other and the country on the unexampled progress of our cause, as
seen: 1. In the action of Congress extending the right of suffrage to
the colored men of the States lately in rebellion, and in the very
long and able discussion of woman's equal right to the ballot in the
United States Senate, and the vote upon it. 2. In the action of the
Legislatures of Kansas and Wisconsin, submitting to the people a
proposition to extend the ballot to woman. 3. In the agitation upon
the same measure in the Legislatures of several other States. 4. In
the friendly tone of so large a portion of the press, both political
and religious; and finally, in the general awaking to the importance
of human elevation and enfranchisement, abroad as well as at home;
particularly in Great Britain, Russia, and Brazil; and encouraged by
past successes and the present prospect, we pledge ourselves to
renewed and untiring exertions, until equal suffrage and citizenship
are acknowledged throughout our entire country, irrespective of sex or
color.
[73] President, Lucretia Mott; Vice-presidents, Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, N. Y., Frederick Douglass, N. Y., Henry Ward Beecher, N. Y.,
Charles Lenox Remond, Mass., Elizabeth B. Chace, R. I., C. Prince,
Conn., Frances D. Gage, N. J., Robert Purvis, Penn., Josephine S.
Griffing, D. C., Thomas Garret, Del., Stephen H. Camp, Ohio, Euphemia
Cochrane, Mich., Mary A. Livermore, Ill., Mrs. Isaac H. Sturgeon, Mo.,
Amelia Bloomer, Iowa, Sam N. Wood, Kansas, Virginia Penny, Kentucky;
Recording Secretaries, Henry B. Blackwell, Hattie Purvis;
Corresponding Secretaries, Susan B. Anthony, Mattie Griffith, Caroline
M. Severance; Treasurer, John F. Merritt; Executive Committee,
Ernestine L. Rose, Edwin A. Studwell, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Martha
C. Wright, Lucy Stone, Parker Pillsbury, Elizabeth Gay, Theodore
Tilton, Mary F. Gilbert, Edward S. Bunker, Antoinette Brown Blackwell,
Susan B. Anthony, Margaret E. Winchester, Aaron M. Powell, James
Haggarty, George T. Downing.
[74] The night before Dr. Cheever was to preach his farewell sermon to
his people in the Church of the Puritans, Miss Anthony and Mrs.
Stanton, walking slowly up Broadway arm in arm, cogitating, as usual,
where a good word could be said for woman, bethought themselves of the
Doctor's forthcoming sermon. As he had fought a grand battle for
anti-slavery in his church, they felt that it would be peculiarly
fitting for him, in his last sermon, to make some mention of the
rights of women.
Accordingly they turned into University Place, and soon found
themselves in his parlor, where they were heartily welcomed by Mrs.
Cheever. Miss Anthony, who was generally the spokesman on all
audacious errands, said, "We want to see the Doctor just five minutes;
we know that it is Saturday evening, that he is busy with his sermon,
and sees no one at this time, but our errand is one of momentous
importance, and what we have in our minds must be said now or never.
While we were explaining to Mrs. Cheever, the folding doors quietly
rolled back, and there stood the Doctor. He laughed heartily when we
made known our mission, and said, "I have the start of you this time;
what you ask is already written in my sermon; come into my library and
you shall hear it. We listened with great satisfaction, expressed our
thanks and started, when Miss A. suddenly turned and said, "That is
excellent, Doctor, now pray do not forget to give it with unction
to-morrow."
Many wondered that Dr. Cheever, a rigid blue Presbyterian, should
express such radical sentiments on so unpopular a reform. But his
conversion was due, no doubt, to the fact that the women of his church
had nobly sustained him all through his anti-slavery battle while the
wealth and conservatism of the congregation forbade the discussion of
that subject in the pulpit. The votes of the women, year after year,
secured his position, until his failing health ended the contest, and
the sale of the edifice changed the Church of the Puritans into
Tiffany's brilliant jewelry establishment.
[75] MEMORIAL OF THE AMERICAN EQUAL RIGHTS ASSOCIATION TO THE CONGRESS
OF THE UNITED STATES.
The undersigned, Officers and Representatives of the American Equal
Rights Association, respectfully but earnestly protest against any
change in the Constitution of the United States, or legislation by
Congress, which shall longer violate the principle of Republican
Government, by proscriptive distinctions in rights of suffrage or
citizenship, on account of color or sex. Your Memorialists would
respectfully represent, that neither the colored man's loyalty,
bravery on the battle field and general good conduct, nor woman's
heroic devotion to liberty and her country, in peace and war, have yet
availed to admit them to equal citizenship, even in this enlightened
and republican nation.
We believe that humanity is one in all those intellectual, moral and
spiritual attributes, out of which grow human responsibilities. The
Scripture declaration is, "so God created man in his own image: male
and female created he them." And all divine legislation throughout the
realm of nature recognizes the perfect equality of the two conditions.
For male and female are but different conditions. Neither color nor
sex is ever discharged from obedience to law, natural or moral;
written or unwritten. The commands, thou shalt not steal, nor kill,
nor commit adultery, know nothing of sex in their demands; nothing in
their penalty. And hence we believe that all _human_ legislation which
is at variance with the divine code, is essentially unrighteous and
unjust. Woman and the colored man are taxed to support many literary
and humane institutions, into which they never come, except in the
poorly paid capacity of menial servants. Woman has been fined,
whipped, branded with red-hot irons, imprisoned and hung; but when was
woman ever tried by a jury of her peers?
Though the nation declared from the beginning that "all just
governments derive their power from the consent of the governed," the
consent of woman was never asked to a single statute, however nearly
it affected her dearest womanly interests or happiness. In the
despotisms of the old world, of ancient and modern times, woman,
profligate, prostitute, weak, cruel, tyrannical, or otherwise, from
Semiramis and Messalina, to Catherine of Russia and Margaret of Anjou,
have swayed, unchallenged, imperial scepters; while in this republican
and Christian land in the nineteenth century, woman, intelligent,
refined in every ennobling gift and grace, may not even vote on the
appropriation of her own property, or the disposal and destiny of her
own children. Literally she has no _rights_ which man is bound to
respect; and her civil privileges she holds only by sufferance. For
the power that gave, can take away, and of that power she is no part.
In most of the States, these unjust distinctions apply to woman, and
to the colored man alike. Your Memorialists fully believe that the
time has come when such injustice should cease.
Woman and the colored man are loyal, patriotic, property-holding,
tax-paying, liberty-loving citizens; and we can not believe that sex
or complexion should be any ground for civil or political degradation.
In our government, one-half the citizens are disfranchised by their
sex, and about one-eighth by the color of their skin; and thus a large
majority have no voice in enacting or executing the laws they are
taxed to support and compelled to obey, with the same fidelity as the
more favored class, whose usurped prerogative it is to rule. Against
such outrages on the very name of republican freedom, your
memorialists do and must ever protest. And is not our protest
pre-eminently as just against the tyranny of "_taxation without
representation_," as was that thundered from Bunker Hill, when our
revolutionary fathers fired the shot that shook the world?
And your Memorialists especially remember, at this time, that our
country is still reeling under the shock of a terrible civil war, the
legitimate result and righteous retribution of the vilest slave system
ever suffered among men. And in restoring the foundations of our
nationality, your memorialists most respectfully and earnestly pray
that all discriminations on account of sex or race may be removed; and
that our Government may be republican in _fact_ as well as _form_; A
GOVERNMENT BY THE PEOPLE, AND THE WHOLE PEOPLE; FOR THE PEOPLE, AND
THE WHOLE PEOPLE.
In behalf of the American Equal Rights Association,
THEODORE TILTON, }
FREDERICK DOUGLAS, } Vice-Presidents.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, }
LUCRETIA MOTT, President.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Secretary.
CHAPTER XIX.
THE KANSAS CAMPAIGN--1867.
The Battle Ground of Freedom--Campaign of 1867--Liberals did not
Stand by their Principles--Black Men Opposed to Woman
Suffrage--Republican Press and Party Untrue--Democrats in
Opposition--John Stuart Mill's Letters and Speeches Extensively
Circulated--Henry B. Blackwell and Lucy Stone Opened the
Campaign--Rev. Olympia Brown Followed--60,000 Tracts
Distributed--Appeal Signed by Thirty-one Distinguished
Men--Letters from Helen E. Starrett, Susan E. Wattles, Dr. R. S.
Tenney, Lieut. Governor J. P. Root, Rev. Olympia Brown--The
Campaign closed by ex-Governor Robinson, Elizabeth Cady Stanton,
Susan B. Anthony, and the Hutchinson Family--Speeches and Songs
at the Polls in every Ward in Leavenworth Election Day--Both
Amendments lost--9,070 Votes for Woman Suffrage, 10,843 for Negro
Suffrage.
As Kansas was the historic ground where Liberty fought her first
victorious battles with Slavery, and consecrated that soil forever to
the freedom of the black race, so was it the first State where the
battle for woman's enfranchisement was waged and lost for a
generation. There never was a more hopeful interest concentrated on
the legislation of any single State, than when Kansas submitted the
two propositions to her people to take the words "white" and "male"
from her Constitution.
Those awake to the dignity and power of the ballot in the hands of all
classes, to the inspiring thought of self-government, were stirred as
never before, both in Great Britain and America, upon this question.
Letters from John Stuart Mill and other friends, with warm words of
encouragement, were read to thousands of audiences, and published in
journals throughout the State. Eastern women who went there to speak
started with the full belief that their hopes so long deferred were at
last to be realized. Some even made arrangements for future homes on
that green spot where at last the sons and daughters of earth were to
stand equal before the law. With no greater faith did the crusaders of
old seize their shields and start on their perilous journey to wrest
from the infidel the Holy Sepulcher, than did these defenders of a
sacred principle enter Kansas, and with hope sublime consecrate
themselves to labor for woman's freedom; to roll off of her soul the
mountains of sorrow and superstition that had held her in bondage to
false creeds, and codes, and customs for centuries. There was a solemn
earnestness in the speeches of all who labored in that campaign. Each
heart was thrilled with the thought that the youngest civilization in
the world was about to establish a government based on the divine
idea--the equality of all mankind--proclaimed by Jesus of Nazareth,
and echoed by the patriots who watched the dawn of the natal day of
our Republic. Here at last the mothers of the race, the most important
actors in the grand drama of human progress were for the first time to
stand the peers of men.
These women firmly believed that Republicans and Abolitionists who had
advocated their cause for years would aid them in all possible efforts
to carry the Constitutional Amendment that was to enfranchise the
women of the State. They looked confidently for encouragement, and
inspiring editorials in certain Eastern journals. With Horace Greeley
at the head of the _New York Tribune_, Theodore Tilton of the
_Independent_, and Wendell Phillips of the _Anti-Slavery Standard_,
they felt they had a strong force in the press of the East to rouse
the men of Kansas to their duty. But, alas! they all preserved a
stolid silence, and the Liberals of the State were in a measure
paralyzed by their example. Though the amendment to take the word
"male" from the Constitution was a Republican measure, signed by a
Republican Governor, and advocated by leading men of that party
throughout the campaign, yet the Republican party, as such, the
Abolitionists and black men were all hostile to the proposition,
because they said to agitate the woman's amendment would defeat negro
suffrage.
Eastern politicians warned the Republicans of Kansas that "negro
suffrage" was a party measure in national politics, and that they must
not entangle themselves with the "woman question." On all sides came
up the cry, this is "the negro's hour." Though the Republican State
Central Committee adopted a resolution leaving all their party
speakers free to express their individual sentiments, yet they
selected men to canvass the State, who were known to be unscrupulous
and disreputable, and violently opposed to woman suffrage.[76] The
Democratic party[77] was opposed to both amendments and to the new law
on temperance, which it was supposed the women would actively support.
The Germans in their Conventions passed a resolution[78] against the
new law that required the liquor dealers to get the signatures of
one-half the women, as well as the men, to their petitions before the
authorities could grant them license. In suffrage for women they saw
rigid Sunday laws and the suppression of their beer gardens. The
liquor dealers throughout the State were bitter and hostile to the
woman's amendment. Though the temperance party had passed a favorable
resolution[79] in their State Convention, yet some of their members
were averse to all affiliations with the dreaded question, as to them,
what the people might drink seemed a subject of greater importance
than a fundamental principle of human rights. Intelligent black men,
believing the sophistical statements of politicians, that their rights
were imperiled by the agitation of woman suffrage, joined the
opposition. Thus the campaign in Kansas was as protracted as many
sided.
From April until November, the women of Kansas, and those who came to
help them, worked with indomitable energy and perseverance. Besides
undergoing every physical hardship, traveling night and day in
carriages, open wagons, over miles and miles of the unfrequented
prairies, climbing divides, and through deep ravines, speaking in
depots, unfinished barns, mills, churches, school-houses, and the open
air, on the very borders of civilization, where-ever two or three
dozen voters could be assembled.
