WOMEN AS PATRIOTS.
On April 15, 1861, the President of the United States called out
seventy-five thousand militia, and summoned Congress to meet July 4,
when four hundred thousand men were called for, and four hundred
millions of dollars were voted to suppress the Rebellion.
These startling events roused the entire people, and turned the current
of their thoughts in new directions. While the nation's life hung in the
balance, and the dread artillery of war drowned, alike, the voices of
commerce, politics, religion, and reform, all hearts were filled with
anxious forebodings, all hands were busy in solemn preparations for the
awful tragedies to come.
At this eventful hour the patriotism of woman shone forth as fervently
and spontaneously as did that of man; and her self-sacrifice and
devotion were displayed in as many varied fields of action. While he
buckled on his knapsack and marched forth to conquer the enemy, she
planned the campaigns which brought the nation victory; fought in the
ranks, when she could do so without detection; inspired the sanitary
commission; gathered needed supplies for the grand army; provided nurses
for the hospitals; comforted the sick; smoothed the pillows of the
dying; inscribed the last messages of lave to those far away; and marked
the resting places where the brave men fell. The labor women
accomplished, the hardships they endured, the time and strength they
sacrificed in the War that summoned three million men to arms, can never
be fully appreciated.
Indeed, we may safely say that there is scarcely a loyal woman in the
North who did not do something in aid of the cause; who did not
contribute time, labor, and money to the comfort of our soldiers and the
success of our arms. The story of the War will never be fully written if
the achievements of women are left untold. They do not figure in the
official reports; they are not gazetted for gallant deeds; the names of
thousands are unknown beyond the neighborhood where they lived, or the
hospitals where they loved to labor; yet there is no feature in our War
more creditable to us as a nation, none from its positive newness so
well worthy of record.
While the mass of women never philosophize on the principles that
underlie national existence, there were those in our late War who
understood the political significance of the struggle; the
"irrepressible conflict" between freedom and slavery, between National
and State rights. They saw that to provide lint, bandages, and supplies
for the army, while the War was not conducted on a wise policy, was to
labor in vain; and while many organizations, active, vigilant, and
self-sacrificing, were multiplied to look after the material wants of
the army, these few formed themselves into a National Loyal League, to
teach sound principles of government and to impress on the nation's
conscience that freedom for the slaves was the only way to victory.
Accustomed, as most women had been to works of charity and to the relief
of outward suffering, it was difficult to rouse their enthusiasm for an
idea, to persuade them to labor for a principle. They clamored for
practical work, something for their hands to do; for fairs and sewing
societies to raise money for soldier's families, for tableaux, readings,
theatricals--anything but conventions to discuss principles and to
circulate petitions for emancipation. They could not see that the best
service they could render the army was to suppress the Rebellion, and
that the most effective way to accomplish that was to transform the
slaves into soldiers. This Woman's Loyal League voiced the solemn
lessons of the War: Liberty to all; national protection for every
citizen under our flag; universal suffrage, and universal amnesty.
After consultation with Horace Greeley, William Lloyd Garrison, Governor
Andrews, and Robert Dale Owen, Miss Anthony and I decided to call a
meeting of women in Cooper Institute and form a Woman's Loyal League, to
advocate the immediate emancipation and enfranchisement of the Southern
slaves, as the most speedy way of ending the War, so we issued, in tract
form, and extensively circulated the following call:
"In this crisis of our country's destiny, it is the duty of every
citizen to consider the peculiar blessings of a republican form of
government, and decide what sacrifices of wealth and life are
demanded for its defense and preservation. The policy of the War,
our whole future life, depend on a clearly defined idea of the end
proposed and the immense advantages to be secured to ourselves and
all mankind by its accomplishment. No mere party or sectional cry,
no technicalities of constitutional or military law, no mottoes of
craft or policy are big enough to touch the great heart of a nation
in the midst of revolution. A grand idea--such as freedom or
justice--is needful to kindle and sustain the fires of a high
enthusiasm.
"At this hour, the best word and work of every man and woman are
imperatively demanded. To man, by common consent, are assigned the
forum, camp, and field. What is woman's legitimate work and how she
may best accomplish it, is worthy our earnest counsel one with
another. We have heard many complaints of the lack of enthusiasm,
among Northern women; but when a mother lays her son on the altar
of her country, she asks an object equal to the sacrifice. In
nursing the sick and wounded, knitting socks, scraping lint, and
making jellies the bravest and best may weary if the thoughts mount
not in faith to something beyond and above it all. Work is worship
only when a noble purpose fills the soul. Woman is equally
interested and responsible with man in the final settlement of this
problem of self-government; therefore let none stand idle
spectators now. When every hour is big with destiny, and each delay
but complicates our difficulties, it is high time for the daughters
of the Revolution, in solemn council, to unseal the last will and
testaments of the fathers, lay hold of their birthright of freedom,
and keep it a sacred trust for all coming generations.
