fifty, some of us seventy years of life behind us. We have stood
on this eminence where you in your mistaken kindness and
gallantry placed us, and we have been all this time looking down
upon the battle-field of life where you have been engaged,
single-handed and alone. Those of us who have had half a century
have seen the ranks of men who started out in life with us
shortened one half as they have gone. Here is a husband, there a
brother or a father, men as dear to us as drops of our own
heart's blood. We have seen them steadily sacrificed by means
more appalling than those of Gettysburg, men literally
slaughtered by licentiousness and drunkenness, and all the while
we have looked on and been able to do nothing, and our agony has
become so great that we exclaim, "Oh, God! why don't these
brothers of ours call us, the reserves, into action? We could
help them."
When I look back to the days of our great war, I remember that
women sprang up every day all over the country--women of whom it
was not before believed there was any patriotic blood in their
veins. We all came together by one common instinct--saying, "What
shall we do?" I could tell you of women who have died from
exposure and suffering in the war. Hundreds of the very best
women of the Northwest went down voluntarily as nurses, and in
other capacities, and assisted suffering and dying men, until
they themselves were almost at death's door. "When women do
military duty, they shall vote!" We _did_ do military duty. We
did not cease our labors till all the soldiers had come home,
wearied with their services. We have earned recognition at the
hands of this government, and we ought to have it. Knowing, then,
the qualities of woman and her courage and bravery under trials,
I can never cease to demand that she shall have just as large a
sphere as man has. All we want is, that you shall leave us free
to act.
Mrs. LIVERMORE then spoke of the attempts of men to define the
sphere of women. Let the sphere of woman be tested by the
aspiration and ability of their own minds, and let it be limited
only by what we are able to do. Don't fear that women will not
marry and make good wives if allowed legal equality with men.
They even now make as good wives as men do husbands. Trust God.
This talk of woman getting out of her sphere is sheer lack of
faith in God. He has given us our natures. The gentlest woman is
transformed into a tigress when you go between her and her baby.
There's no sense, therefore, in the fear that the paltry lures of
politicians will draw women from the home circle. There is no
necessity to enact laws to keep women women. Woman's sphere is
that which she can fill, whether it be sea-captain, merchant,
school-teacher, or wife and mother.
Only two millions of women are among the producers of the
country--five millions are wives and mothers, and eight millions
are rusting out in idleness and frivolity. Take eight millions of
men from the world of commerce and productive work; the deficit
will be immediately felt. Add to the producers of the world eight
millions of skilled women, and the quickening would be felt
everywhere. Mrs. Livermore also urged the admission of women to
political life from considerations drawn from the increase of the
foreign element. East and West is a huge, ignorant,
semi-barbarous mass, brought hither from European and Asiatic
shores, needing the enlightenment and the quickening that would
come from the addition of educated women to the polls.
The Thursday morning session was called to order by the
PRESIDENT, Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER. Mr. Henry B. Blackwell, the
Secretary, read, on behalf of the Business Committee, the
resolutions.[187]
Mr. BLACKWELL moved their acceptance, and, in support of his
motion, said: _Mr. Chairman, Ladies and Gentlemen_: We have so
often heard of the great step that was taken in the war of the
Revolution--when our connection with Great Britain was
severed--that I fear we have lost sight of the fact that there
have been two great revolutions since that day--revolutions
which, to my mind, are immeasurably more important than the
first. For, when the war of the Revolution ended, a republic in
the present sense of the term did not exist in these United
States. In almost every State there was a property qualification
for voting. It was a government like the government of Great
Britain to-day--like the government of other countries--it was an
aristocracy of wealth, the privilege of voting being based upon a
property qualification. But hardly had the guns of the Revolution
ceased action, before the Democratic party of that day, under the
lead of Mr. Jefferson, demanded suffrage for poor men as a
natural right. The Federal party opposed the change. The
Democratic party were a unit in its favor. They advocated
suffrage for poor men on the same ground that the Republicans
have advocated it more recently for the negro--on the same ground
upon which Mr. Beecher advocated it last night for women--_as a
natural right_. They said, "All men have equal natural rights to
life, liberty, and property; if so, they have a natural right of
self-defense in the enjoyment of these rights. Now, in a state of
nature, self-defense takes the form of individual violence--of
the pistol or the club; but in a state of civilization men appeal
to the law, and government is nothing but an organized system of
self-defense for the benefit of the individual citizen." The old
Democratic party said, "Poor men have rights of life, liberty,
and property, poor men have a natural right of self-defense;
therefore, in a state of society they have a right to the ballot
which is the organized weapon of self-defense for the individual
citizen." What was the result? The Democratic party swept the
Union on that platform. They obtained a majority in the
government of the States and in the Federal Government. For more
than a generation they ruled this country as the poor man's
party. That result followed inevitably from their principles,
because parties, like individuals, are sure to obtain their
deserts in the long run. When any party appeals to that fine
sense of justice which is in the heart of every human being,
sooner or later its success is certain. The Democratic party
obtained the control of the Government for two generations
because it appealed to that sense of justice? But what was the
result to the country? America became known all over the world as
the country of the poor man. In America alone the masses had the
ballot. That was what brought from the shores of Europe this
great influx of foreign labor which has felled our forests, and
fenced our prairies, and built up the waste places of our
continent. There are to-day in Russia hundreds of thousands of
acres of land as good as any in the world, which have never been
cultivated, and yet Europeans, by thousands, turn their backs on
Russia, coming to America and going far into the interior to make
their homes, not because our land is better, or our climate more
genial, but because our Government is established upon the basis
of equal rights for every human being. The child of the poor man
becomes educated, he acquires property, he becomes a member of
the commonwealth, he does his own thinking, and, thank God, his
own voting, too.
But the Democratic party has lost power. To-day the Republicans
control three-fourths of the States of this Union. There was a
reason for these reverses. Before the abolition of slavery, a
certain race was denied the advantages of the Democratic
principle. It was a "white man's government." In the course of
time the inevitable collision came. Slavery was abolished, and
the Republican party attempted a new application of the
Jeffersonian principle. It demanded suffrage for the negro and
the Chinese. The principles of justice again prevailed. The
sentiment of liberty came to the support of the Republican party;
manhood suffrage is forever fixed in the Constitution of the
country, and to-day every man, whether learned or ignorant, rich
or poor, white, yellow, or black, whether he can read the English
language or not, is by the Constitution of the United States
forever made a voter. Now, ladies and gentlemen, every argument
through which an extension of the suffrage has been already
accomplished, applies with still greater force in the case of
women. The extension of the suffrage to woman, will be the last
crowning step in political progress, the final application of the
principles of Christianity and human brotherhood to the political
structure.
We do not advocate a new principle. We only desire to make a
wider application of our admitted American principles. That
application is sure to be made. I do not know what party is going
to accomplish it, but this widening of the political basis is as
certain as the rising of the sun or the flowing of the tide. Woe
be to the party that works against it! I know not whether the
Republicans or the Democrats, or the good men of both parties, or
an altogether new party, will take it up; but this I do know,
that the political party which takes up woman suffrage, and
unfolds its banner to the breeze, holds in its hand the key to
political success on this continent.
I appeal to every man and woman in this audience to go to work
for the great object we have at heart. Let Republicans go to
their primary meetings, and offer woman suffrage resolutions
there. Let Democrats go and do likewise. Let every woman take
tracts bearing on the subject and give her influence and labor to
the work. Let us all stand up as faithful representatives of a
great idea. Sooner or later, we shall see a noble reform party in
this country--I care not what its name--which will sweep away
forever the dens of immorality and drunkenness by which we are
surrounded, which will build up a Christian commonwealth--and
rule over it--not because it is powerful in numbers, but because
it is based upon the principles of the Declaration of
Independence, of universal justice and of impartial liberty.
Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER said: I heartily concur with every word
spoken by Mr. Blackwell, and while on this point I wish to call
your attention to an argument used as against woman suffrage, by
men who perhaps might otherwise be with us. They argue that
universal suffrage is itself not a good but an evil, and that to
add to the evil is not to correct it. "It is bad," say they,
"that every white man shall vote," and it had to be pledged, for
political reasons, to give the ballot to 800,000 ignorant blacks;
but two bad things are not to be made right by now extending the
vote to women, a great majority of whom are in the lower walks of
life, and are not supposed to be competent to inform themselves.
This is a most plausible argument to those who are under the
unconscious influence of Pharisaism, to those who think that
wisdom lives and dies with them. It is a strong argument, too; I
don't know that you can put any stronger; but I am bold to make
the statement that, low and bad as human nature may be in some of
its phases, there is nothing in this world that is so safe to
trust or to believe in. And though governments may grow, and gain
experience here and there with perpetually shifting dynasties and
times, yet after all it is human nature that keeps governments up
and gives to the world its laws. The great underlying force is
genuine human nature with all its mistakes. We have recently had
a great illustration of this. I wish to call your attention to
one fact. If there was anything in this world that the mass of
the Northern people were unprepared for it was to take up arms
for the purpose of going to war with the South. Yet when the time
came, and it was flashed over the country that an attack was made
at the life of the Government, take notice that while the South
grew weaker and weaker in furnishing material for the army, the
North grew stronger and stronger, and had only got to its full
strength at the close of the war. Now during that time, by the
votes of the people, with a great party to back up the
opposition, with all the old predilections in favor of the South,
and the natural unwillingness of men to burden themselves with
taxation, this country, in which there was substantially a
universal manhood suffrage, voted to burden itself until three
thousand millions of debt was rolled up. There is an instance of
what men will do with universal suffrage. Yes, and that among the
common people; for the large copperhead element was to be found
among capitalists, not among the masses. "Well, but," it may be
said, "sober second thought will come; wait until the people come
to pay the debt, when currency depreciates and greenbacks become
scarce!" Now as they had gone to the war for a sentiment, a
patriotic sentiment, not because they had received material
damage or expected any pecuniary damage from the South, but
purely from the glorious sentiment of a united country, as they
fought through four years of the war backed up by votes at home,
so when the question came up, "Will you sustain the honor of the
Government? Will you pay the debt that has been incurred?" look
at the answer. Never did trap of dishonesty, so concealed in its
interior structure, present so tempting a bit of cheese to
humanity. Yet when the question came, after full discussion and
trial in all the States of the North successively, by majorities
that no man will choose now to gainsay or resist, by overwhelming
majorities, they said, "The debt shall be paid, every penny of
it!" The North so voted. It was the common people that voted it;
men that live on wages. By that experiment two things were shown;
one that when the whole people are appealed to, they do stand up
to the interests of the States better than educated classes do;
and the other, that when it comes to the question of sentiment or
National integrity, the common people are to be trusted; and it
is not the day, in the face of the magnificent disclosures of
that trying time, to say that it is unsafe to trust the welfare
of a country in the hands of such people. I say there is no man
that comes to years of discretion who is not fit for the
responsibilities of citizenship. Women will also improve when we
welcome them to the open air of liberty.
The sum of all these remarks is simply this, "Amen" to Brother
Blackwell.
LUCY STONE came forward and reminded the audience that a bill is
now before Congress which provides that the employees in the
Government departments at Washington and in both Houses of
Congress shall be equally paid irrespective of sex, and that
petitions should be sent to Congress advocating the passage of
the bill; that blanks for the purpose would be found in the hall,
and she hoped the friends of the cause would sign them. She read
a letter from Mr. Giles B. Stebbins regretting his inability to
be present, and expressing confidence in the ultimate triumphant
success of the cause.
Mr. POWELL, of the _Anti-Slavery Standard_, was introduced:
Ladies and gentlemen--My first feeling this morning was one of
congratulation in view of the encouraging auspices under which we
meet here to advocate the enfranchisement of women. I regard this
movement to-day as just entering upon its earliest efficient
practical work. The era of curiosity and novelty is past. There
is no longer in the public mind that feeling which has hitherto
manifested itself in connection with the discussion of the
proposition that women should vote. We have now to contend with
the more difficult and solid portion of the problem. The right of
woman to speak has been argued and settled; the right of woman to
the ballot has been quite generally admitted--indeed, almost
universally so--as it must be by any one who observes carefully
the arguments used to justify the extension of the ballot to men.
