some of the women who had sons, daughters or husbands there. They determined at once to try and have him reinstated. It was impossible, he was out, and what could they do?
A gentleman said to me a few days ago, "These women ought to marry." I am married; I am a mother; and in our home the sons and brothers are all standing like a wall of steel at my back. I have cast aside the prejudices of the past. They lie like rotted hulks behind me.
After the fever of 1878, when our constitutional convention was about to convene, I suppressed the agony and grief of my own heart (for one of my children had died) and took part in the suffrage movement in Louisiana with the wife of Chief-Justice Merrick, Mrs. Sarah A. Dorsey, and Mrs. Harriet Keating of New York, the niece of Dr. Lozier. These three ladies aided me faithfully and ably. I went to Lieutenant-Governor Wiltz, and asked him if he would present or consider a petition which I wished to bring before the convention. He read the petition. One clause of our State law is that no woman can sign a will. Some ladies donated property to an asylum. They wrote the will and signed it themselves, and it was null and void, because they were women. That clause, perhaps, will be wiped out. Many gentlemen signed the petition on that account. Governor Wiltz, then lieutenant-governor, told me he would present the petition. He was elected president of the convention. I presented my first petition, signed by the best names in the city of New Orleans and in the State. I had the names of seven of the most prominent physicians. Three prominent ministers signed it for moral purposes alone. When Mrs. Dorsey was on her dying bed the last time she ever signed her name was to a letter to go before that convention. Mrs. Merrick and myself addressed the convention. We made the petition then that we make here; that we, the mothers of the land, should not be barred on every side in the cause of reform. I pledged my father on his dying bed that I would never cease work until woman stood with man equal before the law.
I beg of you, gentlemen, to consider this question seriously. We stand precisely in the position of the colonies when they plead, and, in the words of Patrick Henry, were "spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne." We have been jeered and laughed at; but the question has passed out of the region of ridicule. This clamor for woman suffrage, for woman's rights, for equal representation, is extending all over the land.
I plead because my work has been combated in the cause of reform everywhere that I have tried to accomplish anything. The children that fill the houses of prostitution are not of foreign blood and race. They come from sweet American homes, and for every woman that went down some mother's heart broke. I plead by the power of the ballot to be allowed to help reform women and benefit mankind.
Mary A. Stewart of Delaware said: The negroes are a race inferior, you must admit, to your daughters, and yet that race has the ballot, and why? It is said they earned it and paid for it with their blood. Whose blood paid for yours? The blood of your forefathers and our forefathers. Does a man earn a hundred thousand dollars and lie down and die, saying, "It is all my boys'"? Not a bit of it. He dies saying, "Let my children, be they cripples, be they idiots, be they boys, or be they girls, inherit all my property alike." Then let us inherit the sweet boon of the ballot alike. When our fathers were driving the great ship of State we were willing to sail as deck or cabin passengers, just as we felt disposed; we had nothing to say; but to-day the boys are about to run the ship aground, and it is high time that the mothers should be asking, "What do you mean to do?" In our own little State the laws have been very much modified in regard to women. My father was the first man to blot out the old English law allowing the eldest son the right of inheritance to the real-estate. He took the first step, and like all those who take first steps in reform he received a mountain of curses from the oldest male heirs.
Since 1868 I have, by my own individual efforts, by the use of hard-earned money, gone to our legislature time after time and have had this law and that law passed for the benefit of women; and the same little ship of State has sailed on. To-day our men are just as well satisfied with the laws in force in our State for the benefit of women as they were years ago. A woman now has a right to make a will. She can hold bonds and mortgages of her own. She has a right to her own property. She cannot sell it though, if it is real-estate, simply because the moment she marries, her husband has his right of courtesy. The woman does not grumble at will. She can hold bonds and mortgages of her own. She has a right to her own property. She cannot sell it though, if it is real-estate, simply because the moment she marries, her husband has his right of courtesy. The woman does not grumble at[Pg 159] that; but still when he dies owning real-estate, she gets only the rental value of one-third, which is called the widow's dower. Now I think the man ought to have the rental value of one-third of the woman's maiden property or real-estate, and it ought to be called the widower's dower. It would be just as fair for one as for the other. All that I want is equality.
The women of our State, as I said before, are taxed without representation. The tax-gatherer comes every year and demands taxes. For twenty years I have paid tax under protest, and if I live twenty years longer I shall pay it under protest every time. The tax-gatherer came to my place not long since. "Well," said I, "good morning, sir." Said he, "Good morning." He smiled and said, "I have come bothering you." Said I, "I know your face well. You have come to get a right nice little woman's tongue-lashing." Said he, "I suppose so, but if you will just pay your tax I will leave." I paid the tax, "But," said I, "remember I pay it under protest, and if I ever pay another tax I intend to have the protest written and make the tax-gatherer sign it before I pay the tax, and if he will not sign that protest then I shall not pay, and there will be a fight at once," Said he, "Why do you keep all the time protesting against paying this small tax?" Said I, "Why do you pay your tax?" "Well," said he, "I would not pay it if I did not vote." Said I, "That is the very reason why I do not want to pay it. I cannot vote." Who stay at home from the election? The women, and the black and white men who have been to the whipping-post. Nice company to put your wives and daughters in.
It is said that the women do not want to vote. Every woman sitting here wants to vote, and must we be debarred the privilege of voting because some luxurious woman, rolling around in her carriage in her little downy nest that some good, benevolent man has provided for her, does not want to vote? There was a society that existed up in the State of New York called the Covenanters that never voted. Were all you men disfranchised because that class or sect up in New York would not vote? Did you all pay your taxes and stay at home and refrain from voting because the Covenanters did not vote? Not a bit of it. You went to the election and told them to stay at home if they wanted to, but that you, as citizens, were going to take care of yourselves. That was right. We, as citizens, want to take care of ourselves.
One more thought, and I will be through. The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, in my opinion, and in the opinion of a great many smart men in the country, and smart women, too, give the right to women to vote without any "if's" or "and's" about it, and the United States protects us in it; but there are a few who construe the law to suit themselves, and say that those amendments do not mean that, because the congress which passed the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments had no such intention. Well, if that congress overlooked us, let the wiser congress of to-day take the eighth chapter and the fourth verse of the Psalms, which says, "What is man that Thou art mindful of him?" and amend it by adding, "What is woman, that they never thought of her?" Nancy R. Allen of Iowa said: Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee: I am a representative of a large class of women of Iowa, who are heavy taxpayers. There is now a petition being circulated throughout our State, to be presented to the legislature, praying that women be exempted from taxation until they have some voice in the management of the affairs of the State. You may ask, "Do not your husbands protect you? Are not all the men protecting you?" We answer that our husbands are grand, noble men, who are willing to do all they can for us, but there are many who have no husbands and who own a great deal of property in the State of Iowa. Particularly in great moral reforms the women there feel the need of the ballot. By presenting long petitions to the legislature they have succeeded in having better temperance laws enacted, but the men have failed to elect the officials who will enforce those laws. Consequently they have become as dead letters upon the statute books.
To refer again to taxes. I have a list showing that in my city three women pay more taxes than all the city officials together. They are good temperance women. Our city council is composed almost entirely of saloon-keepers, brewers and men who patronize them. There are some good men, but they are in the minority, and the voices of these women are but little regarded. All these officials are paid, and we have to help support them. As Sumner said, "Equality of rights is the first of rights." If we can only be equal with man under the law, it is all that we ask. We do not propose to relinquish our domestic life, but we do ask that we may be represented.
Remarks were also made by Mrs. Chandler, Mrs. Archibald and Mrs. Spencer. The time having expired, the committee voted to give another hour to Miss Anthony to state the reasons why we ask congress to submit a proposition to the several legislatures for a sixteenth amendment, instead of asking the States to submit the question to the popular vote of their electors.[6] When Miss Anthony had finished, the chairman, Senator Thurman of Ohio, said:
Mrs. Wallace: I wish to make just one remark in reference to what Senator Thurman said as to the popular vote being against woman suffrage. The popular vote is against it, but not the popular voice. Owing to the temperance agitation in the last six years, the growth of the suffrage sentiment among the wives and mothers of this nation has largely increased.
House of Representatives, Washington, D. C., Jan. 24, 1880.
The Chairman pro tem. (Mr. Harris of Virginia): The order of business for the present session of the committee is the delivery of arguments by delegates of the Woman Suffrage Convention now holding its sessions in Washington. I am informed that the delegates are in attendance upon the committee. We will be pleased to hear them. A list of the names, of the ladies proposing to speak, with a memorandum of the limit of time allotted to each, has been handed to me for my guidance; and, in the absence of the chairman [Mr. Knott] it will be my duty to confine the speakers to the number of minutes apportioned to them respectively upon the paper before me. As an additional consideration for adhering to the regulation, I will mention that members of the committee have informed me that, having made engagements to be at the departments and elsewhere on business appointments, they will be compelled to leave the committee-room upon the expiration of the time assigned. The first name upon the list is that of Mrs. Emma Mont. McRae of Indiana, to whom five minutes are allowed.
Mrs. McRae said: Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee: In Indiana the cause of woman has made marked advancement. At the same time we realize that we need the right to vote in order that we may have protection. We need the ballot because through the medium of its power alone we can hope to wield that influence in the making of laws affecting our own and our children's interests.
Some recent occurences in Indiana, one in particular in the section of the State from which I come, have impressed us more sensibly than ever before with the necessity of this right. The particular incident to which I refer was this: In the town of Muncie, where I reside, a young girl, who for the past five years had been employed as a clerk in the post-office, and upon whom a widowed mother was dependent for support, was told on the first of January that she was no longer needed in the office. She had filled her place well; no complaint had been made against her. She very modestly asked the postmaster the cause of her discharge, and he replied: "We have a man who has done work for the party and we must give that man a place; I haven't room for both of you." Now, there you have at once the reason why we want the ballot; we want to be able to do something for the party in a substantial way, so that men may not tell us they have no room for us because we do nothing for the party. When they have the ballot women will work for "the party" as a means of enabling them to hold places in which they may get bread for their mothers and for their children if necessity requires.
Miss Jessie T. Waite of Illinois said: Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee: In the State of Illinois we have attained to almost every right except that of the ballot. We have been admitted to all the schools and colleges; we have become accustomed to parliamentary usages; to voting in literary societies and in all matters connected with the interests of the colleges and schools; we are considered members in good standing of the associations, and, in some cases, the young ladies in the institutes have been told they hold the balance of power. The same reason for woman suffrage that has been given by the delegate from Indiana [Mrs. McRae] holds good with reference to the State of Illinois. Women must have the ballot that they may have protection in getting bread for themselves and their families, by giving to the party that looks for their support some substantial evidence of their strength. Experience has demonstrated, especially in the temperance movement, how fruitless are all their efforts while the ballot is withheld from their hands. They have prayed; they have petitioned; they have talked; they have lectured; they have done all they could do, except to vote; and yet all avails them nothing. Miss Frances Williard presented to the legislature of Illinois a petition of such length that it would have reached around this room. It contained over 180,000 signatures. The purpose of the petition was to have the legislature give the women of the State the right to vote upon the question of license or no license in their respective districts.
In some of the counties of our State we have ladies as superintendents of schools and professors in colleges. One of the professors in the Industrial University at Champaign is a lady. Throughout the State you may find ladies who excel in every branch of study and in every trade. It was a lady who took the prize at "the Exposition" for the most beautiful piece of cabinet-work. This is said to have been a marvel of beauty and extraordinary as a specimen of fine art. She was a foreigner; a Scandinavian, I believe. Another lady is a teacher of wood-carving. We have physicians, and there are two attorneys, Perry and Martin, now practicing in the city of Chicago. Representatives of our sex are also to be found among real-estate agents and journalists, while, in one or two instances as preachers they have been recognized in the churches.
Catherine A. Stebbins of Michigan said: "Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay!" So said the poet; and I say, Better a week with these inspired women in conference than years of an indifferent, conventional society! Their presence has been a blessing to the people of this District, and will prove in the future a blessing to our government. These women from all sections of our country, with a moral and spiritual enthusiasm which seeks to lift the burdens of our government, come to you, telling of the obstacles that have beset their path. They have tried to heal the stricken in vice and ignorance; to save our land from disintegration. One has sought to reform the drunkard, to save the moderate drinker, to convert the liquor-seller; another, to shelter the homeless; another, to lift and save the abandoned woman. "Abandoned?" once asked a prophet-like man of our time, who added, "There never was an abandoned woman without an abandoned man!" Abandoned of whom? let us ask. Surely not by the merciful Father. No; neither man nor woman is ever abandoned by him, and he sends his instruments in the persons of some of these great-hearted women, to appeal to you to restore their God-given freedom of action, that "the least of these" may be remembered.
