"This lady is a historical character, having served over two years in

the Federal army during the war; fifteen months as a private in the

Illinois cavalry, and over nine months as a teamster in the noted Lead

mine regiment, which was raised in Washburne district from the

counties of Jo Daviess and Carrol. She was at the siege of Corinth,

and was on duty during most of the campaign against Vicksburg. At

Lookout Mountain she formed one of the party of eighteen selected to

make a scout and report the position of General Bragg's forces. She

was an _attache_ of General Blair's seventeenth corps during most of

the campaign of the Tennessee, and did good service in the

reconnoitering operations around the Chattahochie River, at which time

she was connected with General Davis' fourteenth corps. She went

through her army life under the cognomen of 'Soldier Tom.'"

The name of Miss Brownlow, of Tennessee, was familiar during the war

for her daring exploits; also that of Miss Richmond, of Raleigh, North

Carolina, who handled a musket, rifle, or shot-gun with precision and

skill, fully equal to any sharp-shooter, and who was at any time ready

to join the clan of which her father, a devoted Unionist, was leader,

in an expedition against the rebels, or on horseback, alone in the

night, to thread the wild passes of the mountains as a bearer of

information.

Major Pauline Cushman and Dr. Mary Walker were also noted for their

devotion to the Union. No woman suffered more or rendered more service

to the national cause than Major Cushman, who was employed in the

secret service of the Government as scout and spy. She carried letters

between Louisville and Nashville, and was for many months with the

army of the Cumberland, employed by General Rosecrans, rendering the

army invaluable service. She was three times taken prisoner, once by

John Morgan, and advertised to be hung in Nashville as a Federal spy,

but she escaped by singular daring and courage. The third time she was

tried and condemned, but her execution was postponed on account of her

illness. After lying in prison three months, she had an interview with

General Bragg, who assured her that he would make an example of her

and hang her as soon as she got well enough to be hung decently.

While she remained in this condition of suspense, the grand army of

Rosecrans commenced its forward march, and one fine day the rebel town

in which she was imprisoned was surprised and captured by the Union

troops under General Gordon Granger, and she was released. After

hearing an account of the sufferings she had undergone for the Union

cause, General Granger determined to bestow upon her a testimonial of

appreciation for her services, and she was accordingly formally

proclaimed a Major of cavalry. The ladies of Nashville, hearing of

this promotion, prepared a costly riding habit trimmed in military

style, with dainty shoulder-straps, etc., and presented the dress to

Miss Cushman.

Dr. Mary Walker gave her services on the field as surgeon, winning an

acknowledged reputation in the Second corps, army of the Potomac, for

professional superiority. She applied for a commission as assistant

surgeon, but was refused by Surgeon-General Hammond because of her

sex. Dr. Walker suffered imprisonment in Castle Thunder, Richmond,

having been taken prisoner.

The special correspondent of the _N. Y. Tribune_, Headquarters Army of

the Potomac, Sept. 15, 1863, said: "She applied to both

Surgeon-Generals Finlay and Hammond for a commission as assistant

surgeon. Her competence was attested and approved, yet as the Army

Regulations did not authorize the employment of women as surgeons, her

petition was denied. A Senator from New York, with an enlightenment

which did him honor, urged her appointment to the Secretary of War,

but without success."

[23] Gilbert Hay, shortly before released from Fort La Fayette.

[24] LEE AT ARLINGTON.--Visitors to this noted place are so frequent

that his appearance attracted no attention. He walked through the

dreary hall, and looked in on the wide, vacant rooms, and passing to

the front, stood for some time gazing out over the beautiful panorama,

with its one great feature, the new dome of the old capitol,

surmounted by a bronze statue of Liberty armed, and with her back to

him, gazing seaward.

From this he passed to the garden, and looked over the line of the

officers' graves that bound its sides, saw the dying flowers and

wilted borders and leaf strewn walks, and continuing after a slight

pause, he stopped on the edge of the field where the sixteen thousand

Union soldiers lie buried in lines, as if they had lain down after a

review to be interred in their places. Some negroes were at work here

raking up the falling leaves, and one old man stopped suddenly and

stared at the visitor as if struck mute with astonishment. He

continued to gaze in this way until the stranger, walking slowly,

regained his horse and rode away, when he dropped his rake and said to

his companions: "Shuah as de Lord, men, dat was ole Massa Lee!"

One hastens to imagine the thoughts and feelings that must have

agitated this fallen chief as he stood thus, like Marius amid the

ruins of Carthage, on the one spot of all others, to realize the fact

of the Lost Cause and its eventful history. About him were the scenes

of his youth, the home of his honored manhood, the scenery that gave

beauty to the peaceful joys of domestic life. They were nearly all the

same, and yet between then and now, came the fierce war, the huge

campaigns and hundred battles loud with the roar of mouthing cannons

and rattling musketry, and stained into history by the blood of

thousands, the smoke of burning houses, the devastation of wide

States, and the desolation of the households, and all in vain. He

stood there, old before his time, the nationality so fiercely

struggled for, unrecognized; the great confederacy a dream, his home a

grave-yard, and the capitol he sought to destroy grown to

twice its size, with the bronze goddess gazing calmly to the

East.--_Correspondence of the Cincinnati Commercial_, 1866.

[25] Peter Waldo, a merchant of Lyon, of the 12th century, was less

the founder of a sect, than the representative and leader of a

wide-spread struggle against the corruptions of the clergy. The church

would have tolerated him, had he not trenched upon ground dangerous to

the hierarchy. But he had the four Gospels translated and (like

Wicklyffe) maintained that laymen had the right to read them to the

people. He exposed thus the ignorance and the immorality of the

clergy, and brought down their wrath upon himself. His opinions were

condemned by a General Council, and he retired to the valleys of the

Cottian Alps. Long persecutions followed, but his disciples could not

be forced to yield their opinions. The protest of the Waldenses

related to practical questions.--_Encyc._

[26] It was almost as thrilling a sight to me to see these earnest

women together at work with their needles, as it was to see the first

colored soldier in the Union blue. He was from Camp Reed, near Boston.

I met him in the church of Rev. Mr. Grimes, and could not have known

before how much such a vision would stir me. It was with great

satisfaction that I took him by the hand and rejoiced with him in the

progress of the Government toward equality.

[27] Mrs. Briggs ("Olivia") writing to the _Sunday Morning Chronicle_

after Mrs. Griffing had departed this life, said in this connection:

"Altogether $166,000 were given by Congress to the helpless who had

been so long held in bondage, and for the great good accomplished, the

sufferers were more indebted to Mrs. Griffing than to all the women of

the country combined, for the larger proportion of the supplies

purchased with this money, was distributed by her own hands."

[28] This would at first thought seem to conflict with the knowledge

of "the North Star" and "Canada," but, as elsewhere, we must draw the

line between the ignorant and the intelligent.

[29] See Appendix.

[30] The impeachment trial of President Johnson

[31] _Forney's Press_, in reporting a meeting at Kennett Square, said:

"Miss Anna E. Dickinson, of Philadelphia, aged seventeen years,

handsome, of an expressive countenance, plainly dressed, and eloquent

beyond her years, made the speech of the occasion. After the listless,

monotonous harangues of the day, the distinct, earnest tones of this

juvenile Joan of Arc were very sweet and charming. During her

discourse, which was frequently interrupted, Miss Dickinson maintained

her presence of mind, and uttered her radical sentiments with

augmented resolution and plainness. Those who did not sympathize with

her remarks, provocative as they were of numerous unmanly

interruptions, were softened by her simplicity and solemnity. 'We are

told,' said she, 'to maintain constitutions because they are

constitutions, and compromises because they are compromises. But what

are compromises, and what is laid down in those constitutions? Eminent

lawyers have said that certain great fundamental ideas of right are

common to the world, and that all laws of man's making which trample

on these ideas, are null and void--wrong to obey; right to disobey.

The Constitution of the United States recognizes human slavery, and

makes the souls of men articles of purchase and of sale.'"

[32] She has always said that that was the best service the Government

could have rendered her, as it forced her to the decision to labor no

longer with her hands for bread, but open some new path for herself.

[33] The highest compliment that the Union men of this city could pay

Miss Anna E. Dickinson, was to invite her to make the closing and most

important speech in this campaign. They were willing to rest their

case upon her efforts. She may go far and speak much; she will have no

more flattering proof of the popular confidence in her eloquence,

tact, and power, than this. Her business being to obtain votes for the

right side, she addressed herself to that end with singular

adaptation. But when we add to this lawyerlike comprehension of the

necessities of the case, her earnestness, enthusiasm, and personal

magnetism, we account for the effect she produced on that vast

audience Saturday night.

Allyn Hall was packed as it never was before. Every seat was crowded.

The aisles were full of men who stood patiently for more than three

hours; the window-sills had their occupants, every foot of standing

room was taken, and in the rear of the galleries men seemed to hang in

swarms like bees. Such was the view from the stage. The stage itself

and the boxes were filled with ladies, giving the speaker an audience

of hundreds who could not see her face. Hardly a listener left the

hall during her speech. Her power over that audience was marvellous.

She seemed to have that absolute mastery of it which Joan of Arc is

reported to have had of the French troops. They followed her with that

deep attention which is unwilling to lose a word, greeting her ever

and anon with bursts of applause. The speech in itself and its effect

was magnificent. The work of the campaign is done, and it only remains

in the name of all loyal men in this district to express to Miss

Dickinson most heartfelt thanks for her inspiring aid. She has aroused

everywhere respect, enthusiasm, and devotion, not to herself alone,

but to our country also. While such women are possible in the United

States, there is not a spot big enough for her to stand on, that will

not be fought for so long as there is a man left.--_Hartford Courant._

[34] Her profits on this occasion were about a thousand dollars.

[35] CORRESPONDENCE.

TO MISS ANNA E. DICKINSON, _Philadelphia, Pa._:

MISS DICKINSON:--Heartily appreciating the value of your services

in the campaigns in New Hampshire, Connecticut, Pennsylvania, and

New York, and the qualities that have combined to give you the

deservedly high reputation you enjoy; and desiring as well to

testify that appreciation, as to secure to ourselves the pleasure

of hearing you, we unite in cordially inviting you to deliver an

address at the capital this winter, at some time suited to your

own convenience.

WASHINGTON, D.C., _Dec. 16, 1863_.

Hannibal Hamlin,

Charles Sumner,

Henry Wilson,

Benjamin F. Wade,

John Sherman,

James Dixon,

H. B. Anthony,

Ira Harris, and sixteen other Senators.

Schuyler Colfax,

Thaddeus Stephens,

William D. Kelley,

Robert C. Schenck,

James A. Garfield,

Henry C. Deming,

R. B. Van Valkenburg,

A. C. Wilder, and seventy other Representatives.

GENTLEMEN:--I thank you sincerely for the great and most

unexpected honor which you have conferred upon me by your kind

invitation to speak in Washington. Accepting it, I would suggest

the 16th of January as the time, desiring the proceeds to be

devoted to the help of the suffering freedmen.

Truly yours, ANNA E. DICKINSON.

1710 LOCUST ST., Phila., _June 7, 1864_.

[36] The _New York Evening Post_ in describing the occasion said:

"Miss Dickinson's lecture in the Hall of the House of Representatives

last night was a gratifying success, and a splendid personal triumph.

She can hardly fail to regard it the most flattering ovation--for such

it was--of her life. At precisely half-past seven Miss Dickinson came

in, escorted by Vice-President Hamlin and Speaker Colfax. A platform

had been built directly over the desk of the official reporters and in

front of the clerk's desk, from which she spoke. She was greeted with

loud cheers as she entered. Mr. Hamlin introduced her in a neat

speech, in which he happily compared her to the Maid of Orleans. The

scene was one to test severely the powers of a most accomplished

orator, for the audience was not composed of the enthusiastic masses

of the people, but rather of loungers, office-holders, orators,

critics, and men of the fashionable world. At eight o'clock Mr. and

Mrs. Lincoln entered, and not even the utterance of a fervid passage

in the lecture could repress the enthusiasm of the audience. Just as

the President entered the hall Miss Dickinson was criticising with

some sharpness his Amnesty Proclamation and the Supreme Court; and the

audience, as if feeling it to be their duty to applaud a just

sentiment, even at the expense of courtesy, sustained the criticism

with a round of deafening cheers. Mr. Lincoln sat meekly through it,

not in the least displeased. Perhaps he knew there were sweets to

come, and they did come, for Miss Dickinson soon alluded to him and

his course as President, and nominated him as his own successor in

1865. The popularity of the President in Washington was duly attested

by volleys of cheers. The proceeds of the lecture--over a thousand

dollars--were appropriated at Miss Dickinson's request to the National

Freedman's Relief Society."

