History of Woman Suffrage/Volume 4/Chapter 10
CHAPTER X.
THE NATIONAL-AMERICAN CONVENTION OF 1890.
The winter of 1890 brought the usual crowd of eminent women to Washington to attend the Twenty-second national convention of the suffrage association, February 18-21. As the president, Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, was to start for Europe on the 19th, the congressional hearings took place previous to the convention and consisted only of her address. The Senate hearing on February 8 was held for the first time in the new room set apart for the Select Committee on Woman Suffrage, but much objection was made because on account of its size only a small audience could be admitted. Senators Vance, Fanvell, Blair and John B. Allen of the new State of Washington were present. Mrs. Stanton said in part:
For almost a quarter of a century a body of intelligent and lawabiding women have held annual conventions in Washington and made their appeals before committees of the House and the Senate, asking to be recognized as citizens of this Republic. A whole generation of distinguished members, who have each in turn given us aid and encouragement, have passed away Seward, Sumner, Wilson, Giddings, Wade, Garfield, Morton and Sargent with Hamlin, Butler and Julian still living, have all declared our demands just, our arguments unanswerable.
In consulting at an early day as to the form in which our claims should be presented, some said by an amendment to the Constitution, others said the Constitution as it is, in spirit and letter, is broad enough to protect the rights of every citizen under our flag. But when the war came and we saw that it took three amendments to make the slaves of the South full-fledged citizens, we thought it would take at least one to make woman's calling and election sure. So we asked for a Sixteenth Amendment. But learned lawyers, Judges and Congressmen took the ground that women were already enfranchised by the Fourteenth Amendment. The House minority report in 1871, signed by Benjamin F. Butler and William Loughridge, held that view. It is an able, unanswerable argument on the whole question, based on the oft-repeated principles of the lican party at that time. It stands to-day a living monument of the grossest inconsistencies of which the Republican party ever was guilty.[1] ....
We can not play fast and loose with the eternal principle of justice without being caught sooner or later in the net of our own weaving. The legitimate results of the war have been all frittered away by political maneuvering. While Northern statesmen have made a football of the rights of 12,000,000 women as voters, and by Supreme Court decisions driven them from the polls, why arraign the men in the South for treating 1,000,000 freedmen in the same way? Are the rights of that class of citizens more sacred than ours? Are the violations of the fundamental principles of our Government in their case more dangerous than in ours?
In addressing those who already enjoy the right of suffrage, one naturally would suppose that it would not be necessary to enlarge on the advantages of having a voice in deciding the laws and the rulers under which one lives. And neither would it if each member of this committee understood that woman's wants and needs are similar to his own; that the cardinal virtues belong to her as well as to him; that personal dignity, the power of self-protection, are as important for her as for him; that woman loves justice, equality, liberty, and wishes the right to give her consent to the Government under which she lives, as much as man does. Matthew Arnold says: "The first desire of every cultured mind is to take part in the great work of government." ....
If we would rouse new respect for womanhood in the hearts of the masses, we must place woman in a position to respect herself, which she can never do as long as her political status is beneath that of the most degraded, ignorant classes of men. To make women the political equals of their sons, or even of their gardeners and coachmen, would add new dignity to their position; and to change our laws and constitutions in harmony with the new status would have its influence on the large class of young men now devoting themselves to the study of the law. Lord Brougham said long ago that the Common Law of England for women, and all the statutes based on such principles, were a disgrace to the Christianity and civilization of the nineteenth century. Do you think our sons can rise from such studies with a high ideal of womanhood? And with what feelings do you suppose women themselves read these laws, and the. articles in the State constitutions, rating them with the disreputable and feeble-minded classes? (Can you not understand the dignity, the pride, the new-born self-respect which would thrill the hearts of the women of this nation in their enfranchisement? It would elevate their sphere of action and every department of labor in which they are occupied; it would give new force to their words as teachers, reformers and missionaries, new strength to their work as guardians of the young, the wayward and the unfortunate. It would transform them from slaves to sovereigns, crowned with the rights of citizenship, with the ballot, that scepter of power, in their own right hands. ....