Henry B. Blackwell and Lucy Stone opened the campaign in April. The
following letters show how hopeful they were of success, and how
enthusiastically they labored to that end. Even the New York _Tribune_
prophesied victory.[80]
AT GOV. ROBINSON'S HOUSE, FOUR MILES NORTH OF
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, _April, 5, 1867_.
DEAR MRS. STANTON:--We report good news! After half a day's
earnest debate, the Convention at Topeka, by an almost unanimous
vote, refused to separate "the two questions" male and white. A
delegation from Lawrence came up specially to get the woman
dropped. The good God upset a similar delegation from Leavenworth
bent on the same object, and prevented them from reaching Topeka
at all. Gov. Robinson, Gov. Root, Col. Wood, Gen. Larimer, Col.
Ritchie, and "the old guard" generally were on hand. Our coming
out did good. Lucy spoke with all her old force and fire. Mrs.
Nichols was there--a strong list of permanent officers was
nominated--and a State Impartial Suffrage Association was
organized. The right men were put upon the committees, and I do
not believe that the Negro Suffrage men can well bolt or back out
now.
The effect is wonderful. Papers which have been ridiculing woman
suffrage and sneering at "Sam Wood's Convention" are now on our
side. We have made the present Gov. Crawford President of the
Association, Lieut.-Gov. Green Vice-President. Have appointed a
leading man in every judicial district member of the Executive
Committee, and have some of the leading Congregational, Old
School, and New School Presbyterian ministers committed for both
questions; have already secured a majority of the newspapers of
the State, and if Lucy and I succeed in "getting up steam" as we
hope in Lawrence, Wyandotte, Leavenworth, and Atchison, the woman
and the negro will rise or fall together, and shrewd politicians
say that with proper effort we shall carry both next fall.
During the Convention Lucy got a dispatch from Lawrence as
follows: "Will you lecture for the Library Association? State
terms, time, and subject." Lucy replied: "Will lecture Saturday
evening; subject, 'Impartial Suffrage'; terms, one hundred
dollars, payable to Kansas State Impartial Suffrage Association."
The prompt reply was: "We accept your terms." Gen. Larimer, of
Leavenworth, went down next day to try to arrange a similar
lyceum meeting there. In the afternoon came a dispatch from D. R.
Anthony, saying: "Meeting arranged for Tuesday night." This is
especially good, because we were informed that he had somewhat
favored dropping the woman, but whether this was so or not, he
will now be all right as befits the brother of Susan B. Anthony.
We are announced to speak every night but Sundays from April 7 to
May 5 inclusive. We shall have to travel from twenty to forty
miles per day. If our voices and health hold out, Col. Wood says
the State is safe. We had a rousing convention--three
sessions--at Topeka, and a crowded meeting the night following.
We find a very strong feeling against Col. S. N. Wood among
politicians, but they all respect and dread him. He has warmer
friends and bitterer enemies than almost any man in the State.
But he is true as steel. My judgment of men is rarely deceived,
and I pronounce S. N. Wood a great man and a political genius.
Gov. Robinson is a masterly tactician, cool, wary, cautious,
decided, and brave as a lion. These two men alone would suffice
to save Kansas. But when you add the other good and true men who
are already pledged, and the influences which have been combined,
I think you will see next fall an avalanche vote--"the caving in
of that mighty sandbank" your husband once predicted on a similar
occasion.
Now, Mrs. Stanton, you and Susan and Fred. Douglass must come to
this State early next September; you must come prepared to make
_sixty speeches_ each. You must leave your notes _behind you_.
These people won't have written sermons. And you don't want
notes. You are a natural orator, and these people will give you
inspiration! Everything has conspired to help us in this State.
Gov. Robinson and Sam. Wood have quietly set a ball in motion
which nobody in Kansas is now strong enough to stop. Politicians'
hair here is fairly on end. But the fire is in the prairie behind
them, and they are getting out their matches in self-defense to
fire their foreground. This is a glorious country, Mrs. S., and a
glorious people. If we succeed here, it will be the State of the
Future.
With kind regards, HENRY B. BLACKWELL.
P. S.--So you see we have the State Convention committed to the
right side, and I do believe we shall carry it. All the old
settlers are for it. It is only the later comers who say, "If I
were a black man I should not want the woman question hitched to
me." These men tell what their wives have done, and then ask,
shall such women be left without a vote? L. S.
D. R. ANTHONY'S HOUSE, LEAVENWORTH, }
_April 10, 1867_. }
DEAR MRS. STANTON:--We came here just in the nick of time. The
papers were laughing at "Sam Wood's Convention," the call for
which was in the papers with the names of Beecher, Tilton, Ben
Wade, Gratz Brown, E. C. Stanton, Anna Dickinson, Lucy Stone,
etc., as persons expected or invited to be at the convention. The
papers said: "This is one of Sam's shabbiest tricks. Not one of
these persons will be present, and he knows it," etc., etc. Our
arrival set a buzz going, and when I announced you and Susan and
Aunt Fanny for the fall, they began to say "they guessed the
thing would carry." Gov. Robinson said he could not go to the
Topeka Convention, for he had a lawsuit involving $1,000 that was
to come off that very day, but we talked the matter over with
him, showed him what a glorious hour it was for Kansas, etc.,
etc., and he soon concluded to get the suit put off and go to the
convention. Ex-Gov. Root, of Wyandotte, joined with him and us,
though he had not intended to go. We went to Topeka; and the day
and evening before the convention, pulled every wire and set
every honest trap. Gov. Robinson has a long head, and he arranged
the "platform" so shrewdly, carefully using the term "impartial,"
which he said meant right, and we must make them use it, so that
there would be no occasion for any other State Association. In
this previous meeting, the most prominent men of the State were
made officers of the permanent organization. When the platform
was read, with the names of the officers, and the morning's
discussion was over, everybody then felt that the ball was set
right. But in the P.M. came a Methodist minister and a lawyer
from Lawrence as delegates, "instructed" to use the word
"impartial," "as it had been used for the last two years," to
make but one issue, and to drop the woman. The lawyer said, "If I
was a negro, I would not want the woman hitched on to my skirts,"
etc. He made a mean speech. Mrs. Nichols and I came down upon
him, and the whole convention, except the Methodist, was against
him. The vote was taken whether to drop the woman, and only the
little lawyer from Lawrence, with a hole in his coat and only one
shoe on, voted against the woman. After that it was all one way.
The papers all came out right, I mean the Topeka papers. One
editor called on us, said we need not mention that he had called,
but he wanted to assure us that he had always been right on this
question. That the mean articles in his paper had been written by
a subordinate in his office in his absence, etc. That the paper
was fully committed, etc., etc. That is a fair specimen of the
way all the others have done, till we got to this place. Here the
Republicans had decided to drop the woman, Anthony with the
others, and I think they are only waiting to see the result of
our meetings, to announce their decision. But the Democrats all
over the State are preparing to take us up. They are a small
minority, with nothing to lose, and utterly unscrupulous, while
all who will work with Sam Wood will work with anybody. I fully
expect we shall carry the State. But it will be necessary to have
a good force here in the fall, and you will have to come. Our
meetings are everywhere crowded to overflowing, and in every case
the papers speak well of them. We have meetings for every night
till the 4th of May. By that time we shall be well tired out. But
we shall see the country, and I hope have done some good. There
is no such love of principle here as I expected to find. Each
man goes for himself, and "the devil take the hindmost." The
women here are grand, and it will be a shame past all expression
if they don't get the right to vote. One woman in Wyandotte said
she carried petitions all through the town for female suffrage,
and not one woman in ten refused to sign. Another in Lawrence
said they sent up two large petitions from there. So they have
been at the Legislature, like the heroes they really are, and it
is not possible for the husbands of such women to back out,
though they have sad lack of principle and a terrible desire for
office.
Yours, L. S.
JUNCTION CITY, KANSAS, _April 20_.
DEAR MRS. STANTON:
We have had one letter from you, and have written you twice.
To-day I inclose an article by Col. Wood, which is so capital
that it ought to be printed. I wish you would take it to Tilton
(not Oliver), and if he says he will publish it, let him have it;
but if he hesitates, send it at once to the _Chicago Republic_,
and ask them to mark the article in some of their exchanges.
Perhaps the _Northern Methodist_, _The Banner of Light_, and the
_Liberal Christian_ would insert it. I shall not be back to the
May meeting; indeed, it would be better if we could stay till
June 1st, and go all along the Northern tier of counties. I think
this State will be right at the fall election. The _Independent_
is taken in many families here, and they are getting right on the
question of impartial suffrage. But there will have to be a great
deal of work to carry the State. We have large, good meetings
everywhere. If the _Independent_ would take up this question, and
every week write for it, as it does for the negro, that paper
alone could save this State; and with this, all the others.
What a pity it does not see the path that would leave it with
more than Revolutionary honors! I am thankful beyond expression
for what it does, but I am pained for what it _might do_. With
its 75,000 subscribers, and five times that number of readers,
what can the poor little _Standard_ do for us, compared with
that? I shall try and write a letter to the convention. May
strike the true note! I hope not a man will be asked to speak at
the convention. If they volunteer very well, but I have been for
the last time on my knees to Phillips or Higginson, or any of
them. If they help now, they should ask us, and not we them. Is
Susan with you?
L. S.
JUNCTION CITY, KANSAS, _April 21, 1867_.
DEAR FRIENDS, E. C. STANTON AND SUSAN B. ANTHONY:
You will be glad to know that Lucy and I are going over the
length and breadth of this State speaking every day, and
sometimes twice, journeying from twenty-five to forty miles
daily, sometimes in a carriage and sometimes in an open wagon,
with or without springs. We climb hills and dash down ravines,
ford creeks, and ferry over rivers, rattle across limestone
ledges, struggle through muddy bottoms, fight the high winds on
the high rolling upland prairies, and address the most
astonishing (and astonished) audiences in the most extraordinary
places. To-night it may be a log school house, to-morrow a stone
church; next day a store with planks for seats, and in one place,
if it had not rained, we should have held forth in an unfinished
court house, with only four stone walls but no roof whatever.
The people are a queer mixture of roughness and intelligence,
recklessness, and conservatism. One swears at women who want to
wear the breeches; another wonders whether we ever heard of a
fellow named Paul; a third is not going to put women on an
equality with niggers. One woman told Lucy that no decent woman
would be running over the country talking nigger and woman. Her
brother told Lucy that "he had had a woman who was under the sod,
but that if she had ever said she wanted to vote he would have
pounded her to death!"
The fact is, however, that we have on our side all the shrewdest
politicians and all the best class of men and women in this
State. Our meetings are doing much towards organizing and
concentrating public sentiment in our favor, and the papers are
beginning to show front in our favor. We fought and won a pitched
battle at Topeka in the convention, and have possession of the
machine. By the time we get through with the proposed series of
meetings, it will be about the 20th of May, if Lucy's voice and
strength hold out. The scenery of this State is lovely. In summer
it must be very fine indeed, especially in this Western section
the valleys are beautiful, and the bluffs quite bold and
romantic.
I think we shall probably succeed in Kansas next fall if the
State is thoroughly canvassed, not else. We are fortunate in
having Col. Sam N. Wood as an organizer and worker. We owe
everything to Wood, and he is really a thoroughly noble, good
fellow, and a hero. He is a short, rather thick set, somewhat
awkward, and "slouchy" man, extremely careless in his dress,
blunt and abrupt in his manner, with a queer inexpressive face,
little blue eyes which can look dull or flash fire or twinkle
with the wickedest fun. He is so witty, sarcastic, and cutting,
that he is a terrible foe, and will put the laugh even on his
best friends. The son of a Quaker mother, he held the baby while
his wife acted as one of the officers, and his mother another, in
a Woman's Rights Convention seventeen years ago. Wood has helped
off more runaway slaves than any man in Kansas. He has always
been _true_ both to the negro and the woman. But the negroes
dislike and distrust him because he has never allowed the word
white to be struck out, unless the word male should be struck out
also. He takes exactly Mrs. Stanton's ground, that the colored
men and women shall enter the kingdom _together_, if at all. So,
while he advocates both, he fully realizes the wider scope and
far greater grandeur of the battle for _woman_. Lucy and I like
Wood very much. We have seen a good deal of him, first at Topeka,
again at Cottonwood Falls, his home, and on the journey thence to
Council Grove and to this place. Our arrangements for conveyances
failed, and Wood with characteristic energy and at great personal
inconvenience brought us through himself. It is worth a journey
to Kansas to know him for he is an original and a genius. If he
should die next month I should consider the election lost. But if
he live, and we all in the East drop other work and spend
September and October in Kansas, we shall succeed. I am glad to
say that our friend D. R. Anthony is out for both propositions in
the _Leavenworth Bulletin_. But his sympathies are so especially
with the negro question that we must have Susan out here to
strengthen his hands. We must have Mrs. Stanton, Susan, Mrs.