But in our councils no one has dwelt upon one of the great evils of our civilization, the scourge of war; though it has been said that women will fight. It is true there are instances in which they have considered it a duty; there were such in the rebellion. But the majority of women would not declare war, would not enlist soldiers and would not vote supplies and equipments, because many of the most thoughtful believe there is a better way, and that women can bring a moral power to bear that shall make war needless.
Let us take one picture representative of the general features of the war—we say nothing of our convictions in regard to the conflict. Ulysses S. Grant or Anna Ella Carroll makes plans and maps for the campaign; McClellan and Meade are commanded to collect the columbiads, muskets and ammunition, and move their men to the attack. At the same time the saintly Clara Barton collects her cordials, medicines and delicacies, her lint and bandages, and, putting them in the ambulance assigned, joins the same moving train. McClellan's men meet the enemy, and men—brothers—on both sides fall by the death-dealing missiles. Miss Barton and her aids bear off the sufferers, staunch their bleeding wounds, soothe the reeling brain, bandage the crippled limbs, pour in the oil and wine, and make as easy as may be the soldier's bed. What a solemn and heartrending farce is here enacted! And yet in our present development men and women seek to reconcile it with the requirements of religion and the necessities of our conflicting lives. So few recognize the absolute truth!
Mrs. Devereux Blake said: Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Committee: I come here with your own laws in my hands—and the volume is quite a heavy one, too—to ask you whether women are citizens of this nation? I find in this book, under the heading of the chapter on "Citizenship," the following:
I suppose you will admit that women are, in the language of the section, "persons," and that we cannot reasonably be included in the class spoken of as "Indians not taxed." Therefore I claim that we are "citizens." The same chapter also contains the following:
Under this section also we are citizens. I am myself, as indeed are most of the ladies present, married to a citizen of the United States; so that we are citizens under this count if we were not citizens before. Then, further, in the legislation known as "The Civil Rights Bill," I find this language:
One would think the logical conclusion from that which I have last read would be that all citizens are entitled to equal protection everywhere. It appears to mean that. Then I turn to another piece of legislation—that which is known as "The Enforcement Act"—one which some of you, gentlemen, did not like very much when it was enacted—and there I find another declaration on the same question. The act is entitled "An Act to Enforce the Right of Citizens of the United States to Vote in the Several States of this Union, and for other purposes." The right of "citizens" to vote appears to be conceded by this act. In the second section it says:
I ask you, gentlemen of the committee, as lawyers, whether you do not think that, after we have been declared to be citizens, we have the right to claim the protection of this enforcement act? When you gentlemen from the North rise in your places in the halls of congress and make these walls ring with your eloquence, you are prone to talk a great deal about the right of every United States citizen to the ballot, and the necessity of protecting every such citizen in its exercise. What do you mean by it?
It occurs to me here to call your attention to a matter of recent occurrence. As you know, there has been a little unpleasantness in Maine—a State which is not without a representative among the members of the Judiciary Committee—and certain gentlemen there, especially Mr. Blaine, have been greatly exercised in their minds because, as they allege, the people of Maine have not been permitted to express their will at the polls. Why, gentlemen, I assert that a majority of the people of Maine have never been permitted to express their will at the polls. A majority of the people of Maine are women, and from the foundation of this government have never exercised any of the inalienable rights of citizens. Mr. Blaine made a speech a day or two ago in Augusta. He began by reciting the condition of affairs, owing to the effort, as he states, "to substitute a false count for an honest ballot," and congratulated his audience upon the instrumentalities by which they had triumphed—
He goes on in this vein to speak of those whom he calls "the people of Maine." Well, gentlemen, I do not think you will deny that women are people. It appears to me that what Mr. Blaine said in that connection was nonsense, unless indeed he forgot that there were any others than men among the people of the State of Maine. I don't suppose that you, gentlemen, are often so forgetful. Mr. Blaine said further:
Does that mean the ballot for men only or the ballot for the people, men and women too? If it is to be received as meaning anything, it ought to mean not for one sex alone, but for both. Mr. Lincoln declared, in one of his noblest utterances, that no man was good enough to govern another man without that man's consent. Of course he meant it in its broadest terms; he meant that no man or woman was good enough to govern another man or woman without that other man's or woman's consent.
Mr. Blaine, on another occasion, in connection with the same subject-matter, had much to say of the enormity of the oppression practiced by his political opponents in depriving the town of Portland of the right of representation in view of its paying such heavy taxes as it does pay. He expressed the greatest indignation at the attempt, forgetting utterly that great body of women who pay taxes but are deprived of the right of representation. In this connection it may be pertinent for me to express the hope, by way of a suggestion, that hereafter, when making your speeches, you will not use the term "citizens" in a broad sense, unless you mean to include women as well as men, and that when you do not mean to include women you will speak of male citizens as a separate class, because the term, in its general application, is illogical and its meaning obscure if not self-contradictory.
President Hayes was so pleased with one of the sentences in his message of a year ago that in his message of this year he has reiterated it. It reads thus:
Let me suggest what he ought to have said unless he intended to include women, although I am afraid that Mr. Hayes, when he wrote this, forgot that there were women in the United States, notwithstanding that his excellent wife, perhaps, stood by his side. He ought to have said:
If Mr. Hayes had thus expressed himself, he would have made a perfectly logical and clear statement. Gentlemen, I hope that hereafter, when speaking or voting in behalf of the citizens of the United States, you will bear this in mind and will remember that women are citizens as well as men, and that they claim the same rights.
This question of woman suffrage cannot much longer be ignored. In the State from which I come, although we have not a right to vote, we are confident that the influence which women brought to bear in determining the result of the election last fall had something to do with sending into retirement a Democratic governor who was opposed to our reform, and electing a Republican who was in favor of it. Recollect, gentlemen, that the expenditure of time and money which has been made in this cause will not be without its effect. The time is coming when the demand of an immense number of the women of this country cannot be ignored. When you see these representatives coming from all the States of the Union to ask for this right, can you doubt that, some day, they will succeed in their mission? We do not stand before you to plead as beggars; we ask for that which is our right. We ask it as due to the memory of our ancestors, who fought for the freedom of this country just as bravely as did yours. We ask it on many considerations. Why, gentlemen, the very furniture here, the carpet on this floor, was paid for with our money. We are taxed equally with the men to defray the expenses of this congress, and we have a right equally with them to participate in the government.
In closing, I have only to ask, is there no man here present who appreciates the emergencies of this hour? Is there no one among you who will rise on the floor of congress as the champion of this unrepresented half of the people of the United States? The time is not far distant when we shall have our liberties, and the politician who can now understand the importance of our cause, the statesman who can now see, and will now appreciate the justice of it, that man, if true to himself, will write his name high on the scroll of fame beside those of the men who have been the saviors of the country. Gentlemen I entreat you not to let this hearing go by without giving due weight to all that we have said. You can no more stay the onward current of this reform than you can fight against the stars in their courses.
Mr. Willits of Michigan: Mr. Chairman: I would like to make a suggestion here. The regulation amendment, as it has heretofore been submitted, provided that the right of citizens of the United States to vote should not be abridged on account of sex. I notice that the amendment which the ladies here now propose has prefixed to it this phrase: "The right of suffrage in the United States shall be based on citizenship." I call attention to this because I would like to have them explain as fully as they may why they incorporate the phrase, "shall be based on citizenship." Is the meaning this, that all citizens shall have the right to vote, or simply that citizenship shall be the basis of suffrage? The words, "or for any reason not applicable to all citizens of the United States," also seem to require explanation. The proposition in the form in which it is now submitted, I understand, covers a little more than has been covered by the amendment submitted in previous years.
Sara A. Spencer of Washington, D. C.: If the committee will permit me, I will say that the amendment in its present form is the concentrated wish of the women of the United States. The women of the country sent to congress petitions asking for three different forms of constitutional amendment, and when preparing the one now before the committee these three were concentrated in the one now before you (identical with that of the resolution offered in the House by Hon. George B. Loring and by Hon. T. W. Ferry in the Senate), omitting, at the request of each of the three classes of petitioners, all phrases which were regarded by any of them as objectionable. The amendment as now presented is therefore the combined wish of the women of the country, viz., that citizenship in the United States shall mean suffrage, and that no one shall be deprived of the right to vote for reasons not equally applicable to all citizens.
Matilda Joslyn Gage said: It is necessary to refer to a remarkable decision of the Supreme Court. The case of Virginia L. Minor, claiming the right to vote under the fourteenth amendment, was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States, October term, 1874; decision rendered adversely by Chief-Justice Waite, March, 1875, upon the ground that "the United States had no voters in the States of its own creation." This was a most amazing decision to emanate from the highest judicial authority of the nation, and is but another proof how fully that body is under the influence of the dominant political party.
Contrary to this decision, I unhesitatingly affirm that the United States has possessed voters in States of its own creation from the very date of the constitution. In Article I, Sec. 2, the constitution provides that
The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.
The persons so designated are voters under State laws; but by this section of the national constitution they are made United States voters. It is directed under what conditions of State qualification they may cast votes in their respective States for members of the lower house of congress. The constitution here created a class of United States voters by adoption of an already voting class. Did but this single instance exist, it would be sufficient to nullify Chief-Justice Waite's decision, as Article VI, Sec. 2, declares
This supreme law at its very inception created a class of United States voters. If in the Minor case alone, the premises of the Supreme Court and Chief-Justice Waite were wrong, the decision possesses no legal value; but in addition to this class, the United States, by special laws and amendments has from time to time created other classes of United States voters.
Under the naturalization laws citizenship is recognized as the basis of suffrage. No State can admit a foreigner to the right of the ballot, even under United States laws, unless he is already a citizen, or has formally declared his intention of becoming a citizen of the United States. The creation of the right here is national; its regulation, local.
Men who commit crimes against the civil laws of the United States forfeit their rights of citizenship. State law cannot re-habilitate them, but within the last five years 2,500 such men have been pardoned by congressional enactment, and thus again been made voters in States by United States law. Is it not strange that with a knowledge of these facts before him Chief-Justice Waite could base his decision against the right of a woman to the ballot, on the ground that the United States had no voters in the States of its own creation?
Criminals against the military law of the United States, who receive pardon, are still another class of voters thus created. A very large body of men, several hundred thousand, forfeited their rights of citizenship, their ballot, by participation in the rebellion; they were political criminals. When general amnesty was proclaimed they again secured the ballot. They had been deprived of the suffrage by United States law and it was restored to them by the same law.
It may be replied that the rebellious States had been reduced to the condition of territories, over whose suffrage the general government had control. But let me ask why, then, a large class of men remained disfranchised after these States again took up local government? A large class of men were especially exempted from general amnesty and for the restoration of their political rights were obliged to individually petition congress for the removal of their political disabilities, and these men then became "voters in States," by action of the United States. Here, again, the United States recognized citizenship and suffrage as synonymous. If the United States has no voters of its own creation in the States, what are these men? A few, the leaders in the rebellion, are yet disfranchised, and no State has power to change this condition. Only the United States can again make them voters in States.
Under the fourteenth and fifteenth amendments the colored men of the South, who never had possessed the ballot, and those colored men of the North over whom some special disqualification hung, were alike made voters by United States law. It required no action of Delaware, Indiana, New York, or any of those States in which the colored man was not upon voting equality with the white men, to change their constitutions or statutes in order to do away with such disqualifications. The fourteenth amendment created another class of United States voters in States, to the number of a million or more. The fourteenth amendment, and the act of congress to enforce it, were at once recognized to be superior to State law—abrogating and repealing State constitutions and State laws contradictory to its provisions.
By an act of congress March 3, and a presidential proclamation of March 11, 1865, all deserters who failed to report themselves to a provost marshall within sixty days, forfeited their rights of citizenship as an additional penalty for the crime of desertion, thus losing their ballot without possibility of its restoration except by an act of congress. Whenever this may be done collectively or individually, these men will become State voters by and through the United States law. As proving the sophistry used by legal minds in order to hide from themselves and the world the fact that the United States has power over the ballot in States, mention may be made of a case which, in 1866, came before Justice Strong, then a member of the Supreme Court of Pennsylvania, but since a justice of the Supreme Court of the United States. For sophistical reasoning it is a curiosity in legal decisions. One point made by Judge Strong was, that congress may deprive a citizen of the opportunity to enjoy a right belonging to him as a citizen of a State even the right of voting, but cannot deprive him of the right itself. This is on a par with saying that congress may deprive a citizen of the opportunity to enjoy a right belonging to him as an individual, even the right of life, but cannot deprive him of life itself.
A still more remarkable class of United States voters than any yet mentioned, exists. Soon after the close of the war congress enacted a law that foreigners having served in the civil war and been honorably discharged from the army, should be allowed to vote. And this, too, without the announcement of their intention of becoming citizens of the republic. A class of United States voters were thus created out of a class of non-citizens.