By the ratification of the XV. Amendment the question has been
finally settled in regard to all men, excepting perhaps the
Indians and Chinese, who may, however, be interpreted by and by
as having citizenship under this amendment. Logically and
inevitably, therefore, we come at this time to the consideration
of Mr. Julian's XVI. Amendment, as something which, if we were
not arguing for it, somebody else would be. It is the logical
sequence of what has gone before in the way of the experiment of
republican government in this country. There is no one--either
American or foreign-born--who has observed the workings of our
institutions and the progress of our country, who will say that
we must stand still. We must either go forward in our work of
extending suffrage until we finally reach universal suffrage, or
go back to a one-man power. The victims of the slave power are
to-day standing erect in the possession of equal citizenship on
the basis of absolute legal equality with the white men of the
country. Therefore, with slavery abolished, with our free-school
system, with newspapers scattered all over like snow-flakes
throughout the country, with free thought and free education,
there is not such a thing probable or possible as our going
backward to the system of one-man power. The question now to be
decided is the enfranchisement of women. And this question is at
last fairly before the world--not in newspapers alone, but in
State Legislatures, and even in Congress. Propositions are
pending in Washington for the enfranchisement of the women of the
District of Columbia, and for the enfranchisement by
Congressional authority of the women of the Territories. There is
also a Constitutional amendment proposed, which, if successful,
will abolish all political proscription on account of sex
everywhere throughout the country. My advice would be to
concentrate directly our chief energy on the larger part of the
problem. I believe in State action. I think it would be well to
go to Albany and to the Massachusetts Legislature and to the Ohio
Legislature, and to the Legislatures of all the States, and to
urge that the States take the initiative and enfranchise their
women. But I do not expect that any one State, whatever may be
the political opinion of that State, will go much in advance of
the nation at large. It seems to me that no political party
existing in any one State can establish the precedent of woman's
enfranchisement much in advance of the National Government. I
think it therefore the part of wisdom to concentrate directly
upon the National Legislature. I believe that one object of this
Convention to-day should be to concentrate its voice in an
emphatic resolution, asking that Mr. Julian's amendment be not
allowed to slumber into the hot weather of July, and then be
passed over entirely. I think we should make the voice of this
Association felt as a power for immediate effective work in the
direction I have indicated; and, if we speak earnestly, we shall
be felt and heard. Let us concentrate first upon the XVI.
Amendment and the proposition to enfranchise the women of the
District of Columbia. I hold that that District should be the
first battle-ground for the women of America to a national
precedent, as it was in the prior struggle for the abolition of
slavery. The District is immediately under the supervision of
your Representatives and mine, and members of Congress are to be
held personally responsible for the government which prevails
there. Let us then demand of Congress--demand, I say, because
that is the language of earnest reform--that it give us
forthwith, before the adjournment of the present session, a law
of equal suffrage for the women of the District of Columbia. In
the light of the recent action of the British Parliament, is this
asking too much? Should not we Americans be up to the level of a
test vote on this question--which has never yet been reached
either in the Senate or House of Representatives?
The President introduced GRACE GREENWOOD, who said: "I rise to a
personal explanation," as we say in Washington. When Colonel
Higginson yesterday overwhelmed me with his compliment, by the
proposition that I should belong to the Congress of the United
States, I wanted to say--had I not been so overwhelmed--in order
to set myself "right before the country," that there had been no
previous understanding between Colonel Higginson and myself; and
that as I didn't want to encourage any false hopes, and in fact
didn't want to go, I should decline the nomination. I prefer the
position he referred to--absolutely prefer my place in the
reporters' gallery. I know that a white reporter is as good as a
colored Senator, if he or she behaves himself or herself. I like
to look down upon that scene of legislation and feel that I am
out of it; though sometimes I feel like echoing Coldstream's
opinion in looking into Vesuvius, "There is nothing in it." I
like to sit in the gallery of the House and watch our few true
men. When women sit there, there will be justice done to them;
and, while I have the honor of reporting for the _Tribune_, there
will be justice done to women when any question concerning her
interests comes up in Washington. And here I would like to refer,
as others who have spoken have already referred, to the work to
be done in the Church. I think that many of our earnest,
eloquent, high-minded, religious women should make for the
pulpit. I have always felt that there was great point in the
doctrine of the orthodox Church on the birth of Christ. We have a
greater share in Him than men can have, as He received His
humanity--His sweet, tender, suffering humanity--wholly from
woman. And yet we have been made to keep silence in the house of
our Father even on such festivals as Christmas and Thanksgiving.
How would it seem if on these occasions the sons only were
allowed to thank our heavenly Father for His care and love, and
the daughters were allowed to sit quiet? But woman's piety, you
know, is a very good thing for home consumption, and is supposed
to consist in her quietly sitting at home and praying for her
husband and sons. Goodness knows, she always has enough to pray
for! There is an anecdote told of a loving son who once spoke of
the inestimable blessing of a fine mother. He was a preacher in
Illinois, and he said to his congregation, "Oh, my friends, I
have such a mother. I remember when I was a little lad, standing
by my mother's side on a Sabbath afternoon, as she sat with her
Bible open before her, how she turned from the blessed Word to
lay her hand upon my sunny head, and pray that I might grow up to
be a minister of the Gospel and a great man; and, brethren and
sisters, I stand before you to-day a living example of the
efficacy of that prayer." While Mrs. Livermore was speaking so
gloriously last night out of her mother's heart, of mothers
robbed by the law of their little ones, what mother's heart
didn't stir within her? My little one--she is about my height
now--but I never have been able to get rid of the sweet weight of
that baby head on my breast! My arms always have the feel of the
baby in them yet; and I can not express to you the horror--the
almost rage--with which I hear every story of such outrages on
the maternal heart. It was this feature of mother-robbery in the
system of slavery that always enraged me most against it. It was
just at that point that the system dipped deepest into hell.
Though slavery is gone, however, there are many evils yet
remaining in the laws which should be remedied, and not the least
of them is that which gives the father the entire control of the
children instead of the mother. Some fathers, however, are quite
willing to relinquish that control. I remember a colored woman in
Washington, in whose kitchen I once happened to be for a moment,
and, seeing several dark olive branches around, I said to her,
"Are these your children?" She said, "Yes." "How many have you?"
She said, "Seven, and all to support." I said to her, "Have you
no husband?" "Oh, yes," she said, "I have a husband; I was
married by a Methodist minister down South." "Well," said I, "why
don't he support the children?" "Oh," she said, "he's done gone
away." "Why has he left you?" "Oh, he was a very bright man," she
said (meaning that he was light in color), "and he thought that I
was too black." "But," I said, "didn't he know how black you were
before he married you?" "That is just what old Missus said--she
said, 'Why, you know'd she was black when you married her,' and
he said, 'Yes, but den she didn't have so many relations about
her.'" "What relations?" "Children!" Her children, of course, and
his, too. "He doesn't want so many of my relations about, so he's
done gone off." When a man doesn't want to go, the children are
his "property"; when he wants to desert his wife, they are her
"relations." I would be willing to have the strictest morality
enjoined as a qualification for the ballot. But, as it is a poor
rule that would not work both ways, if that test were applied to
the male voters, what a frightful disfranchisement would take
place. The Democratic party would be well-nigh annihilated, and
the Republican party would be in a fit state to condole with it.
I think, however, that all these things will adjust themselves
when they come. All bugbears seem much more terrible at a
distance than when they are close enough to be grappled with.
Mr. OLIVER JOHNSON was then introduced. He said that the true
germ of the present woman suffrage agitation was to be found in
the foundation of the Anti-slavery Society. At the time that
Society was founded, the question arose as to whether women were
persons, in the sense in which that word was used in the
constitution of that Society. The question gave rise to much
discussion, and it was finally decided by a majority of the
members that the word "person" did include women; and it was
therefore determined that, in the Society, women should have all
the rights that men had. And when thirty years ago the
anniversary of the Society was held, it became the duty of the
presiding officer on that occasion to appoint a business
committee, and, in announcing the names of that committee, he
included that of Abby Kelly--more lately known as that of Abby
Kelly Foster--a Quaker woman of excellent character, and a
devoted friend of the anti-slavery cause. The announcement of her
name was the signal for much tumult, and the withdrawal for the
time being of not less than one hundred and fifty clergymen, who,
led by an eminent citizen, left that meeting and went down into
the basement of the church and formed a new anti-slavery
society, solely because a woman was permitted to serve on a
committee. Mr. Johnson said that he had always had a profound
belief in the triumph of the anti-slavery cause. So also did he
believe in the success of the woman suffrage movement.
Mrs. Hazlett, of Michigan, was the next speaker. God, she said,
says to America to-day, take now the next step in the path of
national progress; then come and take thy place as the highest
nation of the earth. Will America obey heaven's voice, or does
republicanism exist only in name? Men of America! let the stars
and stripes wave over a land true to its principles. It is not
because we want to usurp power that we want the ballot. We want
justice, for the sake of liberty. But, above all, gentlemen, we
hold the welfare of this country our birthright as well as yours.
We wish the vote because it is our right and our duty to have it.
We have duties in life, in society, in the church--duties to
ourselves and to our families which can not be discharged without
the ballot.
When the Convention re-assembled, Mrs. Celia Burleigh, in the
absence of the President, took the chair.
Miss CATHERINE E. BEECHER, who was now introduced, requested the
Secretary, Mr. Blackwell, to read a paper which she had written,
containing her objections to woman suffrage, to which objections
Mrs. Cutler, of Ohio, would reply. Mr. Blackwell read the
following:
I will first state to what I am not opposed. And, first, I
am not opposed to women speaking in public to any who are
willing to hear, nor do I object to women's preaching,
sanctioned as it is by a prophetic apostle--as one of the
millennial results. It is true that no women were appointed
among the first twelve, or the seventy disciples sent out by
the Lord, nor were women appointed to be apostles or bishops
or elders. But they were not forbidden to teach or preach,
except in places where it violated a custom that made a
woman appear as one of a base and degraded class if she thus
violated custom.
Nor am I opposed to a woman earning her own independence in
any lawful calling, and wish many more were open to her
which are now closed.
Nor am I opposed to the agitation and organization of women,
as women, to set forth the wrongs suffered by great
multitudes of our sex, which are multiform and most
humiliating. Nor am I opposed to women's undertaking to
govern both boys and men--they always have done it, and
always will. The most absolute and cruel tyrants I have ever
known were selfish, obstinate, unreasonable women to whom
were chained men of delicacy, honor, and piety, whose only
alternatives were helpless submission, or ceaseless and
disgraceful broils.
Nor am I opposed to the claim that women have equal rights
with men. I rather claim that they have the sacred, superior
rights that God and good men accord to the weak and
defenseless, by which they have the easiest work, the most
safe and comfortable places, and the largest share of all
the most agreeable and desirable enjoyments of this life. My
main objection to the woman suffrage organizations is mainly
this, that a wrong mode is employed to gain a right object.
The "right object" sought is to remedy the wrongs and
relieve the sufferings of great multitudes of our sex. The
"wrong mode" is that which aims to enforce by law instead of
by love. It is one which assumes that man is the author and
abetter of all these wrongs, and that he must be restrained
and regulated by constitutions and laws, as the chief and
most trustworthy method.
In opposition to this, I hold that the fault is as much, or
more, with women than with men, inasmuch as that we have all
the power we need to remedy all wrongs and sufferings
complained of, and yet we do not use it for that end. It is
my deep conviction that all reasonable and conscientious men
of our age, and especially of our country, are not only
willing, but anxious to provide for the best good of our
sex, and that they will gladly bestow all that is just,
reasonable, and kind, whenever we unite in asking in the
proper spirit and manner. It is because we do not ask, or
"because we ask amiss," that we do not receive all we need
both from God and men. Let me illustrate my meaning by a
brief narrative of my own experience. To begin with my
earliest: I can not remember a time when I did not find a
father's heart so tender that it was always easier for him
to give anything I asked than to deny me. Of my seven
brothers, I know not one who would not take as much or more
care of my interests than I should myself. The brother who
presides is here because it is so hard for him to say "No"
to any woman seeking his aid.
