United States of America in congress assembled, (two-thirds
of each House concurring therein), That the following
article be proposed to the legislatures of the several
States as an amendment to the Constitution of the United
States, which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said
legislatures, shall be valid as part of said constitution,
namely:
SECTION 1. The right of citizens of the United States to
vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or
by any State on account of sex.
SEC. 2. The congress shall have power, by appropriate
legislation, to enforce the provisions of this article.
Thus closed the forty-seventh congress, and although with so little
promise of any substantial good for women, yet this slight
recognition in legislation was encouraging to those who had so long
appealed in vain for the attention of their representatives. A
committee to even consider the wrongs of woman was more than had
ever been secured before, and one to propose some measures of
justice, sustained by the votes of a few statesmen awake to the
degradation of disfranchisement, gave some faint hope of more
generous action in the near future. The tone of the debates[103] in
these later years even, on the nature and rights of women, is
wholly unworthy the present type of developed womanhood and the age
in which we live.
FOOTNOTES:
[81] During the autumn Miss Anthony, Mrs. Jones, Miss Snow and Miss
Couzins, spending some weeks in Washington, asked for an audience
with President Chester A. Arthur, and urged him to recommend in his
first message to congress the appointment of a standing committee
and the submission of a sixteenth amendment.
[82] _Yeas_--Aldrich, Allison, Anthony, Blair, Cameron of Pa.,
Cameron of Wis., Conger, Davis of Ill., Dawes, Edmunds, Ferry,
Frye, Harrison, Hawley, Hill of Col., Hoar, Jones of Fla., Jones of
Nev., Kellogg, Lapham, Logan, McDill, McMillan, Miller of Cal.,
Mitchell, Morrill, Platt, Plumb, Ransom, Rollins, Saunders, Sawyer,
Sewell, Sherman, Windom--35.
_Nays_--Bayard, Beck, Brown, Butler, Camden, Cockrell, Coke, Davis
of W. Va., Fair, Farley, Garland, Hampton, Hill of Ga., Jackson,
Jonas, McPherson, Maxey, Saulsbury, Slater, Vance, Vest, Walker,
Williams--23.
_Absent_--Call, George, Gorman, Groome, Grover, Hale, Harris,
Ingalls, Johnston, Lamar, Mahone, Miller of N. Y., Morgan,
Pendleton, Pugh, Teller, Van Wyck, Voorhees--18.
The members of the committee were Senators Lapham of New York,
Anthony of Rhode Island, Blair of New Hampshire, Jackson of
Tennessee, George of Mississippi, Ferry of Michigan and Fair of
Nevada.
[83] _Yeas_--Aldrich, Anderson, Bayne, Beach, Belford, Bingham,
Black, Bliss, Brewer, Briggs, Browne, Brumm, Buck, Burrows, Julius
C., Butterworth, Calkins, Camp, Campbell, Candler, Cannon,
Carpenter, Caswell, Converse, Crapo, Davis, George R., Dawes,
Deering, De Motte, Dezendorf, Dingley, Dwight, Farwell, Sewall S.,
Finley, Flower, Geddes, Grout, Hardenburgh, Harris, Henry, S.,
Haseltine, Haskell, Hawk, Hazelton, Heilman, Henderson, Hepburn,
Hill, Hiscock, Horr, Houk, Hubbell, Humphrey, Hutchinson, Jacobs,
Jadwin, Jones, Phineas, Kasson, Kelley, Ladd, Lord, Marsh, Mason,
McClure, McCoid, McCook, McKinley, Miles, Miller, Moulton, Murch,
Nolan, Norcross, O'Neill, Orth, Page, Parker, Paul, Payson, Poole,
Pierce, Pettibone, Pound, Prescott, Ranney, Ray, Reed, Rice. Theron
M., Richardson, D. P., Ritchie, Robeson, Robinson, Geo. D.,
Robinson, James S., Ryan, Scranton, Shallenberger, Sherwin,
Skinner, Smith, A. Herr, Smith, Dietrich C., Spaulding, Spooner,
Steele, Stephens, Stone, Strait, Taylor, Updegraff, J. T.,
Updegraff, Thomas, Valentine, Van Aernam, Walker, Watson, West,
White, Williams, Chas. G., Willits--115.