I have mentioned eight classes of United States voters, and yet not one of the States has been deprived of the powers necessary to local self-government. To States belong all matters of strictly local interest, such as the incorporation of towns and cities, the settlement of county and other boundaries; laws of marriage, divorce, protection of life and property, etc. It has been said, the ordaining and establishment of a constitution for the government of a State is always the act of a State in its highest sovereign capacity, but if any question as to nationality ever existed, it was settled by the war. Even State constitutions were found unable to stand when in conflict with a law of the United States or an amendment to its constitution. All are bound by the authority of the nation. This theory of State sovereignty must have a word. When the Union was formed several of the States did not even frame a constitution. It was in 1818 that Connecticut adopted her first State constitution. Rhode Island had no constitution until 1842. Prior to these years the government of these States was administered under the authority of royal charters brought out from England.
Where was their State sovereignty? The rights even of suffrage enjoyed by citizens of these States during these respective periods of forty-two and sixty-six years, were either secured them by monarchial England or republican United States. If by the latter all voters in these two States during these years were United States voters. It is a historical fact that no State save Texas was ever for an hour sovereign or independent. The experience of the country proves there is but one real sovereignty. It has been said, with truth,
I ask for a sixteenth amendment because this republic is a nation and not a confederacy of States. I ask it because the United States not only possesses inherent power to protect its citizens but also because of its national duty to secure to all its citizens the exercise of their rights of self-government. I ask it because having created classes of voters in numberless instances, it is most flagrant injustice to deny this protection to woman. I ask it because the Nation and not the State is supreme.
Phœbe W. Couzins of Missouri, to whom had been assigned the next thirty minutes, said: Mr. Chairman, and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee: I am invited to speak of the dangers which beset us at this hour in the decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Mrs. Minor's case, which not only stultifies its previous interpretation of the recent constitutional amendments and makes them a dead letter, but will rank, in the coming ages, in the history of the judiciary, with the Dred Scott decision. The law, as explained in the Dred Scott case, was an infamous one, which trampled upon the most solemn rights of the loyal citizens of the government, and declared the constitution to mean anything or nothing, as the case might be. Yet the decision in that case had a saving clause, for it was not the unanimous voice of a Democratic judiciary. Dissenting opinions were nobly uttered from the bench. In the more recent case, under the rule of a Republican judiciary created by a party professing to be one of justice, the rights of one-half of the people were deliberately abrogated without a dissenting voice. This violation of the fundamental principles of our government called forth no protest. In all of the decisions against woman in the Republican court, there has not been found one Lord Mansfield, who, rising to the supreme height of an unbiased judgment, would give the immortal decree that shall crown with regal dignity the mother of the race: "I care not for the dictates of judges, however eminent, if they be contrary to principle. If the parties will have judgment, let justice be done, though the heavens fall."
The Dred Scott decision declared as the law of citizenship, "to be a citizen is to have actual possession and enjoyment, or the perfect right to the acquisition and enjoyment of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political." But the slave-power was then dominant and the court decided that a black man was not a citizen because he had not the right to vote. But when the constitution was so amended as to make "all persons born or naturalized in the United States citizens thereof," a negro, by virtue of his United States citizenship, was declared, under the amendments, a voter in every State in the Union. And the Supreme Court reaffirmed this right in the celebrated slaughter-house cases (16 Wallace, 71). It said, "The negro, having by the fourteenth amendment, been declared to be a citizen of the United States, is thus made a voter in every State in the Union." But when the loyal women of Missouri, apprehending that "all persons beneath the flag were made citizens and voters by the fourteenth amendment," through Mrs. Minor, applied to the Supreme Court for protection in the exercise of that same right, this high tribunal, reversing all its former decisions, proclaims State sovereignty superior to national authority. This it does in this strange language: "Being born in the United States, a woman is a person and therefore a citizen"—we are much obliged to them for that definition of our identity as persons—"but the constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one." And then, in the face of its previous decisions, the court declared: "The United States has no voters in the States of its own creation", that the elective officers of the United States are all elected, directly or indirectly by State voters. It remands woman to the States for her protection, thus giving to the State the supreme authority and overthrowing the entire results of the war, which was fought to maintain national supremacy over any and all subjects in which the rights and privileges of the citizens of the United States are involved.
No supreme allegiance, gentlemen of the committee, can be claimed for or by a government, if it has no citizens of its own creation, and constitutional amendments cannot confer authority over matters which have no existence in the constitution. Thus, our supreme law-givers hold themselves up for obloquy and ridicule in their interpretation of the most solemn rights of loyal citizens, and make our constitutional law to mean anything or nothing as the case may be. You will see, gentlemen, that the very point which the South contended for as the true one is here acknowledged to be the true one by the Supreme Court—that of State rights superior to national authority. The whole of the recent contest hinged upon this. The appeal to arms and the constitutional amendments were to establish the subordination of the State to national supremacy, to maintain the national authority over any and all subjects in which the rights and privileges of the citizens of the United States were involved; but this decision in Mrs. Minor's case completely nullifies the supreme authority of the government, and gives the States more than has hitherto been claimed for them by the advocates of State rights. The subject of the franchise is thus wholly withdrawn from federal supervision and control. If "the United States has no citizens of its own creation," of course no supreme allegiance can be claimed over the various citizens of the States.
The constitutional amendments cannot confer authority over a matter which has no existence in the constitution. If it has no voters, it can have nothing whatever to do with the elections and voting in the States; yet the United States invaded the State of New York, sent its officers there to try, convict, and sentence Miss Anthony for exercising a right in her own State which they declared the United States had no jurisdiction over. They send United States troops into the South to protect the negro in his right to vote, and then declare they have no jurisdiction over his voting. Then, mark the grave results which may and can follow this decision and legislation. I do not imagine that the Supreme Court, in its cowardly dodging of woman's right to all the rights and privileges which citizenship involves, designed to completely abrogate the principles established by the recent contest, or to nullify the ensuing legislation on the subject. But it certainly has done all this; for it must logically follow that if the United States has no citizens, it cannot legislate upon the rights of citizens, and the recent amendments are devoid of authority. It has well been suggested by Mr. Minor, in his criticism of the decision, that if members of the House of Representatives are elected by State voters, as the Supreme Court has declared, there is no reason why States may not refuse to elect them as in 1860, and thus deprive congress of its power. And if a sufficient number could be united to recall at their pleasure these representatives, what authority has the federal government, under this decision, for coërcing them into subjection or refusing them a separation, if all these voters in the States desired an independent existence? None whatever. Mr. Garfield, in the House, in his speech last March, calls attention to this subject, but does not allude to the fact that the Supreme Court has already opened the door. He says:
There are several ways in which our government may be annihilated without the firing of a gun. For example, suppose the people of the United States should say, we will elect no representatives to congress. Of course this is a violent supposition; but suppose that they do not. Is there any remedy? Does our constitution provide any remedy whatever? In two years there would be no House of Representatives; of course, no support of the government and no government. Suppose, again, the States should say, through their legislatures, we will elect no senators. Such abstention alone would absolutely destroy this government; and our system provides no process of compulsion to prevent it. Again, suppose the two houses were to assemble in their usual order, and a majority of one in this body or in the Senate should firmly band themselves together and say, we will vote to adjourn the moment the hour of meeting arrives, and continue so to vote at every session during our two years of existence—the government would perish, and there is no provision of the constitution to prevent it.
The States may inform their representatives that they can do this; and, under this position, they have the power and the right so to do.
Gentlemen, we are now on the verge of one of the most important presidential campaigns. The party in power holds its reins by a very uncertain tenure. If the decision shall favor the one which has been on the anxious bench for lo! these twenty years, and in probation until hope has well-nigh departed, what may be its action if invested again with the control of the destinies of this nation? The next party in power may inquire, and answer, by what right and how far the Southern States are bound by the legislation in which they had no part or consent. And if the Supreme Court of a Republican judiciary now declares, after the war, after the constitutional amendments, that federal suffrage does not exist and never had an existence in the constitution, it follows that the South has the right to regulate and control all of the questions arising upon suffrage in the several States without any interference on the part of an authority which declares it has no jurisdiction. An able writer has said:
All injustice at last works out a loss. The great ledger of nations does not report a good balance for injustice. It has always met fearful losses. The irrepealable law of justice will, sooner or later, grind a nation to powder if it fail to establish that equilibrium of allegiance and protection which is the essential end of all government. Woe to that nation which thinks lightly of the duties it owes to its citizens and imagines that governments are not bound by moral laws.
It was the tax on tea—woman's drink prerogative—which precipitated the rebellion of 1776. To allay the irritation of the colonies, all taxes were rescinded save that on tea, which was left to indicate King George's dominion. But our revolutionary fathers and mothers said, "No; the tax is paltry, but the principle is great"; and Eve, as usual, pointed the moral for Adam's benefit. A most suggestive picture, one which aroused the intensest patriotism of the colonies, was that of a woman pinioned by her arms to the ground by a British peer, with a British red-coat holding her with one hand and with the other forcibly thrusting down her throat the contents of a tea-pot, which she heroically spewed back in his face; while the figure of Justice, in the distance, wept over this prostrate Liberty. Now, gentlemen, we might well adopt a similar representation. Here is Miss Smith of Glastonbury, Conn., whose cows have been sold every year by the government, contending for the same principle as our forefathers—that of resistance to taxation without representation. We might have a picture of a cow, with an American tax-collector at the horns, a foreign-born assessor at the heels, forcibly selling the birthright of an American citizen, while Julia and Abby Smith, in the background, with veiled faces, weep over the degeneracy of Republican leadership.
But there are those in authority in the government who do not believe in this decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. The attorney-general, in his instructions to the United States marshals and their deputies or assistants in the Southern States, when speaking of the countenance and support of all good citizens of the United States in the respective districts of the marshals, remarks:
It is not necessary to say that it is upon such countenance and support that the United States mainly rely in their endeavor to enforce the right to vote which they have given or have secured.
You notice the phraseology. Again, he says:
The laws of the United States are supreme, and so, consequently, is the action of officials of the United States in enforcing them.
Secretary Sherman said in his speech at Steubenville, July 6:
The negroes are free and are citizens and voters. That, at least, is a part of the constitution and cannot be changed.
And President Hayes in his two last messages, as Mrs. Blake recited to you, has declared that—
United States citizenship shall mean one and the same thing and carry with it all over our wide territory unchallenged security and respect.
And that is what we ask for women.
In conclusion, gentlemen, I say to you that a sense of justice is the sovereign power of the human mind, the most unyielding of any; it rewards with a higher sanction, it punishes with a deeper agony than any earthly tribunal. It never slumbers, never dies. It constantly utters and demands justice by the eternal rule of right, truth and equity. And on these eternal foundation-stones we stand. Crowning the dome of this great building there stands the majestic figure of a woman representing Liberty. It was no idealistic thought or accident of vision which gave us Liberty prefigured by a woman. It is the great soul of the universe pointing the final revelation yet to come to humanity, the prophecy of the ages—the last to be first.[7]
When the proposition to print these speeches came before the House a prolonged debate against it showed the readiness of the opposition to avail themselves of every legal technicality to deprive women of equal rights and privileges. But the measure finally passed and the documents were printed. To the Hon. Elbridge G. Lapham of New York we were largely indebted for the success of this measure.
The Washington Republican of February 6, 1880, describes a novel event that took place at that time:
In the Supreme Court of the United States, on Monday, on motion of Mrs. Belva Lockwood, Samuel R. Lowry of Alabama was admitted to practice. Mr. Lowry is president of the Huntsville, Ala., industrial school, and a gentleman of high attainments. It was quite fitting that the first woman admitted to practice before this court should move the admission of the first Southern colored man. Both will doubtless make good records as representatives of their respective classes. This scene was characterized by George W. Julian as one of the most impressive he ever witnessed—a fitting subject for an historical painting.
In 1880, women were for the first time appointed census enumerators. Gen. Francis Walker, head of that department, said there was no legal obstacle to the appointment of women as enumerators, and he would gladly confirm the nomination of suitable candidates. Very different was the action of the head of the post-office department, who refused, on the ground of sex, the application of 500 women for appointment as letter-carriers.
In view of the important work to be done in a presidential campaign, the National Association decided to issue an appeal to the women of the country to appoint delegates from each State and territory, and prepare an address to each of the presidential nominating conventions. In Washington a move was made for an act of incorporation in order that the Association might legally receive bequests. Tracts containing a general statement of the status of the movement were mailed to all members of congress and officers of the government.
At a meeting of the Committee on Rules, Mr. Randall, a Democratic member of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Garfield, a Republican member of Ohio, reminded Mr. Frye of Maine that he had been instructed by that committee, nearly a year before, to present to the House a resolution on the rights of women. The Congressional Record of March 27 contains the following:
Mr. Frye: I am instructed by the Committee on Rules to report a resolution providing for the appointment of a special committee on the political rights of women, and to move that it be placed on the House calendar.