If there are any who do not wish to vote, that is the strongest reason for their enfranchisement. If all love of liberty has been quenched in their souls by their degraded condition, the duties of citizenship and the responsibility of self-government should be laid upon them at once, for their pitiful indifference is merely the result of their disfranchisement. Would that I could awake in the minds of my countrywomen the full significance of this demand for the right of suffrage; what it is to be queens in their own right, intrusted with the power of self-government, possessed of all the privileges and immunities of American citizens. ....
Whoever heard of an heir apparent to a throne in the Old World abdicating her rights because some conservative politician or austere bishop doubted woman’s capacity to govern? History affords no such example. Those who have had the right to a throne have invariably taken possession of it and, against intriguing cardinals, ambitious nobles and jealous kinsmen, fought even to the death to maintain the royal prerogatives which by inheritance were theirs. When I hear American women, descendants of Jefferson, Hancock and Adams, say they do not want to vote, I feel that the blood of the revolutionary heroes must long since have ceased to flow in their veins.
Suppose when the day dawned for Victoria to be crowned Queen of England she had gone before the House of Commons and begged that such terrible responsibilities might not be laid upon her, declaring that she had not the moral stamina nor intellectual ability for the position; that her natural delicacy and refinement shrank from the encounter; that she was looking forward to the all-absorbing duties of domestic life, to a husband, children, home, to her influence in the social circle where the Christian graces are best employed. Suppose with a tremulous voice and a few stray tears in her blue eyes, her head drooping on one side, she had said she knew nothing of the science of government; that a crown did not befit a woman’s brow; that she had not the physical strength even to wave her nation’s flag, much less to hold the scepter of power over so vast an empire; that in case of war she could not fight and hence could not reign, as there must be force behind the throne, and this force must be centered in the hand which governed. What would her Parliament have thought? What would other nations have thought? ....
None of you would admit, honorable gentlemen, that all the great principles of government which center round our theories of justice, liberty and equality in favor of individual sovereignty have not as vet produced as high a type of womanhood as has a monarchy in the Old World. We have a large number of women as well fitted as Victoria for the most responsible positions in the Government, who could fill the highest places with equal dignity and wisdom.
There is no subject more intensely interesting to men than the science of government, and when their wives are intelligent on all the questions it comprises they will be far more valuable companions than they are to-day. Marriage means companionship, a similarity of tastes and opinions, and where one of the parties has no interest in or knowledge of those subjects most absorbing to the other, the bonds of union necessarily are weakened. So long as woman's thought is centered in personal and family aggrandizement, her strongest influence will be used to keep man's interest there also. The virtue of patriotism would be far greater among men, their devotion to the public good far more earnest, if the influences of home life were not continually drawing them into a narrow selfishness.
Women naturally take no interest in questions where their opinions have no weight, in a sphere of action from which they are excluded. They are not supposed to know what is necessary for the public good, hence how could they influence their husbands to make that their first duty when in public life? But when women are enfranchised their interest in the State will deepen. They will see that the welfare of their own children depends as much on the conditions of the outside world as on the environments of their own homes. This settled discontent of women is exerting an insidious influence which is undermining the very foundations of the home as well as the State. We must rouse them to new hopes, new ambitions, new aspirations, through the enjoyment of the blessings of freedom and . self-government.
Moreover, an active participation in the practical duties of government by educated women would bring a new and needed element to the State. We can not overestimate the influence women exert, whether for good or ill, hence the immense importance of their having right views on all questions of public interest and some knowledge of the requirements of practical politics. But their power to-day is wholly irresponsible and hence dangerous. Lay on them the responsibility of legislating, with all the criticism and odium of a constituency and a party, in case they make some blunder, and you render them wiser in judgment and more deliberate in action. To secure this large disfranchised class as allies to one of the leading parties would be a wise measure for that party and bring a new element of morality and intelligence into the body politic. Women are now taking a more active part in public affairs than ever before and, with political freedom, always will be the reserved moral power to sustain great men in their best endeavors.An interesting conversation followed. Chairman Zebulon B. Vance (N. C.) asked Mrs. Stanton if women would be willing to go to war if they had the ballot. She answered that they would decide whether there should be war. He inquired whether women would not lose their refining influence and moral qualities if they engaged in men's work. She replied that there would have to be a definition of "men's work" and that she found the latter in many avocations, such as washing, cooking, and selling needles and tape, which might be considered the work of women. "The moral qualities," she said, "are more apt to grow when a human being is useful, and they increase in the woman who helps to support the family rather than in the one who gives herself to idleness and fashionable frivolities. The consideration of questions of legislation, finance, free trade, etc., certainly would not degrade woman, nor is her refinement so evanescent a virtue that it could be swept away by some work which she might do with her hands. Queen Victoria looked as dignified and refined in opening Parliament as any lady one ever had seen."