_Nays_--Aiken, Atkins, Berry, Blackburn, Bland, Blount, Bragg,
Buchanan, Buckner, Cabell, Caldwell, Cassiday, Chapman, Clark,
Clements, Cobb, Colerick, Cox, William R., Covington, Cravens,
Culberson, Curtin, Deuster, Dibrell, Dowd, Evins, Forney, Frost,
Fulkerson, Garrison, Guenther, Gunter, Hammond, N. J., Hatch,
Herbert, Hewitt, G. W. Hoge, Holman, House, Jones, George W.,
Jones, James K., Joyce, Kenna, Klotz, Knott, Latham, Leedom,
Manning, Martin, Matson, McMillin, Mills, Money, Morrison,
Mutchler, Oates, Phister, Reagan, Rosecrans, Ross, Schackleford,
Shelley, Simonton, Singleton, Jas. W., Singleton, Otho R., Sparks,
Speer, Springer, Stockslager, Thompson, P. B., Thompson, Wm. G.,
Tillman, Tucker, Turner, Henry G., Turner, Oscar, Upson, Vance,
Warner, Whittihore, Williams, Thomas, Willis, Wilson, Wise, George
D., Young--84.
[84] _Connecticut_, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Frances Ellen Burr.
_Colorado_, Mrs. Elizabeth G. Campbell, _District of Columbia_,
Ellen H. Sheldon, Jane H. Spofford, Dr. Caroline B. Winslow, Ellen
M. O'Conner, Eliza Titus Ward, Belva A. Lockwood, Mrs. H. L.
Shephard, Martha Johnson. _Indiana_, Helen M. Gongar, May Wright
Sewall, Laura Kregelo, Alexiana S. Maxwell. _Maine_, Sophronia C.
Snow. _Massachusetts_, Mrs. Harriet H. Robinson, Harriette R.
Shattuck, Laura E. Brooks, Mary R. Brown, Emma F. Clary.
_Nebraska_, Clara B. Colby. _New Jersey_, Mrs. Stanton, Mrs.
Chandler. _New York_, Mrs. Caroline Gilkey Rogers, Mrs. Blake, Mrs.
Gage, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Helen M. Loder. _Pennsylvania_, Mrs.
McClellan Brown, Rachel G. Foster, Emma C. Rhodes. _Rhode Island_,
Rev. Frederick A Hinckley, Mrs. Burgess. _Wisconsin_, Miss Eliza
Wilson and Mrs. Painter.
[85] Short speeches were made by Mrs. Robinson and Mrs. Shattuck of
Massachusetts, Mrs. Sewall and Mrs. Gougar of Indiana, Mrs. Saxon
of Louisiana, Mrs. Colby of Nebraska.
[86] When Mrs. Stanton, Mrs. Gage and Mrs. Blake of New York, Mrs.
Hooker of Connecticut and Mrs. Saxon of Louisiana, and Mrs. Sewall,
by special request of the chairman, again addressed the committee.
[87] Mr. Blackburn, Mr. Robeson, and Mr. Reed were present.
[88] Mrs. Saxon, Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Sewall, Mrs. McClellan Brown, Mrs.
Colby, Miss Couzins, Miss Anthony, Edward M. Davis, Robert Purvis,
Mrs. Shattuck, Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley, Mrs. Robinson.
[89] Those present were Mesdames Spofford, Stanton, Robinson,
Shattuck, Sewall and Saxon; Misses Thompson, Anthony, Couzins and
Foster. Many pleasant ladies from the Society of Friends were there
also and contributed to the dignity and interest of the occasion.
[90] The speakers in the American convention were Lucy Stone, Henry
B. Blackwell, Margaret W. Campbell, Mary E. Haggart, Judge Kingman
and Governor Hoyt of Wyoming, Hannah Tracy Cutler, Mary B. Clay,
Dr. Mary F. Thomas, Rebecca N. Hazzard, Ada M. Bittenbender, Mrs.