Mr. Conger: Let it be read. The clerk read the resolution as follows:
Resolved by the House of Representatives, That the speaker appoint a special committee of nine members, to whom shall be referred all memorials, petitions, bills and resolutions relating to the rights of the women of the United States, with power to hear the same and report thereon by bill or otherwise. The resolution was referred to the House calendar.
This was a proof of the advancing status of our question that both Republican and Democratic leaders regarded the "rights of women" worthy the consideration of a special committee.
In the spring of 1880, the National Association held a series of mass meetings in the States of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, commencing with the May anniversary in Indianapolis, at which sixteen States were represented.[8]The convention was held in Park Theatre, Miss Anthony presiding. The arrangements devolved chiefly on Mrs. May Wright Thompson, who discharged her responsibilities in a most praiseworthy manner, providing entertainment for the speakers, and paying all the expenses from the treasury of the local association. A series of resolutions was presented, discussed by a large number of the delegates, and adopted. In accordance with the plan decided upon in Washington of attending all the nominating conventions, the next meeting was held in Chicago, beginning on the same day with the Republican convention. Farwell Hall was filled at an early hour; Miss Anthony in the chair. A large number of delegates[9]were present from every part of the Union, among whom were many of the most distinguished advocates of woman suffrage. Mrs. Harbert gave an eloquent address of welcome.
Committees were appointed to visit the delegates from the different States to the Republican convention, to secure seats for the members of the National Association, and to ask that a plank recommending a sixteenth amendment be incorporated in the platform adopted by the Republican party. The proprietor of the Palmer House gave the use of a large parlor to the Association for business meetings and the reception of Republican delegates, many of whom were in favor of a woman's plank in their platform, and of giving the ladies seats in the convention. Strenuous efforts had been made to this end. One hundred and eighteen senators and representatives addressed a letter to the chairman of the National Republican committee—Don Cameron—asking that seventy-six seats should be given in the convention to the representatives of the National Woman Suffrage Association. It would naturally be deemed that a request, proceeding from such a source, would be heeded. The men who made it were holding the highest positions in the body politic; but the party managers presumed to disregard this request, and also the vote of the committee. The question of furnishing seats for our delegates was brought up before the close of their deliberations by Mr. Finnell, of Kentucky, who said:
A committee of women have been here and they ask for seventy-six seats in this convention. I move that they be furnished.
Mr. Cary of Wyoming, made some remarks showing that woman suffrage in his territory had been to the advantage of the Republican party, and seconded the motion of Mr. Finnell, which was adopted. The following resolution of the Arkansas delegation to the National Republican convention was read and received with enthusiasm:
Resolved, That we pledge ourselves to secure to women the exercise of their right to vote.
It is here to be noted that not only were the Arkansas delegation of Republicans favorable to the recognition of woman suffrage in the platform of that party, but that the Southern delegates were largely united in that demand. Mr. New told the ladies that the Grant men had voted as a unit in favor of the women, while the Blaine and Sherman men unanimously voted against them.
But the ladies, well knowing the uncertainty of politicians, were soon upon the way to the committee-room, to secure positive assurance from the lips of the chairman himself—Don Cameron of Pennsylvania—that such tickets should be forthcoming, when they were stopped by a messenger hurrying after them to announce the presence of the secretary of the committee, Hon. John New, at their headquarters, in the grand parlor of the Palmer House, with a communication in regard to the tickets. He said the seventy-six seats voted by the committee had been reduced to ten by its chairman, and these ten were not offered to the Association in its official capacity, but as complimentary or "guest tickets," for a seat on the platform back of the presiding officers.
The Committee on Resolutions, popularly known as the platform committee, held a meeting in the Palmer House, June 2, to which Belva A. Lockwood obtained admission. On motion of Mr. Fredley of Indiana, Mrs. Lockwood was given permission to present the memorial of the National Woman Suffrage Association to the Republican party.
Seventy-six delegates from local, State and National suffrage associations, representing every section of the United States, are here to-day to ask you to place the following plank in your platform:
Resolved, That we pledge ourselves to secure to women the exercise of their right to vote.
We ask you to pledge yourselves to protect the rights of one-half of the American people, and to thus carry your own principles to their logical results. The thirteenth amendment of 1865, abolishing slavery, the fourteenth of 1867, defining citizenship, and the fifteenth of 1870, securing United States citizens in their right to vote, and your prolonged and powerful debates on all the great issues involved in our civil conflict, stand as enduring monuments to the honor of the Republican party. Impelled by the ever growing demand among women for a voice in the laws they are required to obey, for their rightful share in the government of this republic various State legislatures have conceded partial suffrage. But the great duty remains of securing to woman her right to have her opinions on all questions counted at the ballot-box.
You cannot live on the noble words and deeds of those who inaugurated the Republican party. You should vie with those men in great achievements. Progress is the law of national life. You must have a new, vital issue to rouse once more the enthusiasm of the people. Our question of human rights answers this demand. The two great political parties are alike divided upon finance, free-trade, labor reform and general questions of political economy. The essential point in which you differ from the Democratic party is national supremacy, and it is on this very issue we make our demand, and ask that our rights as United States citizens be secured by an amendment to the national constitution. To carry this measure is not only your privilege but your duty. Your pledge to enfranchise ten millions of women will rouse an enthusiasm which must count in the coming closely contested election. But above expediency is right, and to do justice is ever the highest political wisdom.
The committee then adjourned to meet at the Sherman-house club room, where they reässembled at 8 o'clock. Soon after the calling to order of our own convention in Farwell Hall, word came that a hearing had been accorded before the platform committee. This proved to be a sub-committee. Ten minutes were given Miss Anthony to plead the cause of 10,000,000—yes, 20,000,000 citizens of this republic(?), while, watch in hand, Mr. Pierrepont sat to strike the gavel when this time expired. Ten minutes!! Twice has the great Republican party, in the plentitude of its power, allowed woman ten minutes to plead her cause before it. Ten minutes twice in the past eight years, while all the remainder of the time it has been fighting for power and place and continued life, heedless of the wrongs and injustice it was constantly perpetrating towards one-half the people. Ten minutes! What a period in the history of time. Small hope remained of a committee, with such a chairman, introducing a plank for woman suffrage.
The whole Arkansas delegation had expressed itself in favor; most of the Kentucky delegation were known to be so, while New York not only had friends to woman suffrage among its number, but even an officer of the State association was a delegate to the Republican convention. These men were called upon, a form of plank placed in their hands and they were asked to offer it as an amendment when the committee reported, but that plan was blocked by a motion that all resolutions should be referred to the committee for action. Senator Farr of Michigan, a colored man, was the only member of the platform committee who suggested the insertion of a woman suffrage plank, the Michigan delegation to a man, favoring such action. The delegates were ready in case opportunity offered, to present the address to the convention. But no such moment arrived.
The mass convention had been called for June 2, but the crowds in the city gave promise of such extended interest that Farwell Hall was engaged for June 1, and before the second day's proceedings closed, funds were voluntarily raised by the audience to continue the meeting the third day. So vast was the number of letters and postals addressed to the convention from all parts of the country from women who desired to vote, that the whole time of each session could have been spent in reading them—one day's mail alone bringing letters and postals from twenty-three States and three territories. Some of these letters contained hundreds of names, others represented town, county, and State societies. Many were addressed to the different nominating conventions, Republican, Greenback, Democratic, while the reasons given for desiring to vote, ranged from the simple demand, through all the scale of reasons connected with good government and morality. So highly important a contribution to history did the Chicago Historical Society[10] deem these expressions of woman's desire to vote, that it made a formal request to be put in possession of all letters and postals, with a promise that they should be carefully guarded in a fire-proof safe. After the eloquent speeches[11] of the closing session, Miss Alice S. Mitchell sang Julia Ward Howe's "Battle Hymn of the Republic," Mrs. Harbert playing the accompaniment, and the immense audience of 3,000 people joining in the chorus. This convention held three sessions each day, and at all except the last an admission fee was charged, and yet the hall was densely crowded throughout. For enthusiasm, nothing ever surpassed these meetings in the history of the suffrage movement. A platform and resolution were adopted as the voice of the convention.
The special object of the National Woman Suffrage Association is to secure national protection for women in the exercise of their right of suffrage. It recognizes the fact that our government was formed on the political basis of the consent of the governed, and that the Declaration of Independence struck a blow at every existing form by declaring the individual to be the source of all power. The members of this association, outside of our great question, have diverse political affiliations, but for the purpose of gaining this great right to the ballot, its members hold their party predilections in abeyance; therefore,
Resolved, That in this year of presidential nominations and political campaigns, we announce our determination to support no party by whatever name called, unless such party shall, in its platform, first emphatically endorse our demand for a recognition of the exact and permanent political equality of all citizens.
A delegation[12]went to the Greenback convention and presented the following memorial:
When a new political party is formed it should be based upon the principles of justice to all classes hitherto unrecognized. The finance question, as broad as it is, does not reach down to the deepest wrong in the nation. Beneath this question lies that of the denial of the right of self-government to one-half the people. It is impossible to secure the property rights of the people without first recognizing their personal rights. More than any class of men, woman represents the great unpaid laborer of the world—a slave, who, as wife and daughter, absolutely works for her board and clothes. The question of finance deeply interests woman, but her opinions upon it are valueless while deprived of the right of enforcing them at the ballot box. You are here in convention assembled, not alone to nominate a candidate for president, but also to promulgate your platform of principles to the world. Now is your golden opportunity. The Republican party presents no vital issue to the country; its platform is a repetition of the platitudes of the past twenty years. It has ceased to be a party of principles. It lives on the past. The deeds of dead men hold it together. Its disregard of principles has thrown opportunity into your hands. Will you make yourselves the party of the future? Will you recognize woman's right of self-government? Will you make woman suffrage an underlying principle in your platform? If you will make these pledges, the National Association will work for the triumph of your party in the approaching closely contested campaign.
The ladies were accorded hearings by several delegations previous to the assembling of the convention. A resolution committee of one from each State was appointed, and each member allowed two minutes to present either by speech or writing such principles as it requested incorporated in the platform. Lucinda B. Chandler, being a Greenbacker on principle, was a regularly elected delegate and by courtesy was added to a sub-committee on resolutions. The one prepared by the National Association was placed in her hands, but, as she was forbidden to speak upon it, her support could only be given by vote, and a meaningless substitute took its place. The courtesy of placing Mrs. Chandler upon the committee was like much of man's boasted chivalry to woman, a seeming favor at the expense of right.
After trying in vain for recognition as a political factor from the Republican and Greenback nominating conventions the delegates went to Cincinnati.[13]
Committees were at once appointed to visit the different delegations. Women were better treated by the Democrats at Cincinnati than by the Republicans at Chicago. A committee-room in Music Hall was at once placed at their disposal, placards pointing to their headquarters were printed by the local committee at its own expense, and sixteen seats given to the ladies upon the floor of the house, just back of the regular delegates. A hearing[14] before the platform committee was granted with no limit as to time. At the close a delegate approached the table, saying, "I favor giving woman a plank," "So do I," replied Mr. Watterson, chairman of the committee. Many delegates in conversation, favored the recognition of woman's political rights, and a large number of the platform committee favored the introduction of the following plank:
That the Democratic party, recognizing the rapid growth of the woman suffrage question, suggests a consideration of this important subject by the people in anticipation of the time, near at hand, when it must become a political issue.
But although the platform committee sat until 2 a.m., no such result was reached, in consequence, it was said, of the objection of the extreme Southern element which feared the political recognition of negro women of the South.
The delegations from Maine, Kansas and New York were favorable, and offered the Association the use of their committee-rooms at the Burnett House and the Grand Hotel whenever desired. Mayor Prince of Boston not only offered a committee-room but secured seats for the delegates on the floor of the house. Mr. Henry Watterson, of the Louisville Courier-Journal, as chairman of the Platform Committee, extended every courtesy within his power. Mayor Harrison of Chicago did his best to secure to the delegates a hearing before the convention. He offered to escort Miss Anthony to the platform that she might at least present the address. "You may be prevented," suggested one. "I'd like to see them do it," he replied. "Have I not just brought about a reconciliation between Tammany and the rest of New York?" Taking Miss Anthony upon his arm and telling her not to flinch, he made his way to the platform, when the chairman, Hon. Wade Hampton of South Carolina, politely offered her a seat, and ordered the clerk to read the address:
On behalf of the women of the country we appear before you, asking the recognition of woman's political rights as one-half the people. We ask no special privileges, no special legislation. We simply ask that you live up to the principles enunciated by the Democratic party from the time of Jefferson. By what principle of democracy do men assume to legislate for women? Women are part of the people; your very name signifies government by the people. When you deny political rights to women you are false to your own principles.