It is half a century this very spring since I began to work
for the education and relief of my sex, and I have succeeded
so largely by first convincing intelligent and benevolent
women that what I aimed at was right and desirable, and then
securing their influence with their fathers, brothers, and
husbands; and always with success. American women have only
to unite in asking for whatever is just and reasonable, in a
proper spirit and manner, in order to secure all that they
need.
Here, then, I urge my greatest objections to the plan of
female suffrage; for my countrywomen are seeking it only as
an instrument for redressing wrongs and relieving wants by
laws and civil influences. Now, I ask, why not take a
shorter course, and ask to have the men do for us what we
might do for ourselves if we had the ballot? Suppose we
point out to our State Legislatures and to Congress the
evils that it is supposed the ballot would remedy, and draw
up petitions for these remedial measures, would not these
petitions be granted much sooner and with far less
irritation and conflict than must ensue before we gain the
ballot? And in such petitions thousands of women would unite
who now deem that female suffrage would prove a curse rather
than a benefit.
And here I will close with my final objection to woman
suffrage, and that is that it will prove a measure of
injustice and oppression to the women who oppose it. Most of
such women believe that the greatest cause of the evils
suffered by our sex is that the true profession of woman, in
many of its most important departments, is not respected;
that women are not trained either to the science or the
practice of domestic duties as they need to be, and that, as
the consequence, the chief labors of the family state pass
to ignorant foreigners, and by cultivated women are avoided
as disgraceful.
They believe the true remedy is to make woman's work
honorable and remunerative, and that the suffrage agitation
does not tend to this, but rather to drain off the higher
classes of cultivated women from those more important duties
to take charge of political and civil affairs that are more
suitable for men.
Now if women are all made voters, it will be their duty to
vote, and also to qualify themselves for this duty. But
already women have more than they can do well in all that
appropriately belongs to women, and to add the civil and
political duties of men would be deemed a measure of
injustice and oppression.
Mrs. H. M. T. CUTLER, of Ohio, then rose to reply. She said: I
account myself happy to be allowed to stand here to reply to the
objections of my friend, Miss Beecher. There is one point where I
feel that her argument is not as strong as most of her arguments
are. We enjoy things of privilege, if privileges are granted; but
we enjoy things of right, because they are right--not otherwise.
All that she says of good men, and of what good men will do for
women, only goes to show what everybody has already known, that
she had for a father one of the first Christian gentlemen in the
United States or in the world; and for brothers seven men of
princely virtue, and highest and noblest Christian attainments.
If the world was made up of all such people, there would be no
need of laws. Miss Beecher may well speak for such men as they,
and they may well speak for such women as she. If I make a
petition for something, and that petition does not clearly
express a right that is due me, but instead, asks for something
that may be withheld without moral guilt, that is a privilege;
but when I come and demand that which is a right, the condition
is altogether changed. I claim the right because it is God-given.
We have in the advanced age of Christianity, those who do not
believe in the use of physical force on any account whatever.
They are non-resistants; but it will not be said that the vicious
can be controlled by moral suasion. Society is not yet
sufficiently Christianized for men not to demand of each other
guarantees for the safety of each other's rights. Shall we who
are in some sense the weaker sex have no guarantee for our
rights?
Miss Beecher makes the point that men will give, if we ask them
properly. The first asking of American women was not for
themselves--not for their own account. They forgot themselves in
their anxiety for poor oppressed slaves. They didn't know what
they had lost through long ages, from not having exerted their
own powers, and established their own responsibilities. But when
they came to do that, they then asked themselves, "Where are our
good right hands?" I sent petitions to Congress again and again,
which I had gathered from my neighbors, in regard to the
abolishment of slavery in the District of Columbia and in the
territories; and I have sent numbers of them in regard to this
question of woman suffrage. I sent many of them to Horace
Greeley, and he sent me back word, "The only good that these
things will do in Congress is to help the janitor to light the
fires. They do good to the people perhaps, but they do no good
otherwise." We might have petitioned until the crack of doom,
before Congress would have broken the chain. Why should we not
demand our right to the vote, when we reflect that one vote, cast
in the State of Indiana, was the means of electing a man whose
vote in Congress turned the scale, and enacted the "Fugitive
Slave Law"--that law which put the collar upon every bondsman's
neck, and branded him the property of every Southern master.
I admit the great responsibility of the ballot, and if we are
true women, we shall assume it with a full appreciation of that
responsibility, and a determination to do our whole duty in its
exercise. The argument that many women do not desire the ballot
reminds me of an old colored woman whom I met soon after the war.
I said to her, "Some people say they think your people are really
almost sorry that they have been made free; that they were more
comfortable as slaves." She said, "Is it possible that any person
thinks like that? Can it be that any colored person feels like
that?" I said, "I have heard people say so." "Then," said she,
"if anybody feels like that they deserve to be slaves--doubly
slaves--slaves in this world and slaves in the next." The woman
that is not willing to assume the responsibility of casting a
vote upon a question that may decide whether in her individual
neighborhood or precinct there shall be grog-shops and houses of
prostitution open, and there shall be no proper care of the poor
and needy and infirm--I say that if there is any woman who is not
willing to assume such responsibilities, it seems to me that she
must feel that it is a judgment on her, should her own husband or
son or the daughter of her heart, or all of them, become
sufferers in consequence of the evil that she might have stayed
had she been willing to uphold the exercise of that right.
We ask only for the same right that is accorded to the poorest
man landing on our shores. Is the giving of the ballot to a
foreigner who comes among us a burden so great that he should not
have it imposed upon him? And shall an American woman shrink
from her duty when there is so much power in her hands for good?
I know that a great many women have not been educated up to a
condition that would teach them fully how to act. Like the slave,
they have had too much thinking and acting done for them, until
now they feel incompetent to discharge these duties for
themselves. Our great duty, then, which we who know better should
consider imposed upon us, is that of educating women up to the
proper standard. Shall we be beggars for that which is, of right,
ours? Shall there not be one law for the brothers and the
daughters throughout this entire country? As Mr. Beecher has well
said, women have borne their full share of martyrdom; and it
strikes me that it is now about time for her redemption from the
evils of her position. If she has to suffer from the evils of a
defective or vicious system of laws, put in her hands the power
to protect herself, to mitigate the sufferings of her sex, to
preserve and defend the right and to suppress the wrong.
Mrs. MIRIAM M. COLE spoke at some length. The spirit of '76, she
said, influenced Mrs. John Adams to write to her husband to
inquire if it were generous in American men to keep their wives
in thraldom, when they were emancipating the whole earth. Had the
spirit of that letter animated the wife of Mr. Lincoln when his
emancipation proclamation was issued, how pertinently could she
have made the same inquiry! The laws regarding women were written
down so plain that those may run who read, and they who read had
better run.
Mrs. CELIA BURLEIGH said: Several references have been made to
the work of women in the church. I am glad to be able to
introduce to you now the pastor of one of the most popular
churches of New Haven, and whose church, I am happy to say, is
crowded every Sunday--Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford.
Mrs. HANAFORD said: Speaking with Horace Greeley a few weeks ago,
he replied to my query why he was not in favor of woman suffrage,
by saying that he did not think women would gain the opportunity
of suffrage or improve the opportunity if they had it, until they
should come to consider suffrage a duty, and he declared that he
had never known any one to advocate woman suffrage on the ground
of duty.
I was amazed at his assertion in the face of all the speeches and
lectures which such women as Lucretia Mott and her conscientious
co-laborers had made and delivered during the last twenty years.
The very next night, I heard Anna Dickinson in the largest hall
in New Haven, and before nearly 3,000 people, urge the women
present to consider their duty to this vast Republic in which we
dwell, and whose starry banner is as dear to women as to men. The
keynote of her bugle-call to the rescue was the idea of duty, and
that is the idea which inspires the women on this platform
to-day, while thousands of hearts throughout our Union respond,
with the same sentiment, to their appeals from the platform, the
pulpit, and the press.
Leading reformers of the world are telling us in clarion notes,
and in thunder tones, with the voice of warning or of appeal,
that woman owes service to the State, and that it is her duty to
strive earnestly that she may have that ballot in her own hand
which shall be at once her educator and protector, her sceptre
and her sword. But I have heard the Master's voice, speaking
through Lucy Stone and her co-workers, and speaking in my own
soul also, declaring that I, in common with every other woman in
this grand Republic, have a duty to the State that must not be
ignored. In the home, and in the church, most women acknowledge
they have duties--but as to the State they hesitate. Oh, if they
would but "gather into the stillness," as the Friends say, and
listen reverently to the voice within, I think they would often
hear the solemn utterance, "These ought ye to have done, and not
to leave the other undone." Every woman who has tried to do her
whole duty in the family, tried faithfully to make home a
foretaste of heaven, with its abounding peace and love, tried
with a mother's prayers, a mother's tears, a mother's unselfish,
self-denying love, to train her darlings for the skies--every
such woman deserves the gratitude of humanity, and that sweetest
of rewards to a mother's heart, viz; that "her children shall
rise up, and call her blessed;" while every woman who superadds
to this unselfish devotion to home and children, a lifelong
fidelity to the church in which she was reared, or has adopted;
every woman who has worshiped devoutly at the shrine her own soul
has accepted, following meekly in the footsteps of Him who went
about doing good--every such woman deserves the wreath of
immortal amaranths which angel hands are weaving for her
brow--but more than all, she who crowns her home work and her
religious endeavors with a service to the State, which of
necessity touches the great questions of reform, and aids in the
settling of vast problems wherein the weal or woe of a nation is
concerned--that woman, from the centre of her individual
responsibility, reaches out to the circumference of her
individual influence, and desires to receive from the lips of the
dear Lord himself, the "Well done, thou good and faithful
servant, enter thou into the joy of thy Lord"--the joy of a
completed mission. The recording angel will write such a woman's
name with that of Abou Ben Adhem, who loved his fellows, and in
serving humanity served God.
The single point which I wish to present to the women before me
at this hour and in these brief remarks is this, then; that it is
your solemn, sacred duty, as you love God and the truth, and
human welfare, to seek the ballot, and, having obtained it, to
use it in purifying our statute-books and making them read more
like the oracles of God--the eleven Commandments, and the Golden
Rule.
Mrs. MARY F. DAVIS, of New Jersey, observed that in a court room
of New York, a lawyer--she understood--recently stated that
according to law the husband of a woman has such control over her
as to "own" her; that man was made for God and woman for man! She
asked if those present accepted that law [A voice, No!] Do you,
said she, own your own persons, according to the law of God, or
do you not? Our brothers tell us that women would be contaminated
by going into the court rooms and sitting on juries; that women
must be kept from these places because it would impair their
delicacy. Well, if women were wholly excluded from our court
rooms the case would be different. But when in the mornings we
take up the daily papers, how frequently do we read of some poor
young creature who has been arrested and taken to the court room,
to be tried by a jury of men; and carried perhaps from there to a
place of imprisonment, with no pitying woman's eye or heart or
hand to give her a ray of comfort. And these poor, forlorn
creatures shall be deprived of our sympathy and left to perish
because we are too "delicate" to come to their assistance! These
may be daughters of good people, and may once have been good and
pure as any. They might be your daughters or mine. Brothers, they
might be your sisters or your daughters! Oh! change the laws that
bear so hard on women. Give us such laws as will allow your wives
and mothers--those in whom you have confidence and whom you
love--to come, with a mother's heart, and help rescue these
deserted and fallen and miserable ones.