Miss Susan B. Anthony, who was never so happy as when her beloved friend was scoring a victory, said there would always be a division of labor, in time of war as in time of peace. Women would do their share in the hospitals and elsewhere, and if they were enfranchised, the only difference would be that they would be paid for their services and pensioned at the close of the war. Mrs. Colby reminded the committee that the report of the U. S. Commissioner of Labor showed that the largest proportion of immoral women came from home life and the more feminine Occupations.
Mrs. Stanton drew from the chairman the admission that his wife wanted the franchise, and he laughingly admitted that he had had the worst of the discussion. Senator Allen expressed himself in favor of woman suffrage, and Senator Charles B. Farwell said, "The suffragists have logic, argument, everything on their side."
Another hearing was granted by the Senate Committee, February 24, when they were addressed by the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett, Mrs. Virginia L. Minor and Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby.
Later in the session Senator Henry W. Blair (N. H.) presented the majority report of the Committee (No. 1576), the usual strong, dignified statement. It closed as follows: "To deny the submission of this joint resolution to the action of the Legislatures of the States is analogous to the denial of the right of justice in the courts. It is to say that no plaintiff shall bring his suit; no claimant of justice shall be heard; and whatever may be the result to the friends of woman suffrage when they reach the Legislatures of the States, it is, in our belief, the duty of Congress to submit the joint resolution and give them the opportunity to try their case."
Mrs. Stanton presented the same address before the House Judiciary Committee, February 11, with the result that for the first time in history a majority House report in favor of a Sixteenth Amendment was submitted. It was presented by Lucien B. Caswell (Wis.) and said in conclusion: "The disfranchisement of twelve millions of people, who are citizens of the United States, should command from us an immediate action. Since the women of. this country are unjustly deprived of a right so essential to complete citizenship in a republic as the elective franchise, common justice requires that we should submit the proposition for a change in the fundamental law to the State Legislatures, where the correction can be made."[2]
The fiftieth birthday of Susan B. Anthony had been celebrated in New York City in 1870 by a large number of prominent men and women, the first instance of the kind on record. It had been decided by her friends that her seventieth birthday should receive a similar recognition, but that it should be more national in character. The arrangements were made by Mrs. May Wright Sewall and Mrs. Rachel Foster Avery, and on the evening of February 15 a distinguished company of two hundred sat around the banquet tables in the great dining-room of the Riggs House. Miss Anthony occupied the place of honor, on her right Senator Blair and Mrs. Stanton, on her left Robert Purvis, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker and Mrs. Sewall, who presided. In addition to the after-dinner speeches of these distinguished guests there were clever and sparkling responses to toasts by the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw, Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage, Miss Phoebe W. Couzins, the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley, Representative J. A. Pickler (S. D.), Mrs. Colby, Mrs. Stanton's two daughters—Mrs. Harriot Blatch and Mrs. Margaret Lawrence—Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant of England, and others. Mrs. Stanton began her address by saying: "If there is one part of my life which gives me more intense satisfaction than another, it is my friendship of more than forty years' standing with Susan B. Anthony." The key-note to Miss Anthony's touching response was struck in the opening sentence: "The thing I most hope for is that, should I stay on this planet twenty years longer, I still may be worthy of the wonderful respect you have manifested for me to-night."