[37] James Redpath.

[38] See Appendix.

[39] When our leading journals, orators, and brave men from the

battle-field, complain that Northern women feel no enthusiasm in the

war, the time has come for us to pledge ourselves loyal to freedom and

our country. Thus far, there has been no united expression from the

women of the North as to the policy of the war. Here and there one has

spoken and written nobly. Many have vied with each other in acts of

generosity and self-sacrifice for the sick and wounded in camp and

hospital. But we have, as yet, no means of judging where the majority

of Northern women stand.

If it be true that at this hour the women of the South are more

devoted to their cause than we are to ours, the fact lies here. They

see and feel the horrors of the war; the foe is at their firesides;

while we, in peace and plenty, live as heretofore. There is an

inspiration, too, in a definite purpose, be it good or bad. The women

of the South know what their sons are fighting for. The women of the

North do not. They appreciate the blessings of slavery; we not the

blessings of liberty. We have never yet realized the glory of those

institutions in whose defence it is the privilege of our sons to bleed

and die. They are aristocrats, with a lower class, servile and

obsequious, intrenched in feudal homes. We are aristocrats under

protest, who must go abroad to indulge our tastes, and enjoy in

foreign despotisms the customs which the genius of a Republic

condemns.

But, from the beginning of the Government, there have been women among

us who, with the mother of the immortal John Quincy Adams, have

lamented the inconsistencies of our theory and practice, and demanded

for ALL the people the exercise of those rights that belong to every

citizen of a republic. The women of a nation mold its morals,

religion, and politics. The Northern treason, now threatening to

betray us to our foes, is hatched at our own firesides, where traitor

snobs, returned from Europe and the South, out of time and tune with

independence and equality, infuse into their sons the love of caste

and class, of fame and family, of wealth and ease, and baptize it all

in the name of Republicanism and Christianity. Let every woman

understand that this war involves the same principles that have

convulsed the nations of the earth from Pharaoh to Lincoln--liberty or

slavery--democracy or aristocracy--equality or caste--and choose, this

day, whether our republican institutions shall be placed on an

enduring basis, and an eternal peace secured to our children, or

whether we shall leap back through generations of light and

experience, and meekly bow again to chains and slavery.

Shall Northern freemen yet stand silent lookers-on when through

Topeka, St. Paul, Chicago, Cleveland, Boston, and New York, men and

women, little boys and girls, chained in gangs, shall march to their

own sad music, beneath a tyrant's lash? On our sacred soil shall we

behold the auction-block--babies sold by the pound, and beautiful

women for the vilest purposes of lust; where parents and children,

husbands and wives, brothers and sisters, shall be torn from each

other, and sent East and West, North and South? Shall our free presses

and free schools, our palace homes, colleges, churches, and stately

capitols all be leveled to the dust? Our household gods be desecrated,

and our proud lips, ever taught to sing peans to liberty, made to

swear allegiance to the god of slavery? Such degradation shall yet be

ours, if we gird not up our giant freemen now to crush this rebellion,

and root out forever the hateful principle of caste and class. Men

who, in the light of the nineteenth century, believed that God made

one race all booted and spurred, and another to be ridden; who would

build up a government with slavery for its corner-stone, can not live

on the same continent with a pure democracy. To counsel grim-visaged

war seems hard to come from women's lips; but better far that the

bones of our sires and sons whiten every Southern plain, that we do

their rough work at home, than that liberty, struck dumb in the

capital of our Republic, should plead no more for man. Every woman who

appreciates the grand problem of national life must say war,

pestilence, famine, anything but an ignoble peace.

We are but co-workers now with the true ones of every age. The history

of the past is but one long struggle upward to equality. All men, born

slaves to ignorance and fear, crept through centuries of discord--now

one race dominant, then another--but in this ceaseless warring, ever

wearing off the chains of their gross material surroundings of a mere

animal existence, until at last the sun of a higher civilization

dawned on the soul of man, and the precious seed of the ages, garnered

up in the _Mayflower_, was carried in the hollow of God's hand across

the mighty waters, and planted deep beneath the snow and ice of

Plymouth Rock with prayers and thanksgivings. And what grew there? Men

and women who loved liberty better than life. Men and women who

believed that not only in person, but in speech should they be free,

and worship the God who had brought them thus far according to the

dictates of their own conscience. Men and women who, like Daniel of

old, defied the royal lion in his den. Men and women who repudiated

the creeds and codes of despots and tyrants, and declared to a waiting

world that all men are created equal. And for rights like these, the

Fathers fought for seven long years, and we have no record that the

women of that Revolution ever once cried, "hold, enough," till the

invading foe was conquered, and our independence recognized by the

nations of the earth.

And here we are, the grandest nation on the globe. By right no

privileged caste or class. Education free to all. The humblest digger

in the ditch has all the civil, social, and religious rights with the

highest in the land. The poorest woman at the wash-tub may be the

mother of a future President. Here all are heirs-apparent to the

throne. The genius of our institutions bids every man to rise, and use

all the powers that God has given him. It can not be, that for

blessings such as these, the women of the North do not stand ready for

any sacrifice.

A sister of Kossuth, with him an exile to this country, in

conversation one day, called my attention to an iron bracelet, the

only ornament she wore. "In the darkest days of Hungary," said she,

"our noble women threw their wealth and jewels into the public

treasury, and clasping iron bands around their wrists, pledged

themselves that these should be the only jewels they would wear till

Hungary was free." If darker hours than these should come to us, the

women of the North will count no sacrifice too great. What are wealth

and jewels, home and ease, sires and sons, to the birthright of

freedom, secured to us by the heroes of the Revolution? Shall a

priceless heritage like this be wrested now from us by Southern

tyrants, and Northern women look on unmoved, or basely bid our freemen

sue for peace? No! No! The vacant places at our firesides, the void in

every heart says No!! Such sacrifices must not be in vain!! The cloud

that hangs o'er all our Northern homes is gilded with the hope that

through these present sufferings the nation shall be redeemed.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

[40] The call for a meeting of the Loyal Women of the Nation:

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 defence and preservation. The policy of the war, our whole

future life, depends 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 Constitution 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, is 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 testament 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 both in person and

by letter.

On behalf of the Woman's Central Committee,

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

[41] _Vice-Presidents._--Elizabeth Cady Stanton, of New York; Angelina

Grimké Weld, of New Jersey; Fannie W. Willard, of Pennsylvania; Mary

H. L. Cabot, of Massachusetts; Mary White, of Connecticut; Mrs. E. O.

Sampson Hoyt, of Wisconsin; Eliza W. Farnham, of California; Mrs. H.

C. Ingersol, of Maine.

_Secretaries._--Martha C. Wright, of New York, and Lucy N. Colman, of

New York.

_Business Committee._--Susan B. Anthony; Ernestine L. Rose, New York;

Rev. Antoinette B. Blackwell, New Jersey; Amy Post, New York; Annie V.

Mumford, Penn.

[42] See Appendix.

[43] _Resolved_, 2. That we heartily approve that part of the

President's Proclamation which decrees freedom to the slaves of rebel

masters, and we earnestly urge him to devise measures for emancipating

all slaves throughout the country.

_Resolved_, 3. That the national pledge to the freedmen must be

redeemed, and the integrity of the Government in making it vindicated,

at whatever cost.

_Resolved_, 4. That while we welcome to legal freedom the recent

slaves, we solemnly remonstrate against all State or National

legislation which may exclude them from any locality, or debar them

from any rights or privileges as free and equal citizens of a common

Republic.

_Resolved_, 5. 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_, 7. 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.

[44] The following is the abstract:

_State._ _Men._ _Women._ _Total._

New York 6,519 11,187 17,706

Illinois 6,382 8,998 15,380

Massachusetts 4,248 7,392 11,641

Pennsylvania 2,259 6,366 8,625

Ohio 3,676 4,654 8,330

Michigan 1,741 4,441 6,182

Iowa 2,025 4,014 6,039

Maine 1,225 4,362 5,587

Wisconsin 1,639 2,391 4,030

Indiana 1,075 2,591 3,666

New Hampshire 393 2,261 2,654

New Jersey 824 1,709 2,533

Rhode Island 827 1,451 2,278

Vermont 375 1,183 1,558

Connecticut 393 1,162 1,555

Minnesota 396 1,094 1,490

West Virginia 82 100 182

Maryland 115 50 165

Kansas 84 74 158

Delaware 67 70 137

Nebraska 13 20 33

Kentucky 21 21

Louisiana (New Orleans) 14 14

Citizens of the U. S.

living in New Brunswick 19 17 36

------ ------ -------

34,399 65,601 100,000

[45] The exact number of signatures, as ascertained by Senator

Sumner's clerk was 265,314

[46] Behind Clara Barton stood Frances D. Gage and others aiding and

encouraging her in the consummation of her plans; with Dorothea Dix in

the Hospitals, the untiring labors of Abby Hopper Gibbons and Jane G.

Swisshelm must not be forgotten. Three noble daughters, with hand and

heart devoted to the work, made it possible for Josephine S. Griffing

to accomplish what she did in the Freedman's Bureau. With Anna

Dickinson stood hosts of women identified with the Anti-Slavery and

the liberal republican movement; and behind the leaders of the

National Woman's Loyal League stood 300,000 petitioners for freedom

and equality to the black man, and the select body demanding the right

of suffrage for woman, who thoroughly understood the genius of

republican institutions.

[47] The facts that Miss Carroll planned the campaign on the

Tennessee; that Dr. Elizabeth Blackwell originated the Sanitary

movement; and that those Senators most active in carrying the measure

for a Freedman's Bureau through Congress, intended that Mrs. Griffing

should be its official head, are known only to the few behind the

scenes, facts published now on the page of history for the first

time.

CHAPTER XVII.

CONGRESSIONAL ACTION.

First petitions to Congress December, 1865, against the word

"male" in the 14th Amendment--Joint resolutions before

Congress--Messrs. Jenckes, Schenck, Broomall, and

Stevens--Republicans protest in presenting petitions--The women

seek aid of Democrats--James Brooks in the House of

Representatives--Horace Greeley on the petitions--Caroline Healy

Dall on Messrs. Jenckes and Schenck--The District of Columbia

Suffrage bill--Senator Cowan, of Pennsylvania, moved to strike

out the word "male"--A three days' debate in the Senate--The

final vote nine in favor of Mr. Cowan's amendment, and

thirty-seven against.

Liberty victorious over slavery on the battle-field had now more

powerful enemies to encounter at Washington. The slave set free; the

master conquered; the South desolate; the two races standing face to

face, sharing alike the sad results of war, turned with appealing

looks to the General Government, as if to say, "How stand we now?"

"What next?" Questions, our statesmen, beset with dangers, fears for

the nation's life, of party divisions, of personal defeat, were wholly

unprepared to answer. The reconstruction of the South involved the

reconsideration of the fundamental principles of our Government, 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 three historic amendments.

The first point, his emancipation, settled, the political status of

the negro was next in order; and to this end various propositions were

submitted to Congress. But to demand his enfranchisement on the broad

principle of natural rights, was hedged about with difficulties, as

the logical result of such action must be the enfranchisement of all

ostracised classes; not only the white women of the entire country,

but the slave women of the South. Though our Senators and

Representatives had an honest aversion to any proscriptive

legislation against loyal women, in view of their varied and

self-sacrificing work during the war, yet the only way they could open

the constitutional door just wide enough to let the black _man_ pass

in, was to introduce the word "male" into the national Constitution.