Gage, and Anna Dickinson, this fall. Also Ben Wade and Carl
Schurz, if possible. We must also try to get 10,000 each of Mrs.
Stanton's address, of Lucy Stone's address, and of Mrs. Mills
article on the Enfranchisement of Women, printed for us by the
Hovey Fund.
Kansas is to be _the battle ground_ for 1867. _It must not be
allowed to fail._
The politicians here, except Wood and Robinson, are generally "on
the fence." But they dare not oppose us openly. And the
Democratic leaders are quite disposed to take us up. If the
Republicans come out against us the Democrats will take us up. Do
not let anything prevent your being here September 1 _for the
campaign_, which will end in November. There will be a big fight
and a great excitement. After the fight is over Mrs. Stanton will
never have _use_ for _notes_ or _written_ speeches any more.
Yours truly, HENRY B. BLACKWELL.
FORT SCOTT, _May 1, 1867_.
DEAR SUSAN:
I have just this moment read your letter, and received the
tracts; the "testimonies" I mean. We took 250 pounds of tracts
with us, and we have sowed them thick; and Susan, the crop will
be impartial suffrage in the fall. It will carry, beyond a doubt,
in this State. Now, as I can not be in New York next week, I want
you to see Aunt Fanny and Anna Dickinson, and get them pledged to
come here in the fall. We will raise the pay somehow. You and
Mrs. Stanton will come, of course. I wish Mrs. Harper to come. I
don't know if she is in New York; please tell her I got her
letter, and will either see or correspond with her when I get
home. There is no time to write here. We ride all day, and
lecture every night, and sometimes at noon too. So there is time
for nothing else. I am sorry there is no one to help you, Susan,
in New York. I always thought that when this hour of our bitter
need come--this darkest hour before the dawn--Mr. Higginson would
bring his beautiful soul and his fine, clear intellect to draw
all women to his side; but if it is possible for him to be
satisfied at _such_ an hour with writing the best literary
essays, it is because the power to help us has gone from him. The
old lark moves her nest only when the farmer prepares to cut his
grass himself. This will be the way with us; as to the
_Standard_, I don't count upon it at all. Even if you get it, the
circulation is so limited that it amounts almost to nothing. I
have not seen a copy in all Kansas. But the _Tribune_ and
_Independent_ alone could, if they would urge _universal_
suffrage, as they do negro suffrage, carry this whole nation upon
the only just plane of equal human rights. What a power to hold,
and not use! I could not sleep the other night, just for thinking
of it; and if I had got up and written the thought that burned my
very soul, I do believe that Greeley and Tilton would have echoed
the cry of the old crusaders, "God wills it;" and rushing to our
half-sustained standard, would plant it high and firm on
immutable principles. _They_ MUST take it up. I shall see them
the very first thing when I go home. At your meeting next Monday
evening, I think you should insist that all of the Hovey fund
used for the _Standard_ and Anti-Slavery purposes, since slavery
is abolished, must be returned with interest to the three causes
which by the express terms of the will were to receive _all_ of
the fund when slavery was abolished. You will have a good
meeting, I am sure, and I hope you will not fail to rebuke the
cowardly use of the terms "universal," and "impartial," and
"equal," applied to hide a dark skin, and an unpopular client.
All this talk about the infamous thirteen who voted against
"negro suffrage" in New Jersey, is unutterably contemptible from
the lips or pen of those whose words, acts, and votes are not
against ignorant and degraded negroes, but against every man's
mother, wife, and daughter. We have crowded meetings everywhere.
I speak as well as ever, thank God! The audiences move to tears
or laughter, just as in the old time. Harry makes capital
speeches, and gets a louder cheer always than I do, though I
believe I move a deeper feeling. The papers all over the State
are discussing pro and con. The whole thing is working just
right. If Beecher is chosen delegate at large to your
Constitutional Convention, I think the word male will go out
before his vigorous cudgel. I do not want to stay here after the
4th, but Wood and Harry have arranged other meetings up to the
18th or 20th of May, so that we shan't be back even for the
Boston meetings.
Very truly, LUCY STONE.
In a letter dated Atchison, May 9, 1867, Lucy Stone says: I
should be so glad to be with you to-morrow, and to know this
minute whether Phillips has consented to take the high ground
which sound policy as well as justice and statesmanship require.
I can not send you a telegraphic dispatch as you wish, for just
now there is a plot to get the Republican party to drop the word
"male," and also to agree to canvass _only_ for the word "white."
There is a call, signed by the Chairman of the State Central
Republican Committee; to meet at Topeka on the 15th, to pledge
the party to the canvass on that single issue. As soon as we saw
the call and the change of tone of some of the papers, we sent
letters to all those whom we had found true to principle, urging
them to be at Topeka and vote for both words. This effort of ours
the Central Committee know nothing of, and we hope they will be
defeated, as they will be sure to be surprised. So, till this
action of the Republicans is settled, we can affirm nothing.
Everywhere we go we have the largest and most enthusiastic
meetings, and any one of our audiences would give a majority for
woman suffrage. But the negroes are all against us. There has
just now left us an ignorant black preacher named Twine, who is
very confident that women ought not to vote. These men _ought not
to be allowed to vote before we do_, because they will be just so
much more dead weight to lift.
Mr. Frothingham's course of lectures, happily, is over. Were you
ever so cruelly hurt by any course of lectures before? "If it had
been an enemy I could have borne it." But for this man, wise,
educated, and good, who thinks he is our friend, to do just the
things that our worst enemies will be glad of, is the unkindest
cut of all. Ninety-nine pulpits out of every hundred have taught
that women should not meddle in politics; as large a proportion
of papers have done the same; and by every hearthstone the lesson
is repeated to the little girl; and when she has learned it, and
grows up, and does not throw away the teaching of a life time,
Mr. Frothingham accepts this _effect_ for a _cause_, and blames
the unhappy victim, when he should stand by her side, and with
all his power of persuasion win her away from her false teaching,
to accept the truth and the nobler life that comes with it. But,
thank God, the popular pulse is setting in the right direction.
We must see Wade, and Garfield, and Julian, and when Sumner
proposes, as he says he shall, to make negro suffrage universal,
_they_ must _insist_ upon _our_ claim; urged not for our sake
merely, but that the government may be based upon the consent of
the governed. There is safety in no other way. We shall leave for
home on the 20th. We had the largest meeting we have yet had in
the State at Leavenworth night before last. Your brother and his
wife called upon us at Col. Coffin's. They are well. But Dan
don't want the Republicans to take us up. Love to Mrs. Stanton.
LUCY STONE.
P. S.--The papers here are coming down on us, and every prominent
reformer, and charging us with being Free Lovers. I have to-day
written a letter to the editor, saying that it has not the shadow
of a foundation.
Rev. Olympia Brown arrived in the State in July, where her untiring
labors, for four months were never equaled by man or woman. Mrs.
Stanton, Miss Anthony, and the Hutchinson family followed her early in
September. What these speakers could not do with reason and appeal,
the Hutchinsons, by stirring the hearts of the people with their sweet
ballads, readily accomplished. Before leaving New York Miss Anthony
published 60,000 tracts, which were distributed in Kansas with a
liberal hand under the frank of Senators Ross and Pomeroy. Thus the
thinking and unthinking in every school district were abundantly
supplied with woman suffrage literature, such as Mrs. Mill's splendid
article in the _Westminster Review_, the best speeches of John Stuart
Mill, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, George William Curtis,
Elizabeth Cady Stanton's argument before the Constitutional
Convention, Parker Pillsbury's "Mortality of Nations," Thomas
Wentworth Higginson's "Woman and her Wishes," Henry Ward Beecher's
"Woman's Duty to Vote," and Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols' "Responsibility of
Woman." There was scarcely a log cabin in the State that could not
boast one or more of these documents, which the liberality of a few
eastern friends[81] enabled the "Equal Rights Association" to print
and circulate.
The opposition were often challenged to debate this question in
public, but uniformly refused, knowing full well, since their powder
in this battle consisted of vulgar abuse and ridicule, that they had
no arguments to advance. But it chanced that on one occasion by
mistake, a meeting was appointed for the opposing forces at the same
time and place where Olympia Brown was advertised to speak. This gave
her an opportunity of testing her readiness in debate with Judge
Sears. Of this occasion a correspondent says:
DISCUSSION AT OSKALOOSA.--_To the Editor of the Kansas State
Journal_: For the first time during the canvass for Universal
Suffrage, the opponents of the two wrongs, "Manhood Suffrage" and
"Woman Suffrage," met in open debate at this place last evening.
The largest church in the place was crowded to its utmost, every
inch of space being occupied. Judge Gilchrist was called to the
chair, and first introduced Judge Sears, who made the following
points in favor of Manhood Suffrage:
1st. That in the early days of the Republic no discrimination was
made against negroes on account of color.
He proved from the constitutions and charters of the original
thirteen States, that all of them, with the exception of South
Carolina, allowed the colored freeman the ballot, upon the same
basis and conditions as the white man. That we were not
conferring a right, but restoring one which the fathers in their
wisdom had never deprived the colored man of. He showed how the
word white had been forced into the State constitutions, and
advocated that it should be stricken out, it being the last relic
of the "slave power."
2d. That the negro needed the ballot for his protection and
elevation.
3d. That he deserved the ballot. He fought with our fathers side
by side in the war of the revolution. He did the same thing in
the war of 1812, and in the war of the rebellion. He fought for
us because he was loyal and loved the old flag. If any class of
men had ever earned the enjoyment of franchise the negro had.
4th. The Republican party owed it to him.
5th. The enfranchisement of the negro was indispensable to
reconstruction of the late rebellious States upon a basis that
should secure to the loyal men of the South the control of the
government in those States. Congress had declared it was
necessary, and the most eminent men of the nation had failed to
discover any other means by which the South could be restored to
the Union, that should secure safety, prosperity, and happiness.
There was not loyalty enough in the South among the whites to
elect a loyal man to an inferior office.
Upon each one of these points the Judge elaborated at length, and
made really a fine speech, but his evident disconcertion showed
that he knew what was to follow. It was expected that when Miss
Brown was introduced many would leave, owing to the strange
feeling against Female Suffrage in and about Oscaloosa; but not
one left, the crowd grew more dense. A more eloquent speech never
was uttered in this town than Miss Brown delivered; for an hour
and three-quarters the audience was spell-bound as she advanced
from point to point. She had been longing for such an
opportunity, and had become weary of striking off into open air;
and she proved how thoroughly acquainted she was with her subject
as she took up each point advanced by her opponent, not denying
their truth, but showing by unanswerable logic that if it were
good under certain reasons for the negro to vote, it was ten
times better for the same reasons for the women to vote.
The argument that the right to vote is not a natural right, but
acquired as corporate bodies acquire their rights, and that the
ballot meant "protection," was answered and explained fully. She
said the ballot meant protection; it meant much more; it means
education, progress, advancement, elevation for the oppressed
classes, drawing a glowing comparison between the working classes
of England and those of the United States. She scorned the idea
of an aristocracy based upon two accidents of the body. She paid
an eloquent tribute to Kansas, the pioneer in all reforms, and
said that it would be the best advertisement that Kansas could
have to give the ballot to women, for thousands now waiting and
uncertain, would flock to our State, and a vast tide of
emigration would continually roll toward Kansas until her broad
and fertile prairies would be peopled. It is useless to attempt
to report her address, as she could hardly find a place to stop.
When she had done, her opponent had nothing to say, he had been
beaten on his own ground, and retired with his feathers drooping.
After Miss Brown had closed, some one in the audience called for
a vote on the female proposition. The vote was put, and nearly
every man and woman in the house rose simultaneously, men that
had fought the proposition from the first arose, even Judge
Sears himself looked as though he would like to rise, but his
principles, much tempted, forbade. After the first vote, Judge
Sears called for a vote on his, the negro proposition, when about
one-half the house arose. Verily there was a great turning to the
Lord that day, and many would have been baptized, but there was
no water. When Mrs. Stanton has passed through Oscaloosa, her
fame having gone before her, we can count on a good majority for
Female Suffrage....
* * * *
OSCALOOSA, October 11, 1867.
SALINA, KANSAS, Sept. 12, 1867.
DEAR FRIEND:--We are getting along splendidly. Just the frame of
a Methodist church with sidings and roof, and rough cotton-wood
boards for seats, was our meeting place last night here; and a
perfect jam it was, with men crowded outside at all the windows.
Two very brave young Kentuckian sprigs of the law had the courage
to argue or present sophistry on the other side. The meeting
continued until eleven o'clock. To-day we go to Ellsworth, the
very last trading post on the frontier. A car load of wounded
soldiers went East on the train this morning; but the fight was a
few miles West of Ellsworth. No Indians venture to that point.