Among the more than two hundred letters, poems and telegrams received were those of George William Curtis, William Lloyd Garrison, John G. Whittier, George F. Hoar, Lucy Stone, Frances E. Willard, Speaker Thomas B. Reed, Mrs. John A. Logan, Thomas W. Palmer, the Rev. Olympia Brown, Harriet Hosmer, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Alice Williams Brotherton, Charles Nordhoff, Frank G. Carpenter, U. S. Senator Henry L. Dawes, Neal Dow, Laura M. Johns, T. V. Powderly and Leonora M. Barry. Most of the prominent newspapers in the country contained editorial congratulations, and the Woman's Tribune issued a special birthday edition.
The convention opened in Metzerott's Music Hall, February 18, 1890, continuing four days. The feature of this occasion which will distinguish it in history was the formal union of the National and the American Associations under the joint name. For the past twenty-one years two distinctive societies had been in existence, both national as to scope but differing as to methods. Negotiations had been in progress for several years toward a uniting of the forces and, the preliminaries having been satisfactorily arranged by committees from the two bodies,[3] the officers and members of both participated in this national convention of 1890.
Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, the newly-elected president of the united societies, faced a brilliant assemblage of men and women as she arose to make the opening address. Having de clared that in going to England as president of the National-American Association she felt more honored than if sent as minister plenipotentiary of the United States, she spoke to a set of resolutions which she presented to the convention.[4] After reviewing the history of the movement for the rights of woman and naming some of its brilliant leaders she said:
For fifty years we have been plaintiffs in the courts of justice, but as the bench, the bar and the jury are all men, we are non-suited every time. Some men tell us we must be patient and persuasive; that we must be womanly. My friends, what is man's idea of womanliness? It is to have a manner which pleases him— quiet, deferential, submissive, approaching him as a subject does a master. He wants no self-assertion on our part, no defiance, no vehement arraignment of him as a robber and a criminal. While the grand motto, "Resistance to tyrants is obedience to God," has echoed and re-echoed around the globe, electrifying the lovers of liberty in every latitude and making crowned heads tremble on their thrones; while every right achieved by the oppressed has been wrung from tyrants by force; while the darkest page on human history is the outrages on women—shall men still tell us to be patient, persuasive, womanly?
What do we know as yet of the womanly? The women we have seen thus far have been, with rare exceptions, the mere echoes of men. Man has spoken in the State, the Church and the Home, and made the codes, creeds and customs which govern every relation in life, and women have simply echoed all his thoughts and walked in the paths he prescribed. And this they call womanly! When Joan of Arc led the French army to victory I dare say the carpet knights of England thought her unwomanly. When Florence Nightingale, in search of blankets for the soldiers in the Crimean War, cut her way through all orders and red tape, commanded with vehemence and determination those who guarded the supplies to "unlock the doors and not talk to her of proper authorities when brave men were shivering in their beds," no doubt she was called unwomanly. To me, "unlock the doors" sounds better than any words of circumlocution, however sweet and persuasive, and I consider that she took the most womanly way of accomplishing her object. Patience and persuasiveness are beautiful virtues in dealing with children and feeble-minded adults, but those who have the gift of reason and understand the principles of justice, it is our duty to compel to act up to the highest light that is in them, and as promptly as possible.Mrs. Stanton urged that women should have more power in church management, saying:
She demanded that women declare boldly and decisively on all the vital issues of the day, and said:
As Mrs. Stanton finished she introduced her daughter, Mrs. Blatch, a resident of England, who in a few impressive remarks showed that on the great socialistic questions of the day—capital and labor, woman suffrage, race prejudice—England was liberal and the United States conservative; that the latter had beautiful ideas but did not apply them, and tended too much to the worship of legislation.
The Hon. Wm. Dudley Foulke, retiring president of the American Association, an uncompromising advocate of woman's enfranchisement, then made a strong and scholarly address in the course of which he said:
But there may be a moral guilt outside the law, of a character quite similar to that which is so punished when it comes within the terms of the statute, and it may be the crime, not of a single lawbreaker, but of the entire community that establishes the constitutions and enacts the statutes, which denies these equal rights to citizens who are subject to equal burdens. Wherever the rule of power is substituted for the just and equitable principle that all who are subject to government should have a voice in controlling it, we are guilty under the form of law of the same violation of the just rights of others for which the corruptor of elections and the forger of tally-sheets is tried, convicted and incarcerated. Yet from the remotest times the world has done this thing, for equal rights have never been conceded to women, and so warped are our convictions by custom and prejudice that a denial of their political equality seems as natural as the breath we draw. ....
