It is for these reasons as much as any other, that I wish to see

the franchise extended to every person of mature age and

discretion who has committed no crime. I know very well that

prejudices against female voting have descended legitimately to

us from the Old World; yea, more than anything else, from that

common law which we lawyers have all studied as the first element

in jurisprudence. That system of law really sank the female to

total contempt and insignificance, almost annihilated her from

the face of the earth. It made her responsible for nothing. So

far was she removed from participating in anything or being

responsible for anything, that if she even committed a crime in

the presence of her husband she was not by that old law

answerable for it. He was her guardian; he had the right to

correct her as the master did his slave in the South. Such was

the chivalry of that old common law from which we derive our

judicial education. A vast remnant of that old prejudice is still

lurking in the minds of our community. It is a mere figment of

proscription and nothing else, descended to us, and we have not

overcome it. It is not founded in reason; it is not founded in

common sense; and it is being done away with very fast too.

I know that those women who have taken these things into

consideration, with minds as enlightened and as intelligent as

our own, have done immense good to their sex by agitating these

great subjects against all the ridicule and all the contempt that

has been wielded against them from the time they commenced the

agitation. I know that in my own State we had, a few years ago, a

great many laws on our statute-book depriving females of a great

many rights without the least reason upon earth. Perhaps it was

because the question was not agitated, and because it did not

particularly concern the males, that they did not turn their

attention to it; but when agitated in the Women's Rights

Conventions that have been so abused and ridiculed throughout the

country, man could no longer shut his eyes to the glaring defects

that existed in our system, and our Legislature has corrected

many of those abuses, and placed the rights of the female upon

infinitely higher grounds than they occupied there thirty years

ago; I believe this remark is as applicable to many other States

as it is to Ohio. I tell you the agitation of these subjects has

been salutary and good; and our male population would no more go

back to divest women of the rights they have acquired, than they

would go back now to slavery itself, in the advance we have

lately made.

What do I infer, then, from all this? Seeing that their rights

rest upon the same foundation and are only kept down by

proscription and prejudice, I think I know that the time will

come--not to-day, but the time is approaching--when every female

in the country will be made responsible for the just government

of our country as much as the male; her right to participate in

the Government will be just as unquestioned as that of the male.

I know that my opinions on this subject are a little in advance

of the great mass, probably, of the community in which I live;

but I am advancing a principle. I shall give a vote on this

amendment that will be deemed an unpopular vote, but I am not

frightened by that. I have been accustomed to give such votes all

my life almost, but I believe they have been given in the cause

of human liberty and right and in the way of the advancing

intelligence of our age; and whenever the landmark has been set

up the community have marched up to it. I think I am advocating

now the same kind of a principle, and I have no doubt that sooner

or later it will become a fixed fact, and the community will

think it just as absurd to exclude females from the ballot-box as

males.

I do not believe it will have any unfavorable effect upon the

female character, if women are permitted to come up to the polls

and vote. I believe it would exercise a most humane and

civilizing influence upon the roughness and rudeness with which

men meet on these occasions, if the polished ladies of the land

would come up to the ballot-box clothed with these rights and

participate in the exercise of the franchise. It has not been

found that association with ladies is apt to make men rude and

uncivilized; and I do not think the reflex of it prevents that

lady-like character which we all prize so highly. I do not think

it has that effect. On the other hand, in my judgment, if it was

popular to-day for ladies to go to the polls, no man would regret

their presence there, and the districts where their ballots were

given would be harmonized, civilized, and rendered more

gentlemanly, if I may say so, on the one side and on the other,

and it would prevent the rude collisions that are apt to occur at

these places, while it would reflect back no uncivilizing or

unlady-like influence upon the female part of the community. That

is the way I judge it. Of course, as it has never been tried in

this country, it is more or less of an experiment; but here in

this District is the very place to try your experiment.

I know that the same things were said about the abolition of

slavery. I was here. Gentlemen know very well that there was a

strong desire entertained by many gentlemen on this floor that

emancipation, if it took place, should be very gradual, very

conservative, a little at a time. I was the advocate of striking

off the shackles at one blow, and I said that the moment you

settled on that the community would settle down upon this

principle of righteousness, justice, and liberty, and be

satisfied with it, but just as long as you kept it in a state of

doubt and uncertainty, going only half way, just so long it would

be an irritating element in our proceedings. It is just so now

with this question. Do not understand that I expect that this

amendment will be carried. I do not. I do not know that I would

have agitated it now, although it is as clear to me as the sun at

noonday, that the time is approaching when females will be

admitted to this franchise as much as males, because I can see no

reason for the distinction. I agree, however, that there is not

the same pressing necessity for allowing females as there is for

allowing the colored people to vote, because the ladies of the

land are not under the ban of a hostile race grinding them to

powder. They are in high fellowship with those who do govern,

who, to a great extent, act as their agents, their friends,

promoting their interests in every vote they give, and,

therefore, communities get along very well without conferring

this right upon the female. But when you speak of it as a right,

and as a great educational power in the hands of females, and I

am called on to vote on the subject, I will vote that which I

think under all circumstances is right, just, and proper. I

shrink not from the question because I am told by gentlemen that

it is unpopular. The question with me is, is it right? Show me

that it is wrong, and then I will withhold my vote; but I have

heard no argument that convinces me that the thing is not right.

There has been something said about this right of voting, as to

whether it is a natural or a conventional right. I do not know

that there is much difference between a natural and a

conventional right. Right has its hold upon the conscience in the

inevitable fitness of things, and whether it springs from nature

or from any other cause right is right, and a conventional right

is as sacred as a natural right. I can not distinguish them; I

know of no difference between them. It certainly does not seem to

me that it would be right now if a new community is about to set

up a government, for one-third of them to seize upon that

government and say they will govern, and the rest shall have

nothing to do with it. It seems to me there is a wrong done to

those who are shut out from any participation in the Government,

and that it is a violation of their rights; and what odds does it

make whether you call it a natural, or conventional, or

artificial right? I contend that when you set up a Government you

shall call every man who has arrived at the years of discretion,

who has committed no crime, into your community and ask him to

participate in setting up that Government; and if you shut him

out without any reason, you do him a wrong, one of the greatest

wrongs that you can inflict upon a man. If it is to be done to me

or to my posterity, I say to you take their lives, but do not

deprive them of the right of standing upon the same foothold,

upon the same platform in their political rights with any other

man in the community. I will compromise no such principles. I

contend before God and man ever, always, that they shall stand

upon the same platform in setting up their governments, and in

continuing them after they are set up, and I will brand it as a

wrong and an injustice in any man to deprive any portion of the

population, unless it be for crime or offence, from participating

in the Government to the same extent that he participates

himself. If they are ignorant, so much the greater necessity that

they have this weapon in their hands to guard themselves against

the strong. The weaker, the more ignorant, and the more liable

they are to be imposed upon, the greater the necessity of having

this great weapon of self-defence in their hands.

I know very well that great prejudices have existed against

colored people; but my word for it, the moment they are admitted

to the ballot-box, especially about the second Tuesday of October

in our State, you will find them as genteel a set of men as you

know anywhere; as much consideration will be awarded to them;

they will be men; they will be courted; their rights will be

awarded to them; they will be made to feel, and it will go abroad

that they are not the subjects of utter contempt that can be

treated as men see fit to treat them; but they will rise in the

scale of the community, and finally occupy a platform according

to their merits, which they never can obtain; and you will never

be able to make anything of any portion of the community black or

white, while you exclude them from the ballot-box.

These, sir, are the reasons why I introduce this bill, and to

vindicate them I have spoken. I know I am not able to set forth

anything new on this subject. Every American citizen has

reflected upon it until his mind is made up, and the thing itself

is so universally approved by our community, that the only wonder

is that when we propose to extend this franchise to all the

people alike anybody is found in opposition to it.

Mr. YATES: Mr. President, I propose to occupy the time of the

Senate for but a few moments by way of explanation of my position

on this subject. Honorable Senators seem to think there is some

little embarrassment in the position in which we are placed upon

this question. There is certainly none whatever to my mind. I

must confess, after an examination of this question, that

logically there are no reasons in my mind which would not permit

women to vote as well as men, according to the theory of our

Government--a Government of the people, by the people, and for

the people.

But, sir, that question as to whether ladies shall vote or not is

not an issue now. That was not the question at the last election.

That was not the question that was argued in another part of this

Capitol. That was not embraced in the bill now before us for

consideration. Questions of a different character engross our

attention; and, sir, we have but one straightforward course to

pursue in this matter. While I may and do indorse, I believe,

substantially all that my honorable friend from Ohio has said,

and while I can not state perhaps a good reason why under our

form of government all persona, male and female, should not

exercise the right of suffrage, yet we have another matter on

hand now. We have fought the fight, and our banners blaze

victoriously in the sky. The honorable Senator from Pennsylvania

stands humbled and overcome at his defeat, and he might just as

well bow his head before the wheels of that Juggernaut of which

he spoke, which has crushed him to the earth, and say, let the

_vox populi_, which is the _vox Dei_, be the rule of this land.

I believe that this issue will come, and if the gentleman

proposes to make it in the next elections, I shall be with him

perhaps on the question of universal suffrage; for, sir, I am for

universal suffrage. I am not for qualified suffrage; I am not for

property suffrage; T am not for intelligent suffrage, as it is

termed; but I am for universal suffrage. That is my doctrine.

But, sir, when it is proposed to crush out the will of the

American people by an issue which certainly is not made in

sincerity and truth, then I have no difficulty whatever. While I

do not commit myself against the progress of human civilization,

because I believe that time is coming, in voting "no" on this

amendment I only vote to maintain the position for which I have

fought, and for which my State has fought. My notions are

peculiar on this subject. I confess that I am for universal

suffrage, and when the time comes I am for suffrage by females as

well as males; but that is not the point before us.

Mr. WILSON: The Senator from Pennsylvania demands that I shall

express my concurrence in or my opposition to his amendment. I

tell him, without the least hesitation, I shall vote against it.

I am opposed to connecting together these two questions,

enfranchisement of black men and the enfranchisement of women,

and therefore shall vote against his amendment.

These ladies in the conventions recently held seem to have made a

great impression upon the Senator from Pennsylvania. While I

heard him reading their speeches, I could not but regret that the

Senator had not read the speeches of some of those ladies and the

speeches of some of those gentlemen who attended those recent

meetings, before he came into the Senate. If he had read the

speeches of the ladies and gentlemen who have attended these

conventions during the past few years, their speeches might have

made as great an impression on him at an earlier day as they seem

to have done at this; and if they had done so, the Senator might

have made a record for liberty, justice, and humanity he would

have been proud of after he leaves the Senate. I have, sir, quite

the advantage of the honorable Senator. I have been accustomed to

attend the meetings of some of these ladies and gentlemen for

many years, and read their speeches too. I read these speeches

for the freedom of all, and for the enfranchisement of all, woman

included. Before I came to the Senate of the United States, I

entertained the conviction that it would be better for this

country, that our legislation would be more humane, more for

liberty, more for a high civilization, if the women of the

country were permitted to vote, and every year of my life has

confirmed that conviction. I have been more than ever convinced

of it since I have read the opinions of one of the foremost men

of this or any other age--John Stuart Mill.

But I say to the Senator from Pennsylvania that while these are

my opinions, while I will vote now or at any time for woman

suffrage, if he or any other Senator will offer it as a distinct,

separate measure, I am unalterably opposed to connecting that

question with the pending question of negro suffrage. The

question of negro suffrage is now an imperative necessity; a

necessity that the negro should possess it for his own

protection; a necessity that he should possess it that the nation

may preserve its power, its strength, and its unity. We have

fought that battle, as has been stated by the Senator from

Illinois; we have won negro suffrage for the District of

Columbia, and I say I believe we have won for all the States; and

before the 4th of March, 1869, before this Administration shall

close, I hope that the negro in all the loyal States will be

clothed with the right of suffrage. That they will be in the ten

rebel States I can not doubt, for patriotism, liberty, justice,

and humanity demand it.