LUCY STONE here read a letter of regret from William Lloyd
Garrison, in which he stated that he was ill and confined to his
bed, and therefore unable to be present. She read, also, a letter
from Mrs. Haskell, of California, expressing earnest and hearty
sympathy in all that is done at the East for woman suffrage, and
the assurance that on the Pacific slope the good work is becoming
daily stronger and more hopeful.
Mrs. TAPPAN gave an interesting account of some of the Indian
tribes in Mexico and California, who, she thought, had in one
sense a higher idea of the capacity of woman than their more
civilized brethren. The Navajos, on one occasion, when a United
States Commission composed of General Sherman, General Terry, and
other officers of the army, went to them to treat with them on
behalf of the Government, refused to enter the officer's quarters
for the purpose of discussion or decision of their difficulties,
unless their squaws were permitted to participate in the
deliberations, and the officers were obliged to allow the women
to come in.
The evening session of the convention was called to order by LUCY
STONE. Steinway Hall was filled with an earnest and interested
assembly, numbering about a thousand persons.
Mrs. CHURCHILL, of Providence, R. I., was the first speaker. She
spoke at some length, and asserted the undoubted right of women
to the suffrage. She referred to the fear which men entertained,
or pretended to entertain, of women neglecting every other duty
attaching to them simply because they should get suffrage. Men do
not find voting so exceedingly incompatible with the other duties
of life that they should have such fear of woman suffrage. Women
are not asking for _bon-bons_ in this matter. They are demanding
that which belongs to them. They are not children, nor idiots,
and they ought to have the same right of action as is accorded to
sane men.
The address of Mrs. JULIA WARD HOWE was as follows: This mighty
edifice of the ideal society has many mansions, whose doors open
one after the other in the ruins of the ages. When Providence has
removed the mysterious seal from one of these doors those who
know the signs of the times gladly enter. And soon the halt and
the lame and the blind hear of the new refuge, the new
benefaction, and make haste to crowd its halls and parlors.
America itself was at first such a refuge. The derided Puritans
rode there nobly across the highway of the ocean. By and by it
leaked out that civil and religious liberty had made a good thing
of it, and then the Old World began to sneak over into the
spacious domain of the New. And now it comes with such a tide
that we can scarcely build cities and railroads fast enough for
its accommodation. America is to the nations a house of God--a
divinely appointed city of refuge. Poorly have we administered
that house of God, because we ourselves were undivine. But we
have improved a little--we have learned some lessons--we have
opened some doors. And every lesson that we have learned has
shown us more and more of the grand but terrible labor which lies
before us. What one should be, and know, and intend, in order to
come up to the standard of an American, that is something which
as yet puts most of us to the blush, not for being so much, but
so little children of the New World; for this may the Old World
deride us.
[Illustration: Julia Ward Howe.]
I can not see this New World as it ought to be, in my remotest
vision, without many changes in what it is. Looking towards this
great aim of building a Christian state, I see the position of
woman as wrong and harmful. Wrong to herself since she is pushed
one remove further from the divine than man--she, born of the
same humanity and divinity with himself. Wrong to society since
she, with special gifts and powers for its aid and advancement,
is forcibly restrained to the functions which man deigns to allow
her; her attitude to law, labor and life being determined by him
through the old principle of barbarism, the predominance of
physical force.
Which shall I treat first, the wrong done to the individual or
that done to society? I will start with the individual. And from
the start I will say that the very instinct of secondariness, so
often postulated as a reason for the social subjection of women,
is, on the part of those who urge it, either an invention or an
error. The instinct, as I understand it, is all the other way.
The little girl does not know in herself any inferiority to the
boy. He can perhaps beat her, but while he may consider this a
mark of superiority, she is too wise to accept it as such. In
their lessons she flies where he walks. She cries for his
floggings oftener than he can laugh at her failures. She needs
less machinery than he to arrive at the same mental and moral
results. Nature has given him a mental hammer, but it has given
her a mental needle, and she has embroidered the rainbow before
he has forged the thunder. How does he overtake her swift steps?
How tame and bind her fiery soul?
Now I confess that he has an accomplice greater than himself. The
girl, coming upon the full consciousness of womanhood, comes also
upon that of its opposite. The primal divine unity of the race
makes itself felt in her dreamy bosom. She is but half of the
ideal--the perfect human being--the other half is not yet hers;
she must seek diligently till she find it. Do not laugh. The
pilgrimage of Psyche is performed by every maiden soul; but love,
the supreme god, in the little child is not always found. So far,
so good. The woman often finds a mate; sometimes has quite a
selection of mates offered her. If she finds the complement of
her incomplete being, what more can she want? What wrong is done
her? This simply. If her single life was incomplete, that of her
partner without her was no less so. The need of marriage was
equal with both. Nay, but for the aid of vices to which the male
part of society give system and culture, the need of marriage on
his part will be more imperative than on hers. Its natural
burdens fall with fivefold force on her. She must bear the
children. She must give the flower of her life to services full
of weariness and of anguish. Now, however the matter may stand
between man and woman, the State's need of marriage is
imperative. And as the State commands marriage, and as the woman
contracts marriage as an obligation to the State, the State is
bound by every sacred obligation of justice to render the
contract an equal one. And here comes up again the barbaric
element--the predominance of physical force. "Shall this softer,
gentler, more fragile creature be the equal of the ruder, stouter
man?" "Yes," says your Christianity, "She is a divine
institution, as you are; she desires the same culture, the same
respect, the same authority." "No," says your barbarism, "I can
oppress her, and I will. We won't call it oppression, if you
please. We'll call it protection. I'll keep her money, and her
children, and her body, and her soul. I'll keep them all for her.
She can ask me for what she wants. I shall always know whether it
is best for her to have it or no."
Now, here it is true physical ascendency of the man which renders
the assumption of this position possible. Great as this power is,
he has taken pains to increase it by an immense array of aids and
appliances. He has kept the woman ignorant of all the
technologies of the world. Fatal renewal of the Hebrew myth, he
has eaten of the tree of knowledge, has kept the fruit for
himself. Society can not be governed without law and logic. The
use of these the man has monopolized, encouraging in the woman
the natural gifts and accomplishments which give him most
delight--dress and dance, and the sweet voice and graceful
manner, and, above all the ready acquiescence in his sovereign
pleasure. But let her ask him for the methods by which she may
analyze his actions and his intuitions, and he says, "No." No
college door shall open for her, no nursery of law, medicine or
theology. Philosophy, the science of sciences--which Dictrina
taught to Socrates, who teaches it to the world to-day--that
would give her the key to all the rest. She may get it, if she
can.
We have brought our theoretical woman up to the period of
marriage and maternity. Here the intensity of personal feeling
and interest monopolize her. Her nursery is full of pains and
pleasures, but its delights predominate, and though she will need
more than ever the help of outside culture and sympathy, she is
yet tied by her affections even more than by her duties to a
centre of feeling too intense to generate a wide circle. Here,
too, the enforced inequality of institutions pursues her. The
children, born at such cost of suffering, are not hers in the eye
of the law. The right to them which nature puts primarily in the
mother, society has long vested almost absolutely in the father.
In case of any difference between them he will say, "I am the
father--my will must be obeyed." And what he will say in private
the law will say in public. Mrs. Stone records a piteous case in
which an unborn child was willed by its dying father to relatives
in a foreign country in which the widowed mother suffered the
pains of childbirth, that other hearts than hers might be
gladdened by her dearly-bought treasure. This young woman was
described as in a maze of bewilderment at the presence on the
statute-book of a law so miraculously wicked. We all hope that in
such laws there comes a great deal of dead letter, but the dead
letter itself stinks and is corrupt. The book of justice should
be purged of such unhallowed corpses.
In the nursery the mother is called upon to set forward the same
injustice which presided over her own education. "Preaching down
a daughter's heart," the beautiful phrase of Tennyson, becomes
the duty of every woman who finds in her daughter saliency of
intellect and individuality of will. Mediocrity is the standard!
"Seek not, my child, to go beyond it. Thou hast thy little
allotments. The French must be thy classics, the house accounts
thy mathematics. Patchwork, cooking, and sweeping thy mechanics;
dress and embroidery thy fine arts. See how small the spheres. Do
not venture outside of it, nor teach thy daughters, when thou
shalt have such to do so."
And so we women, from generation to generation, are drilled to be
the apes of an artificial standard, made for us and imposed upon
us by an outsider; a being who, in this attitude, becomes our
natural enemy.
Mrs. LUCY STONE said: There have always been good and able men
ready to second us, and to say their best words for our cause.
Among the first of these is Mr. George William Curtis, whom I
have now the pleasure to introduce.
_Ladies and Gentlemen:_--It is pleasant to see this large
assembly, and this generous spirit, for it is by precisely such
meetings as this that public opinion is first awakened, and
public action is at last secured. Our question is essentially an
American question. It is a demand for equal rights, and will
therefore be heard. Whenever a free and intelligent people asks
any question involving human rights or liberty or development, it
will ask louder and louder until it is answered. The conscience
of this nation sits in the way like a sphinx, proposing its
riddle of true democracy. Presidents and parties, conventions,
caucuses, and candidates, failing to guess it, are remorselessly
consumed. Forty years ago that conscience asked, "Do men have
fair play in this country?" A burst of contemptuous laughter was
the reply. Louder and louder grew that question, until it was one
great thunderburst, absorbing all other questions; and then the
country saw that its very life was bound up in the answer; and,
springing to its feet, alive in every nerve, with one hand it
snapped the slave's chain, and with the other welded the Union
into a Nation--the pledge of equal liberty.
That same conscience sits in the way to-day. It asks another
question, "Do women have fair play in this country?" As before, a
sneer or a smile of derision may ripple from one end of the land
to the other; but that question will swell louder and louder,
until it is answered by the ballot in the hands of every citizen,
and by the perfect vindication of the fundamental principle, that
"governments derive their just powers from the consent of the
governed." By its very nature, however, the progress of this
reform will differ from every other political movement. Behind
every demand for the enlargement of the suffrage, hitherto there
was always a threat. It involved possible anarchy and blood. But
this reform hides no menace. It lies wholly in the sphere of
reason. It is a demand for justice, as the best political policy;
an appeal for equality of rights among citizens as the best
security of the common welfare. It is a plea for the introduction
of all the mental and moral forces of society into the work of
government. It is an assertion that in the regulation of society,
no class and no interest can be safely spared from a direct
responsibility. It encounters, indeed, the most ancient
traditions, the most subtle sophistry of men's passions and
prejudices. But there was never any great wrong righted that was
not intrenched in sophistry--that did not plead an immemorial
antiquity, and what it called the universal consent and
"instinct" of mankind.
I say that the movement is a plea for justice, and I assert that
the equal rights of women, not as citizens, but as human beings,
have never been acknowledged. There is no audacity so insolent,
no tyranny so wanton, no inhumanity so revolting, as the spirit
which says to any human being, or to any class of human beings,
"You shall be developed just as far as we choose, and as fast as
we choose, and your mental and moral life shall be subject to our
pleasure!"
Edward Lear, the artist, traveling in Greece, says that "he was
one day jogging along with an Albanian peasant, who said to him,
'Women are really better than donkeys for carrying burdens, but
not so good as mules.'" This was the honest opinion of
barbarism--the honest feeling of Greece to-day.
You say that the peasant was uncivilized. Very well. Go back to
the age of Pericles; it is the high noon of Greek civilization.
It is Athens--"the eye of Greece--the mother of art." There
stands the great orator--himself incarnate Greece--speaking the
oration over the Peloponnesian dead. "The greatest glory of
woman," he said, "is to be the least talked of among men;" so
said Pericles, when he lived. Had Pericles lived to-day he would
have agreed that to be talked of among men as Miss Martineau and
Florence Nightingale are, as Mrs. Somerville and Maria Mitchell
are, is as great a glory as to be the mother of the Gracchi.
Women in Greece, the mothers of Greece, were an inferior and
degraded class. And Grote sums up their whole condition when he
says, "Every thing which concerned their lives, their happiness,
or their rights, was determined for them by male relatives, and
they seem to have been destitute of all mental culture and
refinement."