Paternalism in government, which seeks to do good to the people against their will, is wrong in the Czar of Russia and in old King George, but is quite right and just when it affects only our wives, sisters and daughters! They have everything they need, why ask the ballot? Ah, my friends, so long as they have not the right to determine the thing they need, so long as the ultimate sovereignty remains with men to say what is good and what is bad for them, they
are deprived of that which we, as men, esteem the most precious of all rights. I suppose there never was a time when men did not believe that women had everything they ought to want; that they had as much as was good for them. The woman must obey in consideration of the kind protection which her lord vouchsafes to her. The wife's property ought to belong to the husband, because upon him the law casts the burden of sustaining the family. There must be a ruler, and the husband ought to be that one. But this is the same principle which, during thousands of years, maintained the divine right of kings. When we apply it to our system of suffrage the number of sovereigns is increased, that is all. It is a recognition of the divine right of man to legislate for himself and woman too. It is only a difference in the number of autocrats and the manner in which their decrees are promulgated.....
By what argument can a man defend his own suffrage as a right and not concede an equal right to woman? A just man ought to accord to every other human being, even his own wife, the rights which he demands himself.
"But she has her sphere and she ought not go beyond it." My friend, who gave you the right to determine what that sphere should be? If nature prescribes it, nature will carry out her own ordinances without your prohibitory legislation. I have the greatest contempt for the sort of legislation which seeks to enable nature to carry out her own immutable laws. I would have very little respect for any decree, enacted with whatever solemnity, which should prescribe that an object shall fall towards the earth and not from it; and I have just as little respect for any statute of man which enacts that women shall continue to love and care for their children by shutting them out from political action and preferment lest they should neglect the duties of the household. ....
"But," say you, "woman is already adequately represented. She does not form a separate class. She has no interests different from those of her husband, brother or father." These arguments have been used even by so eminent an authority as John Bright. Is it indeed a fact? Wherever woman owns property which she would relieve from unjust taxation; wherever she has a son whom she would preserve from the temptations of intemperance, or a daughter from the enticements of a libertine, or a husband from the conscriptions of war, she has a separate interest which she is entitled to protect.
"But she can control legislation by her influence." If it were proposed to take away our right to vote, we would think it a satisfactory answer that our influence would still remain? If she has influence she is entitled to that and her vote too. You have no right to burn down a man's house because you leave him his lot.
"But woman does not want the suffrage." How do you know? have you given her an opportunity of saying so? Wherever the right has been accorded it has been generally exercised, and the best proof of her wishes is the actual use which she makes of the ballot when she has it. But it makes no difference whether all women want to vote or whether most women want to vote, so long as there is one woman who insists upon this simple right, the justice of America can not afford to deny it. ....
At the close of Mr. Foulke's address Mrs. Stanton was obliged to leave in order to reach New York City in time for her steamer. The entire audience arose, the women waving handkerchiefs and the men joining in three farewell cheers.
One splendid address followed another, morning and evening, while the afternoons were occupied with business meetings, and even here there were many little speeches which were worthy of preservation. Among them was one of Miss Anthony's, in which she said: "If it is necessary, I will fight forty years more to make our platform free for the Christian to stand upon, whether she be a Catholic and counts her beads, or a Protestant of the straightest orthodox sect, just as I have fought for the rights of the 'infidels' the last forty years. These are the principles I want to maintain—that our platform may be kept as broad as the universe, that upon it may stand the representatives of all creeds and of no creeds—Jew and Christian, Protestant and Catholic, Gentile and Mormon, believer and atheist."
Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker (Conn.) discussed The Centennial of 1892, demanding the recognition of women. Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell (N. Y.) spoke on the Present, the Destiny of To-day. Mrs. Ormiston Chant (Eng.) depicted the glory of The Coming Woman. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt made her first appearance on the national platform with an address on The Symbol! of Liberty, describing political conditions with a keen knowledge of the facts and showing their need of the intelligence, morality and independence of women. The subject selected by Miss Phoebe W. Couzins, herself an office-holder, was Woman's Influence in Official Government.