This bill, embodying pure manhood suffrage, is destined to become

the law in spite of all opposition and all lamentations. I am

opposed, therefore, to associating with this achieved measure the

question of suffrage for women. That question has been discussed

for many years by ladies of high intelligence and of stainless

character--ladies who have given years of their lives to the

cause of liberty, to the cause of the bondman, to the cause of

justice and humanity, to the improvement of all and the elevation

of all. No one could have heard them or have read their speeches

years ago, without feeling that they were in earnest. They have

made progress; these women have instructed the country; women,

and men too, have been instructed; progress is making in that

direction; but the public judgment is not so pronounced in any

one State to-day in favor of woman suffrage, as to create any

large and general movement for it. Time is required to instruct

the public mind and to carry forward and to concentrate the

public judgment in favor of woman suffrage. All public men are

not in its favor as is the Senator from Ohio, as has already been

proved in this debate. I am, therefore, sir, for keeping these

questions apart. I am for securing the needed suffrage for the

colored race. I am for enfranchising the black man, and then if

this other question shall come up in due time, and I have a vote

to give, I shall be ready to give my vote for it. But to vote for

it now is to couple it with the great measure now pressing upon

us, to weaken that measure and to endanger its immediate triumph,

and therefore I shall vote against the amendment proposed by the

Senator from Pennsylvania, made, it is too apparent, not for the

enfranchisement of woman, but against the enfranchisement of the

black man.

Mr. JOHNSON: The immediate question before the Senate, I

understand, is upon the amendment offered by the honorable member

from Pennsylvania, which, if I am correctly informed, is to

strike out the word "male," so as to give to all persons,

independent of sex, the right of voting. It is, therefore, a

proposition to admit to the right of suffrage all the females in

the District of Columbia who may have the required residence and

are of the required age. I am not aware that the right is given

to that class anywhere in the United States. I believe for a very

short time--my friend from New Jersey will inform me if I am

correct--it was more or less extended to the women of New Jersey;

but, if that be an exception, it is, as far as I am informed, the

only exception; and there are a variety of reasons why, as I

suppose, the right has never been extended as now proposed.

Ladies have duties peculiar to themselves which can not be

discharged by anybody else; the nurture and education of their

children, the demands upon them consequent upon the preservation

of their household; and they are supposed to be more or less in

their proper vocation when they are attending to those particular

duties. But independent of that, I think if it was submitted to

the ladies--I mean the ladies in the true acceptation of the

term--of the United States, the privilege would not only not be

asked for, but would be rejected. I do not think the ladies of

the United States would agree to enter into a canvass, and to

undergo what is often the degradation of seeking to vote,

particularly in the cities, getting up to the polls, crowded out

and crowded in. I rather think they would feel it, instead of a

privilege, a dishonor. There is another reason why the right

should not be extended to them, unless it is the purpose of the

honorable member and of the Senate to go a step further. The

reason why the males are accorded the privilege, and why it was

almost universal in the United States with reference to those of

a certain age, is that they may be called upon to defend the

country in time of war or in time of insurrection. I do not

suppose it is pretended that the ladies should be included in the

militia organization or be compelled to take up arms to defend

the country. That must be done by the male sex, I hope.

But I rose not so much for the purpose of expressing my own

opinion, or reasoning rather upon the opinion, as to refer to a

sentence or two in a letter written many years ago, by the elder

Adams, to a correspondent in Massachusetts. It was proposed at

that time in Massachusetts to alter the suffrage. It was then

limited in that State. That limitation, it was suggested, should

be taken away in whole or in part, and the correspondent to whom

this letter was addressed seems to have been in favor of that

change. Mr. Adams, under date of the 26th of May, 1776, writes to

his correspondent, Mr. James Sullivan, a name famous in the

annals of Massachusetts, and well known to the United States, a

long letter, of which I shall read only a sentence or two. It is

to be found in the ninth volume of the works of John Adams,

beginning at page 375. In that letter Mr. Adams, among other

things, says: "But let us first suppose that the whole community,

of every age, rank, sex, and condition, has a right to vote. This

community is assembled. A motion is made and carried by a

majority of one voice. The minority will not agree to this.

Whence arises the right of the majority to govern and the

obligation of the minority to obey?

"From necessity, you will say, because there can be no other

rule. But why exclude women?

"You will say, because their delicacy renders them unfit for

practice and experience in the great businesses of life and the

hardy enterprises of war, as well as the arduous cares of state.

Besides, their attention is so much engaged with the necessary

nurture of their children, that nature has made them fittest for

domestic cares. And children have not judgment or will of their

own. True."

And he closes the letter by saying: "Society can be governed only

by general rules. Government can not accommodate itself to every

particular case as it happens, nor to the circumstances of

particular persons. It must establish general comprehensive

regulations for cases and persons. The only question is, which

general rule will accommodate most cases and most persons. Depend

upon it, sir, it is dangerous to open so fruitful a source of

controversy and altercation as would be opened by attempting to

alter the qualifications of voters; there will be no end of it.

New claims will arise; women will demand a vote; lads from twelve

to twenty-one will think their rights not enough attended to; and

every man who has not a farthing will demand an equal voice with

any other in all acts of state. It tends to confound and destroy

all distinctions, and prostrate all ranks to one common level."

The honorable member from Ohio seems to suppose that the right

should be given as a means, if I understood him, of protecting

themselves and as a means of elevating them intellectually. I had

supposed the theory was that the woman was protected by the man.

If she is insulted she is not expected to knock the man who

insults her down, or during the days of the duello to send him a

challenge. She goes to her male friend, her husband or brother or

acquaintance. Nature has not made her for the rough and tumble,

so to speak, of life. She is intended to be delicate. She is

intended to soften the asperities and roughness of the male sex.

She is intended to comfort him in the days of his trial, not to

participate herself actively in the contest either in the forum,

in the council chamber, or on the battle-field. As to her not

being protected, what lady has ever said that her rights were not

protected because she had not the right of suffrage? There are

women, respectable I have no doubt in point of character, moral

and virtuous women no doubt, but they are called, and properly

called, the "strong-minded"; they are in the public estimation

contradistinguished from the delicate; they are men in women's

garb, ready, I have no doubt, such people would be--and I deem it

no disparagement to them; I have no doubt they are

conscientious--to go upon the battle-field. Such things have

happened. They are willing to take an insult, and horse-whip and

chastise the man who has extended the rudeness to them; but they

are exceptions to the softness which is the charm of the female

character. I appeal to my friend from New York [Mr. Morgan]--I

can speak for Baltimore--and to the member from Pennsylvania

[Mr. Cowan] who I suppose can speak for Philadelphia, would they

have their wives and their daughters seeking to get up to the

poll on a hotly-contested election, driven with indignation at

times from it, insulted, violence used to them, as is often the

case, rudeness of speech sure to be indulged in----

Mr. WADE: I should like to know if that is the character of your

city?

Mr. JOHNSON: Yes.

Mr. WADE: Then it is very different from the community in which I

live.

Mr. JOHNSON: I rather think you might make Cincinnati an

exception from what I have heard. I am not speaking for the

country, though I have seen it pretty rough in the country; and

they have been rough occasionally in Ohio. If they were all of

the same temper with my honorable friend who interrupts me of

course it would be different, and all could have their rights

accorded them.

Mr. COWAN: I should like to ask whether the presence of ladies on

an occasion of that kind would not tend to suppress everything of

that sort? Would it not turn the blackguard into a gentleman, so

that we should have nothing but good conduct?

Mr. JOHNSON: No, sir; you can not turn a blackguard into a

gentleman.

Mr. COWAN: Except by a lady.

Mr. JOHNSON: No, sir; by no means known to human power. There may

be some revulsion that will cause him to cease to be a blackguard

for the moment, but as to a lady making a gentleman of a man who

insults her it has not happened that I know of anywhere. He may

be made somewhat of a gentleman by being cowhided. But the

question I put I put in all seriousness. I have seen the

elections in Baltimore, where they are just as orderly as they

are in other cities; but we all know that in times of high party

excitement it is impossible to preserve that order which would be

sufficient to protect a delicate female from insult, and no lady

would venture to run the hazard of being subjected to the insults

that she would be almost certain to receive.

They do not want this privilege. As to protecting themselves, as

to taking a part in the Government in order to protect

themselves, if they govern those who govern, is not that

protection enough? And who does not know that they govern us?

Thank God they do. But what more right has a woman, as a mere

matter of right independent of all delicacy, to the suffrage than

a boy who is just one day short of twenty-one? You put him in

your military service when he is eighteen; you may put him in it

at a younger age if you think proper; but you will not let him

vote. Why? Only upon moral grounds; that is all; not because that

boy may not be able to exercise the right, but because, in the

language of Mr. Adams, there must be some general rule, which

must be observed, because in the absence of such general rule, if

you permit excepted cases you might as well abolish all rules,

and then where are we, as he properly asks.

I like to learn wisdom from the men of 1776. I know we have had

the advantage of living in an age which they did not witness. I

have lived a good many years and watched the public men of the

day, and I do not think, and I have never been able with all my

disposition to think that we are any better than were the men of

1776 and our predecessors on this floor, the men who participated

in the deliberations of the Convention which led to the adoption

of the Constitution of the United States, the men who were the

authors of the State papers which were issued during that period,

and which filled the world with admiration and amazement.

From the days of colonization down to the present hour no such

proposition as this has received, so far as I am aware, any

support, unless it was for a short time in the State of New

Jersey. It has nothing to do with the right of negroes to vote.

That is perfectly independent. If I desired because I am opposed

to that to defeat the bill, I might perhaps, as a mere party

scheme, as a measure known to party tactics which govern

occasionally some--I do not say that they have not governed me

heretofore--vote for this amendment with a view to defeat the

bill: but I have lived to be too old and have become too well

satisfied of what I think is my duty to the country to give any

vote which I do not believe, if it should be supported by the

votes of a sufficient number to carry the measure into operation,

would redound to the interests and safety and honor of the

country.

Mr. WADE: The gentleman seems to suppose that the only reason

females should have the right to vote is that they might defend

themselves with a cowhide against those who insult them. I do not

suppose that giving them the right to vote will add anything to

their physical strength or courage. That is the argument of the

Senator, and the whole of his argument: but I did not propose

that they should vote on such hypothesis or with any view that it

should have any such effect. But I do know that as the law stood

until very recently in many of the States a husband was not the

best guardian for his wife in many cases, and frequently the

greatest hardships that I have ever known in the community have

arisen from the fact that a good-for-nothing, drunken, miserable

man had married a respectable lady with property, and your law

turned the whole of it right over to him and left her a pauper at

his will. While I was at the bar I was more conversant with the

manner in which these domestic affairs were transacted than I am

now; and I knew instances of the greatest hardship arising from

the fact that the law permitted such things to be done. I have

known a drunken, miserable wretch of a husband take possession of

a large property of a virtuous, excellent woman, who had a family

of small children depending upon her, and turn her out to support

her family by sewing and by manual labor; and it is not an

uncommon case. The legislators, the males having the law-making

power in their hands, especially were not very prompt to correct

these evils; they were very slow in doing so. They continued from

the old common law, when the memory of man did not run to the

contrary, down to a time that is within the recollection of us

all; and I do not know but that in some of the States this absurd

rule prevails even now. It would not have prevailed if ladies had

been permitted to vote for their legislators. They would have

instructed them, and would have withheld their votes from every

one who would not correct these most glaring evils.

The Senator tells us that the community in which he lives is so

barbarous and rude that a lady could not go to the polls to

perform a duty which the law permitted without insult and

rudeness. That is a state of things that I did not believe

existed anywhere. I do not believe that it exists in Baltimore

to-day. I do not believe if the ladies of Baltimore should go up

to the polls clothed with the legal right to select their own

legislators that there is anybody in Baltimore who would insult

them on their way in performing that duty. I do not believe that

our communities have got to that degree of depravity yet that

such kind of rascally prudence is necessary to be exercised in

making laws. On the other hand, I have always found wherever I

have gone that the rude and the rough in their conduct were

civilized and ameliorated by the presence of females; for I do

believe, as much as I believe anything else, that, take the world

as it is, the female part of it are really more virtuous than the

males. I think so; and I think if we were to permit them to have

this right, it would tend to a universal reform instead of the

reverse; and I do not believe any lady would be insulted in any

community that I know anything about while on her way to perform

this duty.