After the generous devotion of such women as Anna Carroll and Anna

Dickinson in sustaining the policy of the Republicans, both in peace

and war, they felt it would come with an ill-grace from that party, to

place new barriers in woman's path to freedom. But how could the

amendment be written without the word "male"? was the question.

Robert Dale Owen, being at Washington and behind the scenes at the

time, sent copies of the various bills to the officers of the Loyal

League in New York, and related to them some of the amusing

discussions. One of the Committee proposed "persons" instead of

"males." "That will never do," said another, "it would enfranchise all

the Southern wenches." "Suffrage for black men will be all the strain

the Republican party can stand," said another. Charles Sumner said,

years afterward, that he wrote over nineteen pages of foolscap to get

rid of the word "male" and yet keep "negro suffrage" as a party

measure intact; but it could not be done.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, ever on the watch-tower for legislation

affecting women, were the first to see the full significance of the

word "male" in the 14th Amendment, and at once sounded the alarm, and

sent out petitions[48] for a constitutional amendment to "prohibit

the States from disfranchising any of their citizens on the ground of

sex."[49]

Miss Anthony, who had spent the year in Kansas, started for New York

the moment she saw the propositions before Congress to put the word

"male" into the National Constitution, and made haste to rouse the

women in the East to the fact that the time had come to begin vigorous

work again for woman's enfranchisement.[50] Mr. Tilton (December 27,

1865) proposed the formation of a National Equal Rights Society,

demanding suffrage for black men and women alike, of which Wendell

Phillips should be President, and the _National Anti-Slavery Standard_

its organ. Mr. Beecher promised to give a lecture (January 30th) for

the benefit of this universal suffrage movement. The _New York

Independent_ (Theodore Tilton, editor) gave the following timely and

just rebuke of the proposed retrogressive legislation:

A LAW AGAINST WOMEN.

The spider-crab walks backward. Borrowing this creature's mossy

legs, two or three gentlemen in Washington are seeking to fix

these upon the Federal Constitution, to make that instrument walk

backward in like style. For instance, the Constitution has never

laid any legal disabilities upon woman. Whatever denials of

rights it formerly made to our slaves, it denied nothing to our

wives and daughters. The legal rights of an American woman--for

instance, her right to her own property, as against a squandering

husband; or her right to her own children, as against a malicious

father--have grown, year by year, into a more generous and just

statement in American laws. This beautiful result is owing in

great measure to the persistent efforts of many noble women who,

for years past, both publicly and privately, both by pen and

speech, have appealed to legislative committees, and to the whole

community, for an enlargement of the legal and civil status of

their fellow-country women. Signal, honorable, and beneficent

have been the works and words of Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria

Child, Paulina W. Davis, Abby Kelly Foster, Frances D. Gage, Lucy

Stone, Caroline H. Dall, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Susan B.

Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and many others. Not in all the

land lives a poor woman, or a widow, who does not owe some

portion of her present safety under the law to the brave

exertions of these faithful laborers in a good cause.

Now, all forward-looking minds know that, sooner or later, the

chief public question in this country will be woman's claim to

the ballot. The Federal Constitution, as it now stands, leaves

this question an open one for the several States to settle as

they choose. Two bills, however, now lie before Congress

proposing to array the fundamental law of the land against the

multitude of American women by ordaining a denial of the

political rights of a whole sex. To this injustice we object

totally! Such an amendment is a snap judgment before discussion;

it is an obstacle to future progress; it is a gratuitous bruise

inflicted upon the most tender and humane sentiment that has ever

entered into American politics. If the present Congress is not

called to legislate _for_ the rights of women, let it not

legislate _against_ them.

But Americans now live who shall not go down into the grave till

they have left behind them a Republican Government; and no

republic is Republican which denies to half its citizens those

rights which the Declaration of Independence, and which a true

Christian Democracy make equal to all. Meanwhile, let us break

the legs of the spider-crab!

While the 13th Amendment was pending, Senator Sumner wrote many

letters to the officers of the Loyal League, saying, "Send on the

petitions; they give me opportunity for speech." "You are doing a

noble work." "I am grateful to your Association for what you have done

to arouse the country to insist on the extinction of slavery." And

our petitions were sent again and again, 300,000 strong, and months

after the measure was carried, they still rolled in from every quarter

where the tracts and appeals had been scattered. But when the

proposition for the 14th Amendment was pending, and the same women

petitioned for their own civil and political rights, they received no

letters of encouragement from Republicans nor Abolitionists; and now

came some of the severest trials the women demanding the right of

suffrage were ever called on to endure. Though loyal to the Government

and the rights of the colored race, they found themselves in

antagonism with all with whom they had heretofore sympathized. Though

Unionists, Republicans, and Abolitionists, they could not without

protest see themselves robbed of their birth-right as citizens of the

republic by the proposed amendment. Republicans presented their

petitions in a way to destroy their significance, as petitions for

"universal suffrage," which to the public meant "manhood suffrage."

Abolitionists refused to sign them, saying, "This is the negro's

hour."[51] Colored men themselves opposed us, saying, do not block

our chance by lumbering the Republican party with Woman Suffrage.

The Democrats readily saw how completely the Republicans were

stultifying themselves and violating every principle urged in the

debates on the 13th Amendment, and volunteered to help the women fight

their battle. The Republicans had declared again and again that

suffrage was a natural right that belonged to every citizen that paid

taxes and helped to support the State. They had declared that the

ballot was the only weapon by which one class could protect itself

against the aggressions of another. Charles Sumner had rounded out one

of his eloquent periods, by saying, "The ballot is the Columbiad of

our political life, and every citizen who holds it is a full-armed

monitor."

The Democrats had listened to all the glowing debates on these great

principles of freedom until the argument was as familiar as a, b, c,

and continually pressed the Republicans with their own weapons. Then

those loyal women were taunted with having gone over to the Democrats

and the Disunionists. But neither taunts nor persuasions moved them

from their purpose to prevent, if possible, the introduction of the

word "male" into the Federal Constitution, where it never had been

before. They could not see the progress--in purging the Constitution

of all invidious distinctions on the ground of color--while creating

such distinctions for the first time in regard to sex.

In the face of all opposition they scattered their petitions

broadcast, and in one session of Congress they rolled in upwards of

ten thousand. The Democrats treated the petitioners with respect, and

called attention in every way to the question.[52] But even such

Republicans as Charles Sumner presented them, if at all, under

protest. A petition from Massachusetts, with the name of Lydia Maria

Child at the head, was presented by the great Senator under protest

as "most inopportune!" As if there could be a more fitting time for

action than when the bills were pending.

During the morning hour of February 21st, Senator Henderson, of

Missouri, presented a petition from New York.

SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN.

Mr. HENDERSON: I present the petition of Mrs. Gerrit Smith and

twenty-seven other ladies of the United States, the most of them

from the State of New York, praying that the right of suffrage be

granted to women. Along with the petition I received a note,

stating as follows:

I notice in the debates of to-day that Mr. Yates promises,

at the "proper time" to tell you why the women of Illinois

are not permitted to vote. To give you an opportunity to

press him on this point I send you a petition, signed by

twenty-eight intelligent women of this State, who are

native-born Americans--read, write, and pay taxes, and now

claim representation! I was surprised to-day to find Mr.

Sumner presenting a petition, with an apology, from the

women of the republic. After his definition of a true

republic, and his lofty peans to "equal rights" and the

ballot, one would hardly expect him to ignore the claims of

fifteen million educated tax-payers, now taking their places

by the side of man in art, science, literature, and

government. I trust, sir, you will present this petition in

a manner more creditable to yourself and respectful to those

who desire to speak through you. Remember, the right of

petition is our only right in the Government; and when three

joint resolutions are before the House to introduce the word

"male" into the Federal Constitution, "it is the proper

time" for the women of the nation to be heard, Mr. Sumner to

the contrary notwithstanding.

The right of petition is a sacred right, and whatever may be

thought of giving the ballot to women, the right to ask it of the

Government can not be denied them. I present this petition

without any apology. Indeed, I present it with pleasure. It is

respectful in its terms, and is signed by ladies occupying so

high a place in the moral, social, and intellectual world, that

it challenges at our hands, at least a respectful consideration.

The distinguished Senators from Massachusetts and from Illinois

must make their own defense against the assumed inconsistency of

their position. They are abundantly able to give reasons for

their faith in all things; whether they can give reasons

satisfactory to the ladies in this case, I do not know. The

Senators may possibly argue that if women vote at all, the right

should not be exercised before the age of twenty-one; that they

are generally married at or before that age, and that when

married, they become, or ought to become, merged in their

husbands; that the act of one must be regarded as the act of the

other; that the good of society demands this unity for purposes

of social order; that political differences should not be

permitted to disturb the peace of a relation so sacred. The

honorable Senators will be able to find authority for this

position, not only in the common law, approved as it is by the

wisdom and experience of ages, but in the declaration of the

first man, on the occasion of the first marriage, when he said,

"This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." It may be

answered, however, that the wife, though one with her husband, at

least constitutes his better half, and if the married man be

entitled to but one vote, the unmarried man should be satisfied

with less than half a vote. [Laughter]. Having some doubts,

myself, whether beyond a certain age, to which I have not yet

arrived, such a man should be entitled to a vote or even half a

vote, I leave the difficulty to be settled by my friend from

Massachusetts and the fair petitioners. The petitioners claim,

that as we are proposing to enfranchise four million emancipated

slaves, equal and impartial justice alike demands the suffrage

for fifteen million women. At first view the proposition can

scarcely be met with denial, yet reasons "thick as blackberries"

and strong as truth itself may be urged in favor of the ballot in

the one case, which can not be urged in the other.

Mr. SAULSBURY: I rise to a point of order. My point of order is,

that a man who has lived an old bachelor as long as the Senator

from Missouri has, has no right to talk about women's rights.

[Laughter].

The PRESIDENT _pro tem._: The chair moves that is not a point of

order; and the Senator from Missouri will proceed.

Mr. HENDERSON: I had no idea that that was a point of order, sir.

Whatever may be said theoretically about the elective franchise

as a natural right, in practice at least, it has always been

denied in the most liberal States to more than half the

population. It is withheld from those whose crimes prove them

devoid of respect for social order, and generally from those

whose ignorance or imbecility unfits them for an intelligent

appreciation of the duties of citizens and the blessings of good

government. To women the suffrage has been denied in almost all

Governments, not for the reasons just stated, but because it is

wholly unnecessary as a means of their protection. In the

government of nature the weaker animals and insects, dependent on

themselves for safety and life, are provided with means of

defense. The bee has its sting and the despised serpent its

deadly poison. So, in the Governments of men, the weak must be

provided with power to inspire fear at least in the strong, if

not to command their respect. Political power was claimed

originally by the people as a means of protecting themselves

against the usurpations of those in power, whose interests or

caprices might lead to their oppression. Hence came the

republican system. But it was never thought the interests or

caprices of men could lead to a denial of the civil rights or

social supremacy of woman. People of one race have always been

unjust to those of another. The ignorant and sordid Jew despised

the Samaritan and scoffed at the idea of his equality. To him the

learned and accomplished Greek was a barbarian, and all rights

were denied him except those simple rights accorded to the most

degraded Gentile. Chinamen, to-day, believe as firmly in the

superiority of the celestial race as Americans do in the

superiority of the Anglo-Saxon. All races of men are unjust to

other races. They are unjust because of pride. That very pride

makes them just to the women of their own race. There may be men

who have prejudice against race; they are less than men who have

prejudice against sex. The social position of woman in the United

States is such that no civil right can be denied her. The women

here have entire charge of the social and moral world. Hence she

must be educated. First impressions are those which bend the mind

to noble or ignoble action, and these impressions are made by

mothers. To have intelligent voters we must have intelligent

mothers. To have free men we must have free women. The voter from

this source receives his moral and intellectual training. Woman

makes the voter, and should not descend from her lofty sphere to

engage in the angry contests of her creatures. She makes

statesmen, and her gentle influence, like the finger of the angel

pointing to the path of duty, would be lost in the controversies

of political strife. She makes the soldier, infuses courage and

patriotism in his youthful heart, and hovers like an invisible

spirit over the field of battle, urging him on to victory or

death in defense of the right. Hence woman takes no musket to the

battle-field. Here, as in politics, her personal presence would

detract from her power. Galileo, Newton, and La Place could not

fitly discuss the laws of planetary motion with ignorant rustics

at a country inn. The learned divine who descends from the

theological seminary to wrangle upon doctrinal points with the

illiterate, stubborn teacher of a small country flock must lose

half his influence for good. Our Government is built as our

Capitol is built. The strong and brawny arms of men, like granite

blocks, support its arches; but woman, lovely woman, the true

goddess of Liberty, crowns its dome.