"To this end we ask the Loyal Women of the Nation to meet in the
Church of the Puritans (Dr. Cheever's), New York, on Thursday, the
14th of May next.
"Let the women of every State be largely represented in person or
by letter.
"On behalf of the Woman's Central Committee,
"Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
"Susan B. Anthony."
Among other resolutions adopted at the meeting were the following:
"_Resolved_, There never can be a true peace in this Republic until the
civil and political rights of all citizens of African descent and all
women are practically established.
"_Resolved_, That the women of the Revolution were not wanting in
heroism and self-sacrifice, and we, their daughters, are ready, in this
War, to pledge our time, our means, our talents, and our lives, if need
be, to secure the final and complete consecration of America to
freedom."
It was agreed that the practical work to be done to secure freedom for
the slaves was to circulate petitions through all the Northern States.
For months these petitions were circulated diligently everywhere, as the
signatures show--some signed on fence posts, plows, the anvil, the
shoemaker's bench--by women of fashion and those in the industries,
alike in the parlor and the kitchen; by statesmen, professors in
colleges, editors, bishops; by sailors, and soldiers, and the
hard-handed children of toil, building railroads and bridges, and
digging canals, and in mines in the bowels of the earth. Petitions,
signed by three hundred thousand persons, can now be seen in the
national archives in the Capitol at Washington. Three of my sons spent
weeks in our office in Cooper Institute, rolling up the petitions from
each State separately, and inscribing on the outside the number of names
of men and women contained therein. We sent appeals to the President the
House of Representatives, and the Senate, from time to time, urging
emancipation and the passage of the proposed Thirteenth, Fourteenth,
and Fifteenth Amendments to the National Constitution. During these
eventful months we received many letters from Senator Sumner, saying,
"Send on the petitions as fast as received; they give me opportunities
for speech."
Robert Dale Owen, chairman of the Freedman's Commission, was most
enthusiastic in the work of the Loyal League, and came to our rooms
frequently to suggest new modes of agitation and to give us an inkling
of what was going on behind the scenes in Washington. Those who had been
specially engaged in the Woman Suffrage movement suspended their
conventions during the war, and gave their time and thought wholly to
the vital issues of the hour. Seeing the political significance of the
war, they urged the emancipation of the slaves as the sure, quick way of
cutting the Gordian knot of the Rebellion. To this end they organized a
national league, and rolled up a mammoth petition, urging Congress so to
amend the Constitution as to prohibit the existence of slavery in the
United States. From their headquarters in Cooper Institute, New York
city, they sent out the appeals to the President, Congress, and the
people at large; tracts and forms of petition, franked by members of
Congress, were scattered like snowflakes from Maine to Texas. Meetings
were held every week, in which the policy of the Government was freely
discussed, and approved or condemned.
That this League did a timely educational work is manifested by the
letters received from generals, statesmen, editors, and from women in
most of the Northern States, fully indorsing its action and principles.
The clearness to thinking women of the cause of the War; the true
policy in waging it; their steadfastness in maintaining the principles
of freedom, are worthy of consideration. With this League abolitionists
and Republicans heartily co-operated. A course of lectures was delivered
for its benefit in Cooper Institute, by such men as Horace Greeley,
George William Curtis, William D. Kelly, Wendell Phillips, E.P. Whipple,
Frederick Douglass, Theodore D. Weld, Rev. Dr. Tyng, and Dr. Bellows.
Many letters are on its files from Charles Sumner, approving its
measures, and expressing great satisfaction at the large number of
emancipation petitions being rolled into Congress. The Republican press,
too, was highly complimentary. The New York Tribune said: "The women of
the Loyal League have shown great practical wisdom in restricting their
efforts to one subject, the most important which any society can aim at
in this hour, and great courage in undertaking to do what never has been
done in the world before, to obtain one million of names to a petition."
The leading journals vied with each other in praising the patience and
prudence, the executive ability, the loyalty, and the patriotism of the
women of the League, and yet these were the same women who, when
demanding civil and political rights, privileges, and immunities for
themselves, had been uniformly denounced as "unwise," "imprudent,"
"fanatical," and "impracticable." During the six years they held their
own claims in abeyance to those of the slaves of the South, and labored
to inspire the people with enthusiasm for the great measures of the
Republican party, they were highly honored as "wise, loyal, and
clear-sighted." But when the slaves were emancipated, and these women
asked that they should be recognized in the reconstruction as citizens
of the Republic, equal before the law, all these transcendent virtues
vanished like dew before the morning sun. And thus it ever is: so long
as woman labors to second man's endeavors and exalt his sex above her
own, her virtues pass unquestioned; but when she dares to demand rights
and privileges for herself, her motives, manners, dress, personal
appearance, and character are subjects for ridicule and detraction.