As I can see no good reason to the contrary, I shall vote for

this proposition. I shall vote as I have often voted, as the

Senator from Massachusetts has often voted, what he believed to

be right; not because he believed a majority were with him, but

because he believed the proposition which he was called upon to

vote for was right, just, and proper. It is because I can not see

that this is not so that I vote for it. It comes from a Senator

who does not generally vote with us; it is a proposition unlooked

for from his general course of action in this body, being, as he

says, on the conservative list, and generally for holding things

just as they are. Well, sir, I am for holding them just as they

are, when I think they are right, and when I think they are not,

I am for changing them and making them right. I do not think it

is right to exclude females from the right of suffrage. As I said

before, I do not expect that public opinion will be so correct at

this time that my vote will be effective; but nevertheless it

would be no excuse for me that I did not do my part toward

effecting a reform that I think the community requires, because I

did not see that the whole world was going with me. I do not wait

for that. I am frequently in minorities. I would as lief be there

as anywhere else, provided I see that I am right; and I do not

wait for the majority to go with me when I think a proposition is

right. Therefore I shall vote for this amendment if nobody else

votes for it, trusting that if I am right the world will finally

see it and come up to the mark where I am; if I am wrong, on

further investigation and further thought I shall be left in the

lurch. Believing that I am right, and believing that the world

will come up to this standard finally, I am ambitious to make my

mark upon it right here.

Mr. FRELINGHUYSEN: Mr. President, the Senator from Maryland has

made an inquiry as to the law of New Jersey in reference to women

voting. There was a period in New Jersey when, in reference to

some local matters, and those only, women voted; but that period

has long since passed away; and I think I am authorized in saying

that the women of New Jersey to-day do not desire to vote. Sir, I

confess a little surprise at the remark which has been so

frequently made in the Senate, that there is no difference

between granting suffrage to colored citizens and extending it to

the women of America. The difference, to my mind, is as wide as

the earth. As I understand it, we legislate for classes, and the

women of America as a class do vote now, though there are

exceptions from the peculiar circumstances of individuals. Do not

the American people vote in this Senate to-day on this question?

Do they not vote in the House of Representatives? So the women of

America vote by their faithful and true representatives, their

husbands, their brothers, their sons; and no true man will go to

the polls and deposit his ballot without remembering that true

and loving constituency that he has at home. More than that, sir,

ninety-nine out of a hundred, I believe nine hundred and

ninety-nine out of a thousand, of the women in America do not

want the privilege of voting in any other manner than that which

I have stated. In both these regards there is a vast difference

between the situation of the colored citizen and the women of

America.

But Mr. President, besides that, the women of America are not

called upon to serve the Government as the men of America are.

They do not bear the bayonet, and have not that reason why they

should be entitled to the ballot; and it seems to me as if the

God of our race has stamped upon them a milder, gentler nature,

which not only makes them shrink from, but disqualifies them for

the turmoil and battle of public life. They have a higher and a

holier mission. It is in retirement, to make the character of the

coming men. Their mission is at home, by their blandishments and

their love to assuage the passions of men as they come in from

the battle of life, and not themselves by joining in the contest

to add fuel to the very flames. The learned and eloquent Senator

from Pennsylvania said, yesterday, with great beauty, that he

wanted to cast the angel element into the suffrage system of

America. Sir, it seems to me that it would be ruthlessly tearing

the angel element from the homes of America, for the homes of the

people of America are infinitely more valuable than any suffrage

system. It will be a sorry day for this country when those vestal

fires of piety and love are put out. Mr. President, it seems to

me that the Christian religion, which has elevated woman to her

true position as a peer by the side of man from which she was

taken; that religion which is a part of the common law of this

land, in its very spirit and declarations recognizes man as the

representative of woman. The very structure of that religion

which for centuries has been being built recognizes that

principle, and it is written on its very door-posts. The woman,

it is true, was first tempted; but it was in Adam that we all

died. The angel, it is true, appeared to Mary; but it is in the

God-man that we are all made alive. I do not see that there is

any parity of reasoning between the case of the women of America,

entitling them or making it desirable that they should have

suffrage, and that of the colored citizens of the United States.

Mr. CONNESS: It does not appear that we can come to a vote

to-night upon this proposition, and I therefore rise to propose

an adjournment.

Mr. MORRILL: Perhaps we can get a vote on this simple amendment.

Mr. BROWN and others: Oh, no; let us adjourn.

Mr. MORRILL: I doubt whether there is any inclination to talk

further on this amendment, and I should be glad to get a vote on

it before we adjourn.

Mr. CONNESS: If the Senate will come to a vote, I will not move

an adjournment.

Mr. BROWN: Mr. President----

Mr. DOOLITTLE: If the honorable Senator from Missouri will give

way, I will renew the motion to adjourn.

Mr. BROWN: I do not care particularly to detain the Senate. I

have but a very few remarks to make.

Several SENATORS: Let us adjourn.

Mr. DOOLITTLE: If the honorable Senator will give way, I will

renew the motion to adjourn.

The PRESIDENT _pro tem._: Does the Chair understand the Senator

from Missouri as yielding the floor?

Mr. BROWN: Yes, sir.

Mr. DOOLITTLE: I move that the Senate do now adjourn.

The motion was agreed to; and the Senate adjourned.

In SENATE, WEDNESDAY, _December 12, 1866_.

Prayer by the Chaplain, Rev. E. H. Gray.

The Journal of yesterday was read and approved.

PETITIONS AND MEMORIALS.

The PRESIDENT _pro tem._: The Chair has received, and takes this

opportunity to lay before the Senate, the memorial of William

Boyd, of Washington City, District of Columbia, the substance of

which, stated in his own words, is:

I humbly ask your Honorable Body that you make no

distinctions in regard to either color or sex if you should

think proper to extend the elective franchise in this

District, which I beg of your Honorable Body to do

immediately; so that hereafter there shall be no distinction

of race or sex. I am among those who believe that slavery

will never die, until all laws are so constructed as to hold

all mankind as equal before the law.

SUFFRAGE IN THE DISTRICT.

The PRESIDENT _pro tem._: The unfinished business is the bill (S.

No. 1) to regulate the elective franchise in the District of

Columbia which is now before the Senate as in Committee of the

Whole. The pending question is on the motion of the Senator from

Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan], to amend the amendment reported by the

Committee on the District of Columbia, by striking out in the

second line of its first section the word "male" before "person."

Upon this question the Senator from Missouri is entitled to the

floor.

Mr. BROWN: Mr. President, I do not believe that the pending

amendment to the bill extending the franchise to women in the

District of Columbia, offered by the Senator from Pennsylvania,

was designed to be carried out into practical legislation at this

time or in this connection. I think it was rather intended to

elicit an expression of opinion from members of the Senate upon

the general proposition involved. If it were to go into practical

effect, I am one of those who believe that it would be necessary

to accompany it by a good deal of other legislation to prevent it

from degenerating into abuse, and perhaps corrupting many of

those it designs to advance in position and influence. But

accepting the matter in the light which I have stated, for one I

am willing to express an opinion very freely on the subject. I

have to say then, sir, here on the floor of the American Senate,

I stand for universal suffrage, and as a matter of fundamental

principle do not recognize the right of society to limit it on

any ground of race, color, or sex. I will go further and say that

I recognize the right of franchise as being intrinsically a

natural right; and I do not believe that society is authorized to

impose any limitation upon it that does not spring out of the

necessities of the social state itself. These may seem, Mr.

President, extreme views, but they conform to the rigid logic of

the question, and I defy any Senator here who abides that logic

to escape that conclusion. Sir, I have been shocked, yes,

shocked, during the course of this debate at expressions which I

have heard so often fall from distinguished Senators, and

apparently with so little consideration of what the heresy

irresistibly leads to, saying in substance that they recognize in

this right of franchise only a conventional or political

arrangement that may be abrogated at will and taken from any;

that it is simply a privilege yielded to you and me and others by

society or the Government which represents society; that it is

only a gracious boon from some abstract place and abstract body

for which we should be proud and thankful; in other words, that

it is not a right in any sense, but only a concession. Mr.

President, I do not hold my liberties by any such tenure. On the

contrary, I believe that whenever you establish that doctrine,

whenever you crystalize that idea in the public mind of this

country, you ring the death-knell of American liberties. You take

from each, what is perhaps the highest safeguard of all, the

conviction that there are rights of men embracing their liberty

in society, and substitute a skepticism on all matters of

personal freedom and popular liberties which will lay them open

to be overthrown whenever society shall become sufficiently

corrupted by partyism or whenever constitutional majorities shall

become sufficiently exasperated by opposition.

Mr. President, so important, yea, so crucial, so to speak, do I

deem this position, that I trust I may be pardoned by the Senate

if I refer to the abstract grounds, the invincible agreement upon

which I deem it to rest. I do this the more readily because in my

belief the metaphysical always controls ultimately the practical

in all the affairs of life. Now, what are abstract rights? And

are there any intrinsic necessary conditions that go to

constitute liberty in society? I believe that there are, and that

those conditions are as determinable as the liberties they

protect. The foundation upon which all free government rests, and

out of which all natural rights flow as from a common center, has

been well stated by Mr. Herbert Spencer in a late work on "Social

Statics," to be "the liberty of each limited by the like liberty

of all." As the fundamental truth originating and yet

circumscribing the validity of laws and constitutions, it can not

be stated in a simpler form. As the rule in conformity with which

society must be organized, and which distinguishes where the

rightful subordination terminates, and where tyranny, whether of

majorities or minorities, begins, it can not be too much

commended. "Every man has freedom to do all that he wills,

provided he infringes not the equal freedom of any other man," is

stated as the law of just social relationships, and in it the

rights of individual liberty of thought, of speech, of action,

find their complete expression. It will be observed that equality

is the essence of it all. In fact, any recognition of an

inequality of rights is fatal to liberty.

Observe, furthermore, that those rights inhere in the individual,

are part of his existence, and not the gift of any man or

aggregation of men. If they were, equality under a despotism

might find its justification in the postulate just as well as

equality under a republic. Cæsarean Democracy could claim like

paternity with American Democracy. The assumption, then, that

freedom in any of its forms is a privilege conceded by society is

utterly unwarrantable, because society itself is a concession

from the individual--the liberty of each limited by the like

liberty of all--and such limitation is what society or Government

represents. And it is in this sense, and flowing from this axiom,

that the rights of franchise originally appertain to all alike;

for franchise is in itself nothing more than a mode of

participating in the common Government, and represents only the

interest each has therein. That limitations may attach thereto,

just as they attach to freedom of speech or freedom of action, is

perfectly true; but they must be equal limitations, applicable to

all alike, growing out of the social relation, and not leveled at

the inherent right of any individual or class. Thus the exclusion

of criminals from the franchise, the designation of terms of

minority as connected with the exercise of political duties, the

regulation of the admission to citizenship of persons coming from

foreign countries, find their justification in a principle which,

so far from recognizing in Government or society a purely

arbitrary control of the rights and exercise of self-government

or personal liberty, brings it down within rigid and narrow

limits of equality and necessity.

There are those, and I am sorry some such have arisen in the

Senate to-day, who seek to escape this conclusion, and put the

blush upon all free government by affirming, as I have said, that

the right of franchise is a purely political right, neither

inherent nor inalienable, and may be divested by the citizen or

the State at will. The consideration mentioned, that the right of

franchise is neither more nor less than the right of

self-government as exercised through a participation in the

common government of all, shows, however, that if it be not a

natural right it will be difficult to say in what a natural right

consists. Indeed, it is perhaps the most natural of any of our

rights, inasmuch as its denial is the denial of all right to

personal liberty, for how can such latter right exist when the

right to maintain it among men and the societies of men is

denied? Again, if the right to share in the joint government is

not inherent, from whence does it come? Who can give the right to

govern another? and how can any give what he has not got? Society

is but the aggregate of individuals, and in its authority

represents only the conceded limitations on all, not any

reservoir of human rights, otherwise human rights would vary with

every changing association. Still again, if the right of a man as

regards Government can be divested either by himself or

Government at will, then Government has no limit to its rightful

tyranny--it may divest not only one man, but a hundred or a

thousand; indeed, why not all but the chosen few or the imperial

one, thus arriving logically at oligarchic or despotic rule. And

if a man may divest himself of this right, what right is sacred

from his renunciation? That a man may refuse to exercise any

right is true, and that in changing his abode he may sever his

political and social relations is equally true; but these facts

only prove that his natural rights inhere in his person, go with

him in his movement, subject always to be exercised under the

conditions and limitations before recited. After all, to

demonstrate the utter falsity and pernicious consequence of the

idea that the right to share in the common Government (which is

only a synonym for the right of franchise) is a privilege to be

farmed out by Government at discretion and to whom it chooses, it

is only necessary to ask, if that be so, whence comes the right

to representation? Wherein is the foundation for any democratic

society, predicated on the rights of individuals? That various

mixed Governments do undertake to limit the franchise to the few

as a privilege coming from the body-corporate, has nothing to do

with the question, for I am discussing now rights, not practices;

republics, not aristocracies.