Henry B. Blackwell made a strong speech on Woman Suffrage a Growth of Civilization. He read a letter from Lucy Stone, his wife, who was to have spoken on The Progress of Women but was prevented by illness, in which she said: "The time is full of encouragement for us. We look back to our small beginnings and over the many years of constant endeavor to secure for women the application of the principles which are the foundation of a representative government. Now we are a host. Both Houses of Congress and the legislative bodies in nearly all the States, have our questions before them. So has the civilized world. Surely at no distant day the sense of justice which exists in everybody will secure our claim, and we shall have at last a truly representative government, of the people, by the people and for the people. We may, therefore, rejoicing in what is already gained, look forward with hope to the future."
A large audience listened to the address of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe on The Chivalry of Reform, during which she said:
It is in the grand order of these ideas that I stand here to advocate the enfranchisement of my sex. Morally, socially, intellectually equal with men, it is right that we should be politically equal with them in a society which claims to recognize and uphold one equal humanity. I do not say it is our right. I say it is right—God's right and the world's.
In the name of high sentiment then, in the name of all that good men profess, I ask that the gracious act may be consummated which will admit us to the place that henceforth befits us, that of equal participants with you in the sovereignty of the people. Do this in the spirit of that mercy whose quality is not strained. Remember that the neglect of justice brings with it the direst retribution. Make your debt to us a debt of honor, and pay it in that spirit; if you do not pay it, dread the proportions which its arrears will assume. Remember that he who has the power to do justice and refrains from doing it, will presently find it doing itself, to his no small discomfiture. ....
Women, trained for the moral warfare of the time, armed with the fine instincts which are their birthright, are not doomed to sit forever as mere Spectators in these great encounters of society. They are to deserve the crown as well as to bestow it; to meet the powers of darkness with the powers of light; to bring their potent aid to the eternal conquest of right. And let me say here to those women who not only hang back from this encounter but who throw obstacles in the way of true reform and progress, that the shallow ground upon which they stand is within the belt of the moral earthquake, and that what they build upon it will be overthrown. ....The Rev. Miss Shaw, in an address filled with humor as well as logic, treated of Our-Unconscious Allies, among whom she included clergymen who oppose equal suffrage, the women remonstrants with their weak documents, the colleges which try to keep out girls, and the many cases of outrage and wrong committed by "our motherless Government." The Rev. Olympia Brown replied to the question, Where is the Mistake? With great power and earnestness she pointed out the mistakes made by our Government during the century of its existence and demanded the correction of the greatest one of all—the exclusion of women.
The address of Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace (Ind.), A Whole Humanity, aroused the universal sympathy and appreciation of the audience, permeated as it was with the spirit of love, charity and justice:
But there are other forces which must be brought into subjection to humanity before we reach the highest development, and those are the moral and spiritual forces. That is woman's share largely, not that I exempt man, but pre-eminently woman is the teacher of the race; in virtue of her motherhood she is the character builder; she forms the soul life; she rears the generations. It is not part of woman's work to contend with man for supremacy over the material forces. It was never told to woman that she should earn her bread by the sweat of her brow. That was man's curse. He was to earn his bread and woman's too, if he faithfully performed his duty, and we are not "dependents" even if he does that. I never allow a man to say in my presence that he "supports" his wife, and I want every woman to take the same position. I would correct any man and tell him he was mistaken in his phraseology if he should say anything of that kind. You have something different to do, my sisters. You shall hate evil, was said to woman, and evil shall hate you. There shall go forth from you an influence which shall ultimately exterminate evil. .... The men of this nation would never have made the success they have in the material world, if some stronger force had limited them on all sides.
I said a moment ago that I do not like the idea of dependence of women on men, or the dependence of men on women. I do not like the word independence, but I do like the-word interdependence. It is said of this beautiful country, "United we stand, divided we fall." It is the same with men and women. Men without women would go back to barbarism, and women without men would be most frivolous and vain. If we work not in competition but in co-operation and harmony we shall bring the race to its ultimate inheritance, which is rulership over the universe.