Liberty, victorious over slavery on the battlefield, had now more
powerful enemies to encounter at Washington. The slaves set free, the
master conquered, the South desolate; the two races standing face to
face, sharing alike the sad results of war, turned with appealing looks
to the general government, as if to say, "How stand we now?" "What
next?" Questions our statesmen, beset with dangers, with fears for the
nation's life, of party divisions, of personal defeat, were wholly
unprepared to answer. The reconstruction of the South involved the
reconsideration of the fundamental principles of our Government and the
natural rights of man. The nation's heart was thrilled with prolonged
debates in Congress and State legislatures, in the pulpits and public
journals, and at every fireside on these vital questions, which took
final shape in the three historic amendments to the Constitution.
The first point, his emancipation, settled, the political status of the
negro was next in order; and to this end various propositions were
submitted to Congress. But to demand his enfranchisement on the broad
principle of natural rights was hedged about with difficulties, as the
logical result of such action must be the enfranchisement of all
ostracized classes; not only the white women of the entire country, but
the slave women of the South. Though our senators and representatives
had an honest aversion to any proscriptive legislation against loyal
women, in view of their varied and self-sacrificing work during the War,
yet the only way they could open the constitutional door just wide
enough to let the black man pass in was to introduce the word "male"
into the national Constitution. After the generous devotion of such
women as Anna Carroll and Anna Dickinson in sustaining the policy of the
Republicans, both in peace and war, they felt it would come with a bad
grace from that party to place new barriers in woman's path to freedom.
But how could the amendment be written without the word "male," was the
question.
Robert Dale Owen being at Washington, and behind the scenes at the time,
sent copies of the various bills to the officers of the Loyal League, in
New York, and related to us some of the amusing discussions. One of the
committee proposed "persons" instead of "males." "That will never do,"
said another, "it would enfranchise wenches." "Suffrage for black men
will be all the strain the Republican party can stand," said another.
Charles Sumner said, years afterward, that he wrote over nineteen pages
of foolscap to get rid of the word "male" and yet keep "negro suffrage"
as a party measure intact; but it could not be done.
Miss Anthony and I were the first to see the full significance of the
word "male" in the Fourteenth Amendment, and we at once sounded the
alarm, and sent out petitions for a constitutional amendment to
"prohibit the States from disfranchising any of their citizens on the
ground of sex." Miss Anthony, who had spent the year in Kansas, started
for New York the moment she saw the proposition before Congress to put
the word "male" into the national Constitution, and made haste to rouse
the women in the East to the fact that the time had come to begin
vigorous work again for woman's enfranchisement.
Leaving Rochester, October 11, she called on Martha Wright at Auburn;
Phebe Jones and Lydia Mott at Albany; Mmes. Rose, Gibbons, Davis, at New
York city; Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell in New Jersey;
Stephen and Abby Foster at Worcester; Mmes. Severance, Dall, Nowell, Dr.
Harriet K. Hunt, Dr. M.E. Zackesewska, and Messrs. Phillips and Garrison
in Boston, urging them to join in sending protests to Washington against
the pending legislation. Mr. Phillips at once consented to devote five
hundred dollars from the "Jackson Fund" to commence the work. Miss
Anthony and I spent all our Christmas holidays in writing letters and
addressing appeals and petitions to every part of the country, and,
before the close of the session of 1865-66, petitions with ten thousand
signatures were poured into Congress.
One of my letters was as follows:
"_To the Editor of the Standard_:
"Sir: Mr. Broomall of Pennsylvania, Mr. Schenck of Ohio, Mr.
Jenckes of Rhode Island, and Mr. Stevens of Pennsylvania, have each
a resolution before Congress to amend the Constitution.
"Article First, Section Second, reads thus: 'Representatives and
direct taxes shall be apportioned among the several States which
may be included within this Union, according to their respective
numbers.'
"Mr. Broomall proposes to amend by saying, 'male electors'; Mr.
Schenck,'male citizens'; Mr. Jenckes, 'male citizens'; Mr. Stevens,
'male voters,' as, in process of time, women may be made 'legal
voters' in the several States, and would then meet that requirement
of the Constitution. But those urged by the other gentlemen,
neither time, effort, nor State Constitutions could enable us to
meet, unless, by a liberal interpretation of the amendment, a coat
of mail to be worn at the polls might be judged all-sufficient. Mr.
Jenckes and Mr. Schenck, in their bills, have the grace not to say
a word about taxes, remembering, perhaps, that 'taxation without
representation is tyranny.' But Mr. Broomall, though unwilling that
we should share in the honors of government, would fain secure us a
place in its burdens; for, while he apportions representatives to
"male electors" only, he admits "all the inhabitants" into the
rights, privileges, and immunities of taxation. Magnanimous M.C.!
"I would call the attention of the women of the nation to the fact
that, under the Federal Constitution, as it now exists, there is
not one word that limits the right of suffrage to any privileged
class. This attempt to turn the wheels of civilization backward, on
the part of Republicans claiming to be the liberal party, should
rouse every woman in the nation to a prompt exercise of the only
right she has in the Government, the right of petition. To this end
a committee in New York have sent out thousands of petitions, which
should be circulated in every district and sent to its
representative at Washington as soon as possible.
"Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
"New York, January 2, 1866."