These were the old Greeks. Will you have Rome? The chief monument
of Roman civilization is its law--which underlies our own; and
Buckle quotes the great commentator on that law as saying that it
was the distinction of the Roman law that it treated women not as
persons, but as things. Or go to the most ancient civilization;
to China, which was old when Greece and Rome were young. The
famous French Jesuit missionary, Abbé Huc, mentions one of the
most tragical facts recorded--that there is in China a class of
women who hold that if they are only true to certain bonds during
this life, they shall, as a reward, change their form after death
and return to earth as men. This distinguished traveler also says
that he was one day talking with a certain Master Ting, a very
shrewd Chinaman, whom he was endeavoring to convert. "But," said
Ting, "what is the special object of your preaching
Christianity?" "Why, to convert you, and save your soul," said
the Abbé. "Well, then, why do you try to convert the women?"
asked Master Ting. "To save their souls," said the missionary.
"But women have no souls," said Master Ting; "you can't expect to
make Christians of women,"--and he was so delighted with the idea
that he went out shouting, "Hi! hi! now I shall go home and tell
my wife she has a soul, and I guess she will laugh as loudly as I
do!"
Such were the three old civilizations. Do you think we can
disembarrass ourselves of history? Our civilization grows upon
roots that spring from the remotest past; and our life, proud as
we are of it, is bound up with that of Greece and Rome. Do you
think the spirit of our society is wholly different? Let us see.
It was my good fortune, only a few weeks ago, to be invited to
address the students of Vassar College at Poughkeepsie; which
you will remember is devoted exclusively to the higher education
of women. As I stood in those ample halls, and thought of that
studious household, of the observatory and its occupants, it
seemed to me that, like the German naturalist, who, wandering in
the valley of the Amazon, came suddenly upon the _Victoria
Regia_, so there, in the valley of the Hudson, I had come upon
one of the finest flowers of our civilization. But in the midst
of my enthusiasm I was told by the President that this was the
first fully endowed college for women in the world; and from that
moment I was alarmed. From behind every door, every tree, I
expected to see good Master Ting springing out with his "Hi! hi!
you laugh at us Chinese barbarians; you call yourselves in
America the head of civilization; you claim that the glory of
your civilization is your estimate of women; you sneer at us
Chinese for belittling women's souls and squeezing their feet.
Who belittle their capacities? Who squeeze their minds?" We must
confess it. The old theory of the subservience of women still
taints our civilization.
You open your morning paper and read that on the previous evening
there was a meeting of intelligent and experienced women, with
some that were not so, which is true of all general meetings of
men and women; and these persons demanded the same liberty of
choice, and an equal opportunity with all other members of
society. But the report of the meeting is received with a shout
of derisive laughter that echoes through the press and through
private conversation. Gulliver did not take the Lilliputians on
his hands and look at them with more utter contempt than the
political class of this country, to which the men in this hall
belong, take up these women and look at them with infinite,
amused disdain. But in the very next column of the same morning
paper we find another report, describing a public dinner, at
which men only were present. And we read that after the great
orators had made their great speeches, in the course of which
they complimented woman so prettily, to the delight of the few
privileged ladies who stood behind the screens, or looked over
the balcony, or peeped in through the cracks of the windows and
doors; and when the great orators had retired with the President,
amid universal applause, the first Vice-President took the head
of the table and punch was brought in. And well toward morning,
when the "army" and "navy" and the "press" and the "Common
Council" had been toasted and drank, with three times three, and
Richard Swiveller, Esq., had sung his celebrated song, "Queen of
my soul!" the last regular toast was proposed--"Woman--heaven's
last, best gift to man," which was received with tumultuous
enthusiasm, the whole company rising and cheering, the band
playing "Will ye come to Kelvin Grove, bonnie lassie, O?" and in
response to a unanimous call, some gallant and chivalric editor
replied in a strain of pathetic and humorous eloquence, during
which many of the company were observed to shed tears or laugh,
or embrace their neighbors; after which those of the company who
were able rose from the table, and hallooing, "We won't go home
till morning!" they hiccoughed their way home. This report is not
read with great derision or laughter. It is not felt that by this
performance women have been insulted and degraded.
Here, at this moment, in this audience, I have no doubt there is
many a man who is exclaiming with fervor--"Home, the
heaven-appointed sphere of woman." Very well. I don't deny it,
but how do you know it? How can you know it? There is but one law
by which any sphere can be determined, and that is perfect
liberty of development. I look into history and the society
around me, and I see that the position of women which is most
agreeable upon the whole to men is that which they call the
"heaven-appointed sphere" of woman. It may or may not be so; all
that I can see thus far is that men choose to have it so. A
gentleman remarks that it is a beautiful ordinance of Providence
that pear-trees should grow like vines. And when I say, "Is it
so?" he takes me into his garden, and shows me a poor, tortured
pear-tree, trained upon a trellis. Then I see that it is the
beautiful design of Providence that pear-trees should grow like
vines, precisely as Providence ordains that Chinese women shall
have small feet; and that the powdered sugar we buy at the
grocer's shall be half ground rice. These philosophers might as
wisely inform us that Providence ordains Christian saints to be
chops and steaks; and then point us to St. Lawrence upon his
gridiron.
Has nature ordained that the lark shall rise fluttering and
singing to the sun in the spring? But how should we ever know it,
if he were prisoned in a cage with wires of gold never so
delicate, or tied with a silken string however slight and soft?
Is it the nature of flowers to open to the south wind? How could
we know it but that, unconstrained by art, their winking eyes
respond to that soft breath? In like manner, what determines the
sphere of any morally responsible being, but perfect liberty of
choice and liberty of development? Take those away, and you have
taken away the possibility of determining the sphere. How do I
know my sphere as a man, but by repelling everything that would
arbitrarily restrict my choice? How can you know yours as women,
but by obedience to the same law?
It is not the business of either sex to theorize about the sphere
of the other. It is the duty of each to secure the liberty of
both. Give women, for instance, every opportunity of education
that men have. If there are some branches of knowledge improper
for them to acquire--some which are in their nature
unwomanly--they will know it a thousandfold better than men. And
if, having opened the college, there be some woman in whom the
love of learning extinguishes all other love, then the
heaven-appointed sphere of that woman is not the nursery. It may
be the laboratory, the library, the observatory; it may be the
platform or the Senate. And if it be either of these, shall we
say that education has unsphered and unsexed her? On the
contrary, it has enabled that woman to ascertain so far exactly
what God meant her to do.
The woman's rights movement is the simple claim, that the same
opportunity and liberty that a man has in civilized society shall
be extended to the woman who stands at his side--equal or unequal
in special powers, but an equal member of society. She must prove
her power as he proves his.
And so when Joan of Arc follows God and leads the army; when the
Maid of Saragossa loads and fires the cannon; when Mrs. Stowe
makes her pen the heaven-appealing tongue of an outraged race;
when Grace Darling and Ida Lewis, pulling their boats through the
pitiless waves, save fellow-creatures from drowning; when Mrs.
Patten, the captain's wife, at sea--her husband lying helplessly
ill in his cabin--puts everybody aside, and herself steers the
ship to port, do you ask me whether these are not exceptional
women? I am a man and you are women; but Florence Nightingale,
demanding supplies for the sick soldiers in the Crimea, and when
they are delayed by red tape, ordering a file of soldiers to
break down the doors and bring them, which they do--for the brave
love bravery--seems to me quite as womanly as the loveliest girl
in the land, dancing at the gayest ball in a dress of which the
embroidery is the pinched lines of starvation in another girl's
face. Jenny Lind enchanting the heart of a nation; Anna Dickinson
pleading for the equal liberty of her sex; Lucretia Mott,
publicly bearing her testimony against the sin of slavery, are
doing what God, by His great gifts of eloquence and song,
appointed them to do. And whatever generous and noble duty,
either in a private or a public sphere, God gives any woman the
will and the power to do, that, and that only, for her, is
feminine.
But have women, then, no sphere as women? Undoubtedly they have,
as men have a sphere as men. If a woman is a mother, God gives
her certain affections, and cares springing from them, which we
may be very sure she will not forget, and to which, just in the
degree that she is a true woman, she will be fondly faithful. We
need not think that it is necessary to fence her in, nor to
suppose that she would try to evade these duties and
responsibilities, if perfect liberty were given her. As Sydney
Smith said of education, we need not fear that if girls study
Greek and mathematics, mothers will desert their infants for
quadratic equations, or verbs in _mi_.
But the sphere of the family is not the sole sphere either of men
or women. They are not only parents, they are human beings, with
genius, talents, aspirations, ambition. They are also members of
the State, and from the very equality of the parental function
which perpetuates the State, they are equally interested in its
welfare.
Is it said that she influences the man now? Very well; do you
object to that? And if not, is there any reason why she should
not do directly what she does indirectly? If it is proper that
her opinion should influence a man's vote, is there any good
reason why it should not be independently expressed? Or is it
said that she is represented by men? Excuse me; I belong to a
country which said, with James Otis in the forum, and with George
Washington in the field, that there is no such thing as virtual
representation. The guarantee of equal opportunity in modern
society is the ballot. It may be a clumsy contrivance, but it is
the best we have yet found. In our system a man without a vote is
but half a man. So long as women are forbidden political
equality, the laws and feelings of society will be unjust to
them.
I have no more superstitious notions about the ballot than about
any other method of social improvement and progress. But all
experience shows that my neighbor's ballot is no protection for
me. We see that voters may be bribed, dazzled, coerced; and,
where there is practically universal suffrage among men, we often
see, indeed, corruption, waste, and bad laws. But we nowhere see
that those who once have the ballot are willing to relinquish it,
and many of those who most warmly oppose the voting of women also
most earnestly advocate the unconditional restoration of
political rights to the guiltiest of the late rebel leaders,
because they know that to deprive them of the ballot places them
at a terrible disadvantage. If then it is what I may call an
American political instinct, that any class of men which
monopolizes the political power will be unjust to other classes
of men, how much truer is it that one sex as a class will be
unjust to the other.
I know, as every man knows, many a woman of the noblest
character, of the highest intelligence, of the purest purpose,
the owner of property, the mother of children, devoted to her
family and to all her duties, and for that reason profoundly
interested in public affairs. And when this woman says to me,
"You are one of the governing class. Your Government is founded
upon the principle of expressed consent of all as the best
security of all. I have as much stake in it as you--perhaps more
than you, because I am a parent--and wish more than many of my
neighbors to express my opinion and assert my influence by a
ballot. I am a better judge than you or any man can be of my own
responsibilities and powers. I am willing to bear my equal share
of every burden of the Government in such manner as we shall all
equally decide to be best. By what right, then, except that of
mere force, do you deny me a voice in the laws which I am forced
to obey?" What shall I say? What can I say? Shall I tell her that
she is "owned" by some living man, or is some dead man's
"relict," as the old phrase was? Shall I tell her that she ought
to be ashamed of herself for wishing to be unsexed; that God has
given her the nursery, the ball-room, the opera, and that, if
these fail, He has graciously provided the kitchen, the wash-tub,
and the needle? Or shall I tell her that she is a lute, a
moonbeam, a rosebud; and touch my guitar, and weave flowers in
her hair, and sing:
"Gay without toil and lovely without art,
They spring to cheer the sense and glad the heart;
Nor blush, my fair, to own you copy these,
Your best, your sweetest empire is to please"?
No, no. At least, I will not insult her. I can say nothing. I
hang my head before that woman, as when in foreign lands I was
asked, "You are an American. That is the nation that forever
boasts of the equal liberty of all its citizens, and is the only
great nation in the world that traffics in human flesh!"