Now to deprive woman of the right to express her thought with authority at the ballot-box in regard to the laws under which she is governed, puts a mark of imbecility upon her at once. So far as the Government is concerned we are held in perpetual tutelage, we are minors always, and while good men will act justly towards women, it is an excuse for every bad and foolish man to oppress them, and every unfledged boy to make them the subject of ridicule. ....
I believe the great majority of American men love our free institutions; I believe they have hope and pride in the future of this nation; but as sure as you live, every argument you use against the enfranchisement of women deals a death-blow against the fundamental principle which lies at the base of our government, and it is treason to bring an argument against it.
Another thing which you permit is reacting now to the detriment of our free institutions; if from prejudice or expediency you think you have a right to withhold the ballot from the women of this nation, you have but to go one step further and deprive any other class of a right they already have, should you think it expedient to do so. It is beginning to bear its fruit now in your elections. You are becoming demoralized; ballots are bought and sold; you have your blocks of five; and in some entire communities the men are deprived of the right of suffrage. It is simply a question of time how long you will be able to maintain the freedom you cherish for yourselves.
If we women are citizens, if we are governed, if we are a part of the people, according to the plain declarations of the fundamental principles which underlie this nation, we are as much entitled to vote as you, and you can not make an argument against us that would not disfranchise yourselves.
I feel this phase of the question more acutely than any other because I think from a fundamental standpoint the progress of the race is bound up in republican institutions. It is not a question of woman's rights, it is a question of human rights, of the success or failure of these institutions, and the more highly cultured a woman is the more deeply she feels this humiliation. ....
I do not think it weakness to say that women love, and that love predominates in their nature, because, my friends, love is the only immortal principle in the universe. Love is to endure forever. Faith will be swallowed up in knowledge after a while, and hope in fruition, but love abides forever. It is peculiarly an attribute of our feminine nature to love our offspring over everything else; for them we would peril our lives; and for the men of this nation, under our form of government, to say to us that we shall not have the power which will enable us through laws and legislation to decide the conditions which shall surround them, and throw the mother love around these children from the cradle to the grave, is an inhuman use of their authority.The Washington "Star" said: "If the first day of the convention was Mrs. Stanton's, the rest have belonged to Miss Anthony, 'Saint Susan,' as her followers love to call her. As vice-president-at-large she presided over every session, and never was:n better voice or more enthusiastic spirits. As she sat by the table clad in a handsome dress of black satin, she was the life and soul of the meetings. .... She does not make much noise with her gavel,[5] nor does she have to use it often, but she manages to keep the organization over which she presides in a state of order that puts to shame many a convention of the other sex. Business is transacted in proper shape, and every important measure receives its due share of attention. There is no filibustering. The speakers who have been invited to address the convention are listened to with attention and interest. When speeches are on the program they are made. When resolutions are desired they are presented, discussed, rejected or adopted as the case may be. .... There are no attempts to push through unsuitable measures in haste and without the necessary attention. If any of those who have not attended the meetings of the association are of the opinion that serious breaches of parliamentary usage are committed through ignorance or with intent, they are laboring under a decided delusion."
The business meeting devoted to a discussion of Our Attitude toward Political Parties proved to be the most exciting of the series. Among the speakers were Mr. Foulke, Mrs. Sewall, Mrs. Howe, Miss Blackwell, Mrs. Blake, the Rev. Mr. Hinckley, Mrs. Alice M. A. Pickler, Mrs. Ellen Sully Fray, Mr. Blackwell, Miss Shaw, Mrs. Martha McClellan Brown, the Rev. Mrs. Brown, Mrs. Martha E. Root and Miss Mary Desha. Without exception the sentiment was in favor of keeping strictly aloof from all political alliances. It was pointed out that repeatedly the promises made by politicians were violated and the planks . in the platforms ignored; it was shown that the suffrage can be gained only through the assistance of men in all parties; and it was proved beyond doubt that in the past, where members had allied themselves with a political party it had injured the cause of woman suffrage.