O. C. Dinsmore, Matilda Hindman, Rev. W. E. Copeland, Erasmus M.
Correll.
The speakers at the National convention were Virginia L. Minor,
Phoebe Couzins, Mrs. Saxon, Mrs. Bloomer, Mrs. McKinney, Mrs.
Shattuck, Mrs. Neyman, Mrs. Colby, Mrs. Sewall, Mrs. Mason, Mrs.
Brooks, Mrs. Blake, Miss Anthony, Mrs. Dinsmore, Miss Hindman, Mrs.
Gougar, Mr. Correll and Mrs. Harbert. Many of those from both
associations took part in the canvass. Miss Rachel G. Foster went
out in the spring and made all the arrangements for the work of the
National. She studied the geography of the State, and the
railroads, and mapped out all the meetings for its twelve speakers.
[91] For full reports of the American convention see the _Woman's
Journal_, edited by Lucy Stone and published in Boston.
[92] For reports of the National see _Our Herald_, edited by Helen
M. Gougar and published in Lafayette, Ind. The daily papers of
Omaha had full reports, the most fair by the _Republican_, edited
by Mr. Brooks.
[93] Their many courtesies are well summed up by Miss Foster in a
letter to _Our Herald_:--DEAR HERALD: As your readers will know
from the report of the executive meetings, it was decided to have a
headquarters for National Woman Suffrage Association speakers at
Omaha. When your editor left, the arrangements had not been
completed for office-room and furnishings. It is finally decided
that I, as secretary of the National Woman's Suffrage Association,
remain in charge of this Omaha office, with Mrs. C. B. Colby as my
associate, while Mrs. Bittenbender has charge of the headquarters
at Lincoln, and manages the American and State speakers, these two
officers of the campaign committee being in constant consultation.
I cannot too strongly express the gratitude which our committee,
and especially our National Woman's Suffrage Association, owes to
the kind firm of Kitchen Brothers, proprietors of the Paxton Hotel.
During our late convention their attention has been unremitting,
and they now crown it by giving us, rent free, a large,
well-lighted office to be occupied until election as the Omaha
headquarters of our campaign committee. I was somewhat puzzled
about the suitable furnishings for the room, but Mr. Kitchen told
me he would attend to that himself, and through his kindness it
will be made very comfortable for us to occupy for the next five
weeks.
Messrs. Dewey and Stone of this city, large dealers in furniture,
have given the use of a handsome and convenient desk which will
enable us to bring order out of chaos. So you can imagine us,
surrounded by all convenient appliances, hard at work in our new
quarters a good part of every day for this last month before
election. We can certainly not complain that we are not made
welcome to the best the city affords by these kind citizens of
Omaha. Why, we even had a special engine and car given us by the
accommodating manager of the Burlington & Missouri railroad to run
one of our speakers from Omaha to Lincoln to enable her to attend a
meeting which would otherwise have lacked a speaker. Mr.
Montmorency, on behalf of the Burlington & Missouri railroad,
extended this courtesy (and in our need at that hour it was highly
appreciated) to us because of the work in which we are engaged. As
all know ere this, both this road and the Union Pacific have given
to our speakers and delegates generous reductions over all their
lines in this State.
Mayor Boyd, owner of the Opera House, has also done his share to
aid us toward success, in his great reduction of ordinary rates to
us while we occupy his handsome building with our suffrage mass
meetings. We have the Opera House now secured for October 4, 13,
19, 26, November 2 and 6, on which dates large meetings will be
addressed by some of our principal speakers. The first date is to
be filled by Miss Phoebe Couzins, on "The Woman Without a Country."
The full report of our proceedings at the Omaha and Lincoln
conventions, with the newspaper comments upon the size and
character of the audiences there assembled, as well as the
courtesies which I have just mentioned, will convince our readers
that we are seemingly welcome guests here in Nebraska, and I may
say especially in Omaha. I will keep the _Herald_ posted from week
to week upon campaign committee work.