The very moment women passed out of the degradation of the Greek
household and the contempt of the Roman law, they began their
long and slow ascent through prejudice, sophistry, and passion to
their perfect equality of choice and opportunity as human beings;
and the assertion that when a majority of women ask for equal
political rights they will be granted, is a confession that there
is no conclusive reason against their sharing them. And if that
be so, how can their admission rightfully depend upon the
majority? Why should the woman who does not care to vote prevent
the voting of her neighbor who does? Why should a hundred fools
who are content to be dolls and do what Mrs. Grundy expects,
prejudice the choice of a single one who wishes to be a woman and
do what her conscience requires? You tell me that the great mass
of women are uninterested, indifferent, and, upon the whole,
hostile to the movement. You say what of course you can not know,
but even if it were so, what then? There are some of the noblest
and best of women, both in this country and in England, who are
not indifferent. They are the women who have thought for
themselves upon the subject. The others (the great multitude) are
those who have not thought at all; who have acquiesced in the
old order, and who have accepted the prejudices of men. Shall
their unthinking acquiescence or the intelligent wish of their
thoughtful sisters decide the question?
We can be patient. Our fathers won their independence of England
by the logic of English ideas. We will persuade America by the
eloquence of American principles. In one of the fierce Western
battles among the mountains, General Thomas was watching a body
of his troops painfully pushing their way up a steep hill against
a withering fire. Victory seemed impossible, and the
General--even he a rock of valor and patriotism--exclaimed, "They
can't do it; they'll never reach the top!" His chief-of-staff,
watching the struggle with equal earnestness, placed his hand on
his commander's arm and said softly, "Time, time, General; give
them time;" and presently the moist eyes of the brave leader saw
his soldiers victorious upon the summit. They were American
soldiers. So are we. They were fighting our American battle. So
are we. They were climbing a precipice. So are we. The great
heart of their General gave them time and they conquered. The
great heart of our country will give us time and we shall
triumph.
Mrs. LUCY STONE then introduced Hon. George W. Julian, member of
Congress from Indiana. "His name," she said, "will always be held
in grateful remembrance by good women as the author of the XVI.
Amendment."
Mr. JULIAN said that, as a thorough-going radical in politics and
a sincere believer in democracy as a principle, he could not see
how he was to argue the question of woman suffrage, even if he
had the time. Woman's rights, to his mind, rested upon precisely
the same grounds upon which men's rights rest; and to argue the
question of woman's rights is to argue the question of human
rights. Subscribing as he did to the great primal truth of the
sacredness of human rights, the same logic which held him to that
compelled him--it is inexorable logic--to stand by the legitimate
results to which it leads. The issue was between aristocracy and
privilege on one side, and democracy and equality of inherent
right on the other. Speaking of the XVI. Amendment, he said:
"Believing as I do in democracy in the large and proper and full
sense of the term, and being unwilling to write myself down a
hypocrite or liar by refusing to women equal participation in
rights which I insist upon for myself as a citizen of the United
States, I thought it was my duty to introduce into the Congress
of the United States a XVI. Amendment to the Constitution
proposing to give to one half of our citizens who are to-day
disfranchised a voice in the system of laws and government by
which the other half of the citizens now govern them. Should it
succeed, you will have a true and real democracy in this land; a
Government emphatically of the people, for the people, and by the
people.
Mrs. CELIA BURLEIGH was then introduced, and said: Ladies and
gentlemen, I am not generally in favor of compromises, but I come
before you to-night to propose a compromise. I had written a
speech for the occasion, and--a--I assure you it was a very good
speech. As I am compassionate, however, if you will take my word
for it that it is a very good speech I will not inflict it upon
you.
These remarks brought such thunders of applause, that in response
to the manifest desire of the audience, Mrs. Burleigh again came
forward, and delivered a highly interesting and eloquent address
upon the general subject of woman's improvement, under the
epigrammatic title of "Woman's Right to be a Woman." An extract
or two will show the spirit with which she treats the question.
"I appeal to every true man before me if he has not looked into
the faces of well-dressed men so sensual and brutal in their
expression, that he would sooner a hundredfold see a sister or
daughter laid in her grave than entrusted to the guardianship of
such a man. Will you not give to every woman the power to
maintain the integrity of her womanhood--the ownership of
herself? What means the right of the drunkard's wife to be a
woman? It means the power to protect herself from his drunken
hate and his more frightful drunken love. It means that she be
armed with a vote to repress the horrid traffic that has made her
husband a brute, or, failing to save him, that she escape with
untarnished honor from his polluting arms. What signifies the
right to be a woman to her who must endure the daily contact of a
social villain, if it be not to have all human virtue as her ally
when she snaps the tie that binds her to him, and vindicates the
Divine validity of marriage by breaking the fetters of the fatal
sham? What is involved in the right of the Magdalen to be a woman
redeemed and disenthralled from the bondage of sin? What but the
entire reconstruction of society with purity for a law and
charity for the executive; with more of the divine mother in man,
more of manly courage and self-respecting dignity in woman; in
both more reverence for humanity and a more abiding faith in the
indestructible possibilities of good in every human soul."
The Convention then adjourned _sine die_.
THE FIRST ANNUAL MEETING OF THE AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE
ASSOCIATION was held in Cleveland, Ohio, Nov. 22 and 23, 1870.
Col. T. W. HIGGINSON, first Vice-President, called the meeting to
order, and addressed the audience substantially as follows:
REMARKS OF COLONEL HIGGINSON.
LADIES AND GENTLEMEN: I heartily congratulate you that you are
again called together in this goodly city of Cleveland.
We stand to-day at the cradle of the Association, a child one
year old, to celebrate its first birthday. There is nothing in
the record of the past year that we have to blush for, or that we
have to undo. If our work has been limited in its success, it has
been because we have been limited in means. If we have not
transformed the entire world it has been because the world has
not poured its money into our coffers. But the great fact
remains, as much as if we had accomplished a work ten times as
large, that we have a great central organization, to which ten
States have given a cordial and hearty support. Congress at
Washington is but a small body. The amount it annually does and
spends is nothing to that done and spent by the State
governments. It is the keystone of our great national arch, the
string upon which all State governments are strung. And so this
Association is the keystone upon which all the auxiliary State
organizations depend.
We meet here to-day, in a delegate meeting, for full and free
discussion; none are proscribed, none prescribed. If there is
anything new to be done, now is the time to do it; if anything
wrong was done last year, now is the time to rectify it. This is
the great, golden opportunity of this Association. It is especial
cause for rejoicing that it is organized for a specific purpose,
to secure the ballot to women, everything else being held for the
time in abeyance. Early in the movement in behalf of women the
broad platform of "woman's rights" was adopted. This was all
proper and right then, but the progress of reform has developed
the fact that suffrage for woman is the great key that will
unlock to her the doors of social and political equality. This
should be the first point of concentrated attack. Suffrage is not
the only object, but it is the first, to be attained. When we
gave our Association that name we escaped a vast deal of
discussion and argument, for its object can not be misunderstood.
But after that is gained there will be worlds yet to conquer. If
the conservatives think that because it is called the Woman
Suffrage Association it has no further object, they are greatly
mistaken. Its purpose and aim are to equalize the sexes in all
the relations of life; to reduce the inequalities that now exist
in matters of education, in social life and in the
professions--to make them equal in all respects, before the law,
society, and the world. With this burden upon our shoulders we
can not carry all the other ills of the world in addition, we
must take one thing at a time. Suffrage for woman gained, and all
else will speedily follow.
H. B. Blackwell, Chairman of the Committee on Credentials,
presented the report of delegates present.[188]
On motion of Mrs. Dr. Ferguson, seconded by Judge Bradwell, each
delegation was authorized to cast the full vote of the State it
represents. The number of votes to which each State was entitled
was declared to be that of its Congressional representation.
Mrs. LUCY STONE, Chairman of the Executive Committee, read the
REPORT OF THE EXECUTIVE COMMITTEE.
_Annual Report of the Chairman of the Executive Committee of
the American Woman Suffrage Association:_
The American Woman Suffrage Association was formed in this
city one year ago under the most favorable auspices. Its one
great object is to secure the ballot for woman. Through the
power this will give, she may take her true place, free to
use every gift and faculty she possesses, subject only to
the law of benevolence. This organization has been vastly
influential in securing public sympathy and respect for our
ideas. The very names of its officers gave confidence, and
through their confidence the cause has received large
accessions of strength. We have already nine auxiliary State
societies. Each of these has held conventions. Some have
employed lecturers, some have organized county and local
societies. All have circulated tracts and petitions. Ohio,
Indiana, and Massachusetts have been especially abundant in
labor. Ohio has thirty-one local societies, Indiana
twenty-five, and Massachusetts five. These States have had a
force of excellent speakers in the field, who, with rare
self-forgetting, have worked as only those can who work with
whole-hearted faith for immortal principles.
Under the auspices of this Association, a canvass was made
in the State of Vermont. The sole reason which induced the
Executive Committee to undertake this special work was that
the Council of Censors had submitted a proposition that
"henceforth women may vote, and with no other restrictions
than are prescribed for men." A Vermont State Woman Suffrage
Association was organized, auxiliary to the American
Society.
The speech of Mr. Curtis at our May mass meeting, so
admirable in style and substance we have published in a
tract entitled "Fair Play for Women." Thousands of copies
have been sent to all parts of the United States. It is
doing its silent work by quiet firesides, where hard-working
men and women, who can never attend a convention, can find
time to read. We have published seven tracts, which had
previously been sold at $5.00 a hundred, at the actual cost
of $2.00 per hundred, and keep them constantly for sale at
these low prices. They have been scattered broadcast, and
the good seed thus sown will bear fruit in due season.
There has been steady progress in our ideas during the whole
year. The _Woman's Journal_, established last January, and
since consolidated with the _Woman's Advocate_, of Ohio, is
constantly increasing its circulation, more than a thousand
new subscribers having been added within a single month.
One of the most significant signs of progress is found in
the recent action of the Republican party in Massachusetts.
Their State Convention unanimously admitted Mary A.
Livermore and Lucy Stone, who were regularly accredited
delegates from the towns of Melrose and West Brookfield. A
resolution in favor of making woman suffrage part of the
platform was reported by the Committee on Resolutions. A
change of only 29 votes out of 331 would have made woman
suffrage this year a part of the Republican platform of
Massachusetts. Thus women have been admitted to represent
men in a political State Convention. The next step will be
that women will represent themselves.
With all these cheering indications, we have only to keep
our question of woman's right to the ballot clear and
unmixed with other issues, and the growing public sympathy
will soon carry our cause to a successful issue.
Judge Bradwell, of Chicago, presented the following letter to the
Chair, which was read to the Association:
_To the American Woman Suffrage Association;_
FRIENDS AND CO-WORKERS: We, the undersigned, a committee
appointed by the Union Woman Suffrage Society in New York,
May, 1870, to confer with you on the subject of merging the
two organizations into one, respectfully announce:
1st. That in our judgment no difference exists between the
objects and methods of the two societies, nor any good
reason for keeping them apart.
2d. That the society we represent has invested us with full
power to arrange with you a union of both under a single
constitution and executive.
3d. That we ask you to appoint a committee of equal number
and authority with our own, to consummate if possible this
happy result.
Yours, in the common cause of woman's enfranchisement,
LAURA CURTIS BULLARD, ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER,
GERRIT SMITH, SAMUEL J. MAY,
SARAH PUGH, CHARLOTTE E. WILBOUR,
FREDERICK DOUGLASS, JOSEPHINE S. GRIFFING,
MATTIE GRIFFITH BROWN, THEODORE TILTON, _ex officio_.
JAMES W. STILLMAN,
Judge BRADWELL made a few remarks on the subject of the letter,
advocating the union of the two organizations, and proposing the
following resolution:
_Whereas_, In Article II. of the Constitution of the
American Woman Suffrage Association it is stated, "Its
object shall be to concentrate the efforts of all the
advocates of woman suffrage in the United States," and
whereas the Union Woman Suffrage Association, of which
Theodore Tilton is President, has appointed a committee of
eleven persons with full power to agree upon a basis for the
union of the two national associations, now, therefore, be
it
_Resolved_, That the convention for the purpose of carrying
out the object of said association, as expressed in said
Article II., and concentrating the efforts of all the
friends of woman suffrage throughout the Union for national
purposes, do hereby appoint.... who, with the eleven persons
heretofore appointed by said Woman Suffrage Society, shall
compose a joint committee with full power to form a union of
the American Woman Suffrage Association and the Union Woman
Suffrage Society under one constitution and one set of
officers. It is further provided, after notice to all, that
a majority of said joint committee shall have power to act.