Mr. YATES: I wish to ask the Senator from Missouri a question. I

understand that he has introduced a resolution to amend the

Constitution of the United States so that there shall be no

distinction on account of color. Will the gentleman accept an

amendment to that resolution that there shall be no distinction

in regard to sex?

Mr. HENDERSON: I have given my views, I think, very distinctly,

as the Senator would have found if he had listened, in the latter

part of what I have just stated in reference to the question of

voting. In reply to what he has said, I will say that I do not

think that on the mere presentation of a petition it is in order

to discuss the merits of the petition. I hope, therefore, that

the Senator will not insist upon entering into a question of that

sort now.

Mr. YATES: I shall not do so. I only wish to say that I am not

proposing to amend the Constitution. I simply desire to give

rights to those who have rights under the Constitution as it has

been amended. When I propose to amend the Constitution then the

question will come up whether I will allow women to vote or not.

Mr. SUMNER: Before this petition passes out of sight I wish to

make one observation, and only one. The Senator from Missouri

began by an allusion to myself and to a remark which fell from me

when I presented the other day a petition from women of the

United States praying for the ballot. I took occasion then to

remark that in my opinion the petition at that time was not

judicious. That was all that I said. I did not undertake to

express my opinion on the great question whether women should

vote or should not vote. I did venture to say that in my opinion

it was not judicious for them at this moment to bring forward

their claims so as to compromise in any way the great question of

equal rights for an enfranchised race now before Congress. The

Senator has quoted a letter suggesting that I did not present the

petition in a creditable way. I have now to felicitate my

excellent friend on the creditable way in which he has performed

his duty. [Laughter].

Mr. YATES: Allow me to say that I think the two gentlemen, one of

whom has arrived at the age of forty-nine and the other

sixty-three, have no right to discuss the question of women's

rights in the Senate. [Laughter].

The PRESIDENT _pro tem._: Will the Senator from Missouri suggest

the disposition he wishes made of this petition?

Mr. HENDERSON: Let it lie on the table.

The PRESIDENT _pro tem._: That order will be made.

The wriggling, the twisting, the squirming of the Republicans at this

crisis under the double fire of the Democrats and the women, would

have been laughable, had not their proposed action been so

outrageously unjust and ungrateful. The tone of the Republican

press[53] was stale, flat, and unprofitable. But while their journals

were thus unsparing in their ridicule and criticism of the loyal women

who had proved themselves so patriotic and self-sacrificing, they

would grant them no space in their columns to reply.[54]

The second session of the Thirty-ninth Congress is memorable for an

able debate in the Senate on the enfranchisement of woman, on the

bill[55] "to regulate the franchise in the District of Columbia,"

which proposed extending the suffrage to the "males" of the colored

race. On Monday, December 10, 1866, Senator Cowan, of Pennsylvania,

moved to amend the amendment by striking out the word "male" before

the word person. This debate in the Senate lasted three entire days,

and during that time the comments of the press were as varied as they

were multitudinous. Even Horace Greeley,[56] who had ever been a true

friend to woman, in favor of all her rights, industrial, educational,

and political, said the time had not yet come for her enfranchisement.

From _The Congressional Globe_ of December 11th, 12th, 13th, 1866, we

give the debates on Mr. Cowan's amendment. In moving to drop the word

"male" from the District of Columbia Suffrage bill, he said:

Mr. PRESIDENT: It is very well known that I have always

heretofore been opposed to any change of the kind contemplated by

this bill; but while opposing that change I have uniformly

asserted that if it became inevitable, if the change was certain,

I should insist upon this change as an accompaniment. It is

agreed--for I suppose when my honorable friend from Rhode Island

[Mr. Anthony] and myself agree to it, it will be taken to be the

universal sentiment of the body--that the right of suffrage is

not a natural right, but a conventional right, and that it may be

limited by the community, the body-politic, in any manner they

see fit and consistent with their sense of propriety and safety.

The proposition now before the Senate is to confer on the colored

people of this District the right of franchise; that is, the

advocates of the bill say that that will be safe and prudent and

proper, and will contribute, of course, to the happiness of the

mass of the inhabitants of the District; and they further say

that no reason can be given why a man of one color should not

vote as well as a man of another color, especially when both are

equally members of the same society, equally subjected to its

burdens, equally to be called upon to defend it in the field, and

all that. I agree to a great portion of that. I do not know and

never did know any very good reason why a black man should not

vote as well as a white man, except simply that all the white men

said, "We do not like it." I do not know of any very good reason

why a black woman should not marry a white man, but I suppose the

white man would give about the same reason, he does not like to

do it. There are certain things in which we do not like to go

into partnership with the people of different races and between

whom and ourselves there are tribal antipathies. It is now

proposed to break down that barrier, so far as political power

may be concerned, and admit both equally to share in this

privilege; and since the barrier is to be broken down, and since

there is to be a change, I desire another change, for which I

think there is quite as good a reason, and a little better,

perhaps, than that offered for this. I propose to extend this

privilege not only to males, but to females as well: and I should

like to hear even the most astute and learned Senator upon this

floor give any better reason for the exclusion of females from

the right of suffrage than there is for the exclusion of negroes.

I want to hear that reason. I should like to know it.

Now, for my part, I very much prefer, if the franchise is to be

widened, if more people are to be admitted to the exercise of it,

to allow females to participate than I would negroes; but

certainly I shall never give my consent to the disfranchisement

of females who live in society, who pay taxes, who are governed

by the laws, and who have a right, I think, even in that respect,

at times to throw their weight in the balance for the purpose of

correcting the corruptions and the viciousness to which the male

portions of the family tend. I think they have a right to throw

their influence into the scale; and I should like to hear any

reason to be offered why this should not be. Taxation and

representation ought to go hand in hand. That we have heard here

until all ears have been wearied with it. If taxation and

representation are to go hand in hand, why should they not go

hand in hand with regard to the female as well as the male? Is

there any reason why Mrs. Smith should be governed by a goat-head

of a mayor any more than John Smith, if he could correct it? He

is paid by taxes levied and assessed on her property just in the

same way as he is paid out of taxes levied on the property of

John. If she commits an offense she is subjected to be tried,

convicted, and punished by the other sex alone; and she has no

protection whatever in any way either as to her property, her

person, or to her liberty very often. There is another thing,

too. A great many reflections have been made upon the white race

keeping the black in slavery. I should like to know whether we

have not partially kept the female sex in a condition of slavery,

particularly that part of them who labor for a living? I do not

know of any reason in the world why a woman should be confined to

two dollars a week when a man gets two dollars a day and does not

do any more work than she does, and does not do that which he

does do quite so well at all times.

Mr. President, if we are to venture upon this wide sea of

universal suffrage, I object to manhood suffrage. I do not know

anything specially about manhood which dedicates it to this

purpose more than exists about womanhood. Womanhood to me is

rather the more exalted of the two. It is purer; it is higher; it

is holier; and it is not purchasable at the same price that the

other is, in my judgment. If you want to widen the franchise so

as to purify your ballot-box, throw the virtue of the country

into it; throw the temperance of the country into it; throw the

purity of the country into it; throw the angel element, if I may

so express myself, into it. [Laughter]. Let there be as little

diabolism as possible, but as much of the divinity as you can

get. Therefore, Mr. President, I put this as a serious question

for the consideration of this body. In the presence of the

tendencies of the age and in recognition of this movement, which

my honorable friend from Massachusetts is always talking about,

and of which he seems to have had premonition long before it came

to any of the rest of us--I say in the face of this movement and

in recognition of it, I earnestly beg all patriots here to think

of this proposition. It is inevitable. How are you to resist when

it is made the demand of fifteen million American females for

this right, which can be granted and which can be as safely

exercised in their hands as it can in the hands of negroes? And I

would ask gentlemen while they are bestowing this ballot which

has such merit in it, which has such a healing efficacy for all

ills, which educates people, and which elevates them above the

common level of mankind, and which, above all, protects them, how

they will go home and look in the face their sewing women, their

laboring women, their single women, their taxed women, their

overburdened women, their women who toil till midnight for the

barest subsistence, and say to them, "We have it not for you; we

could give it to the negro, but we could not give it to you."

How would the honorable Senator from Massachusetts face the

recent meeting of the Equal Rights Society in Philadelphia? How

would he answer the potent arguments which were offered there and

which challenge an answer even from the Senate of the United

States, when made by women of the highest intellect, perhaps, on

the planet, and women who are determined, knowing their rights,

to maintain them and to secure them? I ask honorable Senators of

his faith how they are to answer those ladies there? If this is

refused, how are Senators to answer, especially those who

recognize the onward force of this movement, who are up to the

tendencies of the times, who desire to keep themselves in front

of the great army of humanity which is marching forward just as

certainly to universal suffrage as to universal manhood suffrage.

Therefore, Mr. President, I offer this amendment and ask for the

yeas and nays upon it.

The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. ANTHONY: I move that the Senate do now adjourn. ["Oh, no!"]

Mr. WILSON: I hope not.

The PRESIDENT _pro tem._: The motion is not debatable and must be

put unless withdrawn.

The motion was agreed to; and the Senate adjourned.

SUFFRAGE IN THE DISTRICT.

IN SENATE, TUESDAY, _Dec. 11, 1866_.

The PRESIDENT _pro tempore_: If there be no further morning

business, and no motion is interposed, the chair, although the

morning hour has not expired, will call up the unfinished

business, which is the bill (S, No. 1) to regulate the elective

franchise in the District of Columbia, the pending question being

on the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan] to

strike out the word "male" before the word "person" in the second

line of the first section of the amendment, reported by the

Committee on the District of Columbia as a substitute for the

original bill.

Mr. ANTHONY: I suppose the Senator from Pennsylvania introduced

this amendment rather as a satire upon the bill itself, or if he

had any serious intention it was only a mischievous one to injure

the bill; but it will not probably have that effect, for I

suppose nobody will vote for it except the Senator himself, who

can hardly avoid it, and I, who shall vote for it because it

accords with a conclusion to which I have been brought by

considerable study upon the subject of suffrage. I do not contend

for female suffrage on the ground that it is a natural right,

because I believe that suffrage is a right derived from society,

and that society is competent to impose upon the exercise of that

right whatever conditions it chooses. I hold that the suffrage is

a delegated trust--a trust delegated to certain designated

classes of society--and that the whole body-politic has the same

right to withdraw any part of that trust, that we have to

withdraw any part of the powers or the trusts that we have

imposed upon any executive officer, and that it is no more a

punishment to restrict the suffrage, and thereby deprive certain

persons of the exercise of that right who have heretofore

exercised it, than it is a punishment on the Secretary of the

Treasury if we should take from him the appointment of certain

persons whose appointment is now vested in him. The power that

confers in each case has the right to withdraw.

The true basis of suffrage, of course, is intelligence and

virtue; but as we can not define those, as we can not draw the

line that shall mark the amount of intelligence and virtue that

any individual possesses, we come as near as we can to it by

imperfect conditions. It certainly will not be contended that the

feminine part of mankind are so much below the masculine in point

of intelligence as to disqualify them from exercising the right

of suffrage on that account. If it be asserted and conceded that

the feminine intellect is less vigorous, it must also be allowed

that it is more acute; if it is not so strong to strike, it is

quicker to perceive. But at all events, it will not be contended

that there is such a difference in the intellectual capacity of

the sexes as that that alone should be a disqualification from

the exercise of the right of suffrage. Still less will it be

contended that the female part of creation is less virtuous than

the masculine. On the contrary, it will be conceded by every one

that morality and good order, religion, charity, and all good

works appertain rather more to the feminine than to the masculine

race.