Our tracts gave out at Solomon, and the Topeka people failed to
fill my telegraphic order to send package here. It is enough to
exhaust the patience of any "Job" that men are so wanting in
promptness. Our tracts do more than half the battle; reading
matter is so very scarce that everybody clutches at a book of any
kind. If only reformers would supply this demand with the right
and the true--come in and occupy the field at the beginning--they
might mould these new settlements. But instead they wait until
everything is fixed, and the comforts and luxuries obtainable,
and then come to find the ground preoccupied.
Send 2,000 of Curtis' speeches, 2,000 of Phillips', 2,000 of
Beecher's, and 1,000 of each of the others, and then fill the
boxes with the reports of our last convention; they are the best
in the main because they have everybody's speeches together.
S. B. A.
HOME OF EX-GOV. ROBINSON,
LAWRENCE, KANSAS, Sept. 15, 1867.
I rejoice greatly in the $100 from the Drapers.[82] That makes
$250 paid toward the tracts. I am very sorry Mr. J. can not get
off Curtis and Beecher. There is a perfect greed for our tracts.
All that great trunk full were sold and given away at our first
fourteen meetings, and we in return received $110, which a little
more than paid our railroad fare--_eight cents per mile_--and
hotel bills. Our collections thus far fully equal those at the
East. I have been delightfully disappointed, for everybody said I
couldn't raise money in Kansas meetings. I wish you were here to
make the tour of this beautiful State, in which to live fifty
years hence will be charming; but now, alas, the women especially
see hard times; to come actually in contact with all their
discomforts and privations spoils the poetry of pioneer life.
The opposition, the "Anti-Female Suffragists," are making a bold
push now; but all prophesy a short run for them. They held a
meeting here the day after ours, and the friends say, did vastly
more to make us converts than we ourselves did. The fact is
nearly every man of the movers is like Kalloch, notoriously
wanting in right action toward woman. Their opposition is low and
scurrilous, as it used to be fifteen and twenty years ago at the
East. Hurry on the tracts.
As ever, S. B. A.
Seeing that the republican vote must be largely against the woman's
amendment, the question arose what can be done to capture enough
democratic votes to outweigh the recalcitrant republicans. At this
auspicious moment George Francis Train appeared in the State as an
advocate of woman suffrage. He appealed most effectively to the
chivalry of the intelligent Irishmen, and the prejudices of the
ignorant; conjuring them not to take the word "white" out of their
constitution unless they did the word "male" also; not to lift the
negroes above the heads of their own mothers, wives, sisters, and
daughters. The result was a respectable democratic vote in favor of
woman suffrage.
In a discussion with General Blunt at a meeting in Ottawa, Mr. Train
said:
You say, General, that women in politics would lower the
standard. Are politicians so pure, politics so exalted, the polls
so immaculate, men so moral, that woman would pollute the ballot
and contaminate the voters? Would revolvers, bowie-knives, whisky
barrels, profane oaths, brutal rowdyism, be the feature of
elections if women were present? Woman's presence purifies the
atmosphere. Enter any Western hotel and what do you see, General?
Sitting around the stove you will see dirty, unwashed-looking
men, with hats on, and feet on the chairs; huge cuds of tobacco
on the floor, spittle in pools all about; filth and dirt,
condensed tobacco smoke, and a stench of whisky from the bar and
the breath (applause, and "that's so,") on every side. This,
General, is the manhood picture. Now turn to the womanhood
picture; she, whom you think will debase and lower the morals of
the elections. Just opposite this sitting room of the King, or on
the next floor, is the sitting room of the Queen, covered chairs,
clean curtains, nice carpets, books on the table, canary birds at
the window, everything tidy, neat and beautiful, and according to
your programme the occupants of this room will so demoralize the
occupants of the other as to completely undermine all society.
Did man put woman in the parlor? Did woman put man in that bar
room? Are the instincts of woman so low that unless man puts up a
bar, she will immediately fall into man's obscene conversation
and disreputable habits? No, General, women are better than men,
purer, nobler, hence more exalted, and so far from falling to
man's estate, give her power and she will elevate man to her
level.
One other point, General, in reply to your argument. You say
woman's sphere is at home with her children, and paint her as the
sovereign of her own household. Let me paint the picture of the
mother at the washtub, just recovering from the birth of her last
child as the Empress. Six little children, half starved and
shivering with cold, are watching and hoping that the Emperor
will arrive with a loaf of bread, he having taken the wash money
to the baker's. They wait and starve and cry, the poor emaciated
Empress works and prays, when lo! the bugle sounds. It is the
Emperor staggering into the yard. The little famished princesses'
mouths all open are waiting for their expected food. Your friend,
General, the Emperor, however, was absent minded, and while away
at the polls voting for the license for his landlord, left the
wash money on deposit with the bar-keeper (laughter) who wouldn't
give it back again, and the little Queen birds must starve
another day, till the wash-tub earns them a mouthful of something
to eat. Give that woman a vote and she will keep the money she
earns to clothe and feed her children, instead of its being spent
in drunkenness and debauchery by her lord and master....
You say, General, that you intend to vote for _negro suffrage_
and against _woman suffrage_. In other words, not satisfied with
having your mother, your wife, your sisters, your daughters, the
equals _politically_ of the negro--by giving him a vote and
refusing it to woman, you wish to place your family politically
still lower in the scale of citizenship and humanity. This
particular twist, General, is working in the minds of the people,
and the democrats, having got you where Tommy had the wedge,
intend to hold you there. Again you say that Mrs. Cady Stanton
was three days in advance of you in the border towns, calling you
the Sir John Falstaff of the campaign. I am under the impression,
General, that these strong minded woman's rights women _are more
than three days in advance of you_. (Loud cheers.) Falstaff was a
jolly old brick, chivalrous and full of gallantry, and were he
stumping Kansas with his ragged regiment, he would do it as the
champion of woman instead of against her. (Loud cheers.) Hence
Mrs. Stanton owes an apology to Falstaff, not to General Blunt.
(Laughter and cheers.)
One more point, General. You have made a terrific personal attack
on Senator Wood, calling him everything that is vile. I do not
know Mr. Wood. Miss Anthony has made all my arrangements; but
perhaps you will allow me to ask you if Mr. Wood is a democrat?
(Laughter and applause from the democrats.) Gen. Blunt--No, he is
a republican, (laughter) and chairman of the woman suffrage
committee. Mr. Train--Good. I understand you and your argument
against Wood is so forcible, (and Mr. Train said this with the
most biting sarcasm, every point taking with the audience.) I
believe with you that Wood is a bad man, (laughter) a man of no
principle whatever. (Laughter.) A man who has committed all the
crimes in the calendar, (loud laughter) who, if he has done what
you have said, ought to be taken out on the square and hung, and
_well hung_ too. (Laughter and cheers.) Having admitted that I am
converted to the fact of Wood's villainy, (laughter) and you
having admitted that he is not a democrat, but a republican,
(laughter) I think it is time the honest democratic and
republican voters should rise up in their might and wipe off all
those corrupt republican leaders from the Kansas State committee.
(Loud cheers.) Democrats do your duty on the fifth of November
and vote for woman suffrage. (Applause.) The effect of turning
the General's own words back upon his party was perfectly
electric, and when the vote was put for woman's suffrage it was
almost unanimous. Mr. Train saying amid shouts of laughter, that
he supposed that a few henpecked men would say "No" here, because
they didn't dare to say their souls were their own at home....
Mr. TRAIN continued: Twelve o'clock at night is a late hour to
take up all your points, General; but the audience will have me
talk. Miss Anthony gave you, General, a very sarcastic retort to
your assertion that every woman ought to be married. (Laughter.)
She told you that to marry, it was essential to find some decent
man, and that could not be found among the Kansas politicians who
had so gallantly forsaken the woman's cause. (Loud laughter.) She
said, as society was organized there was not one man in a
thousand worthy of marriage--marrying a man and marrying a whisky
barrel were two distinct ideas. (Laughter and applause.) Miss
Anthony tells me that your friend Kalloch said at Lawrence that
_of all the infernal humbugs of this humbugging Woman's Rights
question, the most absurd was that woman should assume to be
entitled to the same wages for the same amount of labor
performed, as man_. Do you mean to say that the school mistress,
who so ably does her duty, should only receive three hundred
dollars, while the school master, who performs the same duty,
gets fifteen hundred? (Shame.) All the avenues of employment are
blocked against women. Embroidering, tapestry, knitting-needle,
sewing needle have all been displaced by machinery; and women
speakers, women doctors, and women clerks, are ridiculed and
insulted till every modest woman fairly cowers before her Emperor
Husband, her King, her Lord, for fear of being called "strong
minded." (Laughter and applause.) Why should not the landlady of
that hotel over the way share the profits of their joint labors
with the landlord? _She_ works as hard--yet _he_ keeps all the
money, and she goes to him, instead of being an independent
woman, for her share of the profits, as a _beggar_ asking for ten
dollars to buy a bonnet or a dress. (Applause from the ladies.)
Nothing is more contemptible than this slavery to the husband on
the question of money. (Loud applause.) Give the sex votes and
men will have more respect for women than to treat them as
children or as dolls. (Applause.) The ten-year old boy will say
to his women relatives, "Oh you don't know anything, you are only
a woman," and when man wishes to insult his fellow man, he calls
him a woman--and if the insult is intended to be more severe, he
will speak of a cabinet statesman even as an "old woman." The
General and Mr. Kalloch are afraid that women will be corrupted
by going to the polls, yet they as lawyers have no hesitation in
bringing a young and beautiful girl into court where a curiosity
seeking audience are staring at her; where the judge makes her
unveil her face, and the jury watch every feature, turning an
honest blush into guilt. (Applause.)
Woman first, and negro last, is my programme; yet I am willing
that intelligence should be the test, although some men have more
brains in their hands than others in their heads. (Laughter.)
Emmert's Resolution, introduced into your Legislature last year,
disfranchising, after July 4, 1870, all of age who can not read
the American Constitution, the State Constitution, and the Bible,
in the language in which he was educated, (applause) expresses my
views.
Again you alluded to the Foreign Emissary--who had no interest in
Kansas. Do you mean me, General? General Blunt--No, sir. Thank
you. The other four Foreign Emissaries are women, noble,
self-sacrificing women, bold, never-tiring, unblemished
reputation; women who have left their pleasant Eastern homes for
a grand idea, (loud applause,) and to them and them alone is due
the credit of carrying Kansas for woman suffrage. General
Blunt--It won't carry. Train--Were I a betting man I would wager
ten thousand dollars that Kansas will give 5,000 majority for
women. (Loud cheers from Blunt's own audience of anti-women men.)
As an advertisement to this beautiful State, it is worth untold
millions.
Kansas will win the world's applause,
As the sole champion of woman's cause.
So light the bonfires! Have the flags unfurled,
To the Banner State of all the World!
(Loud cheers.)
No, General, these women are no foreign emissaries. They came
expecting support. They thought the republicans honest. They
forgot that the democrats alone were their friends. (Applause.)
They forgot that it was the Republican party that publicly
insulted them in Congress. That it was Charles Sumner who wished
to insert the word "male" in the amendment of the Federal
Constitution two years ago, when the old Constitution, by having
neither male nor female, had left it an open question. No, Mrs.
Cady Stanton, Miss Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Lucy Stone, and Miss
Olympia Brown are the "foreign emissaries" that will alone have
the credit of emancipating women in Kansas. Your trimming
politicians left them in the lurch. Not one of you was honest.
(Applause.) Even those who assumed to be their friends by saying
nothing on the woman, and everything on the negro, are worse than
you and Kalloch. (Applause.) Mr. Kalloch and Leggett and Sears
have helped the woman's cause by opposing it, (cheers,) while the
milk-and-water republican committee and speakers and press have
damaged woman by their sneaking, cowardly way of advocacy.
(That's so.)
Mr. TRAIN at Leavenworth, the day before the election: "A great
empire, and little minds go ill together," said Lord Bacon. "The
sober second thought of the people," said Van Buren, "is never
wrong, and always efficient." To-morrow it will be shown by
voting for our mother and our sister. (Loud applause.) Never
before were so many rats fleeing from a sinking ship. (Laughter.)
A few staunch men will receive their reward. Falsehood passes
away. Truth is eternal. (Applause.) The woman suffrage
association wants a few thousand dollars to pay off this
expensive canvass. Miss Anthony has distributed two thousand
pounds weight of tracts and pamphlets. (Applause.) Mrs. Stanton,
Miss Olympia Brown and Mrs. Lucy Stone, have been for months in
all parts of the State. Kansas has furnished no part of the fund
which makes her to-morrow the envy of the world. (Cheers.) For
the benefit of the Association I have promised on my return from
Omaha to make seven speeches in the largest cities; the entire
proceeds to be given to this grand cause--I paying my own
expenses as in this campaign. (Loud cheers for Train.) We
commence at St. Louis about the 20th, thence to Chicago,
Cleveland, Cincinnati, Philadelphia, Boston and New York.
(Cheers.) The burden of my thought will be the future of America;
my mission, with the aid of women, to reconstruct the country
and save the nation. (Cheers.) To-morrow our amendment will pass
with a startling majority. The other two will be lost.