The above was referred to the Committee on Resolutions.
At the afternoon session Vice-President Higginson invited the
Vice-Presidents of the associations of different States to seats
upon the platform.
Mrs. LUCY STONE was introduced, and gave an interesting account
of the course pursued by her and Mrs. Livermore in a
Massachusetts convention. Here the two ladies were received as
delegates, took their places among the regular delegates of the
convention, and voted with them. After that they urged their lady
friends to attend the ward meetings. The women of Massachusetts,
she said, paid taxes on $100,000,000 of property, the women of
Boston on $40,000,000. She thought it good policy to work inside
the parties.
Mrs. Dr. FERGUSON, of Indiana, thought it necessary to begin by
sowing the seeds of the doctrine. Meetings had been held in
different parts of the State. One was held on the sidewalk, was
well attended, and was followed by a large meeting. Soon after,
conventions were held, and though many women were afraid to take
hold of the subject, others advocated it with full force. We have
organized fourteen local societies. Some of these are sending out
their lecturers.
Col. T. W. HIGGINSON reported that the Rhode Island Society was
endeavoring to obtain the appointment of women as superintendents
of reform institutions. We should have matrons in all the prisons
where women are confined. I would therefore urge upon all women
in their respective cities to labor in this direction. Men will
vote for placing women upon all these boards.
Judge BRADWELL, of Chicago, made a short report on the condition
of the suffrage party in his State.
Dr. CHILD, of Pennsylvania, said: The suggestions of our
President are very important. Woman should have a position by the
side of man in all public institutions. I am happy to say that in
the city of Philadelphia, founded by William Penn, and to a
considerable extent still under the influence of Friends, women
do participate largely in our benevolent institutions and
prisons. Our State organization was formed on the 22d of December
last, and is auxiliary to the American Association. Our principal
labor has been to increase the circulation of the _Woman's
Journal_ and circulate tracts.
Rev. OSCAR CLUTE, of New Jersey, thought that his State had done
more for the cause of woman suffrage than many others. Mary F.
Davis and others had resided there.
Mrs. M. V. LONGLEY reported that in Ohio desirable progress was
manifested, and that if the coming year was as successful as the
past the cause would progress well. Societies, some thirty-two in
number, had been organized, and everywhere the work went on well.
Mr. HENRY B. BLACKWELL made a report for New Hampshire, where he
was assured by Mrs. White and Pipher, now present, that the cause
had never been so strong before.
Owing to the exceedingly inclement weather, the attendance upon
the evening session of the Convention was light.
All the States represented having reported except Missouri, Mrs.
Hazard, one of the delegates from that State, spoke briefly,
showing that the movement is making satisfactory advance.
Judge WHITEHEAD, New Jersey, regarded the woman suffrage question
as the most important topic before the American people. The only
question to be asked in connection with this movement is, is it
right, is it just?--not, is it expedient? With regard to the
legal and constitutional conditions of this question, he said
that he believed that women had a right to vote without any
change in the organic law of the Nation. The speaker proceeded to
discuss this question at some length, with the purpose of
demonstrating that in virtue of the principle and practice of the
Government of the United States in securing the ballot to men,
the right to vote equally belonged to women. The speaker
continued at length in advocacy of the ballot for woman as a
necessity for securing her rights and remedying her wrongs.
The PRESIDENT, with some prefatory remarks, introduced Miss Rice,
of Antioch College. Miss Rice announced as the theme of her
address, "Woman's Work," and said that the work proper for woman
is whatever she has the ability and opportunity to do. Miss Rice
embraced in the discussion of her topic, considerations as to the
duty of parents in rearing and teaching their children, demanding
that the same principle under which boys were reared should be
applied to girls, and the duty of society, which must recognize
the necessity of women being instructed and taught in all that
man has access to. She deprecated as one of the worst evils of
our civilization that men and women were being all the time more
widely separated. They must be brought nearer together.
Mrs. M. M. COLE said: That we are still so far from
enfranchisement is mainly the fault of women themselves. Home
talks, not Mrs. Caudle's fault-finding lectures, will do more
toward convincing men of the righteousness of their demand, than
all the public harangues to which they can listen. Comparatively
speaking, there are few men who do not listen and heed the
counsels of a good wife, few who will not yield a willing or
reluctant assent to her requests. For every exception, there may
be found a wife who has never given evidence of candid,
far-reaching thought; and when a man is in possession of such a
one, he is not to be censured for wishing to keep the reins in
his own hand.
When all women ask for the ballot, they shall have it, say many
politicians. In all probability, the wives of these men have
never asked it--indeed, they may have refused outright to use
it, if granted. And so, blind to the interests of all, deaf to
the entreaties of many, they refuse the request, making, in fact,
their wives the arbiter of all women. That is not statesmanship,
but partisanship, and a partisan is not one likely to comprehend
a question in its broadest meaning. Husbands and wives who are
not as far apart as the poles, are apt to think alike on all
questions except religion and temperance, perhaps I ought to add
finance. Social problems they solve by the same rule, public
officers they weigh in the same balance, party measures criticise
and pronounce wise or unwise with the same verdict. I know of a
few advocates of woman suffrage whose husbands, fathers,
brothers, or some one dearer, do not directly or indirectly aid
them. So far from alienating the married pair, so far from
creating domestic disturbance, the discussion of this question
has called into activity faculties men never dreamed woman
possessed. She has shown more fixedness of purpose, sagacity, and
sound judgment, than have ever been attributed to her. Excepting
the religion of Christ, which first broke the chains binding
woman to a mere animal existence, and sent gleams of love and
hope through the darkness in which she groped, there has been
nothing which has given such an impetus to her life as the
present one, set in motion by her demand for freedom. Never
before in the history of the human race, have women stood so high
in the estimation of men as they stand to-day.
There is but one answer to give to woman-worshipers, and that is,
Take away all responsibility from me, shield me from the terrors
of war, intemperance and licentiousness, and be my vicarious
sacrifice in the world to come, and I'll be the thing you would
have me--the echo--the reflection--the soulless divinity.
Is this an extreme view? What! can there be an extreme view, when
one is considering individual freedom? Set bounds to the
political, social, or religious liberty of a man, and what
figures of speech would he employ? The advocates of the XV.
Amendment put words into our mouths, and they must answer for
them if they seem too extravagant. There is nothing under the sun
that will so arouse man or woman as the fact that another, as
needy, as finite as himself, sets stakes in the path of his
progress, and says, "Thus far shalt thou go, and no farther." It
is this assumption of men, most grievous to be borne, that has
compelled woman to ask that the stakes be removed, and she be
permitted to go where she wills to go.
Mrs. HANNAH B. CLARKE spoke as follows: When I am satisfied that
a majority of the women of this country desire the ballot, I
shall be in favor of granting the same, says the man of to-day of
average ability and culture. Oh! my friend, we shall not allow
you to take out a patent for magnanimity on the strength of that
confession. When all the women, or even the majority of the
women, shall unite in one solemn, earnest appeal for a voice in
the framing of the laws which they are compelled to obey, the
turf will be green over that political statesmanship which
supposes that a question of right, of principle, is a question of
majorities. While I do not believe that the fewness of the women
in any community who really desire the ballot furnishes any man
good ground for throwing his influence in the opposite scale, I
do believe that the most serious hindrance to the immediate
success of our cause is the opposition of women themselves.
It is one of the saddest, the most discouraging, features of any
reform to find its worst foes are they of its own household. But
the woman movement is not unique in this particular. Other
reforms have presented the self-same characteristic. He who is
familiar with the history of labor-saving machinery in this
country knows that its introduction was fought inch by inch by
that very class whose condition it was especially designed to
ameliorate. If the Jews were the first to crucify instead of
receive their Messiah, we know that the bad precedent which they
established has not been lost upon succeeding generations. My
friends, every reform begets a vast amount of ignorant opposition
before which its advocates must simply possess their souls in
patience.
This opposition among women shows itself in two distinct ways.
The first kind manifests itself in holding meetings, framing
petitions, and soliciting signatures, asking Congress to withhold
the right of suffrage from the women of the land. I make no
quarrel with that kind of opposition, nay, more, I entertain for
it a certain kind of regard, for two reasons: First, because any
decision that is candid and the result of reflection, entitles
the holder to respect, but secondly and mainly, because it is no
opposition at all. These persons are our friends, doing just what
we are, no more and no less. For, mind you, it is not the mere
dropping of the ballot once or twice a year on the part of woman
to which public opinion is such a dead set. It is that which
follows the ballot, that which the ballot involves. It is the
office holding, the introduction of woman into public life, this
stepping outside of what has always been considered her
particular sphere. And so these women, who are memorializing
Legislatures to deny their sisters the ballot, are doing our
work, in that they are breaking the crust of that bitter
prejudice which says that a woman's business is to keep house and
tend babies, utterly regardless of the fact that every community
contains scores of women who have neither houses to keep, nor
babies to tend; doing our work in their own way, to be sure, in a
way that reflects little credit on their good sense, but we shall
not be particular about that if they are not. My verdict for such
women is, let them alone. We shall be the losers if they ever
find out their mistake.
But that kind of opposition which we dread the most, which takes
the courage out of the most courageous, and the heart out of the
most earnest, is the opposition of utter insensibility, of stolid
indifference, which the mass of women exhibit, not only to this
question, but to any question that does not touch their immediate
personal interests. If I had a cause, of whatever kind, to
advocate on its merits alone, one argument to make that appealed
to a reasonable intellect, a discriminating judgment, I should
want an audience not of women. It is a sad, a humiliating fact
that the great mass of women are not thinkers.
* * * * *
At the morning session Colonel HIGGINSON read a letter from Henry
Ward Beecher.
BROOKLYN, N. Y., Nov. 18, 1870.
MRS. LUCY STONE:--My Dear Madam--You were kind enough to ask
me to allow my name to be used again in connection with the
presidency of the American Woman Suffrage Association. But,
after reflection, I am persuaded that it will be better to
put in nomination some one who can give more time to the
affairs of the society than I can and who can at least
attend its meetings, which I find it impossible to do. But,
while I detach myself from the mere machinery of the
society, I do not withdraw from the cause, nor abate my
hopes of its success and my conviction of the justice of its
aims. On the contrary, with every year I feel increasing
confidence that the ultimate forms of civilized society will
surely include women in its political management. I am not
so sanguine of the nearness of the day when a woman's vote
must be calculated by political assemblies as many are, but
little by little the cause will gain and ultimately the
result is certain. I wish you an enthusiastic meeting, a
harmonious adjustment of all affairs, and a prosperous
future.
I am very truly yours, HENRY WARD BEECHER.
The Committee on Resolutions[189] reported later. The first four
resolutions were unanimously adopted, the fifth, after full
discussion, was rejected by a vote of 112 1-3 to 47 2-3.
MR. HENRY B. BLACKWELL offered the following resolution:
_Resolved_, That the American Woman Suffrage Association
heartily invites the cooperation of all individuals and all
State societies who feel the need of a truly National
Association on a delegated basis, which shall avoid side
issues, and devote itself to the main question of suffrage.
Adopted unanimously.