The argument that women do not want to vote is no argument at

all, because if the right to vote is conferred upon them they can

exercise it or not, as they choose. It is not a compulsory

exercise of power on their part. But I think that argument is

partly disproved by the Convention to which the Senator from

Pennsylvania referred yesterday, whose arguments he said were

worthy of consideration even in this Chamber. I think they are,

and I think it would be very difficult for any one in this

Chamber to disprove them. Nor is it a fair statement of the case

to say that the man represents the woman in the exercise of

suffrage, because it is an assumption on the part of the man; it

is an involuntary representation so far as the woman is

concerned. Representation implies a certain delegated power, and

a certain responsibility on the part of the representative toward

the party represented. A representation to which the represented

party does not assent is no representation at all, but is adding

insult to injury. When the American Colonies complained that they

ought not to be taxed unless they were represented in the British

Parliament, it would have been rather a singular answer to tell

them that they were represented by Lord North, or even by the

Earl of Chatham. The gentlemen on the other side of the Chamber

who say that the States lately in rebellion are entitled to

immediate representation in this Chamber would hardly be

satisfied if we should tell them that my friend from

Massachusetts represented South Carolina, and my friend from

Michigan represented Alabama. They would hardly be satisfied, I

think, with that kind of representation.

Nor have we any more right to assume that the women are satisfied

with the representation of the men. Where has been the assembly

at which this right of representation was conferred? Where was

the compact made? What were the conditions? It is wholly an

assumption. A woman is a member of a manufacturing corporation;

she is a stockholder in a bank; she is a shareholder in a

railroad company; she attends all those meetings in person or by

proxy, and she votes, and her vote is received. Suppose a woman

offering to vote at a meeting of a railroad corporation should be

told by one of the men "we represent you, you can not vote," it

would be precisely the argument that is now used--that men

represent the women in the exercise of the elective franchise. A

woman pays a large tax, and the man who drives her coach, the man

who waits upon her table, goes to the polls and decides how much

of her property shall go to support the public expenses, and what

shall be done with it. She has no voice in the matter whatever;

she is taxed without representation.

The exercise of political power by women is by no means an

experiment. There is hardly a country in Europe--I do not think

there is any one--that has not at some time of its history been

governed by a woman, and many of them very well governed too.

There have been at least three empresses of Russia since Peter

the Great, and two of them were very wise rulers. Elizabeth

raised England to the very height of greatness, and the reign of

Anne was illustrious in arms and not less illustrious in letters.

A female sovereign supplied to Columbus the means of discovering

this country. He wandered foot-sore and weary from court to

court, from convent to convent, from one potentate to another,

but no man on a throne listened to him, until a female sovereign

pledged her jewels to fit out the expedition which "gave a new

world to the kingdoms of Castile and Leon." Nor need we cite Anne

of Austria, who governed France for ten years, or Marie Theresa,

whose reign was so great and glorious. We have two modern

instances. A woman is now on the throne of Spain, and a woman

sits upon the throne of the mightiest empire in the world. A

woman is the high admiral of the most powerful fleet that rests

upon the seas. Princes and nobles bow to her, not in the mere

homage of gallantry, but as the representative of a sovereignty

which has descended to her from a long line of sovereigns, some

of the most illustrious of them of her own sex. And shall we say

that a woman may properly command an army, and yet can not vote

for a Common Councilman in the city of Washington? I know very

well this discussion is idle and of no effect, and I am not going

to pursue it. I should not have introduced this question, but as

it has been introduced, and I intend to vote for the amendment, I

desire to declare here that I shall vote for it in all

seriousness, because I think it is right. The discussion of this

subject is not confined to visionary enthusiasts. It is now

attracting the attention of some of the best thinkers in the

world, both in this country and in Europe, and one of the very

best of them all, John Stuart Mill, in a most elaborate and able

paper, has declared his conviction of the right and justice of

female suffrage. The time has not come for it, but the time is

coming. It is coming with the progress of civilization and the

general amelioration of the race, and the triumph of truth and

justice and equal rights.

Mr. WILLIAMS: Mr. President, to extend the right of suffrage to

the negroes in this country I think is necessary for their

protection; but to extend the right of suffrage to women, in my

judgment, is not necessary for their protection. For that reason,

as well as for others, I shall vote against the amendment

proposed by the Senator from Pennsylvania, and for the amendment

as it was originally introduced by the Senator from Ohio [Mr.

Wade]. Negroes in the United States have been enslaved since the

formation of the Government. Degradation and ignorance have been

their portion; intelligence has been denied to them; they have

been proscribed on account of their color; there is a bitter and

cruel prejudice against them everywhere, and a large minority of

the people of this country to-day, if they had the power, would

deprive them of all political and civil rights and reduce them to

a state of abject servitude. Women have not been enslaved.

Intelligence has not been denied to them; they have not been

degraded; there is no prejudice against them on account of their

sex; but, on the contrary, if they deserve to be, they are

respected, honored, and loved. Wide as the poles apart are the

conditions of these two classes of persons. Exceptions I know

there are to all rules; but, as a general proposition, it is true

that the sons defend and protect the reputation and rights of

their mothers; husbands defend and protect the reputation and

rights of their wives; brothers defend and protect the reputation

and rights of their sisters; and to honor, cherish, and love the

women of this country is the pride and the glory of its sons.

When women ask Congress to extend to them the right of suffrage

it will be proper to consider their claims. Not one in a thousand

of them at this time wants any such thing, and would not exercise

the power if it were granted to them. Some few who are seeking

notoriety make a feeble clamor for the right of suffrage, but

they do not represent the sex to which they belong, or I am

mistaken as to the modesty and delicacy which constitute the

chief attraction of the sex. Do our intelligent and refined women

desire to plunge into the vortex of political excitement and

agitation? Would that policy in any way conduce to their peace,

their purity, and their happiness? Sir, it has been said that

"the hand that rocks the cradle rules the world"; and there is

truth as well as beauty in that expression. Women in this

country, by their elevated social position, can exercise more

influence upon public affairs than they could coerce by the use

of the ballot. When God married our first parents in the garden,

according to that ordinance they were made "bone of one bone and

flesh of one flesh"; and the whole theory of government and

society proceeds upon the assumption that their interests are

one, that their relations are so intimate and tender that

whatever is for the benefit of the one is for the benefit of the

other; whatever works to the injury of the one works to the

injury of the other. I say, sir, that the more identical and

inseparable these interests and relations can be made, the better

for all concerned; and the woman who undertakes to put her sex in

an antagonistic position to man, who undertakes by the use of

some independent political power to contend and fight against

man, displays a spirit which would, if able, convert all the now

harmonious elements of society into a state of war, and make

every home a hell upon earth. Women do not bear their proportion

and share, they can not bear their proportion and share of the

public burdens. Men represent them in the Army and in the Navy;

men represent them at the polls and in the affairs of the

Government; and though it be true that individual women do own

property that is taxed, yet nine-tenths of the property and the

business from which the revenues of the Government are derived

are in the hands and belong to and are controlled by the men.

Sir, when the women of this country come to be sailors and

soldiers; when they come to navigate the ocean and to follow the

plow; when they love to be jostled and crowded by all sorts of

men in the thoroughfares of trade and business; when they love

the treachery and the turmoil of politics; when they love the

dissoluteness of the camp and the smoke and the thunder and the

blood of battle better than they love the enjoyments of home and

family, then it will be time to talk about making the women

voters; but until that time the question is not fairly before the

country.

Mr. COWAN: Mr. President, I had not intended to say anything on

this subject beyond what I offered to the Senate yesterday

evening, and I should not do so if it were not for the suggestion

of a friend, and I am glad to say a friend who believes as I do,

that it is the general supposition that I am not serious and not

in earnest in the amendment which I have moved; and I only rise

now for the purpose of disabusing the minds of Senators and

others from any impression they may have had of that sort.

I am perfectly free to admit that I have always been opposed to

change. I do not know why it is. Whether I have felt myself old

or not, I have not ranged myself in the category of "old fogies"

as yet. Although I feel an indisposition to exchange the "ills we

suffer" for "those we know not of," and am not desirous to launch

myself away from that which is ascertained and certain, and

adventure myself upon a sea of experiment, at the same time I

feel as much of that strength, that elasticity, that vigor, and

that desire for the advancement of my race, my countrymen, and my

kind as anybody can feel. I yield to no one in that respect. All

I have asked, and all I have desired heretofore, is that we go

surely. I believe with my fathers and my ancestors that to base

suffrage upon the white males of twenty-one years of age and

upward was a great stride in the world's affairs; that it would

be well for the world if its government could progress, could

advance upon that basis, and that all the rest of the world who

did not happen to be white males of the age of twenty-one years

and upward could very well afford to stand back and witness the

effect of our experiment. I was of that opinion, I lived in the

light of it, and I rejoiced in its success; and when I saw this

Rebellion, when I witnessed the differences of opinion which

convulsed this part of the Continent; when I saw the fact that

one-half of the United States was upon the one side and the other

half upon the other side as to the understanding of the true

theory of this Government of ours, simple as it may be to the

lawyer, complex as it may be when examined more thoroughly, I was

more than ever disinclined to widen the suffrage, to intrust the

franchise to a larger number of people. I trembled for the

success of the experiment; I hesitated as to where it would end.

I may say, Mr. President, that I hesitate yet. The question is by

no means settled, the difficulty is by no means ended, the

controversy is by no means yet concluded.

But the first step taken, from the very initiative of that step,

I have announced my ground and my determination. When a bill was

up here before, proposing to enlarge and widen the franchise in

this District, I stated that if negroes were to vote I would

persist in opening the door to females. I said that if the thing

were to be taken away from the feudal realms and from feudal

reasons, which went on the idea that the man who bore arms, and

he alone, was entitled to the exercise of political power, and if

it was to be put upon the ground of logic, and if we were to be

asked to give a reason for it, and if we were to be compelled to

give that reason, I said then, and I say now, "If I have no

reason to offer why a negro man shall not vote, I have no reason

to offer why a white woman shall not vote." If the negro man is

interested in the Government of the country, if he can not trust

to the masses of the people that the Government shall be a fair

and just Government and that it shall do right to him, then the

woman is also interested that this Government shall be fair to

woman and fair to the interests of woman. Why not, Mr. President?

Are not these interests equal to those of the negro and of his

race? I know it has been said that the woman is represented by

her husband, represented by the male; and yet we know how she has

been represented by her husband in bygone times; we know how she

is represented by her barbarian husband; and let him who wants to

know how she is represented by her civilized husband go to her

speeches made in the recent Woman's Rights Convention. We know

how she has been represented by her barbarian husband in the past

and is even at the present. She bears his burdens, she bears his

children, she nurses them, she does his work, she chops his wood,

and she grinds his corn; while he, forsooth, by virtue of this

patent of nobility that he has derived, in consequence of his

masculinity, from Heaven, confines himself to the manly

occupations of hunting and fishing and war.

I should like to hear my honorable friend from Maine [Mr.

Morrill], so apt, so pertinent, so eloquent on all questions,

discourse upon the title which the male derives in consequence of

the fact that he has been a fisher and a hunter and a warrior all

the time; and then I should like to know how he would

discriminate between that fisher and hunter and warrior, and

those Amazons who burnt their right breasts in order that they

might the more readily draw the bow and against whose onset no

troops of that day were able to stand. I should also like to know

from him how it was that the female veterans of the army of

Dahomey recently, within the last three or four years, in the

face of an escarpment that would have made European veterans,

aye, and I might say American veterans tremble, scrambled over

that escarpment and carried the city sword in hand.