Such I believe, Mr. President, to be the principles on which our

personal rights, our liberties in society repose. It is true the

argument carries us very far, but not farther, I apprehend, than

republican government must go whenever it undertakes to conform

its practice to its logic. And having examined the general

reasoning that controls the whole question of franchise, let me

now advert more particularly to the bearing of that argument upon

the proposition submitted by the Senator from Pennsylvania. I

know that many affirm that the results to which such reasoning as

that I have adduced would lead are themselves conclusive against

its force. But that is scarcely a fair mode of judging of the

strength and invincibility of any argument, far less one touching

interests so momentous in character. To give the objection its

greatest force it may be said, "If suffrage be the right of all

men, why is it not also the right of all women, of all children?"

"Are they not equally interested in good government, and are they

not equally capable of expressing through a vote their wish in

relation to public affairs?" "Do they not come within the

category, the equal liberty of each limited by the like liberty

of all, and if so, can the infringement of their liberty by

disfranchisement be justified!" To such questions, and, in fact,

to the whole inquiry, it may be replied that as freedom finds the

expression of its limits in the social relation itself, so long

as the marital and paternal state remain as they are now,

essential parts to that social relation, so long will there be

more or less of constraint involved in their expression through

governmental forms. And it may be added also that in so far as

marriage and paternity establish an identity of interest between

husband and wife, or parent and child, so far the participation

of the one in the Government is virtually the participation of

both, the franchise of one the franchise of both. Such identity

is not always true or equable, but it nevertheless approximates

truth, and is therefore the more readily accepted as such in

practical affairs.

That the rights of women, however, are intrinsically the same

with those of men, may not be consistently denied; and that all

the advance of modern civilization has been toward according them

greater equality of condition is attested by the current history

of every nation within its pale. Rights of married women and

minors are constantly finding new expression in our laws and new

force in our public opinion, which is only law in process of

formation. While it will not be necessary, therefore, to go into

those deeper and anterior questions of social life involving the

substitution of voluntary for compulsory modes which are

agitating so profoundly the intellect of this age, it is

important to note that of the three great departments of control

in human affairs, namely, morals or conscience, manners or

society, governments or laws, the two former have been

unreservedly conceded to the full and equal participation of

women. And furthermore, I venture to affirm with all confidence,

that although the social relation, as it embraces a recognition

of family dependence, may present obstacles to an equal influence

under present forms of government and to the full exercise of

citizen rights on the part of women, yet that the purity, the

refinement, the instinctive reading of character, the elegant

culture of the women of our land, if brought to bear upon the

conduct of political affairs, would do much to elevate them in

all their aims, and conform them to higher standards of justice.

Mr. President, I have listened in vain for the argument on which

is predicated the assertion that sex alone affords a rightful

ground for exclusion from the rights of franchise. I do not find

anything to justify that view, even in the position of those who

contend that franchise is a mere political privilege and not

founded in any right, for that would apply to men equally as to

women, and does not touch the question of relative rights. The

position would still remain to be established why the franchise

should be given to the one and not to the other. It would remain

still to present grounds of principle on which that right as such

may be denied to her and not denied to him. I have heard reasons

of policy, reasons of sentiment, reasons of precedent advanced to

justify this exclusion; but in all frankness, and with no

disrespect intended, I must say that those which have been

presented during this debate seem to me trivial, illogical, and

contradictory of one another.

First, it has been said that if women are entitled to the rights

of franchise they would correspondingly come under the obligation

to bear arms. But, sir, I do not know that there is any necessary

connection between the right of franchise and the requirement of

service in your army. On the contrary, I do know that all

Governments which have existed among men do now recognize the

fact that there is no necessary connection between the two; and I

do know that no Government has more distinctly recognized this

position than the Government of the United States. Are there not

large classes even among men in this country who are exempt from

service in our armies for physical incapacity and for other

reasons? And if exemptions which appertain to males may be

recognized as valid, why not similar exemptions for like reason

when applied to females? Does it not prove that there is nothing

in the argument so far as it involves the question of right?

There are Quakers and other religious sects; there are ministers

of the gospel--persons having conscientious scruples; indeed, all

men over a certain age who under the laws of many of the States

are released from service of that character. Indeed, it is the

boast of the republic that ours is a volunteer military

establishment. Hence I say there is nothing in the position that

because she may not be physically qualified for service in your

army, therefore you have the right to deny her the franchise on

the score of sex. It might be an inquiry of very great interest

and worthy of being pursued much further than I have the time or

the ability to pursue it just now, how far, if the ballot should

be extended to all the women in this land, it would go to modify

existing opinion and action and relationship among States so as

to obliterate in a great degree the very necessity for your army

and navy. I believe, sir, that a very large majority of the wars

that have been waged in this world have been wars that were

condemned by the moral sense of the nations on both sides; wars

that would have been terminated forthwith if that moral sense

could have had its rightful influence in controlling the affairs

of Government; and I say it is a question that is worthy of

consideration how far such an element introduced into your

political control would go to obviate these barbarous resorts to

force which you now deem essential and which we all deplore, but

which it is a folly, if not a crime, to say constitute a reason

woman should be denied any right to which she would be otherwise

entitled.

Mr. President, a second objection has been taken to any extension

of the franchise in this direction, and it is one that perhaps

has more seeming force in it than the other. It has been said

with a great deal of pathos by the Senator from New Jersey: what,

would you have your wives and your daughters mingle in the scenes

at the election-booths, go into the riotous demonstrations that

attend upon the exercise of the ballot, and become participants

in the angry and turbulent strifes that are so characteristic of

our political modes. I say with frankness that I would not have

wife or daughter mingle in any such scene; I would be loth to

have their purity and their virtue exposed to such demoralized

surroundings, surroundings that are only too apt to corrupt even

the males that mingle in the political arena. But, sir, I contend

that that is an argument against the ballot and the hustings and

the polling-booths, and not against the rights of woman. It is an

argument against those corruptions that you have permitted to

grow and fasten upon your political methods and appliances, and

not an argument against her rights as contrasted with the rights

of man. What! usurp an exclusive control--then degrade the modes

of exercising power, and after that say the degradation is reason

why the usurpation should continue unchallenged. What profanation

of the very powers of thought is that! On the contrary, I am

prepared to say that I see no reason, I never have seen any

reason, why there might not be changes introduced in your modes

of taking the sense of the community, of ascertaining public

opinion upon public measures, of making selection even of its

individuals for important offices, that would conform them far

more to those refinements and those elevations which should

characterize and control them, purifications that must render

them appropriate for participation in by the most refined of the

land, whether male or female. I see no reason why it should not

be done. The change has been constant already from the very

rudest forms to the forms which we now have, and which I am sorry

to say, are sufficiently rude to disgrace the civilization of the

age. Why not further amelioration and adaptation? Are we to have

no progress in the modes of government among men? Are we and

future generations to be ever imprisoned in the uncouth

alternative of monarchical or democratic forms as they now

obtain? I can not believe it. For five years past we have had

revolution enough among us to satisfy even the most conservative

that the present is no ultimatum, either of form or substance in

political or social affairs. I will go further and venture to

say, that there are now seething underneath all the forms of this

Government, revolutions still more striking than any one of us

have yet witnessed. Beneath all these methods and appliances of

administrations and controls among men, I believe there is under

our very feet a heaving, unsteady ocean of aroused questioning in

which many modes now practiced will sink to rise no more, and out

of which other adaptations will emerge that will render far more

perfect the reflection of the will of the people; that will

perhaps represent minorities as well as majorities; that will

disarm corruptions by dispensing with party organizations. It is

the very witching hour of change.

And, sir, I do not dread change. Why should we? Is not change the

primal condition on which all life is permitted to exist? Change

is the very essence of all things pure, the sign and token of the

divinity that is within us, and conservatism _per se_ is

infidelity against the ordination of God. When, therefore, we see

such change in all things that are around us, in fashions and

customs and laws and recognitions and intellectualities, even to

the supremest generalizations of science, in all things save the

elemental principles of our being and by consequence of our

rights, why shall we say that these forms into which we have cast

administration and government, shall not obey the great law of

development and take upon themselves ameliorations better suited

to the changing society of mankind, to the wants of a more

truthful representation, to the participation by all in the

Government that is over all. Mr. President, I am of those who

believe that they will. When I look around on the incongruities

and corruptions that surround our present system, when I see what

politics and government and administration actually are, if I

believed there was to be no progress in that direction I should

be bereft of all hope and desolate of faith. On the contrary,

methinks I can see in the adown vista of the future the golden

apples hanging on the tree of promise. It seems to me that the

light of the morning is already streaming in upon us that shall

illuminate further advancements in the science of government. And

why should not even Republican government take to itself other

modes of administration without infraction of its fundamental

liberties? Why should not large reductions transpire in those

opportunities that invite the most sinister combination for

offices and spoils? Is there any reason why the emoluments of

place should more than repay the labor it calls for? Is there any

reason why large abolitions of executive patronage may not

transpire; why Government may not generate through examining

commissioners, best agencies of its own for the functional work

it is called to perform, leaving appeals to the community to pass

rather upon controlling measures and general policies and

legislative functionaries? Is there any reason why that should

not take place? Sir, already, if I mistake not, in the large

cities of this land, which are the local points of your domestic

political system, the necessity for such a change is being felt

and acted upon, and large branches of executive work and

supervision are being necessarily put in commission. Mr.

President, I think what I have said sufficiently shows that the

argument which is advanced, that the present surroundings are

such that woman could not properly participate in your elections,

is an argument that does not go to the right of the woman, but

does go to the wrong of the man. It is a criticism, perhaps a

satire upon the civilization of your political system, not a

justification for any exclusions practiced under it.

There is one other line of remark that has been indulged in, and

only one other so far as I have heard, which calls for any

special rejoinder, and that affirms the precedents of the past to

be all against any such proposition as that now submitted. It is

said that there is no precedent, that it is not customary in any

of our governments, that it is not one of the recognitions of our

society, that it has never been signified as such in the past. I

do not know that such an argument amounts to anything at best,

but I do know that the allegation itself has no foundation in

fact. I know that in many cases and on many occasions this

impassable barrier that is now set forth as dividing the natural

rights of man and woman has been broken down and trampled upon,

and that, too, without any injury to the society from so doing.

Perhaps I can best illustrate this point by what an accomplished

lady, who has given much thought and research to the subject, has

presented. I read from a contribution she has made to one of our

leading public prints. She says:

So long as political power was of an absolute and hereditary

character women shared it whenever they happened, by birth,

to hold the position to which it was attached. In Hungary,

in some of the German States, and in the French Provinces to

this day, certain women, holding an inherited right, confer

the franchise upon their husbands, and in widowhood empower

some relative or accredited agent to be the legislative

protector of their property. In 1858, the authorities of the

old university town of Upsal granted the right of suffrage

to fifty women owning real estate, and to thirty-one doing

business on their own account. The representative that their

votes elected was to sit in the House of Burgesses. In

Scotland, it is less than a century since, for election

purposes, parties were unblushingly married in cases where

women conveyed a political franchise, and parted after the

election. In Ireland, the court of Queen's Bench, Dublin,

restored to women, in January, 1864, the old right of voting

for town commissioners. The Justice, Fitzgerald, desired to

state that ladies were also entitled to sit as town

commissioners, as well as to vote for them, and the

chief-justice took pains to make it clear that there was

nothing in the act of voting repugnant to their habits.