Yours for success, RACHEL G. FOSTER.
Headquarters of Suffrage Campaign Committee, Paxton House, Omaha,
October 2, 1882.
[94] A private letter was received from Mrs. Ellen Clark Sargent,
enclosing a check for $50.
[95] Miss Stanton, having studied astronomy with Professor Maria
Mitchell, went to Europe to take a degree in Mathematics from the
College of France; but before completing her course, she shared the
fate of too many of our American girls; she expatriated herself by
marrying a foreigner.
[96] Letters were also received from Rebecca Moore, England; Mrs.
Z. G. Wallace, Indianapolis; Frederick Douglass, Washington, D. C.;
Theodore Stanton, Paris, France; Sarah Knox Goodrich, Clarina
Howard Nichols, California, and many others.
[97] WHEREAS, The National Woman Suffrage Association has labored
unremittingly to secure the appointment of a committee in the
congress of the United States to receive and consider the petitions
of women and whereas, this Association realizes the importance of
such a committee,
_Resolved_, That the thanks of this Association are due and are
hereby tendered to congress for the appointment at its last session
of a Select Woman Suffrage Committee in each house.
_Resolved_, That the thanks of this Association are hereby tendered
to Senators Lapham, Ferry, Blair and Anthony, of the Select
Committee, for their able majority report.
_Resolved_, That it is the paramount duty of congress at its next
session to submit a sixteenth amendment to the constitution which
shall secure the enfranchisement of the women of the republic.
_Resolved_, That the recent action of King Christian of Denmark, in
conferring the right of municipal suffrage upon the women in
Iceland, and the similar enlargement of woman's political freedom
in Scotland, India and Russia, are all encouraging evidences of the
progress of self-government even in monarchical countries. And
farther, that while the possession of these privileges by our
foreign sisters is an occasion of rejoicing to us, it still but
emphasizes the inconsistency of a republic which refuses political
recognition to one-half of its citizens.
_Resolved_, That the especial thanks of the officers and delegates
of this convention are due and are hereby most cordially tendered
to Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby, for the exceptionally efficient manner
in which she has discharged the onerous duties which devolved upon
her in making all preparations for this convention and for the
grand success which her efforts have secured.
_Resolved_, That the National Woman Suffrage Association on the
occasion of this, its fourteenth annual convention, does, in the
absence of its honored president, desire to send greeting to
Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and to express to her the sympathetic
admiration with which the members of this body have followed her in
her reception in a foreign land.
[98] Committee on Resolutions, composed of Lillie Devereux Blake of
New York city, Virginia L. Minor of St. Louis, Harriet R. Shattuck
of Boston, May Wright Sewall of Indianapolis, and Ellen H. Sheldon
of the District of Columbia.
[99] Mrs. Spofford, the treasurer, reported that $5,000 were spent
in Nebraska in the endeavor to carry the amendment in that State.
[100] Short speeches were made by Mrs. Rogers, Mrs. Lockwood, Mrs.
McKinney, Mrs. Loder and others.
[101] This was the last word from this dear friend to one of our
number. I met her afterward as Mrs. Hudson with her husband in
London. We dined together one evening at the pleasant home of
Moncure D. Conway. She was as full as ever of plans for future
usefulness and enjoyment. From England she went for a short trip on
the continent. In parting I little thought she would so soon finish
her work on earth. E. C. S.
[102] Mr. Springer had never been present at a single meeting of
the committee, though always officially notified. Neither did Mr.
Muldrow of Mississippi ever honor the committee with his presence.
However, Mr. Stockslager of Indiana and Mr. Vance of North Carolina
were always in their places, and the latter, we thought, almost
persuaded to consider with favor the claims of women to political
equality.
[103] Reports of congressional action and the conventions of
1884-85 have been already published in pamphlet form, and we shall
print the reports hereafter once in two years, corresponding with
the terms of congress. Our plan is to bind these together once in
six years, making volumes of the size of those already published.