Now, Mr. President, it is time that we look at these things; and

that we look them full in the face. I am always glad and willing

to stand upon institutions that have been established in the

past; that have been sanctified by time; that have given to men

liberty and protection with which they were satisfied. But, sir,

when the time comes that we are to make a step forward, then

another and different question arises. I am utterly astonished at

my honorable friend from Rhode Island who doubted my sincerity in

this movement. Why should I not be sincere? Have I not as many

interests at stake as he has?

My honorable friend from Oregon [Mr. Williams] thinks this is

entirely preposterous. I have no doubt he does, and I give him

all credit for honesty and sincerity in the remarks that he has

made; but the trouble with him is, and with a great many

others--perhaps it is with myself upon some subjects--is that he

directs his gaze too long upon a particular point. It is

remarkable that when a man who looks long and steadily upon one

subject to the exclusion of every other, that subject at last

becomes to him the universe itself. I have met

fellow-politicians fellow-Senators, and fellow-coworkers in the

great battle of life, who really had so long contemplated one

subject that it was not within their capacity to see any others.

But it unfortunately happens that in this world there are others

besides the negro who suffer. When you have told of the injuries

and outrages which prevail on the earth in regard to the negro

you have not finished. Another, and in my judgment a much more

important personage, comes upon the scene; she lifts the curtain

and reveals to you a new drama, and she tells you distinctly that

you have not only been tyrannizing over your brother, your sable

brother, your brother at the other end of the national antipodes,

your troublesome antipathic brother; you have not only been

drenching the earth from the East to the far West with the blood

of savages of a different color from yours; you have not only

left your blood-stained marks in Japan, in China, in the East

Indies, everywhere, and in the West, where one of your Christian

bishops boasted that six million Mexicans at one time had been

sacrificed, and what for? To make them Christians; to make the

rest Christians after the six millions had gone. I say this new

personage who makes her appearance upon the drama of human

affairs informs you that you and your religion, under the conduct

of the male, generative, fecundative principle of the sex, have

filled the world with blood from one end to the other of it. What

for? To give her liberty. She complains to-day; she complains in

your most intelligent high places; she complains in your most

refined cities; she complains in your halls decorated with a more

than Grecian beauty of architecture; she complains where all of

past civilization, all of past adornment, and all of past

education comes down to satisfy us that we stand upon the very

acmé of human progress; she complains that you have been tyrant

to her. Mr. President, let me read from the proceedings of the

Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery

Society. I propose to read from the remarks of Mrs. Gage, a

woman, a lady, a lady of brain and intellect, of courage and

force; and whether I am in earnest or not, whether I may be

charged with being serious or not, no man dare charge Mrs. Gage

with not being serious. Mrs. Frances D. Gage said: "I have read

speeches and heard a great deal said about the right of suffrage

for the freedmen." So have we all, Mr. President; and the

probability is that we have been even more afflicted if that can

be said to be a punishment, and there is very great difficulty

now to ascertain what is punishment in this world. If that can be

said to be a punishment, I think this Senate can with at least

equal propriety with Mrs. Gage, complain of its extraordinary

infliction upon them without any previous trial and conviction.

[Laughter]. "What does it mean? Does it mean the male freedman

only, or does it mean the freedwoman also? I was glad to hear the

voice of Miss Anthony in behalf of her sex." I am glad, Mr.

President, that we have a male of that name in this body who

emulates the virtues of his more humble sister [laughter], and

stands up equally here for the broad rights of humanity as she

does. "I know it is said that this is bringing in a new issue."

Yes, that is what was said about me yesterday evening. Gentlemen

said it was a new issue; we had not talked about this thing here

before; nobody had thought about it. Why had nobody thought

about it? Because nobody was thinking about the actual, real

sufferings which human beings were subjected to in this world.

Persons thought about such things just in proportion as they

reflected themselves upon their future political career. If it

became necessary, in order to elect a dozen Senators to this body

this winter, that the women should be treated as women ought to

be treated, that they should be put upon an equal footing with

the men in all respects and enjoy equal rights with men, then I

should have great hopes of carrying my amendment, and carrying it

in spite of everybody, because then and in that light it would be

seen by Senators, and they would be thereby guided. "I know it is

said that this is bringing in a new issue. We must bring in new

issues."

Now, I want to know what the honorable Senator from Massachusetts

[Mr. Wilson] will say when he finds me advocating this new issue

that must be brought in while he lags behind. My honorable friend

from Delaware [Mr. Saulsbury] will have immensely more the

advantage of him to-day than he had yesterday if he dares lag,

because I put the question to him now distinctly, and I do not

leave it to his sense of propriety as to whether he shall speak

or not speak on this question; I demand that he do speak. I

demand that that voice which has been so potential, that voice

which has had so much of solemn, I do not say sepulchral wisdom

in it heretofore, shall now be heard on the one side or the other

of this important question, which involves the fate, the destiny,

the liberty of one-half of the people who inhabit this Continent.

I know from the generous upswelling of the bosom, which I almost

perceive from here in my brother, that he will respond to this

sentiment, and make a response of which his State and her

progress, having two negroes in the Legislature now [laughter],

will be proud. I feel assured of it, and I feel that when

suffering humanity in any shape or form, whether it be male or

female, whether it be black or white, red or yellow, appeals to

him, the appeal will not be in vain, but that he will come to the

rescue, and that he will strike the shield of the foremost knight

on the other side and defy him to the combat.

"We must [said Mrs. Gage][57] bring in new issues. I sat in the

Senate Chamber last winter."

And now I beg pardon of my honorable friend from Massachusetts,

the other Senator from Massachusetts [Mr. Sumner], for any

offence that I may do to his modesty; but when I come to consider

the recent change which has taken place in his life and habits, I

am the better assured that he will endure it. At any other time I

should not have dared to introduce this quotation: "I sat in the

Senate Chamber last winter [said Mrs. Gage. Last winter,

remember] "and heard Charles Sumner's grand speech, which the

whole country applauded."

And Mr. President, they did, too, and they did it properly. It

was a great, a grand, and a glorious speech; it was the ultimate

of all speeches in that direction; and I too applauded with the

country, although I too might not have agreed with every part of

the speech. I might not have agreed with the speech in general,

but it was a great, grand, proud, high, and intellectual effort,

at which every American might applaud, and I pardon Mrs. Gage for

the manner in which she speaks of it. She has not excelled me in

the tribute which I offer here to the honorable Senator from

Massachusetts, and which I am glad to lay at his feet: "I sat in

the Senate Chamber last winter, and heard Charles Sumner's grand

speech which the whole country applauded; and I heard him declare

that taxation without representation was tyranny to the

freedman."

That was the ring of that speech; that was its key-note; it was

the same key-note which stirred his forefathers in 1776; it was

the same bugle-blast which called them to the field of Lexington

and Bunker Hill ninety years ago; and it is no wonder that Mrs.

Gage picks that out as being the residuum, that which was left

upon her ear of substance after the music of the honorable

Senator's tones had died away, after the brilliancy of his

metaphors had faded, after the light which always encircles him

upon this subject had gone away. It is no wonder that all that

remained of it was that taxation without representation was

tyranny. Let me commend it to the honorable Senator, with his

keen eye, his good taste, his appreciation of that which is

effective, and that which strikes the American heart to the core;

let me commend it to him who desires to be the idol of that

heart.

"When"--Now, Mr. President, _sic transit gloria mundi_. "When I

afterwards found that he meant only freedom for the male sex, I

learned that Charles Sumner fell far short of the great idea of

liberty."

All this outpouring, all this magnificent burst of eloquence, all

this eclectic combination drawn from all the quarters of the

earth, all the sublime talk about the ballot, was merely meant

for the question of trousers and petticoats? "Tyranny to the male

sex," says Mrs. Gage, and now she goes on, and this right to the

point. The proposition here is to give to the male freedman a

vote and to ignore the female freedwoman, to be tautological: "I

know something of the freedwomen South. Maria--I do not know that

she had any other name--when liberated from slavery at Beaufort

went to work, and before the year was out she had laid up

$1,000."

That is a magnificent Maria, that is a practical Maria. She puts

Sterne's Maria and all other Marias, except Ave Maria, in the

shade. [Laughter].

"I never heard of any southern white making $1,000 in a year down

there. Shall Maria pay a tax and have no voice?" Shall Maria pay

a tax and have no voice where the principle is admitted, where

the principle is thundered forth, where it is axiomatic, where

none dare gainsay it, that taxation without representation is

tyranny? "Shall Maria pay a tax and have no voice?" That is the

question. That, Mr. President, is the question before the Senate.

"Old Betty"--There is not so much of the classic, not so much of

the euphonious, not so much of the _salva rosa_ about Betty as

about Maria--"Old Betty, while under my charge, cleared more than

that amount free from taxation, and I presume is worth $3,000

to-day."

Think of Betty! "Is she to be taxed in South Carolina to support

the aristocracy?" Betty lives in South Carolina, it seems. "Will

you be just, or will you be partial to the end of time!"

The marriage relation was alluded to by Mrs. Gage.

And here is a most important part, to which I would direct the

attention of my brother Senators as fundamental in two

respects--fundamental in the testimony it furnishes of the

character of those you now propose to invest with the right of

suffrage, fundamental in its character as to the use which they

will make of it as to one-half of the people who are in this bill

presumed to be the objects of your especial care. The marriage

relation was alluded to by Mrs. Gage. "When the positive order

was sent to me to compel the marriage of the colored people

living together, the women came to me with tears, and said, 'We

don't want to be married in the church, because when we are

married in the church our husbands treat us just as old massa

used to, and whip us if they think we deserve it; but when we

ain't married in the church they knows if they tyrannize over us

we go and leff 'em.'"

That is the class of male, gentlemen, to whom you propose to give

suffrage. These poor women who have to be whipped if the males

think they deserve it, are the people to whom you deny it. These

are the gentlemen who are to fabricate and make your laws of

marriage, who are to fix the causes of divorce in these several

States. These are the men, in other words, who are to enact, if

it so please them, that upon the marriage the husband becomes

seized of all his wife's property, of the personalty absolute and

the realty as tenant by courtesy; or perhaps they will have no

courtesy about it--and I should not wonder if they had not--and

give it to him in fee.

"And the men"--I beg the Senate to remember that I am reading the

testimony of Mrs. Gage; unexceptionable testimony: "And the men

came to me and said: 'We want you to compel them to be married,

for we can't manage them unless you do.'"

I am not certain whether they can always be managed even after

they are married. [Laughter]. But this is worse a great deal than

before: "'They goes and earns just as much money as we does, and

then they goes and spends it, and never asks no questions. Now we

wants 'em married in the church, 'cause when they's married in

the church we makes em mind.' So in San Domingo establishing the

laws of marriage made tyranny for these redeemed slave women."

Mrs. Gage continues: "I would not say one word against marriage,

God forbid. It is the noblest institution we have in this

country. But let it be a marriage of equality. Let the man and

woman stand as equals before the law. Let the freedwoman of the

South own the money she earns by her own labor, and give her the

right of suffrage; for she knows as much as the freedman. Bring

in these elements, and you will achieve a success. But I will

stand firmly and determinedly against the oppression that puts

the newly emancipated colored woman of South Carolina under

subjection to her husband required by the marriage laws of South

Carolina. I demand equality on behalf of the freedwoman as well

as the freedman."

I might follow Mrs. Gage further; I might detain the Senate here

hour after hour reading extracts from the various speeches and

essays which have been delivered and made upon this subject

within the last few years, and I may again make the challenge

which I made yesterday. Let us have a reason why these are not

potent to influence our action. Let us be told wherein the object

of this argument is defective. Let us be shown why it is, if

these things are rights, natural or conventional, that those who

have interests are not to participate in them.