In November, 1864, the Government of Moravia decided that

all women who were tax-payers had the right to vote. In the

Government of Pitcairn's Island, women over sixteen have

voted ever since its settlement. In Canada, in 1850, a

distinct electoral privilege was conferred on women, in the

hope that thereby the Protestant might balance the Roman

Catholic power in the school system. I lived where I saw

this right exercised by female property holders for four

years. I never heard the most cultivated man, not even that

noble gentleman, the late Lord Elgin, object to its results.

In New Jersey, the Constitution adopted in 1776, gave the

right of suffrage to all inhabitants, of either sex, who

possessed fifty dollars in proclamation money. In 1790, to

make it clearer, the Assembly inserted the words "he or

she." Women voted there till 1838, when, the votes of some

colored women having decided an election, the prejudice

against the negro came to the aid of lordly supremacy, and

an act was passed limiting the right of suffrage to "free

white male citizens." In 1852, the Kentucky Legislature

conferred the right on widows with children in matters

relating to the school system. The same right was conferred

in Michigan; and full suffrage was given to women in the

State constitution submitted to Kansas in 1860.

I think that is a list of illustrations sufficient to dispose of

any argument that may arise on such a score. And now, Mr.

President, permit me to say, in concluding the remarks I have

felt called upon to make here, that I have spoken rather as

indicating my assent to the principle than as expecting any

present practical results from the motion in question. In the

earliest part of my political life, when first called upon to

represent a constituency in the General Assembly of Missouri, in

looking around, after my arrival at the seat of Government at

those matters that seemed to me of most importance in

legislation, I was struck with two great classes of injustices,

two great departments in which it seemed to me the laws and the

constitutions of my State had done signal wrong. Those were one

as respects the rights of colored persons; the other as respects

the rights of married women, minors, and females; and I there and

then determined that whenever and wherever it should be in my

power to aid in relieving them of those inequalities and those

injustices, I would do so to the extent of my humble ability.

Since then I have labored zealously in those two reforms as far

and as fast as a public opinion could be created or elicited to

enforce them, and I can say from my own observation that each

step of advance taken has been fruitful of all good and

productive of no evil. Emancipation of the colored race in

Missouri has been achieved in a most thorough manner,

substantially achieved even before the war; and to-day the

community is ripe for the declaration that all are created equal,

and that there is no reason to exclude from any right, civil or

political, on the ground of race or color. I feel proud to say

likewise that Missouri has gone further, and wiped from her

statute-book large portions of that unjust and unfair and

illiberal legislation which had been leveled at the rights and

the property of the women of the State. Believing that that cause

which embraces and embodies the cause of civil liberty will go

forward still triumphing and to triumph, I will never, so help me

God, cast any vote that may be construed as throwing myself in

the face of that progress. Even though I recognize, therefore,

the impolicy of coupling these two measures in this manner and at

this time, I shall yet record my vote in the affirmative as an

earnest indication of my belief in the principle and my faith in

the future.

Mr. DAVIS: Mr. President, our entire population, like that of all

other countries, is divided into two great classes, the male and

the female. By the census of 1860 the white female population of

the United States exceeded thirteen millions, and the aggregate

negro population, of both sexes, was below four and a half

millions. That great white population, and all its female

predecessors, have never had the right of suffrage, or, to use

that cant phrase of the day, have never been enfranchised; and

such has also been the condition of the negro population. That

about one negro in ten thousand in four or five States have been

allowed to vote, is too insignificant to be dignified with any

consideration as an exception. But now a frenzied party is

clamoring to have suffrage given to the negro, while they not

only raise no voice for female suffrage, but frown upon and repel

every movement and utterance in its favor. Who of the advocates

of negro suffrage, in Congress or out of it, dare to stand forth

and proclaim to the manhood of America, that the free negroes are

fitter and more competent to exercise transcendent political

power, the right of suffrage, than their mothers, their wives,

their sisters, and their daughters? The great God who created all

the races and in every race gave to man woman, never intended

that woman should take part in national government among any

people, or that the negro, the lowest, should ever have

co-ordinate and equal power with the highest, the white race, in

any government, national or domestic. To woman in every race He

gave correlative, and as high, as necessary, and as essential,

but different faculties and attributes, intellectual and moral,

as He gave to man in the same race; and to both, those adapted to

the equally important but different parts which they were to play

in the dramatic destinies of their people. The instincts, the

teachings of the distinct and differing, but harmonious organism

of each, led man and woman in every race and people and nation

and tribe, savage and civilized, in all countries and ages of the

world, to choose their natural, appropriate, and peculiar field

of labor and effort. Man assumed the direction of government and

war, woman of the domestic and family affairs and the care and

the training of the child; and each have always acquiesced in

this partition and choice. It has been so from the beginning,

throughout the whole history of man, and it will continue to be

so to the end, because it is in conformity to nature and its

laws, and is sustained and confirmed by the experience and reason

of six thousand years.

I therefore, Mr. President, am decidedly and earnestly opposed to

the amendment moved by my friend from Pennsylvania. There is no

man more deeply impressed with or more highly appreciates the

important offices which woman exercises over the destiny of race

than I do. I concede that woman, by her teachings and influence,

is the source of the large mass of the morality and virtue of man

and of the world. The benignant and humanizing and important

influence which she exercises upon the whole race of man in the

proper discharge of her functions and duties can not be

overestimated; but that woman should properly perform these great

duties, this inappreciably valuable task, it is necessary that

she should be kept pure. The domestic altar is a sacred fane

where woman is the high and officiating priestess. This priestess

should be virtuous, she should be intelligent, she should be

competent to the performance of all her high duties. To keep her

in that condition of purity, it is necessary that she should be

separated from the exercise of suffrage and from all those stern

and contaminating and demoralizing duties that devolves upon the

hardier sex--man.

What is the proposition now before the Senate? To make pure,

cultivated, noble woman a partisan, a political hack, to lead her

among the rabble that surround and control by blackguardism and

brute force so many of the hustings of the United States. Mr.

President, if one greater evil or curse could befall the American

people than any other, in my judgment it would be to confer upon

the women of America the right of suffrage. It would be a great

step in the line of mischief and evil, and it would lead to other

and equally fatal steps--in the same direction. Sir, if ever in

the depths and silence of night I send up my secret orisons to my

Maker, one of the most fervent of my prayers would be that the

women of my country should be saved and sheltered by man from

this great contamination. It is not necessary to the proper

influence and to the legitimate power of woman. A cultivated,

enlightened, delicate, refined, and virtuous woman at the family

altar is the persuasive and at the same time plastic power that

sways and fashions the principles and character of her children,

and thus makes her impress upon the future men of America, the

Phocians, the Timoleons, the Washingtons, who are the honor of

the race, and whose destiny it is to elevate and ennoble it. Mr.

President, in proportion as man becomes civilized so increases

the power and the influence of woman. In the tribes and nations

of the lowest ignorance and barbarism this influence is least--it

is most potent where there is the greatest intellectual and moral

cultivation of man. I want this gentle and holy influence to

continue pure and uncontaminated by keeping it within the

domestic fane and afar from party politics. But, sir, it has

become the fashion, the philosophy, the frenzy of the day to coin

catch-words that carry a seemingly attractive principle, but at

the same time alluring and mischievous, and among them is this

cry for woman's rights and also for negro suffrage and manhood

suffrage and universal suffrage. It is all nothing but slang and

demagoguery, and is fraught with naught but evil, mischief, and

degradation, individually and nationally. For these reasons, sir,

one of the last propositions, or if gentlemen choose, principles

which have been or may be propounded to the people of America, or

as an amendment to the Constitution of the United States, to

which I shall ever give my acceptance, is female suffrage.

I do not deny that our national family properly and wisely

comprehends all of the nationalities of Europe who may come here,

according to the terms of our naturalization laws, and their

posterity; but I assert that negroes, Indians, Mongolians,

Chinese, and Tartars ought not and can not safely be admitted to

the powers and privileges of citizenship.

I have no doubt that my honorable friend from Pennsylvania

desires that the right of suffrage should be given to women; and

if he had the power to transfer all the women of the conservative

States into and to become residents of the radical States, who

imagines that if that were done the Radicals of this House and of

the nation would shout in favor of giving to women the right of

suffrage? If the Radicals in Congress and out of Congress knew

with the certainty of truth that every vote which they will

enfranchise by conferring the right of suffrage on the negro,

would be cast against that party, in favor of their late southern

masters, in favor of the Democracy, in hostility to the schemes

of ambition and spoils which are now animating the heart and mind

of the great radical organization, who doubts that this party and

every mother's son of them would shout for withholding suffrage

from the negro?

Mr. SPRAGUE: I know the Senate is impatient for a vote. I know

they are determined to vote favorably. When it is necessary that

women shall vote for the support of liberty and equality I shall

be ready to cast my vote in their favor. The black man's vote is

necessary to this at this time....

Mr. BUCKALEW: I desire to say before the vote is taken on this

amendment that I shall vote in favor of it because of the

particular position which it occupies. A vote given for this

amendment is not a final one. I understand it to pronounce an

opinion upon the two propositions which have been undergoing

consideration in the Senate, in a comparative manner, if I may

use the expression. In voting for this proposition I affirm

simply that the principles and the reasonings upon which the bill

itself, as reported by the committee, is based, would apply with

equal, if not increased force, to the particular proposition

contained in the amendment. If that be affirmed, then recurs the

question whether it is proper, whether it is expedient at this

time to increase, and very extensively increase, suffrage in this

country. I do not understand that the general argument on that

question is involved in the present motion. I do not understand

that it comes up of necessity in considering the proposition

covered by the amendment of my colleague which stands simply in

contrast with that contained in the bill. I presume there are

several gentlemen, members of this body, who will vote with

reference to this consideration and who will reserve their

opinion, either openly or in their own consciousness, upon the

general or indirect question of the extension of suffrage to the

females of the United States.

But the occasion invites some remarks beyond the mere statement

of this point. The debates which have been going on for three

days in this Chamber will go out to the country. They will

constitute an element in the popular discussions of the times and

awaken a large amount of public attention. This is not the last

we shall hear of this subject. It will come to us again; and I am

persuaded that one reason why it will come again is that the

arguments against the proposed extension of suffrage have not

been sufficient; they have been inadequate; they have been placed

upon grounds which will not endure debate. Those who are in favor

of the extension of suffrage to females can answer what has been

said in this Chamber, and they can answer it triumphantly; and

you will eventually be obliged to take other grounds than those

which have been here stated. From the beginning of this debate

there has been either an open or an implied concession of the

principle upon which the extension of suffrage is asked; and that

is, that there is some natural right or propriety in extending it

further than it was extended by those who formed our State and

Federal Constitutions; that there is some principle of right or

of propriety involved which now appeals powerfully to us in favor

of extended and liberal action in behalf of those large classes

who have been hitherto disfranchised; upon whom the right of

suffrage has not been heretofore conferred.

Having made this concession upon the fundamental ground of the

inquiry, or at all events intimated it, the opponents of an

extended franchise pass on to particular arguments of

inconvenience or inexpediency as constituting the grounds of

their opposition.

Now, sir, I venture to say that those who resist the extension of

suffrage in this country will be unsuccessful in their

opposition; they will be overborne, unless they assume grounds of

a more commanding character than those which they have here

maintained. This subject of the extension of suffrage must be put

upon practical grounds and extricated from the sophisms of

theoretical reasoning. Gentlemen must get out of the domain of

theory. They must come back again to those principles of action

upon which our fathers proceeded in framing our constitutional

system. They lodged suffrage in this country simply in those whom

they thought most worthy and most fit to exercise it. They did

not proceed upon those humanitarian theories which have since

obtained and which now seem to have taken a considerable hold on

the public mind. They were practical men, and acted with

reference to the history and experience of mankind. They were no

metaphysicians; they were not reformers in the modern sense of

the term; they were men who based their political action upon the

experience of mankind, and upon those practical reflections with

reference to men and things in which they had indulged in active

life. They placed suffrage then upon the broad common-sense

principle that it should be lodged in and exercised by those who

could use it most wisely and most safely and most efficiently to

serve the great ends for which Government was instituted. They

had no other ground than this, and their work shows that they

proceeded upon it, and not upon any abstract or transcendental

notion of human rights which ignored the existing facts of social

life.