(Applause.) The negro can wait and go to school. And as all are
now loyal, the war over, and no rebels exist, no American in this
land must be marked by the stain of attainder or impeachment.
(Cheers.) No so-called rebel must be disfranchised. I represent
the people, and they speak to-morrow in Kansas, emancipating
woman, (loud cheers), and declaring that no Hungary, no Poland,
no Venice, no Ireland--crushed and disheartened--shall exist in
New America. (Loud cheers.)
But Kansas being republican by a large majority, there was no chance
of victory. For although the women were supported by some of the best
men in the State, such as Gov. Crawford, Ex-Gov. Robinson, United
States Senators Pomeroy and Ross, and a few of the ablest editors, the
opposition was too strong to be conquered. With both parties, the
press, the pulpit and faithless liberals as opponents, the hopes of
the advocates of woman suffrage began to falter before the election.
The action of the Michigan Commission, in refusing to submit a similar
amendment to her people, and the adverse report of Mr. Greeley in the
Constitutional Convention of New York, had also their depressing
influence. Nevertheless, when election day came, the vote was nearly
equal for both propositions. With all the enginery of the controlling
party negro suffrage had a little over 10,000 votes, while woman
suffrage without press or party, friends or politicians, had 9,000 and
some over. And this vote for woman's enfranchisement represented the
best elements in the State, men of character and conscience, who
believed in social order and good government.
When Eastern Republicans learned that the action of their party in
Kansas was doing more damage than the question of woman to the negro,
since the pioneers, who knew how bravely the women had stood by their
side amid all dangers, were saying, "if our women can not vote, the
negro shall not;" they began to take in the situation, and a month
before the election issued the following appeal, signed by some of the
most influential men of the nation. It was published in the New York
_Tribune_ October 1st, and copied by most of the papers throughout the
State of Kansas:
_To the Voters of the United States_:
In this hour of national reconstruction we appeal to good men of
all parties, to Conventions for amending State Constitutions, to
the Legislature of every State, and to the Congress of the United
States, to apply the principles of the Declaration of
Independence to women; "Governments derive their just powers from
the consent of the governed." The only form of consent
recognized under a Republic is suffrage. Mere tacit acquiescence
is not consent; if it were, every despotism might claim that its
power is justly held. Suffrage is the right of every adult
citizen, irrespective of sex or color. Women are governed,
therefore they are rightly entitled to vote.
The problem of American statesmanship is how to incorporate in
our institutions a guarantee of the rights of every individual.
The solution is easy. Base government on the consent of the
governed, and each class will protect itself.[83]
But the appeal was too late, the mischief done was irreparable. The
action of the Republican party had created a hostile feeling between
the women and the colored people. The men of Kansas in their speeches
would say, "What would be to us the comparative advantage of the
amendments? If negro suffrage passes, we will be flooded with
ignorant, impoverished blacks from every State of the Union. If woman
suffrage passes, we invite to our borders people of character and
position, of wealth and education, the very element Kansas needs
to-day. Who can hesitate to decide, when the question lies between
educated women and ignorant negroes?" Such appeals as these were made
by men of Kansas to hundreds of audiences. On this appeal the New York
_Tribune_ said editorially:
KANSAS--WOMAN AS A VOTER.--We publish herewith an appeal, most
influentially signed, to the voters of Kansas, urging them to
support the pending Constitutional Amendment whereby the Right of
Suffrage is extended to Women under like conditions with men. The
gravity combined with the comparative novelty of the proposition
should secure it the most candid and thoughtful consideration.
We hold fast to the cardinal doctrine of our fathers' Declaration
of Independence--that "governments derive their just powers from
the consent of the governed." If, therefore, the women of Kansas,
or of any other State, desire, as a class, to be invested with
the Right of Suffrage, we hold it their clear right to be. We do
not hold, and can not admit, that a small minority of the sex,
however earnest and able, have any such right.
It is plain that the experiment of Female Suffrage is to be
tried; and, while we regard it with distrust, we are quite
willing to see it pioneered by Kansas. She is a young State, and
has a memorable history, wherein her women have borne an
honorable part. She is preponderantly agricultural, with but one
city of any size, and very few of her women are other than pure
and intelligent. They have already been authorized to vote on the
question of liquor license, and in the choice of school
officers, and, we are assured, with decidedly good results. If,
then, a majority of them really desire to vote, we, if we lived
in Kansas, should vote to give them the opportunity.
Upon a full and fair trial, we believe they would conclude that
the right of suffrage for woman was, on the whole, rather a
plague than a profit, and vote to resign it into the hands of
their husbands and fathers. We think so, because we now so seldom
find women plowing, or teaming, or mowing (with machines), though
there is no other obstacle to their so doing than their own sense
of fitness, and though some women, under peculiar circumstances,
laudably do all these things. We decidedly object to having ten
women in every hundred compel the other ninety to vote, or allow
the ten to carry elections against the judgment of the ninety;
but, if the great body of the women of Kansas wish to vote, we
counsel the men to accord them the opportunity. Should the
experiment work as we apprehend, they will soon be glad to give
it up.
Whereupon, the Atchison _Daily Champion_, John A. Martin, editor,
retorted:
TAKE IT YOURSELVES.--Thirty-one gentlemen, all but six of whom
live in States that have utterly refused to have anything to do
with the issue of "female suffrage," unite in an address, to
apply, as they say, the "principles of the Declaration of
Independence to women;" and make a specious, flimsy, and
ridiculous little argument in favor of their appeal.
It is a pity that comments in the main so sensible, should be
marred by a few statements as ridiculous as is the trashy address
to which the article refers. It is the old cry that "female
suffrage," a novel proposition, although justly regarded with
distrust and suspicion by all right-thinking people; although not
demanded by even a considerable minority of the women themselves;
and although an "experiment" which may rudely disturb the best
elements of our society and civilization, may be tried in Kansas!
"We regard it with distrust," says the _Tribune_, "but are quite
willing to see it tried in Kansas." "Upon a full and fair trial,"
it continues, "we believe they (the women) would conclude that
the right of suffrage for women was, on the whole, rather a
plague than a profit, and vote to resign it into the hands of
their husbands and fathers." But it "decidedly objects to having
ten women in every hundred compel the other ninety to vote, or to
allow the ten to carry elections against the judgment of ninety."
These expressions of grave doubt as to the expediency of "female
suffrage," together with the fact that the editor of the
_Tribune_, in his report as chairman of the Suffrage Committee in
the New York Constitutional Convention, declared this new hobby
"an innovation revolutionary and sweeping, openly at war with a
distribution of duties and functions between the sexes as
venerable and pervading as government itself," make the
_Tribune's_ recommendation that we shall "try the experiment in
Kansas" rather amusing as well as impudent.
There is not a man nor a woman endowed with ordinary common sense
who does not know that Kansas is the last State that should be
asked to try this dangerous and doubtful experiment. Our society
is just forming, our institutions are crude. Ever since the
organization of the Territory, we have lived a life of wild
excitement, plunging from one trouble into another so fast that
we have never had a breathing-spell, and we need, more than any
other people on the globe, immunity from disturbing experiments
on novel questions of doubtful expediency. We can not afford to
risk our future prosperity and happiness in making an innovation
so questionable. We want peace, and must have it. Let
Massachusetts or New York, or some older State, therefore, try
this nauseating dose. If it does not kill them, or if it proves
healthful and beneficial, we guarantee that Kansas will not be
long in swallowing it. But the stomach of our State, if we may be
permitted to use the expression, is, as yet, too tender and
febrific to allow such a fearful deglutition.
* * * * *
REMINISCENCES BY HELEN EKIN STARRETT.
After the first Constitutional Convention in which Mrs. C. I. H.
Nichols did such valuable service for the cause of woman, the
question of woman suffrage in some shape or other was introduced
into every succeeding Legislature. In January, 1867, the
Legislature met at Topeka. Immediately upon the organization of
the Senate on the 9th, Hon. B. F. Simpson of Miami Co.,
introduced an amendment to strike the word "white" from the
suffrage clause of the State Constitution. Hon. S. N. Wood,
Senator from Chase Co., within five minutes introduced a
resolution to strike the word "male" from the same clause. This
resolution was made the special order for Thursday the 10th, when
it passed the Senate by a vote of nineteen to five. Of the five
noes, four were Republicans, the other a Democrat. Thus Mr. Wood,
although he started second, got ahead in the passing of his
resolution. The resolution of Hon. B. F. Simpson was referred to
the committee of the whole. When it came up Hon. S. N. Wood moved
to amend by also striking out the word "male," and in this shape
it passed.
The House amended by striking out the amendment of Mr. Wood. The
Senate, however, insisted on its re-instatement; the Democrats
and a majority of the Republicans standing by Mr. Wood. The fight
continued for over a month. The question came up in all stages
and shapes from the House; but Mr. Wood was always ready for them
with his woman suffrage amendment, and the Senate stood by him.
The friends of negro suffrage tried hard to get him to yield and
let their resolution through, but he was firm in his refusal,
saying he advocated both, "but if we can have but one, let the
negro wait." On the 12th day of February Hon. W. W. Updegraff, a
member of the House and an ardent supporter of both woman and
negro suffrage, went to Mr. Wood and urged a compromise. After a
long discussion two separate resolutions were prepared by Mr.
Wood, one for woman suffrage, the other for negro suffrage, and
these Mr. Updegraff introduced into the House the same day. The
next day the vote on the woman suffrage resolution came up and
stood fifty-two to twenty-five. Not being a two-thirds vote, the
resolution was lost.
On the 14th the negro suffrage resolution came up and passed by a
vote of sixty-one to fourteen. The vote on woman suffrage was
then re-considered, and after an assurance from Mr. Updegraff
that negro suffrage could be secured in no other way, it passed
by a vote of sixty-two to nineteen, getting one more vote than
negro suffrage. These resolutions were promptly reported to the
Senate, and on motion of S. N. Wood, the woman suffrage
resolution was passed by over a two-thirds vote. The negro
suffrage resolution was amended, and after a bitter fight was
passed. Thus these separate resolutions were both submitted to a
vote of the people. The Legislature adjourned about the 12th of
March. Hon. S. N. Wood immediately prepared a notice of a meeting
to be held in Topeka on the 2d of April to organize a canvass for
impartial suffrage without regard to sex or color. This was
published in the _State Record_ with the statement that it was by
the request of Hon. S. N. Wood; it was copied by all the papers
of the State. Mr. Wood, ex-Governor Robinson, and others, wrote
to many prominent advocates East asking them to be present at the
Topeka meeting. It was soon known that Lucy Stone and Henry B.
Blackwell would be there, and a very great and general interest
was aroused on the question.
April 2d at length arrived, and although it was a season of
terrible mud and rain, and there were no railroads, a very large
audience assembled. Hon. S. N. Wood rode eighty miles on
horseback to attend the meeting. Lucy Stone and Mr. Blackwell
were present. A permanent organization was effected, with
Governor S. J. Crawford as President; Lieutenant-Governor Green,
Vice-President; Rev. Lewis Bodwell and Miss Mary Paty, Recording
Secretaries; and S. N. Wood, Corresponding Secretary. A letter
was at once prepared and addressed to all the prominent men in
the State, asking them to aid in the canvass. Letters in reply
poured in from the gentlemen addressed, giving assurance of
sympathy and declaring themselves in favor of the movement. A
thorough canvass of the State was at once inaugurated. Lucy Stone
was invited and lectured in Lawrence, Leavenworth, Topeka, and
Atchison, to crowded houses, giving the proceeds to the cause.
Hon. S. N. Wood gave his whole time to the canvass, speaking with
Lucy Stone and Mr. Blackwell in nearly all the towns in the
western and northern part of the State. Mrs. Stone and Mr.
Blackwell visited nearly every organized county. As we have said
before, there were no railroads, and it was at an immense expense
of bodily fatigue that they accomplished their journeys, often in
the rudest conveyances and exposed to the raw, blustering winds
of a Kansas spring. Their meetings, however, were "ovations." Men
and women everywhere were completely won by the gentle,
persuasive, earnest addresses of Lucy Stone, while their newly
aroused interest was informed and strengthened by the logical
arguments and irresistible facts of Mr. Blackwell.
The religious denominations in Kansas from the first gave their
countenance to the movement, and clergymen of all denominations
were found speaking in its favor. At Olathe, the Old School
Presbytery was in session at the time of Lucy Stone's meeting
there. It was an unheard-of occurrence that the body adjourned
its evening session to allow her to occupy the church. All the
members of the Presbytery who heard her were enthusiastic in her
praise. We remember a meeting in Topeka at which the Rev. Dr.