These pamphlets, as well as the complete History in three volumes,
are for sale at the publishing house of Charles Mann, 8 Elm Park,
Rochester, N. Y.
CHAPTER XXXI.
MASSACHUSETTS.
BY HARRIET H. ROBINSON.
The Woman's Hour--Lydia Maria Child Petitions Congress--First New
England Convention--The New England, American and Massachusetts
Associations--_Woman's Journal_--Bishop Gilbert Haven--The
Centennial Tea-party--County Societies--Concord
Convention--Thirtieth Anniversary of the Worcester
Convention--School Suffrage Association--Legislative
Hearing--First Petitions--The Remonstrants Appear--Women in
Politics--Campaign of 1872--Great Meeting in Tremont
Temple--Women at the Polls--Provisions of Former State
Constitutions--Petitions, 1853--School-Committee Suffrage,
1879--Women Threatened with Arrest--Changes in the Laws--Woman
Now Owns her own Clothing--Harvard Annex--Woman in the
Professions--Samuel E. Sewall and William I. Bowditch--Supreme
Court Decisions--Sarah E. Wall--Francis Jackson--Julia Ward
Howe--Mary E. Stevens--Lucia M. Peabody--Lelia Josephine
Robinson--Eliza (Jackson) Eddy's Will.
From 1860 to 1866 there is no record to be found of any public
meeting on the subject of woman's rights, in Massachusetts.[104]
During these years the war of the rebellion had been fought.
Pending the great struggle the majority of the leaders, who were
also anti-slavery, had thought it to be the wiser policy for the
women to give way for a time, in order that all the working energy
might be given to the slave. "It is not the woman's but the negro's
hour"; "After the slave--then the woman," said Wendell Phillips in
his stirring speeches, at this date. "Keep quiet, work for us,"
said other of the anti-slavery leaders to the women. "Wait! help us
to abolish slavery, and then we will work for you." And the women,
who had the welfare of the country as much at heart as the men,
kept quiet; worked in hospital and field; sacrificed sons and
husbands; did what is always woman's part in wars between man and
man--and waited. If anything can make the women of the State regret
that they were silent as to their own claims for six eventful years
that the freedom of the black man might be secured, it is the
fact that now in 1885 his vote is ever adverse to women's
enfranchisement. When the fourteenth amendment to the United States
Constitution was proposed, in which the negro's liberty and his
right to the ballot were to be established, an effort was made to
secure in it some recognition of the rights of woman. Massachusetts
sent a petition, headed with the name of Lydia Maria Child, against
the introduction of the word "male" in the proposed amendment. When
this petition was offered to the greatest of America's emancipation
leaders, for presentation to congress, he received and presented it
under protest. He thought the woman question should not be
forced at such a time, and the only answer from congress this
"woman-intruding" petition received was found in the fourteenth
amendment itself, in which the word "male," with unnecessary
iteration, was repeated, so that there might be no mistake in
future concerning woman's rights, under the Constitution of the
United States.[105]
The war was over. The rights of the black man, for whom the women
had worked and waited, were secured, but under the new amendment,
by which his race had been made free, the white women of the United
States were more securely held in political slavery. It was time,
indeed, to hold conventions and agitate anew the question of
woman's rights. The lesson of the war had been well learned. Women
had been taught to understand politics, the "science of
government," and to take an interest in public events; and some who
before the war had not thought upon the matter, began to ask
themselves why thousands of ignorant _men_ should be made voters
and they, or their sex, still kept in bondage under the law.