Now, sir, the objection which I have to a large extension of

suffrage in this country, whether by Federal or State power, is

this: that thereby you will corrupt and degrade elections, and

probably lead to their complete abrogation hereafter. By pouring

into the ballot-boxes of the country a large mass of ignorant

votes, and votes subjected to pecuniary or social influence, you

will corrupt and degrade your elections and lay the foundation

for their ultimate destruction. That is a conviction of mine, and

it is upon that ground that I resist both negro suffrage and

female suffrage, and any other proposed form of suffrage which

takes humanity in an unduly broad or enlarged sense as the

foundation of an arrangement of political power.

Mr. President, I proposed before the debate concluded, before

this subject should be submitted to the Senate for its final

decision, to protest against some of the reasoning by which this

amendment was resisted. I intended to protest against particular

arguments which were submitted; but I was glad this morning that

that duty which I had proposed to myself was discharged, and well

discharged by the Senator from Missouri [Mr. Brown]. For

instance, the argument that the right of suffrage ought not to be

conferred upon this particular class because they did not or

could not bear arms--a consideration totally foreign and

irrelevant, in my opinion, to the question which we are

discussing.

But, sir, passing this by, I desire to add a few words before I

conclude upon another point which was stated or suggested by the

Senator from Missouri, and that is the question of reform or

improvement in our election system; I mean in the machinery by

which or plans upon which those elections proceed. After due

reflection given to this subject, my opinion is that our

electoral systems in this country are exceedingly defective, and

that they require thorough revision, that to them the hand of

reform must be strongly applied if republican institutions are to

be ultimately successful with us.

I would see much less objection to your extension of the right of

suffrage very largely to classes now excluded if you had a

different mode of voting, if you did take or could take the sense

of these added classes in a different manner from that which now

obtains in popular voting. You proceed at present upon the

principle or rule that a mere majority of the electoral community

shall possess the whole mass of political power; and what are the

inevitable results? First, that the community is divided into

parties, and into parties not very unequal in their aggregate

numbers. What next? That the balance of power between parties is

held by a very small number of voters; and in practical action

what is the fact? That the struggle is constantly for that

balance of power, and in order to obtain it, all the arts and all

the evil influences of elections are called into action. It is

this struggle for that balance of power that breeds most of the

evils of your system of popular elections. Now, is it not

possible to have republican institutions and to eliminate or

decrease largely this element of evil? Why, sir, take the State

of Pennsylvania, whose voice, perhaps, in this Government is to

give direction to its legislation at a given time and take a

pecuniary interest in the country largely interested in your

laws, looking forward upon the eve of a hotly contested election

to some particular measures of Government which shall favor it,

with what ease can that interest throw into the State a pecuniary

contribution competent to turn the voice of that powerful State

and change or determine the policy of your Government. And why

so? It is only necessary that this corrupt influence should be

exerted very slightly indeed within that State from abroad in

order to turn the scale, because you are only to exert your

pernicious power upon a small number of persons who hold the

balance of power between parties therein. Sir, that organization

of our system which allows such a state of things to occur must

be inherently vicious. Instead of this being a Government of the

whole people, which is our fundamental principle, which is our

original idea, it is a Government, in the first place, of a

majority only of the people; and in the next place, it is in some

sort a Government of that small number of persons who give

preponderance to one party over another, and who may be

influenced by fanaticism, corruption, or passion.

This being our political state at present with reference to

electoral action, what do you propose? We have a great evil.

Electoral corruption is the great danger in our path. It is the

evil in our system against which we must constantly struggle.

Every patriot and every honest man here and in his own State is

bound to lift his voice and to strike boldly against it in all

its forms, and it requires for its repression all the efforts and

all the exertion we can put forth. Now what is proposed by the

reformers of the present time? We have our majority rule--it is

not a principle; it is an abuse of all terms to call it a

principle--we have our majority rule in full action, presenting

an invitation to corrupt, base, and sinister influences to attach

themselves to our system; we have great difficulties with which

we now struggle arising from imperfect arrangements, and what do

you propose? To reform existing evils and abuses? To correct your

system? To study it as patriots, as men of reflection and good

sense? No, sir. You propose to introduce into our electoral

bodies new elements of enormous magnitude. You propose to take

the base of society, excluded now, and build upon it, and upon

it alone or mainly, because the introduction of the enormous mass

of voters proposed by the reformers will wholly change the

foundations upon which you build.

Will not these new electors you propose to introduce be more

approachable than men who now vote to all corrupt influences?

Will they not be more passionate, and therefore more easily

influenced by the demagogue? Will they not be more easily caught

and enraptured by superficial declamation, because more incapable

of profound reflection? Will not their weakness render them

subservient to the strong and their ignorance to the artful?

I shall not, however, detain you with an elaborate argument upon

this question of suffrage. I only feel myself called upon to say

enough to indicate the general direction of my reflections upon

the questions before us; to show why it is that I am immovably

opposed at this time to extending our system of suffrage in the

District of Columbia or elsewhere so as to include large classes

of persons who are now excluded; and to state my opinion that

reform or change should be concerned with the correction of the

existing evils of our electoral system, instead of with the

enlargement of its boundaries.

Mr. DOOLITTLE: I move that the Senate do now adjourn.

Several SENATORS: Oh, no; let us have a vote.

The motion was not agreed to.

Mr. DOOLITTLE: Mr. President, this amendment, in my judgment,

opens a very grave question; a question graver than it appears at

the blush; a question upon which the ablest minds are divided

here and elsewhere; a question, however, on which we are called

upon to vote, and therefore one upon which I desire very briefly

to state the views which control my judgment when I say that I

shall vote against the amendment which is now offered.

For myself, sir, after giving some considerable reflection to the

subject of suffrage, I have arrived at the conclusion that the

true base or foundation upon which to rest suffrage in any

republican community is upon the family, the head of the family;

because in civilized society the family is the unit, not the

individual. What is meant by "man" is man in that relation where

he is placed according to nature, reason, and religion. If it

were a new question and it were left to me to determine what

should be the true qualification of a person to exercise the

right of suffrage, I would fix it upon that basis that the head

of a family, capable of supporting that family, and who had

supported the family, should be permitted to vote, and no other.

While I know that the question is not a new one; while it is

impossible for me to treat it as a new question because suffrage

everywhere has been extended beyond the heads of families, yet

the reason, in my judgment, upon which it has been extended is

simply this: if certain men have been permitted to vote who were

not the heads of families it was because they were the exceptions

to the general rule, and because it was to be presumed that if

they were not at the time heads of families they ought to be, and

probably would be. I say that according to reason, nature, and

religion, the family is the unit of every society. So far as the

ballot is concerned, in my judgment, it represents this

fundamental element of civilized society, the family. It

therefore should be cast by the head of the family, and according

to reason, nature, and religion man is the head of the family. In

that relation, while every man is king, every woman is queen; but

upon him devolves the responsibility of controlling the external

relations of this family, and those external relations are

controlled by the ballot; for that ballot or vote which he

exercises goes to choose the legislators who are to make the laws

which are to govern society. Within the family man is supreme; he

governs by the law of the family, by the law of reason, nature,

religion. Therefore it is that I am not in favor of conferring

the right of suffrage upon woman....

Mr. President, I have stated very briefly that I shall not be

able to vote for the proposition of my honorable friend from

Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan]. I shall not be able to vote for this

bill if it be a bill to give universal suffrage to the colored

men in this District without any restriction or qualification. I

have been informed that some other Senator intends before this

bill shall have passed in the Senate to propose an amendment

which will attach a qualification, and perhaps, should that meet

the views of the Senate, I might give my support to the bill. I

shall not detain the Senate further now on this subject.

Mr. POMEROY: I desire to say in just a brief word that I shall

vote against the amendment of the Senator from Pennsylvania,

simply because I am in favor of this measure, and I do not want

to weigh it down with anything else. There are other measures

that I would be glad to support in their proper place and time;

but this is a great measure of itself. Since I have been a member

of the Senate, there was a law in this District authorizing the

selling of colored men. To have traveled in six years from the

auction-block to the ballot with these people is an immense

stride, and if we can carry this measure alone of itself we

should be contented for the present. I am for this measure

religiously and earnestly, and I would vote down and vote against

everything that I thought weakened or that I thought was opposed

to it. It is simply with this view, without expressing any

opinion in regard to the merits of the amendment, that I shall

vote against it and all other amendments.

The PRESIDENT _pro tem._: The question is on the amendment of the

Senator from Pennsylvania [Mr. Cowan], to strike out the word

"male" before the word "person," in the second line of the first

section of the amendment reported by the Committee on the

District of Columbia as a substitute for the whole bill, and on

that question the yeas and nays have been ordered. Yeas, 9. Nays,

37.[58]

In the House, January 28, 1867, Mr. Noell, of Missouri,

introduced a bill to amend the suffrage act of the District of

Columbia, which, after the second reading, he moved should be

referred to a select committee of five, and on that motion

demanded the previous question, and called for the yeas and nays,

which resulted in 49 yeas,[59] 74 nays--68 not voting.

FOOTNOTES:

[48] FORM OF PETITION.--_To the Senate and House of

Representatives_:--The undersigned women of the United States,

respectfully ask an amendment of the Constitution that shall prohibit

the several States from disfranchising any of their citizens on the

ground of sex.

In making our demand for Suffrage, we would call your attention to the

fact that we represent fifteen million people--one-half the entire

population of the country--intelligent, virtuous, native-born American

citizens; and yet stand outside the pale of political recognition. The

Constitution classes us as "free people," and counts us _whole_

persons in the basis of representation; and yet are we governed

without our consent, compelled to pay taxes without appeal, and

punished for violations of law without choice of judge or juror. The

experience of all ages, the Declarations of the Fathers, the Statute

Laws of our own day, and the fearful revolution through which we have

just passed, all prove the uncertain tenure of life, liberty, and

property so long as the ballot--the only weapon of self-protection--is

not in the hand of every citizen.

Therefore, as you are now amending the Constitution, and, in harmony

with advancing civilization, placing new safeguards round the

individual rights of four millions of emancipated slaves, we ask that

you extend the right of Suffrage to Woman--the only remaining class of

disfranchised citizens--and thus fulfill your constitutional

obligation "to guarantee to every State in the Union a Republican form

of Government." As all partial application of Republican principles

must ever breed a complicated legislation as well as a discontented

people, we would pray your Honorable Body, in order to simplify the

machinery of Government and ensure domestic tranquillity, that you

legislate hereafter for persons, citizens, tax-payers, and not for

class or caste. For justice and equality your petitioners will ever

pray.

[49] JOINT RESOLUTIONS BEFORE CONGRESS AFFECTING WOMEN.

_To the Editor of the Standard_--_Sir_:--Mr. Broomall, of

Pennsylvania; Mr. Schenck, of Ohio; Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island; Mr.

Stevens, of Pennsylvania, have each a resolution before Congress to

amend the Constitution.

Article 1st, Section 2d, reads thus: "Representatives and direct taxes

shall be apportioned among the several States which may be included

within this Union according to their respective number."

Mr. Broomall proposes to amend by saying "male electors," Mr. Schenck

"male citizens," Mr. Jenckes "male citizens," Mr. Stevens "legal

voters." There is no objection to the amendment proposed by Mr.

Stevens, as in process of time women may be made "legal voters" in the

several States, and would then meet that requirement of the

Constitution. But those urged by the other gentlemen, neither time,

effort, nor State Constitutions could enable us to meet, unless, by a

liberal interpretation of the amendment, a coat of mail to be worn at

the polls might be judged all-sufficient. Mr. Jenckes and Mr. Schenck,

in their bills, have the grace not to say a word about taxes,

remembering perhaps that "taxation without representation is tyranny."

But Mr. Broomall, though unwilling to share with us the honors of

Government, would fain secure us a place in its burdens; for while he

apportions representatives to "male electors" only, he admits "_all

the inhabitants_" into the rights, privileges, and immunities of

taxation. Magnanimous M. C.!