Ekin,[84] then pastor of the Old School Presbyterian church, very
effectively summed up in a public address all the arguments of
the opposition by relating the story of the Canadian Indian who,
when told of the greatness of England, and also that it was
governed by a queen, a woman, turned away with an incredulous
expression of contempt, exclaiming, "Ugh! Squaw!" The effect upon
the audience was tremendous. At the same time letters of cheer
and encouragement were pouring in from prominent workers all over
the country. John Stuart Mill, of England, wrote to Hon. S. N.
Wood full of hope and interest for the success of the movement:
BLACKHEATH PARK, KENT, ENGLAND, _June 2, 1867_.
DEAR SIR: Being one who takes as deep and as continuous an
interest in the political, moral, and social progress of the
United States as if he were himself an American citizen, I hope I
shall not be intrusive if I express to you as the executive organ
of the Impartial Suffrage Association, the deep joy I felt on
learning that both branches of the Legislature of Kansas had, by
large majorities, proposed for the approval of your citizens an
amendment to your constitution, abolishing the unjust political
privileges of sex at one and the same stroke with the kindred
privilege of color. We are accustomed to see Kansas foremost in
the struggle for the equal claims of all human beings to freedom
and citizenship. I shall never forget with what profound interest
I and others who felt with me watched every incident of the
preliminary civil war in which your noble State, then only a
Territory, preceded the great nation of which it is a part, in
shedding its blood to arrest the extension of slavery.
Kansas was the herald and protagonist of the memorable contest,
which at the cost of so many heroic lives, has admitted the
African race to the blessings of freedom and education, and she
is now taking the same advanced position in the peaceful but
equally important contest which, by relieving half the human race
from artificial disabilities belonging to the ideas of a past
age, will give a new impulse and improved character to the career
of social and moral progress now opening for mankind. If your
citizens, next November, give effect to the enlightened views of
your Legislature, history will remember that one of the youngest
States in the civilized world has been the first to adopt a
measure of liberation destined to extend all over the earth, and
to be looked back to (as is my fixed conviction) as one of the
most fertile in beneficial consequences of all the improvements
yet effected in human affairs. I am, sir, with the warmest wishes
for the prosperity of Kansas,
Yours very truly, J. STUART MILL.
To S. N. Wood, Topeka, Kansas, U. S. A.
Rev. Olympia Brown came to Kansas the 1st of July, and made an
effective and extensive canvass of the State, often holding three
meetings a day. Other speakers, both from home and abroad, were
vigorously engaged in the work, and the friends of the movement
believed, not without cause, that Kansas would be the first State
to grant suffrage to women. Had the election been held in May
while the tide of public opinion ran so high in their favor,
there is little doubt that both resolutions would have been
carried unanimously. To explain the causes that led to the defeat
of both propositions, I quote from a letter of Hon. S. N. Wood,
in reply to questions addressed him as to certain facts of the
campaign. He writes: "About May 2d, C. V. Eskridge of Emporia
wrote a very scurrilous article against woman suffrage. It filled
three columns of _The News_. In it he denounced the lady
speakers in the most abusive manner, ridiculing them with
insulting epithets. About the middle of May F. H. Drenning,
Chairman of the Republican State Committee, called a meeting of
that committee to make arrangements to canvass the State for
negro suffrage. The committee met and published an address in
favor of manhood suffrage, and said nothing as to woman suffrage.
Shortly afterwards the same committee summoned C. V. Eskridge, T.
C. Sears, P. B. Plumb, I. D. Snoddy, B. F. Simpson, J. B. Scott,
H. N. Bent, Jas. G. Blunt, A. Akin, and G. W. Crawford--all
opposed to woman suffrage--to make a canvass for negro suffrage.
They were instructed that "they would be allowed to express their
own sentiments on other questions." This meant that these men
would favor negro suffrage, but would oppose woman suffrage. This
at once antagonized the two questions, and we all felt that the
death blow had been struck at both."
Early in September, Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony
came to the State to assist in the canvass; and certainly if
indefatigable labor and eloquent addresses could have repaired
the mischief done by the State Republican Committee, the cause
would yet have triumphed. At all places where they spoke they had
crowded houses, and everywhere made the warmest friends by their
truly admirable personal qualities.[85] The amount of work
performed by these two ladies was immense. Mrs. Stanton, escorted
by Ex-Gov. Robinson spoke in nearly every county of the State.
Miss Anthony remained at Lawrence working indefatigably in
planning and advertising meetings, distributing tracts, sending
posters to different places, and attending to all the minutiæ and
drudgery of an extensive campaign. Often have I regarded with
admiration the self-sacrificing spirit with which she arranged
matters for others, did the hard and disagreeable work, and then
saw others carry off the honor and glory, without once seeming to
think of her services or the recognition due them.[86]
In a letter, summing up the campaign, Hon. S. N. Wood said, "On
the 25th of September, an address was published signed by over
forty men, the most prominent in the State; such men as Senator
Pomeroy, Senator Ross, Gov. Crawford, Lt. Gov. Green, Ex-Gov.
Robinson, and others, in favor of woman suffrage, but the cause
of both began to lag. Sears, Eskridge, Kalloch, Plumb, Simpson,
Scott, Bent, and others, made a very bitter campaign against
woman suffrage. About the middle of October George Francis Train
commenced a canvass of the State for woman suffrage and the
questions became more and more antagonized. The last few days a
regular Kilkenny fight was carried on." I will here take occasion
to record that several of the gentlemen who then canvassed the
State against woman suffrage have since announced a
reconsideration of their views; some of them have even stated
that were the question to come up again they would publicly
advocate it.
An address was prepared by the Woman's Impartial Suffrage
Association of Lawrence[87] which was widely circulated and
copied even in England. This address was signed by a large number
of the prominent ladies of Lawrence. Miss Anthony often said that
Lawrence was the headquarters of the movement. Every clergyman,
every judge, both the papers and a large proportion of the
prominent citizens were in favor of it. And with our State
University located here with over three hundred students, one
half of whom are ladies, we still claim Lawrence as the
headquarters of the friends of woman suffrage.
The work of George Francis Train has been much and variously
commented upon. Certainly when he was in Kansas he was at the
height of his prosperity and popularity, and in appearance,
manners and conversation, was a perfect, though somewhat unique
specimen of a courtly, elegant gentleman. He was full of
enthusiasm and confident he would be the next President. He drew
immense and enthusiastic audiences everywhere, and was a special
favorite with the laboring classes on account of the reforms he
promised to bring about when he should be President. Well do I
remember one poor woman, a frantic advocate of woman suffrage,
who button-holed everybody who spoke a word against Train to beg
them to desist; assuring them "that he was the special instrument
of Providence to gain for us the Irish vote."
Both propositions got about 10,000 votes, and both were defeated.
After the canvass the excitement died away and the Suffrage
Associations fell through, but the seed sown has silently taken
root and sprung up everywhere. Or rather, the truths then spoken,
and the arguments presented, sinking into the minds and hearts of
the men and women who heard them, have been like leaven, slowly
but surely operating until it seems to many that nearly the whole
public sentiment of Kansas is therewith leavened. A most liberal
sentiment prevails everywhere toward women. Many are engaged in
lucrative occupations. In several counties ladies have been
elected superintendents of public schools. In Coffey County, the
election of Mary P. Wright, was contested on the ground that by
the Constitution a woman was ineligible to the office. The case
was decided by the Supreme Court in her favor. By our laws women
vote on all school questions and avail themselves very
extensively of the privilege. Our property laws are conceded to
be the most just to women of any State in the Union. It is
believed by many that were the question of woman suffrage again
submitted to the people it would be carried by an overwhelming
majority.
The following letter from Susan E. Wattles, the widow of the pioneer,
Augustus Wattles, shows woman's interest in the great struggle to make
Kansas the banner State of universal freedom and franchise.
MOUND CITY, _December 30, 1881_.
MY DEAR MISS ANTHONY:--Here, as in New York, the first in the
woman suffrage cause were those who had been the most earnest
workers for freedom. They had come to Kansas to prevent its being
made a slave State. The most the women could do was to bear their
privations patiently, such as living in a tent in a log cabin,
without any floor all winter, or in a cabin ten feet square, and
cooking out of doors by the side of a log, giving up their beds
to the sick, and being ready, night or day, to feed the men who
were running for their lives. Then there was the ever present
fear that their husbands would be shot. The most obnoxious had a
price set upon their heads. A few years ago a man said: "I could
have got $1,000 once for shooting Wattles, and I wish now I had
done it." When in Ohio, our house was often the temporary home of
the hunted slave; but in Kansas it was the _white_ man who ran
from our door to the woods because he saw strangers coming.
After the question of a free State seemed settled, we who had
thought and talked on woman's rights before we came to Kansas,
concluded that now was the woman's hour. We determined to strive
to obtain Constitutional rights, as they would be more secure
than Legislative enactments. On the 13th of February, 1858, we
organized the Moneka Woman's Rights Society. There were only
twelve of us, but we went to work circulating petitions and
writing to every one in the Territory whom we thought would aid
us. Our number was afterwards increased to forty; fourteen of
them were men. We sent petitions to Territorial Legislatures,
Constitutional Conventions, State Legislatures, and Congress.
Many of the leading men were advocates of women's rights.
Governor Robinson, S. N. Wood, and Erastus Heath, with their
wives, were constant and efficient workers. Mrs. Robinson wrote a
book on "Life in Kansas." "Allibone's Dictionary of Authors"
says: "Mrs. Robinson is an accomplished lady, the wife of
Governor Robinson. She possessed the knowledge of events and
literary skill necessary to produce an interesting and
trustworthy book, and one which will continue to have a permanent
value. The women of Kansas suffered more than the men, and were
not less heroic. Their names are not known; they were not elected
to office; they had none of the exciting delights of an active
out-door life on these attractive prairies; they endured in
silence; they took care of the home, of the sick. If 'home they
brought her warrior dead, she nor swooned nor uttered sigh.' It
is fortunate that a few of these truest heroes have left a
printed record of pioneer life in Kansas."
The last vigorous effort we made in circulating petitions was
when Congress was about extending to the colored men the right to
vote. Many signed then for the first time. One woman said, "I
know my husband does not believe in women voting, but he hates
the negroes, and would not want them placed over me." I saw in
_The Liberator_ that a bequest to the woman's rights cause had
been made by a gentleman in Boston, and I asked Wendell Phillips
if we could have some of it in Kansas. He directed me to Susan B.
Anthony, and you gave us $100. This small sum we divided between
two lecturers, and paying for tracts. John O. Wattles lectured
and distributed tracts in Southern Kansas. We were greatly
rejoiced when we found, by corresponding with Mrs. Nichols, that
she intended to work for our cause whether she had any
compensation or not. Kansas women can never be half thankful
enough for what she did for them. There has never been a time
since, when the same amount of effort would have accomplished as
much; and the little money we gave her could scarcely have paid
her stage fare.
When the question was submitted in 1867, and the men were to
decide whether women should be allowed to vote, we felt very
anxious about the result. We strongly desired to make Kansas the
banner State for Freedom. We did all we could to secure it, and
some of the best speakers from the East came to our aid. Their
speeches were excellent, and were listened to by large audiences,
who seemed to believe what they heard; but when voting day came,
they voted according to their prejudices, and our cause was
defeated. My work has been very limited. I have only been able to
talk and circulate tracts and papers. I took _The Una_, _The
Lily_, _The Sybil_, _The Pittsburg Visitor_, _The Revolution_,
_Woman's Journal_, _Ballot Box_, and _National Citizen_; got all
the subscribers I could, and scattered them far and near. When I
gave away _The Revolution_, my husband said, "Wife, that is a
very talented paper; I should think you would preserve that." I
replied: "They will continue to come until our cause is won, and
I must make them do all the good they can." I am delighted with
the "Suffrage History." I do not think you can find material to
make the second volume as interesting. I knew of most of the
incidents as they transpired, yet they are full of interest and
significance to me now. My book is now lent where I think it will
be highly appreciated.
Mrs. R. S. Tenney, M.D., one of the most earnest and efficient women
of Lawrence, adds another testimony to the spirit of that historic
canvass:
INDEPENDENCE, KANSAS, _Nov. 23, 1881_.
DEAR MISS ANTHONY:--So you and Mrs. Stanton are about to burn at
the stake the injustice of the men and measures of Kansas in
1867, and would like me to help pile on the fagots, which I will
most gladly do, believing it right that the wrong and wickedness
of every clime and nation should be stabbed or burned till they
are entirely dead. While the opponents of woman suffrage in 1867
thought they had achieved a great victory, it was only an
overwhelming defeat for a future day, a day when Col. John A.
Martin, Judge T. C. Sears, Col. D. W. Houston, G. H. Hoyt, then
Attorney-General, Col. J. D. Snoddy, Benj. F. Simpson, Hon. P. B.
Plumb, Jacob Stottler, Rev. S. E. McBurney, of the Methodist
church, and Rev. I. S. Kalloch, of the Baptist, and a host of
others I might mention, will be ashamed of the position which
they occupied, and the doctrines they advocated.