The American Woman Suffrage Association held its semi-annual
meeting in Steinway Hall, New York, May 10, 1871. A large
audience had already gathered when the Convention was called to
order, which was constantly increased during the morning session,
until between 800 and 1,000 persons were in attendance. In the
absence of the President of the Association, Mrs. H. M. Tracy
Cutler, Mrs. M. A. Livermore was called to the chair. She read
the following letter from Mrs. Cutler:
_To the American Woman Suffrage Association, Steinway Hall
New York:_
With much self-denial on my part, I remain far from your
semi-annual gathering. But in heart I am with you, partaking
in your deliberations, and recounting the advances since our
meeting one year ago. Mrs. Dr. Patten, wife of the editor of
the _Advance_, who believes and does far better than he
would make us believe through his paper, is president of a
society for sending women as missionaries to India for the
express purpose of educating Brahman women. They will deny
any belief in the woman suffrage movement, but they are
teaching women the alphabet, and that is the first step
toward the fullest possession of self, which will yet claim
and vindicate all human rights. Among the most significant
signs of the influence of this agitation, is the change in
the laws of the different States in regard to the rights of
women. Conversing with a member of the committee charged
with the revision of the laws of California, he said to me:
"The most important part of my work is the revisions of the
statutes concerning marriage and divorce and the rights of
property and of guardianship for married women."
The action of Congress shows us clearly, that as soon as
there is sufficient pressure from without, it will give a
light by which to read the XIV. and XV. Amendments, or it
will inspire the passage of a XVI., so that our cause will
be won. Knowing that your deliberations will be wise, and
that the inspiring spirit will be purity and harmony, I
shall the less regret that I am compelled to be absent in
person, though present in spirit.
H. M. T. CUTLER.
The Rev. Dr. EDWARD EGGLESTON, of the _Independent_, said: One
can not show one's interest in the cause better than by speaking
in this opening moment of the Convention. I think every
individual in the country should have a voice in the making of
the laws. Here is a large and increasing class of women in the
country who need the suffrage, and men feel that they need women
in politics. A great many people never think of the effect of
suffrage on woman without a shudder. I am not one who believes
that women are adapted to every kind of work to which a man is. I
do not believe that a woman's mind is just like a man's, but the
most shameful proscription of all is that which prevents women
from doing the work for which they are adapted. It is not
necessary for a woman to be a man in order to vote. We want a
woman's vote to be a woman's vote, and not a man's vote. It is a
singular old heresy that to be able to vote you must be able to
be a soldier. The purpose of the ballot-box is not to be
bolstered by bullets. It is intended that public sentiment shall
make law; and I think women can make public sentiment faster than
men. I would back a New England sewing society against any town
meeting. If women can not make war, they can at least do
something to stop war. There is nothing in the world so absurd as
regarding womanhood as some delicate flower that should be shut
up in some glass jar for fear it may be injured by contact with
the air. The ballot opens the door for every true and needed
reform for women, because the ballot is the great educating
power. A true, right-feeling woman does not want to be dependent,
and the ballot will educate them to independence, because it
brings duties and responsibilities to them.
Resolutions[190] were presented by H. B. Blackwell, chairman of
the Committee on Resolutions.
Mrs. LUCY STONE then addressed the Convention as follows: The
ideas which underlie the question of woman suffrage have reached
the last stage of discussion before their final acceptance. They
have grown up first through the period of indifference, then that
of scorn, and then that of moral agitation; and now they are
ushered into politics. In nearly every Northern and Western
State, such discussions have been had, and action has been taken
upon the subject in some form. Even in South Carolina it has
voted itself, with the Governor of the State for its ally. Under
the XIV. and XV. Amendments, several women in Washington
attempted to vote, but were refused. They are now trying the
question in the United States Courts. In Congress 55 votes were
cast in our favor at the last session. Politicians know perfectly
well that our success is a foregone conclusion. No coming event
ever cast its shadow before it more clearly than does this--that
women will vote. It is only a question of time, say all. It is
important for us, then, to-day, to suggest such measures as shall
win us sympathy, co-operation, and success; and for the first
time give to the world an example of true republicanism--a
government of the people, by the people, and for the people--man
and woman.
If neither of the existing parties takes up our cause, then the
best men from both will form a new party, which will win for
itself sympathy, support, power, and supremacy, because it gave
itself to the service of those who needed justice. I care for any
party only as it serves principles, and secures great National
needs. But the Republican party made itself a power by doing
justice to the negro. When the war was over and the
reconstruction of the South became necessary, the Republican
party was in the full tide of power, and had its choice of
methods and means. It was the golden hour that statesmanship
should have seized to reconstruct the Government on the basis of
the consent of the governed, without distinction of sex, race, or
color.
Mr. BLACKWELL addressed the Convention as follows:
He enumerated the different methods which have been proposed in
order to secure the suffrage for women, as follows: By a XVI.
Amendment to the Constitution, as suggested by the Hon. George W.
Julian; by an Act of Congress enfranchising women in the District
of Columbia, as advised by Hon. Henry Wilson; by Amendments to
the various State Constitutions, and by litigation for a broader
construction of the XIV. and XV. Amendments to the Constitution.
Mr. Blackwell said that all these methods are worth trying, but
thought there was a swifter and easier method, viz: to induce the
State Legislatures to direct that the votes of all adult native
and naturalized citizens shall be received and counted in the
Presidential election of 1872. This can be done, in Mr.
Blackwell's opinion, under the first section of the second
article of the Constitution, which says:
Each State shall appoint, in such manner as the Legislature
thereof may direct, a number of electors equal to the whole
number of Senators and Representatives to which the State
may be entitled in the Congress.
The great underlying mass of ignorance is always conservative.
Hence the difficulty of making constitutional amendments, and the
importance of employing an easier method. Let every man or woman
who believes in woman suffrage organize within their respective
States and endeavor to obtain such an act from their respective
Legislatures next winter, and let it be understood that the votes
of the woman suffrage party, both men and women, will be cast as
a unit within each State for the party which does this great act
of political justice.
GILES B. STEBBINS said: It has been stated that women don't want
the ballot. Well, suppose they don't. That is the very strongest
argument why they should be taught that they do. Fred. Douglass
said, "Show me a contented slave, and I will show you a depraved
man." We want duties and responsibilities shared equally by all,
that man may be more manly and woman more womanly.
Mrs. ELIZABETH K. CHURCHILL, of Providence, said: Can there be an
aristocracy meaner and more tyrannical than that of sex, by which
a wise, cultured, intelligent woman is made the inferior (for
that is what the denial of the ballot implies), the inferior of a
base, brutal, degraded man? The divine right of kings is an
exploded notion; it is time for the divine right of sex to follow
it. The chief value of the ballot is the educational power. He
who feels an interest in men and measures will soon feel a
responsibility. Everybody knows that women are no better than
men. They are no angels floating in an ethereal atmosphere. It is
the fashion sometimes to call them "angels," but I observe they
are no longer angels when they get aged. I don't know a more
unpleasant rôle to play than that of an aged angel. If it is said
that woman can't know enough to vote, I can only reply that God
made them to match men. But no standard of education was ever
fixed for the ballot; and if there had been one, it never could
exclude woman, any more than it could negroes.
Mrs. LIVERMORE left the chair for a short time to read a note
from a lady inquiring whether, if she thought the woman suffrage
movement was condemned in the New Testament, she would abandon
the movement. I think she said, that it is not the proper way to
put the question. If the question were put to me, If I thought
the woman's reform contrary to Christianity, would I throw it
overboard? I should answer, Yes, unhesitatingly; I should desire,
for one, to stop it; I should renounce it forever. What is it
that the woman's reform asks for woman? We ask for the ballot,
and we ask it simply because it is the symbol of equality. There
is no other recognized symbol of equality in this country. We ask
for the ballot that we may be equal to men before the law. The
very moment we obtain it the work of this association is done,
and it must get out of the way. Then new associations must be
formed to take the new work that will come before us, for when
the ballot is given to woman then the great work will begin. Then
comes the tug of war. For the obtaining of the ballot by woman is
but stepping up the first round of the ladder, whose topmost
round takes hold of perfection.
OLIVER JOHNSON moved that the resolutions reported in the morning
be voted on. The motion was carried, and the resolutions having
been separately read, passed unanimously with little discussion
till the last two were reached.
Mr. KILGORE, of Philadelphia, objected to the seventh resolution,
and said, if you don't want to cover this purpose with doubt and
uncertainty, which is always an evidence of weakness, claim your
right to vote under the XIV. and XV. Amendments to the
Constitution.
Mrs. LUCY STONE replied that we all believed we had a right to
vote under the original Constitution, as well as under these
amendments, but since there was great doubt whether woman
suffrage should be reached through these, she thought it best to
seek also for a XVI. Amendment.
OLIVER JOHNSON said he didn't want to be included in Mrs.
Blackwell's remark that the Constitution gives women the ballot.
He thought it not wise to agitate this question. The right to
vote under the Constitution can be reached only under a decision
of the courts, and while waiting for that you are diverting the
public mind from the true point at issue. Slavery had been put
down in such a way that it can never be reconstructed; but if it
had been put aside by a decision of the Supreme Court, a triumph
of the Democratic party might change the character of the Supreme
Court and reinstate it. He thought it wise to have the
resolutions as they were, so that persons of all shades of
opinions may vote for them.
Dr. MARY WALKER said that the fact of women attempting to vote in
Washington had done more for woman suffrage than all the
Conventions ever held. We want a declaratory law, she said,
passed by the Congress of the United States, giving women the
right to vote. This was the only way to save an immense amount of
labor in the different States.
DAVID PLUMB, of New York, advocated the seventh resolution. We
need a XVI. Amendment to settle woman suffrage on a firm basis.
After considerable debate the resolution was unanimously adopted.
The eighth resolution was then discussed, to which Mr. KILGORE
also objected, offering a motion that all the resolution coming
after the words "special social theories," be stricken out. He
was opposed, especially, to the introduction of the words "free
love." What was meant by them?
Mr. BLACKWELL said the Convention meant by the use of that phrase
exactly what the New York _Tribune_ of that morning meant, in its
statement that the woman suffrage movement was one for free love.
The PRESIDENT said this great movement was not responsible for
the freaks and follies of individuals. The resolutions simply
denied that this association indorsed free love, which certain
papers charged them with. After considerable discussion, the
resolution was adopted by the strong, decided and united voices
of nearly a thousand people, voting in the affirmative. At the
evening session of the Convention the great hall was filled
completely, not a seat on the lower floor being unoccupied, and
all the desirable seats in the gallery being taken.
MOSES COIT TYLER, Professor in the Michigan State University at
Ann Arbor, was the first speaker: The seaboard is the natural
seat of liberty. Coming to you from the inland, where the salt
breath of the Atlantic is exchanged for the sweet vapors of the
lakes, I say to you, look well to your laurels! What are you
seaboard people doing to vindicate your honor? We, in the
interior, have at least one National university which opens its
gates to the sex which has the misfortune to be that of Mrs.
Livermore, Mrs. Howe, and others. One of the keenest and
brightest minds of the law in the West animates the head of a
woman. In my own State of Michigan, at least two women have
succeeded in getting their votes into the ballot-box. These are
strifes in which good people may engage, and of the trophies won
in such a contest every modest man may boast. This deep,
national, resolute demand for a great right withheld, means that
woman is really a person, and not merely a lovely shadow. If you
can convince the majority of American men, and what is more, the
majority of American women, that woman is a person, you will have
the ballot to-morrow. We call woman an angel, and it is very easy
to do that, because the Constitution of the United States don't
take any account of angels. If all citizens who are masculine
have the right to vote, it is not because they are males, but
because they are persons who are members of the Nation. Therefore
women should likewise be given this right because they are also
members of the nation, and it is the right of every member to
vote. But, after all, we men are rather bashful, you know, and
the business is new to us. We have a sort of "Barkis is willin'"
feeling, and don't want to be the first to speak. We are like the
rustic young man who escorted a young lady home for the first
time. Says she, as they reached the garden-gate: "Now, Jake,
don't tell any one you beau'd me home." "No," he replied, "I am
as much ashamed of it as you be!" [Laughter.] Now, it would have
been much better if the young lady had said something more
exhilarating, more encouraging. So we are new to the business of
escorting women to the ballot, and they must come forward, and,
overcoming their natural timidity, meet us half way and speak for
themselves.