I would call the attention of the women of the nation to the fact that

under the Federal Constitution, as it now exists, there is not one

word that limits the right of suffrage to any privileged class. This

attempt to turn the wheels of civilization backward, on the part of

Republicans claiming to be _the_ Liberal party, should rouse every

woman in the nation to a prompt exercise of the only right she has in

the Government, the right of petition. To this end a committee in New

York have sent out thousands of petitions, which should be circulated

in every district and sent to its Representative at Washington as soon

as possible.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

NEW YORK, _January 2, 1866_.

[50] Leaving Rochester October 11th, she called on Martha Wright,

Auburn; Phebe Jones and Lydia Mott, Albany; Mrs. Rose, Gibbons, Davis,

Stanton, New York; Lucy Stone and Antoinette Brown Blackwell, New

Jersey; Stephen and Abby Foster, Worcester; Mrs. Severance, Dall,

Nowell, Dr. Harriot K. Hunt, Dr. Zakzyewska, Mr. Phillips and

Garrison, in Boston, urging them to join in sending protests to

Washington against the pending legislation. Mr. Phillips at once

consented to vote $500 from the "Jackson Fund" to commence the work.

Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton spent all their "Christmas holidays" in

writing letters and addressing appeals and petitions to every part of

the country, and before the close of the session of 1865-66 ten

thousand signatures were poured into Congress.

[51] "THIS IS THE NEGRO'S HOUR."

_To the Editor of the Standard_--_Sir_:--By an amendment of the

Constitution, ratified by three-fourths of the loyal States, the black

man is declared free. The largest and most influential political party

is demanding suffrage for him throughout the Union, which right in

many of the States is already conceded. Although this may remain a

question for politicians to wrangle over for five or ten years, the

black man is still, in a political point of view, far above the

educated women of the country. The representative women of the nation

have done their uttermost for the last thirty years to secure freedom

for the negro, and so long as he was lowest in the scale of being we

were willing to press _his_ claims; but now, as the celestial gate to

civil rights is slowly moving on its hinges, it becomes a serious

question whether we had better stand aside and see "Sambo" walk into

the kingdom first. As self-preservation is the first law of nature,

would it not be wiser to keep our lamps trimmed and burning, and when

the constitutional door is open, avail ourselves of the strong arm and

blue uniform of the black soldier to walk in by his side, and thus

make the gap so wide that no privileged class could ever again close

it against the humblest citizen of the republic?

"This is the negro's hour." Are we sure that he, once entrenched in

all his inalienable rights, may not be an added power to hold us at

bay? Have not "black male citizens" been heard to say they doubted the

wisdom of extending the right of suffrage to women? Why should the

African prove more just and generous than his Saxon compeers? If the

two millions of Southern black women are not to be secured in their

rights of person, property, wages, and children, their emancipation is

but another form of slavery. In fact, it is better to be the slave of

an educated white man, than of a degraded, ignorant black one. We who

know what absolute power the statute laws of most of the States give

man, in all his civil, political, and social relations, demand that in

changing the status of the four millions of Africans, the women as

well as the men shall be secured in all the rights, privileges, and

immunities of citizens.

It is all very well for the privileged order to look down complacently

and tell us, "This is the negro's hour; do not clog his way; do not

embarrass the Republican party with any new issue; be generous and

magnanimous; the negro once safe, the woman comes next." Now, if our

prayer involved a new set of measures, or a new train of thought, it

would be cruel to tax "white male citizens" with even two simple

questions at a time; but the disfranchised all make the same demand,

and the same logic and justice that secures suffrage to one class

gives it to all. The struggle of the last thirty years has not been

merely on the black man as such, but on the broader ground of his

humanity. Our Fathers, at the end of the first revolution, in their

desire for a speedy readjustment of all their difficulties, and in

order to present to Great Britain, their common enemy, an united

front, accepted the compromise urged on them by South Carolina, and a

century of wrong, ending in another revolution, has been the result of

their action. This is our opportunity to retrieve the errors of the

past and mould anew the elements of Democracy. The nation is ready for

a long step in the right direction; party lines are obliterated, and

all men are thinking for themselves. If our rulers have the justice to

give the black man suffrage, woman should avail herself of that

new-born virtue to secure her rights; if not, she should begin with

renewed earnestness to educate the people into the idea of universal

suffrage.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.

NEW YORK, _December 26, 1865_.

[52] From the _New York Evening Express_.

SCENES IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.--_Negroes are to Vote--Why not

Coolies in California--Indians everywhere, and First of all, Fifteen

Millions of our Countrywomen._

The following occurred in the House, Tuesday, upon Thaddeus Stevens'

resolution, from the Reconstruction Committee, to deprive the South of

representation, unless the South lets the negroes vote there....

Mr. CHANDLER, of New York, having the floor for an hour, said: Before

proceeding with my remarks, I will yield the floor for ten minutes to

my colleague [Mr. Brooks].

Mr. BROOKS: Mr. Speaker, I do not rise, of course, to debate this

resolution, in the few minutes allowed me by my colleague, nor, in my

judgment, does the resolution need any discussion unless it may be for

the mere purpose of agitation. I do not suppose that there is an

honorable gentleman upon the floor of this House who believes for a

moment that any movement of this character is likely to become the

fundamental law of the land, and these propositions are, therefore,

introduced only for the purpose of agitation. If the honorable

gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens] had been quite confident of

adopting this amendment, he would at the start have named what are

States of this Union. The opinion of the honorable gentleman himself,

that there are no States in this Union but those that are now

represented upon this floor, I know full well, but he knows as well

that the President of the United States recognizes thirty-six States

of this Union, and that it is necessary to obtain the consent of

three-fourths of those thirty-six States, which number it is not

possible to obtain. He knows very well that if his amendment should be

adopted by the Legislatures of States enough, in his judgment, to

carry it, before it could pass the tribunal of the Executive Chamber

it would be obliged to receive the assent of twenty-seven States in

order to become an amendment to the Constitution. The whole

resolution, therefore, is for the purpose of mere agitation. It is an

appeal from this House to the outside constituencies that we know by

the name of buncombe. Here it was born, and here, after its agitation

in the States, it will die. Hence, I asked the gentleman from

Pennsylvania this morning to be consistent in his proposition. In one

thing he is consistent, and that is in admitting the whole of the

Asiatic immigration, which, by the connection of our steamers with

China and Japan and the East Indies, is about to pour forth in mighty

masses upon the Pacific coast to the overwhelming even of the white

population there.

Mr. STEVENS: I wish to correct the gentleman. I said it excluded

Chinese.

Mr. BROOKS: How exclude them, when Chinese are to be included in the

basis of representation?

Mr. STEVENS: I say it excludes them.

Mr. BROOKS: How exclude them?

Mr. STEVENS: They are not included in the basis of representation.

Mr. BROOKS: Yes, if the States exclude them from the elective

franchise; and the States of California and Oregon and Nevada are to

be deprived of representation according to their population upon the

floor of this House by this amendment. I asked him, also, if the

Indian was not a man and a brother, and I obtained no satisfactory

answer from the honorable gentleman. I speak now, in order to make his

resolution consistent, for no one hundred thousand coolies or wild

savages, but I raise my voice here in behalf of fifteen million of our

countrywomen, the fairest, brightest portion of creation, and I ask

why they are not permitted to vote for Representatives under this

resolution? Why, in organizing a system of liberality and justice, not

recognize in the case of free women as well as free negroes the right

of representation?

Mr. STEVENS: The gentleman will allow me to say that this bill does

not exclude women. It does not say who shall vote.

Mr. BROOKS: I comprehend all that; but the whole object of this

amendment is to obtain votes for the negroes. That is its purport,

tendency, and meaning; and it punishes those who will not give a vote

to the negroes in the Southern States of our Union. That is the object

of the resolution, and the ground upon which it is presented to this

House and to the country. This is a new era; this is an age of

progress. Indians are not only Indians, but men and brothers; and why

not, in a resolution like this, include the fair sex too, and give

them the right to representation? Will it be said that this sex does

not claim a right to representation? Many members here have petitions

from these fifteen millions of women, or a large portion of them, for

representation, and for the right to vote on equal terms with the

stronger sex, who they say are now depriving them of it. To show that

such is their wish and desire, I will send to the Clerk's desk to be

read certain documents, to which I ask the attention of the honorable

gentleman from Pennsylvania [Mr. Stevens], for in one of them he will

find he is somewhat interested.

The Clerk read as follows:

STANDARD OFFICE, 48 Beekman Street, New York, _Jan. 20, 1866_.

_Dear Sir_:--I send you the inclosed copy of petition and

signatures sent to Thaddeus Stevens last week. I then urged Mr.

Stevens, if their committee of fifteen could not report favorably

on our petitions, they would, at least, not interpose any new

barrier against woman's right to the ballot.

Mrs. Stanton has sent you a petition--I trust you will present

that at your earliest convenience. The Democrats are now in

minority. May they drive the Republicans to do good works--not

merely to hold the rebel States in check until negro men shall be

guaranteed their right to a voice in their governments, but to

hold the party to a logical consistency that shall give every

responsible citizen in every State equal right to the ballot.

Will you, sir, please send me whatever is said or done with our

petitions? Will you also give me the names of members whom you

think would present petitions for us?

Hon. JAMES BROOKS. Respectfully yours, SUSAN B. ANTHONY.

A PETITION FOR UNIVERSAL SUFFRAGE.

_To the Senate and House of Representatives_:--[The petition here

presented has been already in _The Express_. The following are the

signatures to the petition sent to Mr. Stevens]: Elizabeth Cady

Stanton, New York; Susan B. Anthony, Rochester, N.Y.; Antoinette Brown

Blackwell, New York; Lucy Stone, Newark, N.J.; Ernestine L. Rose, New

York; Joanna S. Morse, 48 Livingston St., Brooklyn; Elizabeth R.

Tilton, 48 Livingston St., Brooklyn; Ellen Hoxie Squier, 34 St. Felix

St., Brooklyn; Mary Fowler Gilbert, 294 West 19th St., New York; Mary

E. Gilbert, 294 West 19th St., New York; Mattie Griffith, New York.

The SPEAKER: The ten minutes of the gentleman from New York [Mr.

Brooks] have expired.

Mr. BROOKS: I will only say that at the proper time I will move to

amend--or if I do not I would suggest to some gentleman on the other

side to move it--this proposed amendment by inserting the words "or

sex" after the word "color," so that it will read:

_Provided_, That whenever the elective franchise shall be denied or

abridged in any State on account of race or color or sex, all persons

of such race or color or sex shall be excluded from the basis of

representation.

Mr. STEVENS: Is the gentleman from N.Y. [Mr. Brooks] in favor of that

amendment?

Mr. BROOKS: I am if negroes are permitted to vote.

Mr. STEVENS: That does not answer my question. Is the gentleman in

favor of the amendment he has indicated?

Mr. BROOKS: I suggested that I would move it at a convenient time.

Mr. STEVENS: Is the gentleman in favor of his own amendment?

Mr. BROOKS: I am in favor of my own color in preference to any other

color, and I prefer the white women of my country to the negro.

[Applause on the floor and in the galleries promptly checked by the

Speaker]. The Speaker said he saw a number of persons clapping in the

galleries. He would endeavor, to the best of his ability, whether

supported by the House or not, to preserve order. Applause was just as

much out of order as manifestations of disapproval, and hisses not

more than clapping of hands. Instead of general applause on the floor,

gentlemen on the floor should set a good example.