In 1866, May 31, the first meeting of the American Equal Rights
Association was held at the Meionaon in Boston.[106] In 1868 the
call for a New England convention was issued and the meeting was
held November 18, 19, at Horticultural Hall, Boston. James Freeman
Clarke presided. In this convention sat many of the distinguished
men and women of the New England States,[107] old-time advocates,
together with newer converts to the doctrine, who then became
identified with the cause of equal rights irrespective of sex. This
convention was called by the Rev. Olympia Brown.[108] The hall was
crowded with eager listeners anxious to hear what would be said on
a subject thought to be ridiculous by a large majority of people in
the community. Some of the teachers of Boston sent a letter to the
convention, signed with their names, expressing their interest as
women. Henry Wilson avowed his belief in the equal rights of woman,
but thought the time had not yet come for such a consummation, and
said that, for this reason, he had voted against the question in
the United States Senate; "though," he continued, "I was afterwards
ashamed of having so voted." Like another celebrated Massachusetts
politician, he believed in the principle of the thing, but was
"agin its enforcement." At this date the popular interest
heretofore given to the anti-slavery question was transferred to
the woman suffrage movement.
The New England Woman Suffrage Association was formed at this
convention. Julia Ward Howe was elected its president, and made her
first address on the subject of woman's equality with man. On its
executive board were many representative names from the six New
England States.[109] By the formation of this society, a great
impetus was given to the suffrage cause in New England. It held
conventions and mass-meetings, printed tracts and documents, and
put lecturers in the field. It set in motion two woman suffrage
bazars, and organized subscription festivals, and other enterprises
to raise money to carry on the work. It projected the American, and
Massachusetts suffrage associations; it urged the formation of
local and county suffrage societies, and set up the _Woman's
Journal_. The New England Association held its first anniversary in
May, 1869, and the meeting was even more successful than the
opening one of the preceding year. On this occasion Mrs. Livermore
spoke in Boston for the first time, and many new friends coming
forward gave vigor and freshness to the movement.[110] Wendell
Philips, Lucy Stone and Gilbert Haven, spoke at this convention. It
was on this occasion that the "good Bishop," as he afterward came
to be called, was met on leaving the meeting by one who did not
know his opinion on the subject. This person expressed surprise on
seeing him at a woman's rights meeting, and said: "_What! you_
here?" "Yes," said he, "I _am_ here! I _believe_ in this reform. I
am going to start in the beginning, and ride with the procession."
After this, not until his earthly journey was finished, was his
place in "the procession" found vacant. Since 1869 the New England
Association has held its annual meeting in Boston during
anniversary week, in May, when reports from various States are
offered, concerning suffrage work done during the year. The
American Woman Suffrage Association was organized in 1869. Since
its formation it has held its annual conventions in some of the
chief cities of the several States.[111] A meeting was held in
Horticultural Hall, Boston, January 28, 1870, to organize the
Massachusetts Woman Suffrage Association.[112]
The Massachusetts Association is the most active of the three
societies named. Its work is generally local though it has sent
help to Colorado, Michigan, and other Western States. It has kept
petitions in circulation, and has presented petitions and memorials
to the State legislatures. It has asked for hearings and secured
able speakers for them. It has held conventions, mass-meetings,
Fourth of July celebrations. It has helped organize local Woman
suffrage clubs and societies, and has printed for circulation
numerous woman suffrage tracts. The amount of work done by its
lecturing agents can be seen by the statement of Margaret W.
Campbell, who alone, as agent of the American, the New England and
the Massachusetts associations, traveled in twenty different States
and two territories, organizing and speaking in conventions.[113]
As part of the latest work of this society may be mentioned its
efforts to present before the women of the State, in clear and
comprehensive form, an explanation of the different sections of the
new law "allowing women to vote for school committees." As soon as
the law passed the legislature of 1879, a circular of instructions
to women was carefully prepared by Samuel E. Sewall, an eminent
lawyer and member of the board of the Massachusetts Association, in
which all the points of law in relation to the new right were ably
presented. Thousands of copies of this circular were sent to women
all over the State.
The Centennial Tea Party was held in Boston, December 15, 1873, in
response to the following call:
The women of New England who believe that "taxation without
representation is tyranny," and that our forefathers were
justified in defying despotic power by throwing the tea into
Boston harbor, invite the men and women of New England to unite
with them in celebrating the one-hundredth anniversary of that
event in Fanueil Hall.[114]
Three thousand people were in attendance, and it was altogether an
enthusiastic occasion and one long to be remembered.