Although the question of woman suffrage was submitted to the
people by a Republican Legislature, prominent Republicans refused
to recognize it as a party measure, and the consideration the
Legislature bestowed upon the intelligent wives and mothers of
the young commonwealth, was evidenced by associating them in a
bill with ex-slaves and traitors. Rev. Richard Cordley said that
"if the women had waited till the negroes were enfranchised, he
would have worked for their cause most heartily." As though women
were the arbiters of their own fate; had convened in legislative
assembly and submitted their own case to the people. Revs.
McBurney and Kalloch, C. V. Eskridge and Judge Sears were in the
field working with might and main against woman suffrage; while
Gov. Crawford was President of the Impartial Suffrage Association
of the State, and Judge Wood, Secretary. Such old time radicals
as Hon. Chas. Robinson, the first Free State Governor of Kansas,
worked hard and well. Prof. John Horner, Senator Ross, Rev. Wm.
Starrett, Mr. J. M. Chase, and many others also did good work.
Hon. Sidney Clark left his post in the House of Representatives
at Washington, and canvassed the State for a re-election, having
it in his power to say many things and do much good for the cause
of woman, but he did it not. He returned to his own city,
Lawrence, to make his last great speech on the eve of election,
to find to his great consternation, that the only hall had been
engaged by the President of the Woman Suffrage Association of the
city for a meeting of their party on that eve. In vain did the
honorable gentleman and his friends strive to get possession of
that hall. It was paid for and booked to R. S. Tenney. Poor
Sidney then sought permission to address their woman suffrage
audience, but being refused, he was obliged to betake himself to
a dry-goods box in the street, where he tried to interest the
rabble, while Col. Horner, Rev. Mr. Starrett, and others, had a
fine, large audience in the hall.
It is to be greatly regretted that the Republican party that had
accomplished such great good when the nation was in its hour of
trouble, should have allowed such discord to enter its ranks and
thereby defeat both woman and negro suffrage. But Kansans have
made great progress since 1867, and many who voted against the
proposition then would to-day vote and work heartily for it, and
doubtless, if submitted again it would be carried by a large
majority. A recent conversation with Ex-Gov. Potter, who voted
against it, confirms this opinion, and Senator Plumb is
softening. A noticeable feature of the meetings of the political
campaign of 1880, was the presence of large numbers of women. On
the eve of the election, at a full meeting in the largest hall in
this place, a woman surprised the people by asking the chairman's
permission to speak, and amid rounds of applause, poured forth
such sentiments as compelled quite a number of prominent
Republican men to declare themselves in favor of woman suffrage,
an issue which was voluntarily recommended by many speakers in
both Democratic and Greenback meetings. Gov. J. P. St. John is
now making himself heard in his temperance speeches in favor of
woman suffrage. The recent passage of the Prohibitory Amendment
is significant that our people are awake and ready to welcome the
greatest good to the greatest number, which means equal rights to
all at an early day.
R. S. TENNEY.
MARCH 14, 1882.
DEAR FRIENDS:--God bless the women that worked for woman's
suffrage in Kansas! Foremost among those who were residents of
the State was Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols, of Wyandotte, and to her,
more than all other Kansas women, was due the influence which
gave woman even the small recognition in the constitution under
which the State was admitted, above what is found in other State
constitutions of the nation; for this Mrs. Nichols labored with
the zeal and heroism born of a great noble heart, whose every
pulsation is for humanity in the elevation of woman to her proper
political as well as social position. It was largely through her
instrumentality that such God-ordained women as Elizabeth Cady
Stanton, Susan B. Anthony, Lucy Stone, and Olympia Brown, came to
Kansas as eloquent missionaries in the great work of attempting
to give the women of this State the legal right to vote with
their husbands, sons and brothers. And though, through the
opposition of unwise and prejudiced men, the desired majority for
woman's suffrage was not then obtained; the seed sown by these
self-sacrificing angels of humanity will yet bring forth most
glorious results. The efforts of the Hutchinson troupe of sweet
singers in this direction will not be forgotten. John, the
patriarch, with his bright son Henry and beautiful daughter
Viola, made a musical trio whose soul-stirring songs were only
excelled in purity of thought and delightful harmony of
execution, by their intense, whole-hearted desire that the cause
for which they prayed and sang with so much earnestness might be
crowned with success. Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, Lucy Stone's
husband, was indefatigable in his efforts, working early and late
for the good cause. Of the women of the State of Kansas who were
active, a large number of names might be given.[88] But Kansas
best remembers and most honors in the remembrance, those women
who left their comfortable and elegant homes on the Atlantic
slope, and with no hope of reward save the consciousness of
having worked for God and humanity, traveled over the then wild
prairies of Kansas in all sorts of rude vehicles, talking in
groves, school-houses, and cabins, eating and sleeping as
pioneers sleep and eat, for weeks and months, making the
beautiful rolling prairies, filled with fertile valleys and
flowery knolls, vocal with their eloquent, earnest appeals in
behalf of woman's rights and against woman's wrongs; and through
the vote carried for woman's wrongs the fervid, eloquent words
then uttered by woman's tongue, welling up as they did from noble
hearts heated to redness in the furnace of love for human
justice, left an influence which has steadily and surely
increased, and will thus continue until Kansas shall give woman
equal rights and privileges with man.
Sincerely yours, J. P. ROOT.
RACINE, WISCONSIN, _March 16, 1882_.
DEAR SUSAN:--You ask me to write an account of my experiences in
Kansas; with unquestioning obedience I attempt what you require,
although many records and documents are wanting which should have
been kept, had I anticipated your command. But when in Kansas, I
no more thought of appearing in history, than the butterfly
flitting from flower to flower thinks of being dried and put in a
museum.
I have never kept a diary, have never counted the number of miles
I have traveled, the meals eaten, calls made, pages written, or
words spoken. I have tried to do the pressing duty of each hour,
leaving the results and records to take care of themselves. You
will not, therefore, be surprised that I am unable to furnish
even the "round unvarnished tale," but must be content with
glimpses as memory, after the lapse of fourteen years, supplies
them.
I am glad to have an opportunity, through your valuable history,
of paying my respects to the good people whom I met in Kansas,
few of whom I shall ever see again in this life, but whose
earnest words go with me every day, a constant source of
encouragement and of strength. It would be but justice to record
the names of all those who gave generous aid and sympathy in the
woman suffrage campaign of '67; brave pioneers they were, who had
learned loyalty to principle through many bitter experiences;
some of them had been friends and companions of brave old John
Brown, and, trained in the great Anti-Slavery struggle, filled
with the love of liberty, they knew how to stand for the right.
But their names are recorded on high in letters of living light,
and they little need our poor faltering testimony. "Their reward
is with them, and their reward is sure." To-day, looking back
over the years, Kansas is to me a memory of grand, rolling
prairies stretching far away; of fertile fields; of beautiful
osage orange hedges; of hospitable homes; of brave and earnest
women; kind and true men; and of some of the most dishonest
politicians the world has ever seen.
I went to Kansas, through an arrangement made by Lucy Stone with
leaders of the Republican party there, whereby they were to
furnish comfortable conveyance over the State, with a lady as
traveling companion, and also to arrange and preside over all the
meetings; these were to be Republican meetings in which it was
thought best that a woman should present the claims of the woman
suffrage amendment, which had been submitted to the vote of the
men of the State by a strongly Republican Legislature.
The Kansas Republicans so far complied with their part of this
arrangement that on my arrival, the 1st of July, I found
appointments made and thoroughly advertised for the whole of July
and August; two lectures for every week day, and a preaching
service for every Sunday. As it proved, these appointments were
at great distances from each other, often requiring a journey of
twenty, thirty, forty, and even fifty miles across a country
scarcely settled at all, to reach some little village where there
would be a school-house or some public building in which a
meeting could be held. All were eager to hear, and the entire
settlement would attend the lecture, thus giving an astonishingly
large audience in proportion to the size of the place.
The country was then new and public conveyances few, and the
Republicans having failed to furnish the stipulated carriage and
escort, the speaker was dependent almost entirely upon the people
in each little place for the means to pursue the journey. Many a
time some kind man, with a genuine chivalry worthy of the days of
knighthood, has left his half-mown field or his sorghum boiling
in the kettle, to escort the woman suffrage advocate to the next
appointment; and although the road often seemed long and perilous
and many an hour was spent in what appeared a hopeless endeavor
to find our way over the almost trackless prairie, yet somehow we
always came to the right place at last; and I scarcely recollect
an instance of failure to meet an appointment from July 1st to
Nov. 5th.
In those four months I traveled over the greater part of Kansas,
held two meetings every day, and the latter part of the time
three meetings every day, making in all between two and three
hundred speeches, averaging an hour in length; a fact that tends
to show that women can endure talk and travel at least, as well
as men; especially when we recollect how the Hon. Sidney Clark,
then candidate for Congress, canvassed, in the beautiful autumn
weather, a small portion of the State which I had traveled over
amid the burning heat of July and August; he spoke once a day
instead of twice; he rested on Sundays; he had no anxiety about
the means of travel, his conveyance being furnished at hand; he
was supported by a large constituency, and expected to be
rewarded by office and honors; yet with all these advantages, he
broke down in health and was obliged to give up a part of his
appointments, and the Republican papers said: "It was not
strange, as no human being could endure without loss of health
such constant speaking, with such long and tedious journeys as
Mr. Clark had undertaken."
It is deemed, in certain quarters, wicked heresy to complain of
or criticise the Republican party, that has done so much in
freeing the slaves and in bringing the country victoriously
through the war of the rebellion; but if there is to be any truth
in history we must set it down, to stand forever a lasting
disgrace to the party that in 1867, in Kansas, its leaders
selfishly and meanly defeated the woman suffrage amendment.
As the time for the election drew nigh, those political leaders
who had been relied upon as friends of the cause were silent,
others were active in their opposition. The Central Committee
issued a circular for the purpose of preventing loyal Republicans
from voting for woman suffrage; not content with this, the
notorious I. S. Kalloch, and others of the same stripe, were sent
out under the auspices of the Republican party to blackguard and
abuse the advocates of woman's cause while professedly speaking
upon "manhood suffrage." And Charles Langston, the negro orator,
added his mite of bitter words to make the path a little harder
for women, who had spent years in pleading the cause of the
colored man.
And yet, with all the obstacles which the dominant party could
throw in our way; without organization, without money, without
political rewards to offer, without any of the means by which
elections are usually carried, we gained one-third of all the
votes cast! Surely it was a great triumph of principle; and had
the leading Republicans, even one or two of them, stood boldly
for the measure which they themselves had submitted, Kansas might
have indeed been a "free State"; the first to enfranchise women;
the advance guard in the great progressive movements of the time;
and her leading politicians might have gone down in history as
wise, far-seeing statesmen who loved principles better than
office, and who gained the rewards of the world because they
sought "first the kingdom of God and His righteousness." As it
was, their favorite measure, "negro suffrage," was defeated for
that time, and several of those who sold their birthright of
truth and justice for a miserable mess of pottage in the shape of
office and emoluments, lost even the poor reward for which they
had trafficked.
As for us, the advocates of suffrage who labored there in that
first woman's suffrage campaign, we have forgotten, in part, the
bitterness of disappointment and defeat; we think no more of the
long and wearisome journeys under the hot sun of southern Kansas;
the anxiety and uncertainty; the nervous tremor when night has
overtaken us wandering on the prairie, not knowing what terrible
pitfalls might lie before; the mobs which sometimes made the
little log school-house shake with their missiles; the taunts and
jeers of the opposition; all this is passed, but the great
principle of human rights which we advocated remains, commending
itself more and more to the favor of all good men, confirmed by
every year's experience, and destined at no distant day to find
expression in law.
Sincerely Yours, OLYMPIA BROWN.
The day before the election immense meetings were held in all the
chief cities. In Leavenworth Mr. Train spoke for two hours in Laing's
Hall, and then took the evening train for Atchison. Mrs. Stanton
entered the hall just as he left, and made only a short speech,
reserving herself for the evening, when, Daniel R. Anthony in the
chair, she made her final appeal to the voters of the State. She was
followed by several of the leading gentlemen in short speeches, fully
indorsing both amendments. The _Bulletin_, in speaking of the meeting,
said:
Laing's Hall was crowded to overflowing last evening to listen to
a discourse from Mrs. Stanton, on the main issues pending in this
State, and to be decided to-day. The speech of Mrs. Stanton was
mainly in behalf of female suffrage. Speeches were also made by
Col. J. C. Vaughan, Col. Jennison, Col. Moonlight, and Col.
Anthony. The best of feeling prevailed throughout.
Susan B. Anthony spoke to an equally large audience in Atchison, and
Olympia Brown to another in an adjoining town.