In addition to the speakers already mentioned Wm. Lloyd Garrison, Col. D. R. Anthony, Ellen Battelle Dietrick, Laura Clay, the Hon. J. A. Pickler, Sallie Clay Bennett, Margaret W. Campbell, Laura M. Johns, Frances Ellen Burr, Frances Stuart Parker, Dr. Frances Dickinson and others participated in the various discussions of the convention.
A deep interest was felt in the pending woman suffrage amendment in South Dakota. The subject was presented by Representative and Mrs. Pickler, national speakers were appointed to canvass the State and a fund of over $5,000 was eventually raised.
Tributes of respect were paid to Caroline Ashurst Biggs and Margaret Bright Lucas of England, U. S. Senator Elbridge G. Lapham, Maria Mitchell, the great astronomer, Prudence Crandall Philleo, Harriet Winslow Sewall, Amy Post, Wm. D. Kelley, M. C., Dinah Mendenhall, Emerine J. Hamilton, Amanda McConnell and other friends and supporters of woman suffrage who had passed away during the year.
The vote for officers of the united association, which was limited strictly to delegates, stood as follows: For president, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 131; Susan B. Anthony, 90; scattering, 2: for vice-president-at-large, Susan B. Anthony, 213; scattering, 9.[6] Rachel Foster Avery was elected recording secretary; Alice Stone Blackwell, corresponding secretary; Jane H. Spofford, treasurer; Lucy Stone, chairman of the executive committee by unanimous vote; Eliza T. Ward and the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley, auditors. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw was appointed national lecturer.
- ↑ See History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 464.
- ↑ The other members in favor of this report were Ezra B. Taylor, O., Chairman; George E. Adams, Ill.; James Buchanan, N. J.; Albert C. Thompson, O.; H. C. McCormick, Penn., and Joseph R. Reed, Ia. The six members from the Southern States were opposed.
- ↑ National:—May Wright Sewall, Chairman; Isabella Beecher Hooker, Harriette R. Shattuck, Olympia Brown, Helen M. Gougar, Laura M. Johns, Clara Bewick Colby, Virginia L. Minor, Abigail Scott Duniway, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Mary B. Clay, Mary F. Eastman, Clara Neymann, Sarah M. Perkins, Jane H. Spofford, Lillie Devereux Blake, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Rachel Foster Avery, Secretary. American:—Julia Ward Howe, Chairman; Wm. Dudley Foulke, Margaret W. Campbell, Anna Howard Shaw, Mary F. Thomas, Hannah M. Tracy Cutler, Henry B. Blackwell, Secretary.
- ↑ The resolutions declared the constitutional right of women to vote, and continued: Resolved, That as the fathers violated the principles of justice in consenting to a three-fifths representation, and in recognizing slavery in the Constitution, thereby making a civil war inevitable; so our statesmen and Supreme Court Judges by their misinterpretation of the Fourteenth Amendment, declaring that the United States has no voters and that citizenship does not carry with it the right of suffrage, not only have prolonged woman's disfranchisement but have undermined the status of the freedman and opened the way for another war of races. Whereas, It is proposed to have a national! law, restricting the right of divorce to a narrower basis, and Whereas, Congress has already made an appropriation for a report on the question, which shows that there are 10,000 divorces annually in the United States and the majority demanded by women; and Whereas, Liberal divorce laws for wives are what Canada was for the slaves—a door of escape from bondage; therefore, Resolved, That there should be no farther legislation on this question until woman has a voice in the State and National Governments.; Resolved, That the time has come for woman to demand of the Church the same equal recognition she demands of the State; to assume her right and duty to take part in the revision of Bibles, prayer-books and creeds; to vote on all questions of business; to fill the offices of elder, deacon, Sunday-school superintendent, pastor and bishop; to sit in ecclesiastical synods, assemblies and conventions as delegates; that thus our religion may no longer reflect only the masculine element of humanity, and that woman, the mother of the race, may be honored as she must be before we can have a happy home, a rational religion and an enduring government. They concluded with a demand that the platform of the suffrage association should recognize the equal rights of all parties, sects and races.
- ↑ There is no woman in the world who has wielded the gavel at as many conventions as has Miss Anthony.
- ↑ For account of Miss Anthony's determination not to accept the presidency see her Life and Work, p. 631.