I listened to the eloquent and ingenious remarks of my honorable

friend from Maine [Mr. Morrill]--old, time-worn, belonging to the

region of paleontology, far behind the carboniferous era. I would

not undertake to go back there and answer them. All I can do with

them is to refer them to the next meeting of the Equal Rights

Society, which more than likely will meet in Albany or Boston the

next time. There they will be attended to, and there they will be

answered in such satisfactory phrase, I have no doubt, as would

pale any poor effort of mine in the attempt. I have also listened

to my honorable friend from Oregon [Mr. Williams], and still

there are the same ancient foot-prints, the same old arguments,

the same things that satisfied men thousands of years ago, and

which never did satisfy any woman that I know of, the same

traveling continually of the tracks of the lion into the cave

along with his victim, and _nulla retrorsum vestigia_, not a step

ever came back. But let me say to my friends that Mrs. Elizabeth

Cady Stanton, Mrs. Frances D. Gage, Miss Susan B. Anthony, are

upon your heels. They have their banner flung out to the winds;

they are after you; and their cry is for justice, and you can not

deny it. To deny is to deny the perpetuity of your race.

Now, Mr. President, in regard to this District and this city,

here is a fair proposition. It proposes to confer upon all

persons above the age of twenty-one years the right to

participate in the city government. Is any one afraid of it? Is

my honorable friend from Maine afraid of it? He says it shall be

confined to the males. He and my friend from Oregon have gone on

to tell you that the white males of this city are in a very bad

condition; indeed, some of them in such a terrible condition that

we are called upon to pass a bill of attainder, or a bill of

pains and penalties, and a little _ex post facto_ law in order to

reach their tergiversations and perverseness. If that be true,

why not incorporate some other element? I do not know much about

the female portion of the negroes of this District except what I

have seen, and I must confess that although there are a great

many respectable persons among the negroes, and many for whom I

have considerable regard, yet as a mass they have not impressed

me as being a very high style of human development.

When I look along the pavements and about the walks and see them

lounging, I am free to say that, without having been previously

enlightened on the subject by so much as we have heard upon it

recently, I should have had great doubts about conferring on them

the right of suffrage. And when I reflect that they have a

Freedmen's Bureau to make their contracts for them and to keep

them in order, and, it is said, to protect them against the

enmity of their white neighbors, even where they have a majority,

or nearly a majority, I am not strengthened in my partiality for

them by that. And when I reflect that just about this time last

year we had great hesitation about adjourning, for fear that the

people represented by these males who are now to be invested with

the franchise were in an actually starving condition in this

District, and that the chief authorities of the District, moved,

I have no doubt, by that humanity which ought to characterize

them everywhere, investigated the matter and reported to us, we

were obliged to appropriate $25,000 to relieve them in their

immediate wants; I do not think that speaks so well for the male

portion of the African population of this city.

I believe if it were to come to the last resort, that the female

Africans of the District of Columbia have more merit, more

industry, more of all that which is calculated to make them good

and virtuous members of society than the males have. Why should

you not throw them in? Why should you throw this batch of males

into the ballot-box without any countervailing element which

would be efficacious to qualify it and make it better?

To me it is perfectly plain. I have reconciled my mind to negro

suffrage, but while I reconcile myself to negro suffrage as

inevitable, I hold it to be my bounden duty to insist upon female

suffrage at the same time. I am happy to say that in this opinion

I am not alone; that while I favor universal suffrage limited by

the age of twenty-one years so far, there are others who have

been led to this same train of thought with myself. I beg,

therefore, to read a letter dated Jefferson, Ohio, November 14,

1866:

"MADAM:--Yours of the 9th instant is received, and I desire

to say in reply that I am now and ever have been the

advocate of equal and impartial suffrage of all citizens of

the United States who have arrived at the age of twenty-one

years, who are of sound mind, and who have not disqualified

themselves by the commission of any offence, without any

distinction on account of race, color, or sex. Every

argument that ever has been or ever can be adduced to prove

that males should have the right to vote, applies with equal

if not greater force to prove that females should possess

the same right; and were I a citizen of your State I should

labor with whatever of ability I possess to ingraft those

principles in its constitution. Yours, very respectfully,

B. F. WADE.

"_To_ SUSAN B. ANTHONY,

_Secretary American Equal Rights Association_."

Now, Mr. President, I ask whether this has not an orthodox

sanction at least. I should like to know who would question, who

would dare to question, the orthodoxy of the honorable Senator

from Ohio, and who dares tell me that this is such a novelty that

it is not to be introduced here as serious, as in earnest? Sir, I

say that I am perfectly in earnest, and I say that if this

amendment be incorporated in this bill I shall vote for it with

all my heart and soul. I beg to be understood that I would not

inaugurate the movement, I would not make the change by my own

mere motion, because I would not venture upon the change

anywhere. That change must rise out of, spring out of, and come

up from society generally. It is that thing which the poet has

called the _vox populi_, and which he likens to the _vox Dei_.

When the community spontaneously demands this call, when the

community spontaneously demands this action, I yield to it. It is

so in this instance. While I yield to the demand for negro

suffrage, I demand at the same time female suffrage; and when I

yield to the question of manhood suffrage, I feel assured I throw

along the antidote to all the poison which I suppose would

accompany the first proposition.

I am not afraid of negro suffrage if you allow female suffrage to

go hand in hand with it. I believe that if there is any one

influence in the country which will break down this tribal

antipathy, which will make the two races one in political harmony

and political action, not in actuality as races by amalgamation,

but which will induce that harmony and that co-operation which

may bring about the highest state, perhaps, of social

civilization and development, it is the fact that woman and not

man must interfere in order to smooth the pathway for these two

races to go along harmoniously together. And it is for that

reason that I insist that when you do make this step, this step

forward which once made can never be retrieved, you must do that

other thing which assures its success after it is made. Let the

negro male vote now, and you open the arena of strife and

contention; let both sexes vote, and then you close that arena of

strife, you bring in that element which subdues all strife, which

has made America what she is, which has made the American

political meeting, which has made the American political

convention, not the scene of strife or angry contention, where

armed men met together to settle political differences, as in the

Polish Diet, but a convention where all were subjected to reason,

influenced, as it might properly be, by eloquence and by that

"feast of reason" which is "the flow of the soul" to those who

enjoy it. And therefore, Mr. President, I beg to assure

everybody, and especially my honorable friend from Rhode Island,

who agrees with me, I know, upon this topic, that I am serious

and in earnest in urging this amendment; in dead earnest, in good

earnest, and why not? I am not so blind as to mistake the signs

of the times.

I might have refused to believe long ago, when my honorable

friend from Ohio [Mr. Wade] predicted that this was coming. I

might have disbelieved when my honorable friend from

Massachusetts [Mr. Wilson] predicted this was coming; when he

blew his bugle-blast and announced what an army was coming behind

to enforce his doctrine and his principles. I might, like Thomas

of old, have doubted; but now I have had my fingers in the very

wounds of which he spoke. I know of a certainty now that this

movement is in progress, and that this movement will go on. I

know of a certainty that black men must vote in the District of

Columbia. Who can doubt it? Those who are in favor of that

measure here are in force sufficient to carry it constitutionally

beyond all question. Well, if it is to be I am reconciled to it,

but at the same time I want to throw about it as many safeguards

as are possible under the circumstances, and among those

safeguards I think that of allowing females suffrage to be not

only the best, but the only one which will be efficacious in this

behalf. Mr. President, I have trespassed a great deal longer upon

the Senate than I intended. I beg to return my thanks for the

indulgence they have exhibited in listening to what I had to say.

Mr. MORRILL: Mr. President, the honorable Senator began by saying

that he was in earnest, and he concludes by affirming the same

thing. Doubtless he had made the impression upon his own mind

that after all he had said, there might be a doubt in the minds

of the Senate on that point. Does any one who has heard the

speech, somewhat extraordinary, of the honorable Senator, suppose

that he is at all in earnest or sincere in a single sentiment he

has uttered on this subject? I do not imagine he believes that

any one here is idle enough for a moment to suppose so. Now, his

attempt at being facetious has not been altogether a failure. I

think he has succeeded in being amusing; he has evidently amused

himself; and if he could afford the sacrifice, I admit he has

amused the galleries and probably the most of us; but that he has

convinced anybody that he was arguing to enlighten the Senate or

the public mind on a question which he says is important, he does

not believe and he does not expect anybody else to believe it. If

it is true, as he intimates, that he is desirous of becoming a

Radical, I am not clear that I should not be willing to accept

his service, although there is a good deal to be repented of

before he can be taken into full confidence. [Laughter].

When a man has seen the error of his ways and confesses it, what

more is there to be done except to receive him seventy and seven

times? Now if this is an indication that the honorable Senator

means to out-radical the Radicals, "Come on, Macduff," nobody

will object provided you can show us you are sincere. That is the

point. If it is mischief you are at, you will have a hard time to

get ahead. While we are radical we mean to be rational. While we

intend to give every male citizen of the United States the rights

common to all, we do not intend to be forced by our enemies into

a position so ridiculous and absurd as to be broken down utterly

on that question, and whoever comes here in the guise of a

Radical and undertakes to practice that, probably will not make

much by the motion. I am not surprised that those of our friends

who went out from us and have been feeding on the husks, desire

to get in ahead; but I am surprised at the indiscretion and the

want of common sense exercised in making so profound a plunge at

once! If these gentlemen desire to be taken into companionship

and restored to good standing, I am the first man to reach out

the hand and say, "Welcome back again, so that you are repentant

and regenerated;" but, sir, I am the last man to allow that you

shall indorse what you call radicalism for the purpose of

breaking down measures which we propose!

So much for the radicalism of my honorable friend. Now, sir, what

is the sincerity of this proposition? What is the motive of my

honorable friend in introducing it? Is it to perfect this bill?

Is it to vindicate a principle in which he believes? Not a bit of

it. It is the old device of the enemy--if you want to defeat a

measure, make it as hateful and odious and absurd as possible and

you have done it. That is the proposition. Does he believe in the

absolute right of women to vote? Not a bit of it, for he has said

here time and again in the beginning, middle, and end of his

discourse that he does not believe a word of it.

Mr. COWAN: And never did.

Mr. MORRILL: He says it is no natural right whatever either to

man or woman, and therefore he does not stand here to vindicate a

right.

Mr. COWAN: I should like to ask the honorable Senator whether he

believes it is a natural right either in man or woman.

Mr. MORRILL: I have said distinctly on a former occasion that I

did not; and therefore I am not to be put in the attitude of so

arguing. The Senator does not believe that; he is not here urging

a principle in which he believes. What is he doing? Trying to do

mischief; trying to make somebody believe he is sincere. That is

labor lost here. It will not succeed, of course. Now, what is his

position? "I do not believe in woman suffrage, and do not believe

in negro suffrage, but if you will insist upon male negro

suffrage I will insist upon woman negro suffrage." That is his

position exactly. "If you insist that the male negro shall vote,

I insist the female shall." That is his attitude, nothing more

nor less. Mr. President, I do not think there is much force in

the position. He has not offered an argument on the subject. He

has read from a paper. He has introduced here the discourse of

some ladies in some section of the country, upon what they esteem

to be their own rights, in illustration; that is all; not as

argument; he does not offer it as an argument, but to illustrate

his theme and to put us in an attitude, as he supposes, of

embarrassment on that subject. He has read papers which are

altogether foreign from his view of this subject, and which he

for a moment will not indorse. He offers these as an illustration

with a view of illustrating his side of the question, and

particularly with a view of embarrassing this measure.

Mr. COWAN: Well, now, Mr. President, I desire to answer a

question of the Senator. He alleges that I am not serious in the

amendment I have moved, that I am not in earnest about it. How

does he know? By what warrant does he undertake to say that a

brother Senator here is not serious, not in earnest. I should

like to know by what warrant he undertakes to do that. He says I

do not look serious. I have not perhaps been trained in the same

vinegar and persimmon school [laughter]; I have not been

doctrinated into the same solemn nasal twang which may

characterize the gentleman, and which may be considered to be the

evidence of seriousness and earnestness. I generally speak as a

man, and as a good-natured man, I think. I hope I entertain no

malice toward anybody. But the honorable gentleman thinks I want

to become a radical. Why, sir, common charity ought to have

taught the honorable Senator better than that. I think no such

imputation, even on the part of the most virulent opponent that I

may have, can with any justice be laid to my door. I have never

yielded to his radicalism; I have never truckled to it. Whether

it be right or wrong, I have never bowed the knee to it. From the

very word "go" I have been a conservative; I have endeavored to

save all in our institutions that I thought worth saving.