The Declaration of Independence recognized human rights as its basis. Constitutions should also be general in character. But in opposition to this principle the party in power for the last twenty years has perverted the Constitution of the United States by the introduction of the word "male" three times, thereby limiting the application of its guarantees to a special class. It should be your pride and your duty to restore the constitution to its original basis by the adoption of a sixteenth amendment, securing to women the right of suffrage; and thus establish the equality of all United States citizens before the law.
Not for the first time do we make of you these demands. At your nominating convention in New York, in 1868, Susan B. Anthony appeared before you, asking recognition of woman's inherent natural rights. At your convention of 1872, in Baltimore, Isabella Beecher Hooker and Susan B. Anthony made a similar appeal. In 1876, at St. Louis, Phœbe W. Couzins and Virginia L. Minor presented our claims. Now, in 1880, our delegates are present here from the Middle States, from the West and from the South. The women of the South are rapidly uniting in their demand for political recognition, as they have been the most deeply humiliated by a recognition of the political rights of their former slaves.
To secure to 20,000,000 of women the rights of citizenship is to base your party on the eternal principles of justice; it is to make yourselves the party of the future; it is to do away with a more extended slavery than that of 4,000,000 of blacks; it is to secure political freedom to half the nation; it is to establish on this continent the democratic theory of the equal rights of the people.
In furtherance of this demand we ask you to adopt the following resolution:
On behalf of the National Woman Suffrage Association. Matilda Joslyn Gage, Chairman Executive Committee.
That the women however, in the campaign of 1880, received the best treatment at the hands of the National Prohibition party is shown by the following invitation received at the Bloomington convention:
The woman suffragists are respectfully invited to meet with and participate in the proceedings of the National Prohibition Convention to be held at Cleveland, Ohio, June, 1880. James Black, Chairman of National Committee.
After attending all these nominating conventions, some of the delegates[15] went to Wisconsin where the State and National Associations held a joint convention, in the Opera House at Milwaukee, June 4, 5. Madam Anneke gave the address of welcome.[16] Fresh from the exciting scenes of the presidential conventions, the speakers were unusually earnest and aggressive. The resolutions discussed at the Indianapolis convention were considered and adopted. Carl Doerflinger read a greeting in behalf of the German Radicals of the city. Letters were read from prominent persons, expressing their interest in the movement.[17] Dr. Laura Ross Wolcott made all the arrangements and contributed largely to the expenses of the convention. The roll of delegates shows that the State, at least, was well represented. [18]
Thus through the terrible heat of June this band of earnest women held successive conventions in Bloomington, II]., Grand Rapids, Mich., Lafayette and Terre Haute, Ind. They were most hospitably entertained, and immense audiences greeted them at every point. Mrs. Cordelia Briggs took the entire responsibility of the social and financial interests of the convention at Grand Rapids, which continued for three days with increasing enthusiasm to the close. Mrs. Helen M. Gougar made the arrangements for Lafayette which were in every way successful.
After the holding of these conventions, delegations from the National Association called on the nominees of the two great parties to ascertain their opinions and proposed action, if any, on the question of woman suffrage. Mrs. Blake, and other ladies representing the New York city society, called on General Han"cock at his residence and were most courteously received. In he course of a long conversation in which it was evident that he had given some thought to the question, he said he would not veto a District of Columbia Woman Suffrage bill, provided such a bill should pass congress, thereby putting himself upon better record than Horace Greely the year of his candidacy, who not only expressed himself as opposed to woman suffrage, but also declared that, if elected, he would veto such a bill provided it passed congress.
Miss Anthony visited James A. Garfield at his home in Mentor, Ohio. He was very cordial, and listened with respect to her presentation of the question. Although from time to time in congress he had uniformly voted with our friends, yet he expressed serious doubts as to the wisdom of pressing this measure during the pending presidential campaign.
As it was deemed desirable to get some expression on paper from the candidates the following letter, written on official paper, was addressed to the Republican and Democratic nominees:
Rochester, N. Y., August 17, 1880.
Hon. James A. Garfield: Dear Sir: As vice-president-at-large of the National Woman Suffrage Association, I am instructed to ask you, if, in the event of your election, you, as President of the United States, would recommend to congress, in your message to that body, the submission to the several legislatures of a sixteenth amendment to the national constitution, prohibiting the disfranchisement of United States citizens on account of sex. What we wish to ascertain is whether you, as president, would use your official influence to secure to the women of the several States a national guarantee of their right to a voice in the government on the same terms with men. Neither platform makes any pledge to secure political equality to women—hence we are waiting and hoping that one candidate or the other, or both, will declare favorably, and thereby make it possible for women, with self-respect, to work for the success of one or the other or both nominees. Hoping for a prompt and explicit statement, I am, sir, very respectfully yours,
Susan B. Anthony.
To this General Hancock vouchsafed no reply, while General Garfield responded as follows:
Mentor, O., August 25, 1880.
Dear Miss Anthony: Your letter of the 17th inst. came duly to hand. I take the liberty of asking your personal advice before I answer your official letter. I assume that all the traditions and impulses of your life lead you to believe that the Republican party has been and is more nearly in the line of liberty than its antagonist the Democratic party; and I know you desire to advance the cause of woman. Now, in view of the fact that the Republican convention has not discussed your question, do you not think it would be a violation of the trust they have reposed in me, to speak, "as their nominee"—and add to the present contest an issue that they have not authorized? Again, if I answer your question on the ground of my own private opinion, I shall be compelled to say, that while I am open to the freest discussion and fairest consideration of your question, I have not yet reached the conclusion that it would be best for woman and for the country that she should have the suffrage. I may reach it; but whatever time may do to me, that fruit is not yet ripe on my tree. I ask you, therefore, for the sake of your own question, do you think it wise to pick my apples now? Please answer me in the frankness of personal friendship. With kind regards, I am very truly yours,
James A. Garfield.
Rochester, N. Y., September 9, 1880.
Hon. James A. Garfield: Dear Sir: Yours of the 25th ult. has waited all these days that I might consider and carefully reply.
First. The Republican party did run well for a season in the "line of liberty"; but since 1870, its congressional enactments, majority reports, Supreme Court decisions, and now its presidential platform, show a retrograde movement—not only for women, but for colored men—limiting the power of the national government in the protection of United States citizens against the injustice of the States, until what we gained by the sword is lost by political surrenders. And we need nothing but a Democratic administration to demonstrate to all Israel and the sun the fact, the sad fact, that all is lost by the Republican party, and not to be lost by the Democratic party. I mean, of course, the one vital point of national supremacy in the protection of United States citizens in the enjoyment of their right to vote, and the punishment of States or individuals thereof, for depriving citizens of the exercise of that right. The first and fatal mistake was in ceding to the States the right to "abridge or deny" the suffrage to foreign-born men in Rhode Island, and all women throughout the nation, in direct violation of the principle of national supremacy. And from that time, inch by inch, point by point has been surrendered, until it is only in name that the Republican party is the party of national supremacy. Grant did not protect the negro's ballot in 1876—Hayes cannot in 1880—nor could Garfield in 1884—for the "sceptre has departed from Judah."
Second. For the candidate of a party to add to the discussions of the contest an issue unauthorized or unnoted in its platform, when that issue was one vital to its very life, would, it seems to me, be the grandest act imaginable. And, for doing that very thing, with regard to the protection of the negroes of the South, you are to-day receiving more praise from the best men of the party, than for any and all of your utterances inside the line of the platform. And I know, if you had in your letter of acceptance, or in your New York speech, declared yourself in favor of "perfect equality of rights for women, civil and political," you would have touched an electric spark that would have fired the heart of the women of the entire nation, and made the triumph of the Republican party more grand and glorious than any it has ever seen. Third. As to picking fruit before it is ripe! Allow me to remind you that very much fruit is never picked; some gets nipped in the blossom; some gets worm-eaten and falls to the ground; some rots on the trees before it ripens; some, too slow in ripening, gets bitten by the early frosts of autumn; while some rich, rare, ripe apples hang unpicked, frozen and worthless on the leafless trees of winter! Really, Mr. Garfield, if, after passing through the war of the rebellion and sixteen years in congress;—if, after seeing, and hearing, and repeating, that no class ever got justice and equality of chances from any government except it had the power—the ballot—to clutch them for itself;—if, after all your opportunities for growth and development, you cannot yet see the truth of the great principle of individual self-government;—if you have only reached the idea of class-government, and that, too, of the most hateful and cruel form—bounded by sex—there must be some radical defect in the ethics of the party of which you are the chosen leader.
No matter which party administers the government, women will continue to get only subordinate positions and half-pay, not because of the party's or the president's lack of chivalric regard for woman, but because, in the nature of things, it is impossible for any government to protect a disfranchised class in equality of chances. Women, to get justice, must have political freedom. But pardon this long trespass upon your time and patience, and please bear in mind that it is not for the many good things the Republican party and its nominee have done in extending the area of liberty, that I criticise them, but because they have failed to place the women of the nation on the plane of political equality with men. I do not ask you to go beyond your convictions, but I do most earnestly beg you to look at this question from the stand-point of woman—alone, without father, brother, husband, son—battling for bread! It is to help the millions of these unfortunate ones that I plead for the ballot in the hands of all women. With great respect for your frank and candid talk with one of the disfranchised, I am very sincerely yours,
Susan B. Anthony.
As Mr. Garfield was the only presidential nominee of either of the great parties who deigned a reply to the National Association, we have given his letter an honored place in our history, and desire to pay this tribute to his memory, that while not fully endorsing our claims for political equality he earnestly advocated for woman all possible advantages of education, equal rights in the trades and professions, and equal laws for the protection of her civil rights.
The Thirteenth Annual Washington Convention assembled in Lincoln Hall, January 18, 1881. The first session was devoted to memorial services in honor of Lucretia Mott. A programme[19] for the occasion was extensively circulated, and the response in character and numbers was such an audience as had seldom before crowded that hall. The spacious auditorium was brilliant with sunlight and the gay dresses, red shawls and flowers of the ladies of the fashionable classes. Mrs. Hayes with several of her guests from the White House occupied front seats. The stage was crowded with members of the association, Mrs. Mott's personal friends and wives of members of congress. The decorations which had seldom been surpassed in point of beauty and tastefulness of arrangement, formed a fitting setting for this notable assemblage of women. The background was a mass of colors, formed by the graceful draping of national flags, here and there a streamer of old gold with heavy fringe to give variety, while in the center was a national shield surmounted by two flags. On each side flags draped and festooned, falling at the front of the stage with the folds of the rich maroon curtains. Graceful ferns and foliage plants had been arranged, while on a table stood a large harp formed of beautiful red and white flowers.[20]At the other end was a stand of hot-house flowers, while in the center, resting on a background of maroon drapery, was a large crayon picture of Lucretia Mott. Above the picture a snow-white dove held in its beak sprays of smilax, trailing down on either side, and below was a sheaf of ripened wheat, typical of the life that had ended. The occasion which had brought the ladies together, the placid features of that kind and well-remembered face, had a solemnizing effect upon all, and quietly the vast audience passed into the hall. The late-comers finding all the seats occupied stood in the rear and sat in the aisles. Presently Miss Couzins, stepping to the front of the stage said gently, "In accordance with the custom of Mrs. Mott and the time-honored practice of the Quakers, I ask you to unite in an invocation to the Spirit." She bowed her head. The audience followed her example. For several minutes the solemn stillness of devotion pervaded the hall. When Miss Couzins had taken her seat the quartette choir of St. Augustine's church (colored) which was seated on the platform, sang sweetly an appropriate selection, after which Mrs. Stanton delivered the eulogy[21] holding the rapt attention of her audience over an hour. At the close Frederick Douglass said:
He had listened with interest to the fine analysis of the life and services of Lucretia Mott. He was almost unwilling to have his voice heard after what had been said. He was there to show by his presence his profound respect and earnest love for Lucretia Mott. He recognized none whose services in behalf of his race were equal to hers. Her silence even in that cause was more than the speech of others. He had no words for this occasion.
Robert Purvis at the request of a number of colored citizens of Washington, presented a beautiful floral harp to Mr. Davis, the son-in-law of Lucretia Mott, the only representative of her family present. He paid a tender tribute to the noble woman whose life-long friendship he had enjoyed. Mr. Davis having a seat on the platform, received the gift with evident emotion, and returning thanks, he said:
He would follow the example of Mrs. Mott who seldom kept a gift long, and present these rare flowers to Mrs. Spofford, the treasurer of the Association.
Miss Anthony said: The highest tribute she could pay, was, that during the past thirty years she had always felt sure she was right when she had the approval of Lucretia Mott. Next to that of her own conscience she most valued the approval of her sainted friend. And it was now a great satisfaction that in all the differences of opinion as to principles and methods in our movement, Mrs. Mott had stood firmly with the National Association, of which she was to the day of her death the honored and revered vice-president.
Mrs. Sewall, after speaking of the many admirable qualities of Mrs. Mott, said:
In looking around this magnificent audience I cannot help asking myself the question, Where are the young girls? They should be here. It is the birthright of every girl to know the life and deeds of every noble woman. I think Lucretia Mott was as much above the average woman as Abraham Lincoln above the average man.