[53] WOMEN POLITICIANS.--Mr. Lane, of Kansas, it is reported, has

presented to the Senate the petition of "one hundred and twenty-four

beautiful, intelligent, and accomplished ladies of Lawrence," praying

for a constitutional amendment that shall prohibit States from

disfranchising citizens on account of sex. That trick will not do. We

wager a big apple that the ladies referred to are not "beautiful" or

accomplished. Nine of every ten of them are undoubtedly _passe_. They

have hook-billed noses, crow's-feet under their sunken eyes, and a

mellow tinting of the hair. They are connoisseurs in the matter of

snuff. They discard hoops, waterfalls, and bandeaux. They hold hen

conventions, to discuss and decide, with vociferous expression, the

orthodoxy of the minister, the regularity of the doctor, and the

morals of the lawyer. They read the _Tribune_ with spectacles, and

have files of _The Liberator_ and Wendell Phillips' orations, bound in

sheepskin. Heaven forbid that we should think of any of the number as

a married woman, without a fervent aspiration of pity for the weaker

vessel who officiates as her spouse. As to rearing children, that is

not to be thought of in the connection. Show us a woman who wants to

mingle in the exciting and unpurified squabble of politics, and we

will show you one who has failed to reach and enjoy that true relation

of sovereignty which is held by her "meek and lowly" sisters; who,

though destitute of such panting aspirations, hold the scepter of true

authority in those high and holy virtues which fascinate while they

command in their undisputed empire--the social circle. What iconoclast

shall break our idol, by putting the ballot in woman's hand?--_Albany

Evening Journal._

A CRY FROM THE FEMALES.--Mr. Sumner yesterday presented a petition to

the Senate from a large number of the women of New England, praying

that they may not be debarred from the right of suffrage on account of

sex. Our heart warms with pity toward these unfortunate creatures. We

fancy that we can see them, deserted of men, and bereft of those rich

enjoyments and exalted privileges which belong to women, languishing

their unhappy lives away in a mournful singleness, from which they can

escape by no art in the construction of waterfalls or the employment

of cotton-padding. Talk of a true woman needing the ballot as an

accessory of power, when she rules the world by a glance of her eye.

There was sound philosophy in the remark of an Eastern monarch, that

his wife was sovereign of the Empire, because she ruled his little

ones, and his little ones ruled him. The sure panacea for such ills as

the Massachusetts petitioners complain of, is a wicker-work cradle and

a dimple-cheeked baby.--_The New York Tribune._

[54] WOMAN SUFFRAGE.--_Editor Commonwealth_:--Enclosed is a letter I

sent to the editor of _The Nation_. As I consider his allusion to it

insufficient, will you have the kindness to print it, no paper but

yours, that I know of, being now open to the subject. All that the

editor of _The Nation_ has a right to say is, that he has not

investigated the statistics. Most of the women who have signed the

petitions are women who have not a male relative in the world

interested in the matter. Very truly yours,

BOSTON, _Jan. 20, 1866_. CAROLINE H. DALL.

70 WARREN AVENUE, BOSTON, _Jan. 6, 1866_.

_To the Editor of The Nation_:--I saw with surprise in _The Nation_,

received to-day, a paragraph on "Universal Suffrage," which contained

the following lines:

"We think the women of the United States ought to have the franchise

if they desire it, and we think they ought to desire it. But until

they do desire it, and show that they do, by a _general_ expression of

opinion, we are opposed to their being saddled with it on grounds of

theoretical fitness, etc."

Surely, it is difficult to explain such a sentence in a professedly

far-seeing and deep-thinking journal! That argument will serve as well

for the lately enfranchised blacks as for women, for no one will

pretend that of the millions set free, a bare majority would of

themselves contend for the franchise. That argument might have refused

them freedom itself, for a large majority of Southern slaves knew too

little of it to desire it, however they may have longed to be rid of a

taskmaster and the pangs which slavery brought. During the last four

years women have been silent about their "rights" in the several

States, because pressed by severe duties. Desirous to establish a

reputation for discretion, we have refrained from complicating the

perplexities of any Senator; but now that a constitutional amendment

is pending we must be careful, even if we gain no franchise, to lose

no _opportunity_.

Hitherto the Constitution of the United States has contained no word

that would shut women out from future suffrage. Mr. Schenck, of Ohio,

and Mr. Jenckes, of Rhode Island, propose to limit a right to "male

citizens" which should rest, as it now does, simply on "legal voters."

This would oblige women to move to amend the Constitution of the

United States after each separate State was carried. We have no

inclination for this unnecessary work, and here, in Boston, we are

preparing a petition basing the necessity of our present interference

on this fact alone. How much women desire the suffrage, Mr. Editor,

you ought to perceive from the conduct of the women of Australia.

Carelessly enough, her male legislators omitted the significant

adjective from their constitutional amendment, and, without a word of

warning, on election day, every woman, properly qualified, was found

at the polls. There was no just reason for refusing them the

privilege, and _The London Times_ says the precedent is to stand.

A very absurd article in _The Evening Post_ has lately given us an

idea that New York contains some remarkable women. Women born to be

looked at!--women who do their whole duty if they blossom like the

roses, and like the roses die. Let us hope they fulfill the functions

of this type by as short a sojourn on this earth as may be, lingering,

as Malherbe would have it, only for "the space of a morning." It may

be among them that you find the women who "look persistently to

married life as a means of livelihood." Here, in Massachusetts, we do

not acknowledge any such. Fashion has her danglers among men and

women, but we pity those whose lot has thrown them into intimate

relations with such women as you describe. They are not of our sort.

We think that if the writer in _The Evening Post_ were tested, he

would be forced to admire most the hands which could do the best work.

It would be small comfort to him, when Bridget and John had

simultaneously departed, when the baby was crying and the fire out,

that his wife sat lonely, in one corner of the apartment, with serene

eyes and unstained hands. Men who talk such nonsense in America, must

remember that neither wealth nor gentle blood can _here_ protect them

from such a dilemma. As to suffrage, we are not now talking of

granting it to a distinct race; if we were, they might manifest a

"general" desire for it. Women, who love their husbands and brothers,

can not _all_ submit to bear the reproach which clings to their demand

for justice. A few of us must suffer sharply for the sake of that

great future which God shows us to be possible, when goodness shall

join hands with power. But we do not like our pain. We would gladly be

sheltered, and comforted, and cheered, and we warn you, by what passes

in our own hearts, that women will never express a "general" desire

for suffrage until men have ceased to ridicule and despise them for

it; until the representatives of men have been taught to treat their

petitions with respect. There would be no difficulty in obtaining this

right of suffrage If it depended on a property qualification. It is

consistent democracy which bars our way.

CAROLINE HEALEY DALL.

[55] _Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the

United States of America in Congress assembled_: That, from and after

the passage of this act, each and every male person, excepting paupers

and persons under guardianship, of the age of twenty-one years and

upward, who has not been convicted of any infamous crime or offence,

and who is a citizen of the United States, and who shall have resided

in the said District for the period of six months previous to any

election therein, shall be entitled to the elective franchise, and

shall be deemed an elector and entitled to vote at any election in

said District, without any distinction on account of color or race.

[56] _The New York Tribune_, Dec. 12, 1866, contains the following

editorial comments: The Senate devoted yesterday to a discussion of

the right of women to vote--a side question, which Mr. Cowan, of

Pennsylvania, interjected into the debate on suffrage for the District

of Columbia. Mr. Cowan chooses to represent himself as an ardent

champion of the claim of woman to the elective franchise. It is not

necessary to question his sincerity, but the occasion which he selects

for the exhibition of his new-born zeal, subjects him to the suspicion

of being considerably more anxious to embarrass the bill for

enfranchising the blacks, than to amend it by conferring upon women

the enjoyment of the same right. Mr. Cowan was once a Republican. He

abandoned his party, has been repudiated by his State, and may well be

casting about for some new issue by which to divert attention from his

faithlessness on the old. We have heard that Mr. Cowan affects the

classics; we are sure, therefore, that he will thank us for reminding

him of that familiar story out of Plutarch respecting Alcibiades. When

the dissolute Athenian had cut off the tail of his dog, which was the

dog's principal ornament, and all Athens cried out against him for the

act, Alcibiades laughed, and said: "Just what I wanted has happened. I

wished the Athenians to talk about this that they might not say

something worse of me."

We are not to be suspected of indifference to the question whether

woman shall vote. At a proper time we mean to urge her claim, but we

object to allowing a measure of urgent necessity, and on which the

public has made up its mind, to be retarded and imperilled. Nor do we

think the Radical majority in the Senate need be beholden to the

enemy's camp for suggestions as to their policy. We want to see the

ballot put in the hands of the black without one day's delay added to

the long postponement of his just claim. When that is done, we shall

be ready to take up the next question.

[57] Mrs. Frances Dana Gage, of Ohio.

[58] YEAS--Messrs. Anthony, Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Foster, Nesmith,

Patterson, Riddle, Wade--9. NAYS--Messrs. Cattell, Chandler, Conness,

Creswell, Davis, Dixon, Doolittle, Edmunds, Fessenden, Fogg,

Frelinghuysen, Grimes, Harris, Henderson, Hendricks, Howard, Howe,

Kirkwood, Lane, Morgan, Morrill, Norton, Poland, Pomeroy, Ramsey,

Ross, Saulsbury, Sherman, Sprague, Stewart, Sumner, Trumbull, Van

Winkle, Willey, Williams, Wilson, Yates--37.

[59] YEAS--Ancona, Baker, Barker, Baxter, Benjamin, Boyer, Broomall,

Bundy, Campbell, Cooper, Defrees, Denison, Eldridge, Farnsworth,

Ferry, Finck, Garfield, Hale, Hawkins, Hise, Chester D. Hubbard, Edwin

N. Hubbell, Humphrey, Julian, Kasson, Kelley, Kelso, Le Blond, Coan,

McClurg, McKee, Miller, Newell, Niblock, Noell, Orth, Ritter, Rogers,

Ross, Sitgreaves, Starr, Stevens, Strouse, Taber, Nathaniel G. Taylor,

Trimble, Andrew H. Ward, Henry D. Washburn, Winfield--49.

CHAPTER XVIII.

NATIONAL CONVENTIONS IN 1866-67.

The first National Woman Suffrage Convention after the

war--Speeches by Ernestine L. Rose, Antoinette Brown Blackwell,

Henry Ward Beecher, Frances D. Gage, Theodore Tilton, Wendell

Phillips--Petitions to Congress and the Constitutional

Convention--Mrs. Stanton a candidate to Congress--Anniversary of

the Equal Rights Association.

The first Woman's Rights Convention[60] after the war was held in the

Church of the Puritans, New York, May 10th, 1866.

As the same persons were identified with the Anti-slavery and Woman's

Rights Societies, and as by the "Proclamation of Emancipation" the

colored man was now a freeman, and a citizen; and as bills were

pending in Congress to secure him in the right of suffrage, the same

right women were demanding, it was proposed to merge the societies

into one, under the name of "The American Equal Rights Association,"

that the same conventions, appeals, and petitions, might include both

classes of disfranchised citizens. The proposition was approved by the

majority of those present, and the new organization completed at an

adjourned session. Though Mr. Garrison, with many other abolitionists,

feeling that the Anti-slavery work was finished, had retired, and thus

partly disorganized that Society, yet, in its executive session,

Wendell Phillips, President, refused to entertain the proposition, on

the ground that such action required an amendment to the constitution,

which could not be made without three months previous notice.

Nevertheless there was a marked division of opinion among the

anti-slavery friends present.

[Illustration: Clemence Sophia Lozier. "Yours Sincerely Clemence Sophia

Lozier, M.D."]

At an early hour Dr. Cheever's church was well filled with an audience

chiefly of ladies, who received the officers and speakers[61] of the

Convention with hearty applause. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, President of

the "National Woman's Rights Committee," called the Convention to

order, and said:

We have assembled to-day to discuss the right and duty of women

to claim and use the ballot. Now in the reconstruction is the

opportunity, perhaps for the century, to base our government on

the broad principle of equal rights to all. The representative

women of the nation feel that they have an interest and duty

equal with man in the struggles and triumphs of this hour.

It may not be known to all of you that, during the past year,

thousands of petitions, asking the ballot for woman, have been

circulated through the Northern States and sent to Congress. Our

thanks are due to the Hon. James Brooks for his kindness in

franking our petitions, and his skill in calling to them the

attention of the nation. As we have lost this champion in the

House, I trust his more fortunate successor will not _dodge_ his

responsibilities to his countrywomen who are taxed but not

represented. This should be a year of great activity among the

women of this State. As New York is to have a constitutional

convention in '67, it behooves us now to make an earnest demand,

by appeals and petitions, to have the word "male" as well as

"white" stricken from our Constitution.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, presented several resolutions for consideration.

5. _Resolved_, That disfranchisement _in a republic_ is as

great an anomaly, if not cruelty, as slavery itself. It is,

therefore, the solemn duty of Congress, in "_guaranteeing a

republican form of government to every State of this

Union_," to see that there be no abridgment of suffrage

among persons responsible to law, on account of color or

sex.