The morning of the election two spacious barouches containing the
several members of the Hutchinson family--John, his son Henry and
daughter Viola; with Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Daniel R. and
Mrs. J. Merritt Anthony, visited in succession the four polling booths
in Leavenworth and addressed the voters in short, earnest speeches as
to their duty as citizens. Mrs. Stanton made a special appeal to
Irishmen, quoting to them the lofty sentiments of Edmund Burke on
human liberty. She told them of visiting O'Connell in his own house,
and attending one of his great repeal meetings, of his eloquent speech
in the World's Anti-Slavery Convention, and his genial letters to
Lucretia Mott, in favor of woman's right to vote. After three cheers
for O'Connell, they shouted, "Go on, go on." The Hutchinsons then sang
their stirring ballad, "The good time coming." The reception at each
booth was respectful, and at the end of the speech or song there
followed three hearty cheers for "woman suffrage."[89]
The Leavenworth _Commercial_ of Nov. 14, 1867, had the following
editorial:
A CONTRAST.--Miss Susan B. Anthony and Mrs. Elizabeth Cady
Stanton left yesterday afternoon for St. Louis, from whence they
go to Omaha, and from that place, in company with Geo. Francis
Train, start on a general lecturing tour through the principal
cities of the West and East. Their subject, of course, in all the
places at which they will speak, will be, "Woman Suffrage"; and
we believe they will speak with far more than ordinary
encouragement. Kansas, the only State in which the subject was
ever submitted--though under the most adverse of
circumstances--has spoken in a manner which has rather nerved
than dispirited these tried and faithful champions of their own
sex.
The two propositions were submitted, in this State, under
circumstances wholly dissimilar. While negro suffrage was
specially championed and made the principal plank in the
Republican party--made almost a test of membership and of loyalty
to it and the government--female suffrage stood, not simply as an
ignored proposition, but as one against which was arrayed all
party organizations, whether Republican, Democratic or German.
And yet, notwithstanding this ignoring of the question,
notwithstanding the combined and active opposition of these
powerful and controlling organizations, nearly as many votes were
cast for female suffrage as for negro suffrage.
And if we go outside of our State, and take a look at the
influences that were brought to bear upon our citizens, the
result seems still more striking and remarkable. On the side of
negro suffrage stood Congress, and its policy in the South; also
all the leading radical journals in the country, and that branch
of the pulpit to which radicals had been taught to look for
political wisdom as well as orthodox religious sermons. The whole
enginery of the radical party, and of that party's tactics, was
brought to bear upon the State. Party pride, party prejudices,
and religious beliefs were each and all fervidly appealed to on
behalf of negro suffrage. But in respect to woman suffrage,
matters were far different. Even those in the East, whose
eminence and eloquence had served to throw broadcast the ideas
that it was sought to give form and reality to in this State, as
the final testing hour neared, gradually withdrew their aid and
counsel; and in a manner sympathiless and emotionless as marble
statuary, from their calm Eastern retreats watched the unequal
contest. When Stephen A. Douglas said he "didn't care a d----n
whether slavery was voted up or voted down in Kansas," he but
expressed in a forcible and emphatic manner the feelings of many
of the Eastern "friends" of woman suffrage in the recent
campaign. We repeat then, when we consider the many obstacles
thrown in the way of the advocates of this measure, of the
indifference with which the masses look upon anything new in
government, and their indisposition to change, that the degree of
success of these advocates is not only remarkable, but one in
which they have a just right to feel proud and triumphant.
And to these two ladies, to their indomitable wills and courage,
to their eloquence and energies, is due much of the merit of the
work performed in the State. We would not rob others of their
glories, or their triumphs. Yet these two came to us as pioneers.
Through the highways and byways of all the long years of their
past lives we find the tracings of their deep earnestness and
devotion to the principles which first found ways and means of
development in Kansas. We find them giving utterance to these
thoughts in the days of their first inception, and in words of
burning eloquence closing the campaign which gave them over for
decision and arbitrament to the great jury and final arbiter, the
people. But in the recent election, as is well known, these
ladies were not successful to the full extent of their wishes.
They have the proud consciousness of knowing, however, that their
work has been commensurate with the combined efforts of party
organizations. Congressmen, Senators, presses, ministers, etc.,
and that the people of Kansas are not more averse to giving the
franchise to woman than to the negro. With this evidence of the
result of their efforts they can afford to wait, and, in the
spirit of a Lowell, found their faith in the future, as when he
says:--
But humanity sweeps onward! where to-day the martyr stands,
On the morrow crouches Judas with the silver in his hands.
Far in front the cross stands ready, and the crackling
fragments burn,
While the hooting mob of yesterday in silent awe return,
To glean up the scattered ashes into history's golden urn.
And again--
Careless seems the great avenger; history's pages but record
One death-struggle in the grapple 'twixt old systems and the
Word.
Truth forever on the scaffold, wrong forever on the throne;
Yet that scaffold sways the future, and behind the dim
unknown
Standeth God in the darkness keeping watch above His own.
After speaking in all the chief cities from Leavenworth to New
York,[90] Mrs. Stanton and Miss Susan B. Anthony turned their
attention to the establishment in the city of New York of a woman
suffrage paper, called _The Revolution_.[91] The funds for this
enterprise were provided by two Democrats, David Melliss, the
financial editor of the _World_, and George Francis Train. The editors
were Parker Pillsbury and Elizabeth Cady Stanton; the owner and
publisher, Susan B. Anthony. This affiliation with Mr. Train and other
Democrats, together with the aggressive tone of _The Revolution_,
called down on Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton severe criticism from
some of their friends, while they received sincere praise from others.
In reviewing the situation, they have had no reason to regret their
course, feeling that their determination to push their cause, and
accept help from whatever quarter it was proffered, aroused lukewarm
friends to action, who, though hostile at first to the help of
Democrats, soon came to appreciate the difficulty of carrying on a
movement with the press, pulpit, politicians, and philanthropists all
in the opposition.
Abolitionists were severe in their denunciations against these ladies,
because, while belonging to anti-slavery associations, they affiliated
with the bitter enemies of the negro and all his defamers. To which
they replied: "So long as opposition to slavery is the only test for a
free pass to your platform and membership of your association, and you
do not shut out all persons opposed to woman suffrage, why should we
not accept all in favor of woman suffrage to our platform and
association, even though they be rabid pro-slavery Democrats? Your
test of faithfulness is the negro, ours is the woman; the broadest
platform, to which no party has as yet risen, is humanity." Reformers
can be as bigoted and sectarian and as ready to malign each other, as
the Church in its darkest periods has been to persecute its
dissenters.
So utterly had the women been deserted in the Kansas campaign by those
they had the strongest reason to look to for help, that at times all
effort seemed hopeless. The editors of the New York _Tribune_ and the
_Independent_ can never know how wistfully, from day to day, their
papers were searched for some inspiring editorials on the woman's
amendment, but naught was there; there were no words of hope and
encouragement, no eloquent letters from an Eastern man that could be
read to the people; all were silent. Yet these two papers, extensively
taken all over Kansas, had they been as true to woman as to the negro,
could have revolutionized the State. But with arms folded, Greeley,
Curtis, Tilton, Beecher, Higginson, Phillips, Garrison, Frederick
Douglass, all calmly watched the struggle from afar, and when defeat
came to both propositions, no consoling words were offered for woman's
loss, but the women who spoke in the campaign were reproached for
having "killed negro suffrage."
[Illustration: Olympia Brown.]
We wondered then at the general indifference to that first opportunity
of realizing what all those gentlemen had advocated so long; and, in
looking back over the many intervening years, we still wonder at the
stolid incapacity of all men to understand that woman feels the
invidious distinctions of sex exactly as the black man does those of
color, or the white man the more transient distinctions of wealth,
family, position, place, and power; that she feels as keenly as man
the injustice of disfranchisement. Of the old abolitionists who stood
true to woman's cause in this crisis, Robert Purvis, Parker Pillsbury,
and Rev. Samuel J. May were the only Eastern men. Through all the hot
debates during the period of reconstruction, again and again, Mr.
Purvis arose and declared, that he would rather his son should never
be enfranchised, unless his daughter could be also, that, as she bore
the double curse of sex and color, on every principle of justice she
should first be protected. These were the only men who felt and
understood as women themselves do the degradation of disfranchisement.
Twenty years ago, as now, the Gibraltar of our difficulties was the
impossibility of making the best men feel that woman is aggravated by
the endless petty distinctions because of sex, precisely as the most
cultivated man, black or white, suffers the distinctions of color,
wealth, or position. Take a man of superior endowments, once powerful
and respected, who through unfortunate circumstances is impoverished
and neglected; he sees small men, unscrupulous, hard, grinding men
taking places of trust and influence, making palace homes for
themselves and children, while his family in shabby attire are
ostracised in the circle where by ancestry and intelligence they
belong, made to feel on all occasions the impassable gulf that lies
between riches and poverty. That man feels for himself and doubly for
his children the humiliation. And yet with the ever-turning wheel of
fortune such distinctions are transient; yours to-day, mine
to-morrow. That glorious Scotch poet, Robert Burns, from the depths of
his poverty and despair, might exclaim in an inspired moment on the
divine heights where the human soul can sometimes mount:
"A man's a man for a' that."
But the wail through many of his sad lines shows that he had tasted
the very dregs of the cup of poverty, and hated all distinctions based
on wealth.
When a colored man of education and wealth like Robert Purvis, of
Philadelphia, surrounded with a family of cultivated sons and
daughters, was denied all social communion with his neighbors, equal
freedom and opportunity for himself and children, in public
amusements, churches, schools, and means of travel because of race, he
felt the degradation of color. The poor white man might have said, If
I were Robert Purvis, with a good bank account, and could live in my
own house, ride in my own carriage, and have my children well fed and
clothed, I should not care if we were all as black as the ace of
spades. But he had never tried the humiliation of color, and could not
understand its peculiar aggravations, as he did those of poverty. It
is impossible for one class to appreciate the wrongs of another. The
coarser forms of slavery all can see and deplore, but the subjections
of the spirit, few either comprehend or appreciate. In our day women
carrying heavy burdens on their shoulders while men walk by their side
smoking their pipes, or women harnessed to plows and carts with cows
and dogs while men drive, are sights which need no eloquent appeals to
move American men to pity and indignation. But the subtle humiliations
of women possessed of wealth, education, and genius, men on the same
plane can not see or feel, and yet can any misery be more real than
invidious distinctions on the ground of sex in the laws and
constitution, in the political, religious, and moral position of those
who in nature stand the peers of each other? And not only do such
women suffer these ever-recurring indignities in daily life, but the
literature of the world proclaims their inferiority and divinely
decreed subjection in all history, sacred and profane, in science,
philosophy, poetry, and song.
And here is the secret of the infinite sadness of women of genius; of
their dissatisfaction with life, in exact proportion to their
development. A woman who occupies the same realm of thought with man,
who can explore with him the depths of science, comprehend the steps
of progress through the long past and prophesy those of the momentous
future, must ever be surprised and aggravated with his assumptions of
headship and superiority, a superiority she never concedes, an
authority she utterly repudiates. Words can not describe the
indignation, the humiliation a proud woman feels for her sex in
disfranchisement.
In a republic where all are declared equal an ostracised class of one
half of the people, on the ground of a distinction founded in nature,
is an anomalous position, as harassing to its victims as it is unjust,
and as contradictory as it is unsafe to the fundamental principles of
a free government. When we remember that out of this degraded
political status, spring all the special wrongs that have blocked
woman's success in the world of work, and degraded her labor
everywhere to one half its value; closed to her the college doors and
all opportunities for higher education, forbade her to practice in the
professions, made her a cipher in the church, and her sex, her
motherhood a curse in all religions; her subjection a text for bibles,
a target for the priesthood; seeing all this, we wonder now as then at
the indifference and injustice of our best men when the first
opportunity offered in which the women of any State might have secured
their enfranchisement.
It was not from ignorance of the unequal laws, and false public
sentiment against woman, that our best men stood silent in this Kansas
campaign; it was not from lack of chivalry that they thundered forth
no protests, when they saw noble women, who had been foremost in every
reform, hounded through the State by foul mouthed politicians; it was
not from lack of money and power, of eloquence of pen and tongue, nor
of an intellectual conviction that our cause was just, that they came
not to the rescue, but because in their heart of hearts they did not
grasp the imperative necessity of woman's demand for that protection
which the ballot alone can give; they did not feel for _her_ the
degradation of disfranchisement.
The fact of their silence deeply grieved us, but the philosophy of
their indifference we thoroughly comprehended for the first time and
saw as never before, that only from woman's standpoint could the
battle be successfully fought, and victory secured. "It is wonderful,"
says Swift, "with what patience some folks can endure the sufferings
of others." Our liberal men counseled us to silence during the war,
and we were silent on our own wrongs; they counseled us again to
silence in Kansas and New York, lest we should defeat "negro
suffrage," and threatened if we were not, we might fight the battle
alone. We chose the latter, and were defeated. But standing alone we
learned our power; we repudiated man's counsels forevermore; and
solemnly vowed that there should never be another season of silence
until woman had the same rights everywhere on this green earth, as
man.