Miss Couzins closed with a few graceful words. She expressed her pleasure in meeting so magnificent an audience, and thought the whole occasion was a beautiful tribute to one of America's best and noblest women. She hoped the mothers present would carry away the impressions they had received and teach their daughters to hold the name of Lucretia Mott ever in grateful remembrance. The choir sang "Nearer, My God, to Thee." The entire audience arose and joined in the singing, after which they slowly dispersed, feeling that it had indeed been a pentacostal occasion. An able paper from Alexander Dumas, on "Woman Suffrage as a means of Moral Improvement and Prevention of Crime,"[22] was translated for this meeting by Thomas Mott, the only son of James and Lucretia Mott. This convention continued two days, with the usual number of able speakers.[23] It was announced at the last session that an effort would be made by Senator McDonald, next day, to call up a resolution providing for the appointment of a standing committee for women; accordingly the ladies' gallery in the Senate was well filled with delegates.
From the Congressional Record, January 20, 1881:
Mr. McDonald: On February 16, 1880, I submitted a resolution providing for the appointment of a committee of nine senators, whose duty it shall be to receive, consider and report upon all petitions, memorials, resolutions and bills relating to the rights of women of the United States, said committee to be called "Committee on the Rights of Women." It is on the calendar, and I ask for its present consideration.
The Vice-president (Mr. Wheeler of New York): The senator from Indiana calls up for consideration a resolution on the calendar, which will be reported.
The chief clerk read the resolution, as follows:
Resolved, That a committee of nine senators be appointed by the Senate, whose duty it shall be to receive, consider and report upon all petitions, memorials, resolutions and bills relating to the rights of women of the United States, said committee to be called the Committee on the Rights of Women.
The Vice-president: The question is, Will the Senate agree to the resolution?
Mr. McDonald: Mr. President, it seems to me that the time has arrived when the rights of the class of citizens named in the resolution should have some hearing in the national legislature. We have standing committees upon almost every other subject, but none to which this class of citizens can resort. When their memorials come in they are sometimes sent to the Committee on the Judiciary, sometimes to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, and sometimes to other committees. The consequence is that they pass around from committee to committee and never receive any consideration. In the organization and growth of the Senate a number of standing committees have been from time to time created and continued from congress to congress, until many of them have but very little duty now to perform. It seems to me to be very appropriate to consider this question now, and provide some place in the capitol, some room of the Senate, some branch of the government, where this class of applicants can have a full and fair hearing, and have such measures as may be desired to secure to them such rights brought fairly and properly before the country. I hope there will be no opposition to the resolution but that it will be adopted by unanimous consent.
Mr. Conkling: Does the senator from Indiana wish to raise a permanent committee on this subject to take its place and remain on the list of permanent committees?
Mr. McDonald: That is precisely what I propose to do.
Mr. Conkling: Mr. President, I was in hopes that the honorable senator from Indiana, knowing how sincere and earnest he is in this regard, intended that an end should be made soon of this subject; that the prayer of these petitioners should be granted and the whole right established; but now it seems that he wishes to create a perpetual committee, so that it is to go on interminably, from which I infer that he intends that never shall these prayers be granted. I suggest to the senator from Indiana that, if he be in earnest, if he wishes to crown with success this great and beneficent movement, he should raise a special committee, which committee would understand that it was to achieve and conclude its purpose, and this presently, and not postpone indefinitely in the vast forever the realization of this hope. I trust, therefore, that the senator from Indiana will make this a special committee, and will let that special committee understand that before the sun goes down on the last day of this session it is to take final, serious, intelligent action, for which it is to be responsible, whether that action be one way or the other.[24]
Mr. McDonald: The senator from New York misapprehends one purpose of this committee. I certainly have no desire that the rights of this class of our citizens should be deferred to that far-distant future to which he has made reference, nor would this committee so place them. If it be authorized by the Senate, it will be the duty of the committee to receive all petitions, memorials, resolutions and bills relating to the rights of women, not merely presented now but those presented at any future time. It is simply to provide a place where one-half the people of the United States may have a tribunal in this body before which they can have their cases considered. I apprehend that these rights are never to be ended. I do not suppose that the time will ever come in the history of the human race when there will not be rights of women to be considered and passed upon. Therefore, to make this merely a special committee would not accomplish the purpose I had in view. While it would of course give a committee that would receive and hear such petitions as are now presented and consider such bills as should now be brought forward, it would be better to have a committee from term to term, where these same plaints could be heard, the same petitions presented, the same bills considered, and where new rights, whatever they might be, can be disand acted upon. Therefore I cannot accept the suggestion of the senator from New York to make this a special committee. Mr. Davis of West Virginia: I think it a bad idea to raise an extra committee. I move that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Rules, I think it ought to go there. That is where the rules generally require all such resolutions to be referred.
The Vice-president: The question is on the motion of the senator from Virginia, that the resolution be referred to the Committee on Rules.
Which was agreed to by a vote of 26 yeas to 23 nays.[25]
Amid all the pleasure of political excitement the social amenities were not forgotten. A brilliant reception[26]and supper were given to the delegates by Mrs. Spofford at the Riggs House. During the evening Mrs. Stanton presented the beautiful life-size photograph of Lucretia Mott which had adorned the platform at the convention, to Howard University, and read the following letter from Edward M. Davis:
Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton—Dear Madam: As an expression of my gratitude to the colored people of the District for their beautiful floral tribute to the memory of my dear mother, I desire in the name of her children to present to Howard University the photograph of Lucretia Mott which adorned the platform during the convention. It is a fitting gift to an institution that so well illustrates her principles in opening its doors to all youth without regard to sex or color. With sincere regret that I cannot be present this evening at the reception, I am gratefully yours,
Edward M. Davis.
In receiving the beautiful gift, Dr. Patton, president of the institution, made a graceful response. In the spring of 1881, the National Association held a series of conventions through New England, beginning with the May anniversary in Boston, of which we give the following description from the Hartford Courant:
Among the many anniversaries in Boston the last week in May, one of the most enthusiastic was that of the National Woman Suffrage Association, held in Tremont Temple. The weather was cool and fair and the audience fine throughout, and never was there a better array of speakers at one time on any platform. The number of thoughtful, cultured young women appearing in these conventions, is one of the hopeful features for
the success of this movement. The selection of speakers for this occasion had been made at the Washington convention in January, and different topics assigned to each that the same phases of the question might not be treated over and over again.
Mrs. Harriet Hansom Robinson (wife of "Warrington," so long the able correspondent of the Springfield Republican), who with her daughter made the arrangements for our reception, gave the address of welcome, to which the president, Mrs. Stanton, replied. Rev. Frederic Hinckley of Providence, spoke on "Unity of Principle in Variety of Method," and showed that while differing on minor points the various woman suffrage associations were all working to one grand end. Anna Garlin Spencer made a few remarks on "The Character of Reformers." Rev. Olympia Brown gave an exceptionally brilliant speech a full hour in length on "Universal Suffrage"; Harriette Robinson Shattuck's theme was "Believing and Doing"; Lillie Devereux Blake's, "Demand for Liberty"; Matilda Joslyn Gage's, "Centralization"; Belva A. Lockwood's, "Woman and the Law". Mary F. Eastman followed showing that woman's path was blocked at every turn, in the professions as well as the trades and the whole world of work; Isabella Beecher Hooker gave an able argument on the "Constitutional Right of Women to Vote"; Martha McLellan Brown spoke equally well on the "Ethics of Sex"; Mrs. Elizabeth Avery Meriwether of Tennessee, gave a most amusing commentary on the spirit of the old common law, cuffing Blackstone and Coke with merciless sarcasm. Mrs. Elizabeth L. Saxon of Louisiana spoke with great effect on "Woman's Intellectual Powers as Developed by the Ballot." These two Southern ladies are alike able, witty and pathetic in their appeals for justice to woman. Mrs. May Wright Sewall's essay on "Domestic Legislation," showing how large a share of the bills passed every year directly effect home life, was very suggestive to those who in answer to our demand for political power, say "Woman's sphere is home," as if the home were beyond the control and influence of the State. Beside all these thoroughly prepared addresses, Susan B Anthony, Dr. Clemence Lozier, Dr. Caroline Winslow, ex-Secretary Lee of Wyoming, spoke briefly on various points suggested by the several speakers.
The white-haired and venerable philosopher, A. Bronson Alcott, was very cordially received, after being presented in complimentary terms by the president. Mr. Alcott paid a glowing tribute to the intellectual worth of woman, spoke of the divinity of her character, and termed her the inspiration font from which his own philosophical ideas had been drawn. Not until the women of our nation have been granted every privilege would the liberty of our republic be assured.[27] The well-known Francis W. Bird of Walpole, who has long wielded in the politics of the Bay State, the same power Thurlow Weed did for forty years in New York, being invited to the platform, expressed his entire sympathy with the demand for suffrage, notwithstanding the common opinion held by the leading men of Massachusetts, that the women themselves did not ask it. He recommended State rather than national action.
Rev. Ada C. Bowles of Cambridge, and Rev. Olympia Brown, of Racine, Wis., opened the various sessions with prayer—striking evidence of the growing self-assertion of the sex, and the rapid progress of events towards the full recognition of the fact that woman's hour has come. Touching deeper and tenderer chords in the human soul than words could reach, the inspiring strains of the celebrated organist, Mr. Ryder, rose ever and anon, now soft and plaintive, now full and commanding, mingled in stirring harmony with prayer and speech. And as loving friends had covered the platform with rare and fragrant flowers, the æsthetic taste of the most fastidious artist might have found abundant gratification in the grouping and whole effect of the assemblage in that grand temple. Thus through six prolonged sessions the interest was not only kept up but intensified from day to day.
The National Association was received right royally in Boston. On arriving they found invitations waiting to visit Governor Long at the State House, Mayor Prince at the City Hall, the great establishment of Jordan, Marsh & Co., and the Reformatory Prison for Women at Sherborn. Invitations to take part were extended to woman suffrage speakers in many of the conventions of that anniversary week. Among those who spoke from other platforms, were Matilda Joslyn Gage, Ellen H. Sheldon, Caroline B. Winslow, M. D., editor of The Alpha, and Rev. Olympia Brown. The president of the association, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, received many invitations to speak at various points, but had time only for the "Moral Education," "Heredity," and "Free Religious" associations. Her engagement at Parker Memorial Hall, prevented her from accepting the governor's invitation, but Isabella Beecher Hooker and Susan B Anthony led the way to the State house and introduced the delegates from the East, the West, the North and the South, to the honored executive head of the State, who had declared himself, publicly, in favor of woman suffrage. The ceremony of hand-shaking over, and some hundred women being ranged in a double circle about the desk, Mrs. Hooker stepped forward, saying:
Speak a word to us, Governor Long, we need help. Stand here, please, face to face with these earnest women and tell us where help is to come from.
The Governor responded, and then introduced his secretary, who conducted the ladies through the building.
Mrs. Hooker said: Permit me, sir, to thank you for this unlooked-for and unusual courtesy in the name of our president who should be here to speak for herself and for us, and in the name of these loyal women who ask only that the right of the people to govern themselves shall be maintained. In this great courtesy extended us by good old Massachusetts as citizens of this republic unitedly protesting against being taxed without representation, and governed without our consent, we see the beginning of the end—the end of our wearisome warfare—a warfare which though bloodless, has cost more than blood, by as much as soul-suffering exceeds that of mere flesh. I see as did Stephen of old, a celestial form close to that of the Son of Man, and her name is Liberty—always a woman—and she bids us go on—go on—even unto the end.
Miss Anthony standing close to the governor, said in low, pathetic tones:
Yes, we are tired. Sir, we are weary with our work. For forty years some of us have carried this burden, and now, if we might lay it down at the feet of honorable men, such as you, how happy we should be.
The next day Mayor Prince, though suffering from a late severe attack of rheumatism, cordially welcomed the delegates in his room at the City Hall, and chatting familiarly with those who had been at the Cincinnati convention and witnessed his great courtesy, some one remarked that from that time Miss Anthony had proclaimed him the prince among men, and Mrs. Stanton immediately suggested that if the party with which he was identified were wise in their day and generation they would accept his leadership, even to the acknowledgement of the full citizenship of this republic, and thus secure not only their gratitude but their enthusiastic support in the next presidential election. Having compassion upon his Honor because of his manifest physical disability, the ladies soon withdrew and went directly to the house of Jordan, Marsh & Co., where were assembled in a large hall at the top of the building such a crowd of handsome, happy, young girls as one seldom sees in this work-a-day world; that well-known Boston firm within the last six months having fitted up a large recreation room for the use of their employés at the noon hour. Half a hundred girls were merrily dancing to the music of a piano, but ceased in order to listen to words of cheer from Mrs. Lockwood, Mrs. Hooker and Mrs. Sewall. At the close of their remarks Mr. Jordan brought forward a reluctant young girl who could give us, if she would, a charming recitation from "That Lass o' Lowrie's," in return for our kindness in coming to them. And after saying in a whisper to one who kindly urged compliance to this unexpected call, that this had been such a busy day she feared her dress was not all right, her face became unconscious of self in a moment, and with true dramatic instinct, she gave page after page of that wonderful story of the descent into the mine and the recognition there of one whom she loved, precisely as you would desire to hear it were the scene put upon the stage with all the accessories of scenery and companion actors.