I suppose, in the opinion of the gentleman, I have made

sacrifices. I suppose I am in the condition of Dr. Caius: "I have

had losses." Certainly if any man has given evidence of the

sincerity of his doctrines, I have done so; I have lost all of

that, perhaps, which the Senator from Maine may think valuable; I

have lost all the feathers that might have adorned my cap by

opposition to radicalism; and now I stand perfectly free and

independent upon this floor; free, as I supposed, not only from

all imputation of interest, but free from all imputation of

dishonor. I am out of the contest. If I had chosen to play the

radical; if I had chosen to out-Herod Herod, I could have

out-Heroded Herod perhaps as well as the honorable gentleman, and

I could have had quite as stern and vigorous a following as he or

any other man, more than likely without asserting any very large

amount of vanity to myself [Mr. Morrill rose]; but now, when I

stand here, as, I think, free, unquestionably free from all

imputation either of interest or dishonor, to be told this is--If

the Senator wants to say anything I will hear him.

Mr. MORRILL: The honorable Senator will allow me to say that I do

not think this line of argument is open to him, because to-day

once or twice he certainly repeated that this was a race of

radicalism, and he did not intend to be outdone. My remark was

predicated simply on the assumption of the honorable Senator that

he was disposed to enter into the race, and rather in a

disposition to welcome than discourage him.

Mr. COWAN: Mr. President, I agree that if you will allow the

gentleman to put arguments in my mouth, and to furnish me

theories as his fancy paints them, he can demolish them. I will

not agree that he is my master in any particular; but I do agree

that he can take a pair of old pantaloons out in the country and

stuff them, and make a man of straw, and that he can overthrow it

and trample upon it and kick it about with the utmost impunity.

But I do not choose to allow the honorable Senator to make either

my theories or my arguments, nor do I allow him to make

quotations from me unless he does it fairly. I gave utterance to

no such idea as that which he has just attributed to me. I did

not say that in this race of radicalism I was determined to be in

front. I said no such thing. I said that there was an onward

movement, that I yielded to that movement, and that while I

yielded to it against my own better opinion that any change was

impolitic, yet that change was inevitable, I wanted it to be as

perfect as possible, and I wanted it to be made with all the

safeguards possible.

That was my argument. I said so yesterday; I said so to-day; I

say so now; and I appeal to my friends here who have talked about

this onward movement, this progress of things, this inevitable

which was in the future, to stand now upon their theories and

upon their doctrines. That was my ground, ground simply stated,

and for that I am not to be charged here with a desire to

conciliate the honorable gentleman, or his faction, or his party,

or any other party in this country. Mr. President, I am not a

proud man, I hope; not a vain man, I hope; but I would rather be

deprived of the right of suffrage, high punishment as it is, I

would rather suffer all the penalties that would be inflicted

even by the most malignant lawgiver, than to cower or cringe or

yield to anything of mortal mould on this planet, except by

duress and by force. No man dare charge me with that. I have

endeavored to act here as an honest man feeling his own

responsibilities, feeling the responsibilities of the oath upon

him when he took it; obliged to interpret the Constitution as he

himself understands it; feeling that that Constitution was a

restraint upon him, a restraint upon the people, a restraint upon

everybody; that we were sent here for the purpose of standing

upon it even against the rage of the people, even against their

desire to trample it under foot. Feeling all these things, I

have stood here, and appeal to my fellow-Senators to know if any

one of them can say that at any time I have manifested the

smallest disposition to yield in any one particular. I scorn the

imputation; I would rather have the approval of my own

conscience, I would rather walk in the star-light and look up to

them and to the God who made me free and independent, than to

seek the highest station upon the earth by truckling to any man

or to any set of people, or giving up my free opinions.

And yet I propose not to be irrational in this matter. As I said

yesterday, and as I said to-day, I have struggled against change;

but if it is to be made I wish to direct it properly. I made in

my own person, two or three years ago, a motion which passed this

body by, I think, a vote of precisely two to one--I believe it

was 28 to 14--that the voters of the District of Columbia should

be confined to white males; but upon that occasion I stated--and

the debates will bear me out, I think--that if the door of the

franchise was to be opened, if it was thought that the safety of

the country required more people to cast ballots, more people to

enjoy this privilege, I would open it to the women of the country

sooner than I would open it to the negroes. I say so to-day. You

are determined to open it to the negroes. I appeal to you to open

it to the women. You say there is no danger in opening it to the

negroes. I say there is no danger then in opening it to the

women. You say that it is safe in the hands of the negroes. I say

it is equally safe in the hands of our sisters, and more safe in

the hands of our wives and our mothers. I say more to you. I say

you have not demonstrated that it is safe to confer the franchise

upon men just emerged from the barbarism of slavery; I say you

have not demonstrated that it is safe to give the ballot to men

who require a Freedmen's Bureau to take care of them, and who it

is not pretended anywhere have that intelligence which is

necessary to enable them to comprehend the questions which

agitate the people of this nation, and of which the people are

supposed to have an intelligent understanding. I say you have not

demonstrated all that; but you have expressed your determination.

You are determined to do it, and when you are determined to do it

I want to put along with that element, that doubtful element,

that ignorant element, that debased element, that element just

emerged from slavery, I want you to put along with it into the

ballot-box, to neutralize its poison if poison there be, to

correct its dangers if danger there be, the female element of the

country.

That is my position. If you abandon the whole project I have no

objection. I am willing to rest the safety of the country where

it is and has been so far. I am open to conviction, open to

argument, open to reason even upon that subject; but I am willing

to leave this question of suffrage where our fathers left it,

where the world leaves it to-day, where all wise men leave it.

If, however, it is to be opened, if there is to be a new era, if

political power is to be distributed _per capita_ according to a

particular age, then I am for extending it to women as well as

men. Let me tell the honorable Senator I am not alone in this

opinion; the Senator from Ohio with me is not alone; one of the

first intellects of this age, perhaps the first man of the first

country of the earth, is of the same opinion. I allude to John

Stuart Mill, of Great Britain. He is now agitating for this very

thing in England. So that it need not seem surprising that I

should be in earnest in this; and I trust that after the

explanation I have made of my position and my doctrines. I shall

not be charged either with insincerity or with a desire to

ingratiate myself with the majority of this body, with the

majority of the people, or with any one, because, thank God, I am

free from all entanglements of that kind at this present

speaking, and if I retain my senses I think I shall keep free.

Mr. WADE: Mr. President, I did not intend to say a word upon this

subject, because on the first day of the last session of Congress

I introduced the original bill now before the Senate, to which

the Committee have proposed several amendments, and that action

on my part I supposed demonstrated sufficiently to all who might

read the bill what were my views and sentiments upon the question

of suffrage; and, sir, they are of no sudden growth. I have

always been of the opinion that in a republican government the

right of voting ought to be limited only by the years of

discretion. I have always believed that when a person arrived at

the age when by the laws of the country he was remitted to the

rights of citizens, when the laws fixed the age of majority when

the person was supposed to be competent to manage his own

affairs, then he ought to be suffered to participate in the

Government under which he lives. Nor do I believe that any such

rule is unsafe. I imagine that safety is entirely on the other

side, for just in proportion as you limit the franchise, you

create in the same degree an aristocracy, an irresponsible

Government; and gentlemen must be a little tinctured with a fear

of republican sentiment when they fear the extension of the right

of suffrage.

If I believed, as some gentlemen do, that to participate in

Government required intellect of the highest character, the

greatest perspicacity of mind, the greatest discipline derived

from education and experience, I should be convinced that a

republican form of government could not live. It is because I

believe that all that is essential in government for the welfare

of the community is plain, simple, level with the weakest

intellects, that I am satisfied this Government ought to stand

and will stand forever. Who is it that ought to be protected by

these republican governments? Certainly it is the weak and

ignorant, who have no other manner of defending their rights

except through the ballot-box.

The argument for aristocracies and monarchies has ever been that

the masses of the people do not know enough to take care of the

high concerns of government. If they do not, the human race is in

a miserable condition. If, indeed, the great masses of mankind,

who are permitted to transact their own business, are incompetent

to participate in government, then farewell to the republican

system of government; it can not stand a day; it is a wrong

foundation. Our principles of government are radically wrong if

gentlemen's fears on this subject are well grounded. Thank God, I

know they are not. I know that all the defects and evils of our

Government have not come from the ignorant masses; but the frauds

and the devices of the higher intellects and the more cultivated

minds have brought upon our Government all those scars by which

it has been disfigured.

Why, sir, look at the administration of the Southern governments

in the seceded States, where their public men were advocates of

the doctrine that suffrage should be restricted, and generally

that republican governments were wrong. I had a great deal of

private conversation with the gentlemen who were formerly in

these halls representing those governments, and I hardly ever

conversed with a single man of them from that part of the country

who believed that a republican government could or ought to

stand. Some of them used to say, "How can the mechanic, how can

the laboring man understandingly participate in these high and

complicated affairs of Government?" Those men at heart were

aristocrats or monarchists; they did not believe in your

republican Government. I, on the other hand, believe that the

safety of our Government depends on unlimited franchise, or,

rather, I should say, on franchise limited only by that

discretion which fits a man to manage his own concerns. Let a man

arrive at the years of majority, when the Government and the

experience of the world say that he has attained to such an age

and such discretion that it is safe to intrust him with his own

affairs, and then if he can not be permitted to participate in

the Government, I say again, farewell to republican government;

it can not stand.

It was for these reasons that, when I introduced the original

bill, I put it upon the most liberal principles of franchise

except as to females. The question of female suffrage had not

then been much agitated, and I knew the community had not thought

sufficiently upon it to be ready to introduce it as an element in

our political system. While I am aware of that fact, I think it

will puzzle any gentleman to draw a line of demarkation between

the right of the male and the female on this subject. Both are

liable to all the laws you pass; their property, their persons,

and their lives are affected by the laws. Why, then, should not

the females have a right to participate in their construction as

well as the male part of the community? There is no argument that

I can conceive or that I have yet heard, that makes any

discrimination between the two on the question of right.

Why should there be any restriction? Is it because gentlemen

apprehend that the female portion of the community are not as

virtuous, that they are not as well-calculated to consider what

laws and principles of the Government will conduce to their

welfare as men are? The great mass of our educated females

understand all these great concerns of government infinitely

better than that great mass of ignorant population from other

countries which you admit to the polls without hesitation.

But, sir, the right of suffrage, in my judgment, has bearings

altogether beyond any rights of persons or property that are to

be vindicated by it. I lay it down that in any free community, if

any particular class of that community are excluded from this

right they can not maintain their dignity; it is a brand of Cain

upon their foreheads that will sink them into contempt, even in

their own estimation. My judgment is that if this right was

accorded to females, you would find that they would be elevated

in their minds and in their intellects. The best discipline you

can offer them would be to permit and to require them to

participate in these great concerns of Government, so that their

rights and the rights of their children should depend in a manner

upon the way in which they understand these great things.

What would be the effect upon their minds? Would it not be, I ask

you, sir, to lead them from that miserable amusement of reading

frivolous books and novels and romances that consume two-thirds

of their time now, from which they learn nothing, and draw their

attention to matters of more moment, more substance, better

calculated to well-discipline the mind? In my judgment it would.

I believe it would tend to educate them as well as the male part

of the population. Take the negroes, who, it is said, are

ignorant, the moment you confer the franchise on them it will

lead them to struggle to get an understanding of the affairs of

Government, so as to be able to participate intelligently in

them. They will then understand that they are made responsible

for the Government under which they live. In my judgment, this is

the reason why the fact exists, which is acknowledged everywhere,

that the great mass of our population rise immensely higher in

intellect and every quality that should adorn human nature, above

the peasantry and working-classes of the Old World. Why is this?

I think much of it results from the fact that the people of this

country are compelled to serve on juries, to participate in the

government of their own localities in various capacities, and

finally to take part in all the great concerns of Government.

That elevates a man, and makes him feel his own consequence in

the community in which he lives.