From Jordan, Marsh & Co.'s a large delegation proceeded to visit the Reformatory Prison at Sherborn which was established three or four years ago. The board of directors, consisting of three women and two men, has charge of all the prisons of the State. Mrs. Johnson, one of the directors, a noble, benevolent woman, interested in the great charities of Boston, was designated by Governor Long—through whose desire the Association visited the prison—to do the honors and accompany the party from Boston. The officers, matron and physician of the Sherborn prison, are all women. Dr. Mosher, the superintendent, formerly the physician, is a fair, noble-looking woman about thirty-five years of age. She has her own separate house connected with the building. The present physician, a delicate, cultured woman, with sympathy for her suffering charges, is a recent graduate of Ann Arbor.
The entire work is done by the women sent there for restraint, and the prison is nearly self-supporting; it is expected that within another year it will be entirely so. Laundry work is done for the city of Boston, shirts are manufactured, mittens knit, etc. The manufacturing machinery will be increased the coming year. The graded system of reward has been found successful in the development of better traits. It has four divisions, and through it the inmates are enabled to work up by good behavior toward more pleasant surroundings, better clothes and food and greater liberty. From the last grade they reach the freedom of being bound out; of seventy-eight thus bound during the past year but seven were returned. The whole prison, chapel, school-room, dining-room, etc., possesses a sweet, clean, pure atmosphere. The rooms are light, well-ventilated, vines trailing in the windows from which glimpses of green trees and blue sky can be seen.
Added to all the other courtesies, there came the invitation to a few of the representatives of the movement to dine with the Bird Club at the Parker House, in the same cozy room where these astute politicians have held their councils for so many years, and whose walls have echoed to the brave words of many of New England's greatest sons. The only woman who had ever been thus honored before was Mrs. Stanton, who, "escorted by Warrington," dined with these honorable gentlemen in 1871. On this occasion Susan B. Anthony and Harriet H. Robinson accompanied her. Around the table sat several well-known reformers and distinguished members of the press and bar. There was Elizur Wright whose name is a household word in many homes as translator of La Fontaine's fables for the children. Beside him sat the well-known Parker Pillsbury and his nephew, a promising young lawyer in Boston. At one end of the table sat Mr. Bird with Mrs. Stanton on his right and Miss Anthony on his left. At the other end sat Frank Sanborn with Mrs. Robinson (wife of "Warrington") on his right. On either side sat Judge Adam Thayer of Worcester, Charles Field, Williard Phillips of Salem, Colonel Henry Walker of Boston, Mr. Ernst of the Boston Advertiser, and Judge Henry Fox of Taunton. The condition of Russia and the Conkling imbroglio in New York; the new version of the Testament and the reason why German Liberals, transplanted to this soil, immediately become conservative and exclusive, were all considered. Carl Schurz, with his narrow ideas of woman's sphere and education, was mentioned by way of example. In reply to the question how the Suffrage Association felt in regard to Conkling's reëlection. Mrs. Robinson said:
That the leaders, who are students of politics were unitedly against him. Their only hope is in the destruction of the Republican party, which is too old and corrupt to take up any new reform.
Certainly, as we are supposed to have brought "original sin" into the world with its fearful forebodings of eternal punishment, any modification of Hades in fact or name, for the men of the race, the innocent victims of our disobedience, fills us with satisfaction.
From the club the ladies hastened to the beautiful residence of Mrs. Fenno Tudor, fronting Boston Common, where hundreds of friends had already gathered to do honor to the noble woman so ready to identify herself with the unpopular reforms of her day. Among the many beautiful works of art, a chief attraction was the picture of the grand-mother of Parnell, the Irish agitator, by Gilbert Stuart. The house was fragrant with flowers, and the unassuming manners of Mrs. Tudor, as she moved about among her guests, reflected the glory of our American institutions in giving the world a generation of common-sense women who do not plume themselves on any adventitous circumstances of wealth or position, but bow in respect to morality and intelligence wherever they find it. At the close of the evening Mrs. Stanton presented Mrs. Tudor with the "History of Woman Suffrage" which she received with evident pleasure and returned her sincere thanks.
At the close of the anniversary week in Boston, successful meetings were held in various cities,[28]beginning at Providence, where Dr. Wm. F. Channing made the arrangements. These conventions were the first that the National Association ever held in the New England States, presenting the national plan of woman's enfranchisement through a sixteenth amendment to the United States Constitution.
- ↑ True labor reform: the ballot for woman, the unpaid laborer of the whole earth."
"Man's work is from sun to sun,
But woman's work is never done.""Taxation without representation is tyranny. Woman is taxed to support pauperism and crime, and is compelled to feed and clothe the law-makers who oppress her."
"Women are voting on education, the bulwark of the republic, in Kansas, Michigan, Minnesota, Colorado, Oregon, New Hampshire and Massachusetts."
"Women are voting on all questions in Wyoming and Utah. The vote of women transformed Wyoming from barbarism to civilization."
"The financial problem for woman: equal pay for equal work, and one hundred cents on the dollar."
"When a woman Will, she Will, and you may depend on it, she Will vote."
- ↑ California, Jane B. Archibald; Connecticut, Julia E. Smith (Parker), E. C. Champion; Delaware, Mary A. Stuart; District of Columbia, Sara Andrews Spencer, Jane H. Spofford, Ellen H. Sheldon, Sara J. Messer, Amanda M. Best, Belva A. Lockwood, Mary A. S, Carey, Rosina M. Parnell, Mary L. Wooster, Helen Rand Tindall, Lura McNall Orme: Illinois, Miss Jessie Waite, daughter of Caroline V. and Judge Waite; Indiana, Zerelda G. Wallace, Emma Mont McRae; Flora M. Hardin; Iowa, Nancy R. Allen; Kansas, Della Ross; Lousiana, Elizabeth L. Saxon, Maine, Sophronia C. Snow; Maryland, Lavinia Dundore; Michigan, Catherine A. F. Stebbins: Missouri, Phebe W. Couzins; New Hampshire, Marilla M. Ricker; New Jersey, Lucinda B. Chandler; New York, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Lillie Devereux Blake, Dr. A. W. Lozier, Jennie de M. Lozier, M. D., Helen M. Slocum; Pennsylvania, Rachel G. Foster, Julia T.. Foster: South Carolina, Mary R. Pell.
- ↑ Signed by Matilda Joslyn Gage, Chairman Executive Committee: Susan B. Anthony, Vice-president-at-large; Sara Andrews Spencer, Corresponding Secretary: Jane H. Spofford, Treasurer.
- ↑ This week has been devoted almost exclusively to the women, who as temperance leaders, female suffragists and general reformers, have become a power in the land which can no longer be ridiculed or ignored. Yesterday Lincoln Hall was packed to its utmost capacity with such an audience as no other entertainment or amusement has ever before gathered in this city. Women of refinement and cultivation, of thought and purpose, women of standing and position in society, mothers of families, wives of clergymen, were there by the hundreds, to listen to the words of wisdom and eloquence that fell from the lips of that assembly, the most carefully organized, thoroughly governed, harmoniously acting association in this great country. Members of congress, professors of colleges, judges and gentlemen of leisure, sat or stood in admiration of the progress of the women, who are so earnestly striving to regenerate our beloved republic, over which the shadow of anarchy and dissolution is hovering with outspread wings. These women are no longer trembling suppliants, feeling their way cautiously and feebly amid an overpowering mass of obstructions; they are now strong in their might, in their unity, and in the righteousness of their cause. Men will do wisely if they attract this power instead of repelling it; if they permit women to work in concert with them, instead of compelling them to be arrayed against them. The fate of Governor Robinson and Senator Ecelstine of New York, indicates what they can do, and what they will do, if obliged to assume the attitude of aggressors. Congress has heard no such eloquence upon its floors this week as we have listened to from the lips of these noble women.—[Washington correspondent of the Portland (Me.) Transcript, Jan. 23, 1880. These conventions occur yearly and although the ladies have fought long and hard, and seem to have not yet reached a positive assurance of success, still they continue to force the fight with greater earnestness and redoubled energy, and their meetings are conducted with much wisdom and decided spirit. There is one thing to the credit of these ladies which cannot be said of the opposite sex, and that is, their conventions are models of good order and parliamentary eloquence, and they put their work through in a graceful, business-like manner.—[Washington Critic, Jan. 21, 1880. The announcement that the public session of the National Woman Suffrage Convention would begin at one o'clock yesterday afternoon at Lincoln Hall sufficed to attract a most brilliant audience, composed principally of ladies, occupying every seat and thronging the aisles. The inconvenience of remaining standing was patiently endured by hundreds who seemed loth to leave while the convention was in progress.—[Washington National Republican, Jan. 22, 1880. The session of the Woman Suffrage Convention in Washington this week has developed the fact that these strong-minded women are making progress. The convention itself was composed of women of marked ability, and its proceedings were marked by dignity and decorum. The very best citizens of the city attended the meetings.—[Washington correspondent Syracuse Daily Standard.
- ↑ Letters were read from Mary Powers Filley, N. H.; Martha G. Tunstall, Texas; M. A. Darling, Mich.; May Wright Thompson, Ind.; Sarah Burger Stearns, Minn.; Miss Martin, Ill.; W. G. Myers, O.; Annie L. Quinby, Ky.; Zina Young Williams, Utah; Barbara J. Thompson, Neb.; Mira L. Sturgis, Me.; Orra Langhorne, Va.; Emily P. Collins, La.; Charles P. Wellman, esq., Ga.
- ↑ Judge Edmunds meeting Miss Anthony afterwards, complimented her on having made an argument instead of what is usually given before committees, platform oratory. He said her logic was sound, her points unanswerable. Nor were the delegates familiar with that line of argument less impressed by it, given as it was without notes and amid many interruptions. It was one of those occasions rarely reached, in which the speaker showed the full height to which she was capable of rising. We have not space for the whole argument, and the train of reasoning is too close to be broken.—[M. J. G.
- ↑ Speeches were also made by Mrs. Saxon, Mrs. Spencer and Miss Anthony.
- ↑ Alabama, Mrs. P. Holmes Drake, Huntsville. Connecticut, Elizabeth C. Champion, Bridgeport. District of Columbia, Belva A. Lockwood, Eveleen L. Mason, Jerusha G. Joy, Ellen H. Sheldon, Sara Andrews Spencer, Jane H. Spofford. Illinois, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, vice-president of the National Association and editor of the "Woman's Kingdom" in the Chicago Inter-Ocean, Evanston; Dr. Ann M. Porter, Danville. Indiana, Mary E. Haggart, vice-president; Martha Grimes, Zerelda G. Wallace, May Wright Thompson, A. P. Stanton, Indianapolis; Salome McCain, Frances Joslin, Crawfordsville; Mrs. Helen M. Gougar, editor of the "Bric-a-brac department" of the Lafayette Courier, Lafayette; Thomas Atkinson, Oxford; Mrs. Dr. Rogers, Greencastle; Florence M. Hardin, Pendelton. Iowa, Mrs. J. C. M'Kinney, Mrs. Weiser, Decorah. Kentucky, Mary B. Clay, Richmond; Mrs. Carr, Mrs. E. T. Housh, Louisville. Louisiana, Elizabeth L. Saxon, New Orleans, Maryland; Mary A. Butler, Baltimore. Michigan, Catherine A. F. Stebbins, Detroit. Missouri, Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, Mrs. Eliza J. Patrick, Mrs. Annie T. Anderson, Mrs. Caroline Johnson Todd, Mrs. Endie J. Polk, Miss Phœbe Couzins, Miss M. A. Baumgarten, Miss Emma Neave, Miss Eliza B. Buckley, St. Louis; Mrs. Frances Montgomery, Oregon. New Hampshire, Parker Pillsbury, Concord. New Jersey, Lucinda B. Chandler. New York, Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Gage, Miss Anthony. Ohio, Mrs. Amanda B. Merrian, Mrs. Cordelia A. Plimpton, Cincinnati; Sophia L. O. Allen, Eva L. Pinney, South Newberry; Mrs. N. L. Braffet, New Paris. Pennsylvania, Rachel Foster, Julia T. Foster, Philadelphia. South Carolina, Mary R. Pell, Cowden P. O.
- ↑ Colorado, Florence M. Haynes, Greely. Connecticut, Elizabeth C. Champion, Bridgeport. District of Columbia; Belva A. Lockwood, Sara Andrews Spencer, Jane H. Spofford, Ellen H. Sheldon, Eveleen L. Mason, Jersuha G. Joy, Helen Rand Tindall, Amanda M. Best, Washington. Illinois, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Sarah Hackett Stephenson, Kate Newell Doggett, Catherine V. Waite, Elizabeth J. Loomis, Alma Van Winkle, Chicago; Dr. Ann Porter, Danville; Mrs. F. Lillebridge, Rockford; Ann L. Barnett, Lockport; Mrs. F. A. Ross, Mrs. I. R. Lewison, Mansfield; Amanda Smith, Prophetstown. Indiana, Helen M. Gougar, Lafayette; Dr. Rachel B. Swain, Gertrude Garrison, Indianapolis. Iowa, Nancy R. Allen, Maquoketa; Jane C. M'Kinney, Mrs. Weiser, Decorah; Virginia Cornish, Hamburg; Ellen J. Foster, Clinton; Clara F. Harkness, Humboldt. Kansas, Amanda B. Way, Elizabeth M'Kinney, Kenneth. Kentucky, Mary B. Clay, Sallie Clay Bennett, Richmond. Louisiana, Elizabeth L. Saxon, New Orleans. Maryland, Mary A. Butler, Baltimore. Massachusetts, Addie N. Ayres, Boston. Minnesota, A. H. Street, Albert Lee. Michigan, Catherine A. F. Stebbins, Detroit; Eliza Burt Gamble, Miss Mattie Smedly, East Saginaw; P. Engle Travis, Hartford; Dr. Elizabeth Miller, South Frankford. Missouri, Virginia L. Minor, Phœbe W. Couzins, Annie T. Anderson, Caroline J. Todd, St. Louis; Dr. Augusta Smith, Springfield. New Hampshire, Parker Pillsbury, Concord. Nebraska, Harriet S. Brooks, Omaha; Dr. Amy R. Post, Hastings. New Jersey, Margaret H. Ravenhill. New York, Susan B. Anthony, Rochester; Matilda Joslyn Gage, Fayetteville; Lillie Devereux Blake, New York city. Ohio, Eva L. Pinney, South Newbury; Julia B. Cole. Oregon, Mrs. A. J. Duniway (as substitute), Portland. Pennsylvania, Rachel Foster, Julia T. Foster, Lucinda B. Chandler, Philadelphia; Cornelia H. Scarborough, New Hope. South Carolina, Mary R. Pell, Cowden P. O. Tennessee, Elizabeth Avery Meriwether, Memphis. Wisconsin, Rev. Olympia Brown, Racine; Almedia B. Gray, Schofield Mills. Wyoming Territory, Amelia B. Post.
- ↑
Historical Society Rooms, 140-42 Dearborn Ave., Chicago, May 19, 1880.
Mrs. E. C. Stanton, President National Woman Suffrage Association, 476 West Lake street: Dear Madam: I write you in behalf of the Chicago Historical Society, and with the hope that you will obligingly secure for and present to this society a full manuscript record of the mass-meeting to be held in Farwell Hall in this city, June 2, 1880, duly signed by its officers. We hope too you will do the society the great favor to deposit in its archives all the letters and postals which you may receive in response to your invitations to attend that meeting. This meeting may be an important one and long to be remembered. It is hard to measure the possibilities of 1880. I hope this meeting will mark an epoch in American history equal to the convention held in Independence Hall in 1776. How valuable would be the attested manuscript record of that convention and the correspondence connected therewith! The records of the Farwell-hall meeting may be equally valuable one hundred years hence. Please let the records be kept in the city in which the convention or mass-meeting is held. I am a Republican. I hope the party to which I belong will be consistent. On the highest stripe of its banner is inscribed "Freedom and Equal Rights." I hope the party will not be so inconsistent as to refuse to the "better half" of the people of the United States the rights enjoyed by the liberated slaves at the South. The leaders should not be content to suffer it to be so, but should work with a will to make it so. I have but little confidence in the sincerity of the man who will shout himself hoarse about "shot guns" and "intimidation" at the South, when ridicule and sneers come from his "shot gun" pointed at those who advocate the doctrine that our mothers, wives and sisters are as well qualified to vote and hold official position as the average Senegambian of Mississippi. We should be glad to have you and your friends call at these rooms, which are open and free for all.
Very Respectfully,A. D. Hager, Librarian.
- ↑ By Mrs. Saxon of New Orleans, La.; Mrs. Meriwether of Memphis, Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett, daughter of Cassius M. Clay of Richmond Ky.; and others. Mrs. Bennett related a little home incident. She said: A few days ago she was in her front yard planting with her own hands some roses, when "our ex-governor," passing by, exclaimed: "Mrs. Bennett, I admire that in you; whatever one wants well done he must do himself." She immediately answered: "That is true Governor, and that is why we women suffragists have determined to do our own voting hereafter." She then informed him that she wanted to speak to him on that great question. He was rather anxious to avoid the argument, and expressed his surprise and "was sorry to see a woman like her, surrounded by so many blessings, with a kind husband, numerous friends and loving children, advocating woman suffrage! She ought to be contented with these. She was not like Miss Anthony—" "Stop, Governor," I exclaimed, "Don't think of comparing me to that lady, for I feel that I am not worthy to touch the hem of her garments." She was, she said, indeed the mother of five dear children, but she [Miss Anthony] is the mother of a nation of women. She thought the women feared God rather than man, and it was only this which encouraged them to speak on this subject, so dear to their hearts, in public. One lady gave as a reason why she wanted to vote, that it was because "the men did not want them to," which evoked considerable merriment. This induced the chair to remind the audience of Napoleon's rule: "Go, see what your enemy does not want you to do and do it." Of the audience the Inter-Ocean said: "The speakers of all the sessions were listened to with rapt attention by the audience, and the points made were heartily applauded. It would be difficult to gather so large an audience of our sex whose appearance would be more suggestive of refinement and intelligence."
- ↑ Miss Anthony, Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Chandler, Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Haggart.
- ↑ Twenty delegates from eleven different States, who had been in attendance at Chicago, went to Cincinnati.
- ↑ Before which Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Meriwether, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Spencer and Mrs. Blake spoke.
- ↑ Miss Anthony, Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Blake, Mrs. Meriwether, Mrs. Saxon, Miss. Couzins, Rev. Olympia Brown, Misses Rachel and Julia Foster.
- ↑ This was the last time this noble German woman honored our platform, as her eventful life closed a few years after.
- ↑ Among others, from Assemblyman Lord, State-Superintendent-of-Public-Instruction Whitford, J. M. Bingham and Superintendent MacAlister.
- ↑ The delegates were Olympia Brown, Racine; L. C. Galt, M. M. Frazier, Mukwonago; E. A. Brown, Berlin; E. M. Cooley, Eureka; E. L. Woolcott, Ripon; O. M. Patton, M. D., Appleton; H. Suhm, E. Hohgrave, Sauk City; M. W. Mabbs, C. M. Stowers, Manitowoc; S. C. Guernsey, Janesville; H. T. Patchin, New London; Jennie Pomeroy, Grand Rapids; Mrs. H. W. Rice, Oconomowoc; Amy Winship, Racine; Almedia B. Gray, Matilda Graves, Jessie Gray, Scholfield Mills; Mrs. Mary Collins, Muckwonago; Mrs. Jere Witter, Grand Rapids; Mrs. Lucina E. DeWolff, Whitewater. The Milwaukee delegates were: Dr. Laura R. Wolcott, Mme. Mathilde Franceske Anneke, Mrs. A. M. Bolds, Mrs. A. Flagge, Agnes B. Campbell, Mary A. Rhienart, Matilda Pietsch, N. J. Comstock, Sarah R. Munro, M. D., Juliet H. Severance, M. D., Mrs, Emily Firega, Carl Doerflinger. Maximillian Grossman and Carl Herman Boppe.
- ↑ 1. Silent Invocation. 2. Music. 3. Eulogy, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. 4. Tributes, Frederick Douglass, Susan B. Anthony. 5. Music. 6. Tributes, Robert Purvis, May Wright Sewall, Phœbe W. Couzins. 7. Closing Hymn—"Nearer, my God, to Thee."
- ↑ Of the floral decorations, to which reference is made above as contributing so largely to the handsome appearance of the stage, the harp was furnished through Mr. Wormley in behalf of the colored admirers of Mrs. Mott, and the epergne was provided for the occasion by the National Association. There was also a basket of flowers, conspicuous for its beauty, sent in by Senator Cameron of Pennsylvania
- ↑ The eulogy will be found in Volume I., page 407.
- ↑ See National Citizen of February, 1881.
- ↑ Edward M. Davis, Susan B. Anthony, Marilla M. Ricker, Rachel and Julia Foster, Frederick Douglass, Belva A. Lockwood, Robert Purvis, Elizabeth Cady Stanton. This was the first time that Mrs. Martha M'Clellan Brown, Miss Jessie Waite, Mrs. May Wright Sewall and Mrs. Thornton Charles were on our Washington platform. The latter read a poem on woman's sphere.
- ↑ A standing committee is a permanent one about which no question can be raised in any congress. A special committee is a transient one to be decided upon at the opening of each congress; hence may be at any time voted out of existence. No one understood this better than New York's Stalwart senator, and his plausible manner of killing the measure deceived the very elect. Enough senators were pledged to have carried Mr. McDonald's motion had it been properly understood, but they, as well as some of the ladies in the gallery, were entirely misled by Mr. Conkling's seeming earnest intention to hasten the demands of the women by a short-lived committee, and while those in the gallery applauded, those on the floor defeated the measure they intended to carry.
- ↑ Yeas—Messrs. Beck, Booth, Brown, Coke, Davis (W. Va.), Eaton, Edmunds, Farley, Garland, Groome, Hill (Ga.), Harris, Ingalls, Kernan, Lamar, Morgan, Morrill, Pendleton, Platt, Pugh, Ransom, Saulsbury, Slater, Vance, Vest and Withers—26. Nays—Messrs. Anthony, Blair, Burnside, Butler, Call, Cameron (Pa.), Cameron (Wis.), Conkling, Dawes, Ferry, Hoar, Johnston, Jonas, Kellogg, Logan, McDonald, McMillan, McPherson, Rollins, Saunders, Teller, Williams and Windom—23.
- ↑ Of this reception the National Republican said: The attractions presented by the fair seekers of the ballot were so much superior to those of the dancing reception going on in the parlors above, that it was almost impossible to form a set of the lanciers until after the gathering in the lower parlors had entirely dispersed.
- ↑ Miss Anthony was presented with a beautiful basket of flowers from Mrs. Mary Hamilton Williams of Fort Wayne, Ind., and returned her thanks. Another interesting incident during the proceedings of the convention was the presentation of an exquisite gold cross from the "Philadelphia Citizens' Suffrage Association," to Miss Anthony. Mrs. Sewall of Indianapolis, in a speech so tender and loving as to bring tears to many eyes, conveyed to her the message and the gift. Miss Anthony's acceptance was equally happy and impressive. As during the last thirty years the press of the country has made Susan B. Anthony a target for more ridicule and abuse than any other woman on the suffrage platform, it is worth noting that all who know her now vie with each other in demonstrations of love and honor.—[E. C. S.
- ↑ Providence, R. I.—First Light Infantry Hall, May 30, 31. Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley gave the address of welcome. Portland, Me.—City Hall, June 2, 3. Rev. Dr. McKeown of the M. E. Church made the address of welcome. Letter read from Dr. Henry C. Garrish. Among the speakers were Charlotte Thomas, A. J. Grover. Dover, N. H.—Belknap Street Church, June 3, 4. Marilla M. Ricker took the responsibility of this meeting. Concord, N. H.—White's Opera House, June 4, 5. Speakers entertained by Mrs. Armenia Smith White. Olympia Brown and Miss Anthony spoke before the legislature in Representatives Hall—nearly all the members present—the latter returned on Sunday and spoke on temperance and woman suffrage at the Opera House in the afternoon, Universalist church in the evening. Keene, N. H.—Liberty, Hall, June 9, 10. Prayer offered by Rev. Mr. Enkins. Mayor Russell presided and gave the address of welcome. Hartford, Ct.—Unity Hall. June 13, 14. Mrs. Hooker presiding; Frances Ellen Burr, Emily P. Collins, Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, Caroline Gilkey Rogers, Mary A. Pell taking part in the meetings. New Haven, Ct.—Athæneum, June 15, 16. Joseph and Abby Sheldon, Catherine Comstock and others entertained the visitors and speakers. The speakers who made the entire New England tour were Rev. Olympia Brown, Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Saxon, Mrs. Meriwether, the Misses Foster and Miss Anthony. The arrangements for all these conventions were made by Rachel Foster of Philadelphia.