The record of conventions and meetings held by the Massachusetts
Association by no means includes all such gatherings held in
different towns and cities of the State. The county and local
societies have done a vast amount of work. The Hampden society was
started in 1868, with Eliphalet Trask, Frank B. Sanborn and
Margaret W. Campbell as leading officers. This was the first county
society formed in the State. Julia Ward Howe, a fresh convert of
the recent convention went to Salem to lecture on woman suffrage,
and the Essex county society was formed with Mrs. Sarah G. Wilkins
and Mrs. Delight R. P. Hewitt--the only two Salem women who went to
the 1850 convention at Worcester--on its executive board. The
Middlesex county society followed, planned by Ada C. Bowles and
officered by names well known in that historic old county. The
Hampshire and Worcester societies brought up the rear; the former
planned by Seth Hunt of Northampton. Notable conventions were held
by the Middlesex society in 1876--one in Malden, one in Melrose and
one in Concord, organized and conducted by its president, Harriet
H. Robinson. This last celebrated town had never before been so
favored. These meetings were conducted something after the style of
local church conferences. They were well advertised, and many
people came. A collation was provided by the ladies of each town,
and the feast of reason was so judiciously mingled with the
triumphs of cookery, that converts to the cause were never so
easily won. Many women present said to the president: "I never
before heard a woman's rights speech. If these are the reasons why
women should vote, I believe in voting."
The Concord convention was held about a month after the great
centennial celebration of April 19, 1875--a celebration in which no
woman belonging to that town took any official part. Nor was there
any place of honor found for the more distinguished women who had
come long distances to share in the festivities. Some of the women
were descendents of Governor John Hancock, Dr. Samuel Prescott,
Major John Buttrick, Rev. William Emerson and Lieutenant Emerson
Cogswell. Though no seat of honor in the big tent in which the
speeches were made was given to the women of to-day, silent
memorials of those who had taken part in the events of one hundred
years ago, had found a conspicuous place there--the scissors that
cut the immortal cartridges made by the women on that eventful day,
and the ancient flag that the fingers of some of the mothers of the
Revolution had made. Though the Concord women were not permitted to
share the centennial honors, they were not deprived of the
privilege of paying their part of the expenses incident to the
occasion. To meet these, an increased tax-rate was assessed upon
all the property owners in the town; and, since one-fifth of the
town tax of Concord is paid by women, it will be seen what was
their share in the great centennial celebration of 1876.
The knowledge of the proceedings at Concord added new zest to the
spirit of the three conventions, and the events of the day were
used by the speakers to point the moral of the woman's rights
question. Lucy Stone made one of her most effective and eloquent
speeches upon this subject. She said:
FELLOW CITIZENS (I had almost said fellow subjects): What we need
is that women should feel their mean position; when that happens,
they will soon make an effort to get out of it. Everything is
possible to him that wills. All that is needed for the success of
the cause of woman suffrage is to have women know that they want
to vote. Concord and Lexington got into a fight about the
centennial, and Concord voted $10,000 for the celebration in
order to eclipse Lexington. One-fifth of the tax of Concord is
paid by the women, yet not one of these women dared to go to the
town hall and cast her vote upon that subject. This is exactly
the same thing which took place one hundred years ago--taxation
without representation, against which the _men_ of Concord then
rebelled. If I were an inhabitant of Concord, I would let my
house be sold over my head and my clothes off my back and be
hanged by the neck before I would pay a cent of it! Men of
Melrose, Concord and Malden, why persecute us? Would you like to
be a slave? Would you like to be disfranchised? Would you like to
be bound to respect the laws which you cannot make? There are
15,000,000 of women whom the government denies legal rights.
It might be supposed that a spot upon which the battle for freedom
and independence was first begun would always be the vantage ground
of questions relating to personal liberty. But such is not the
fact. Concord was never an anti-slavery town, though some of its
best citizens took active part in all the abolition movements. When
the time came that women were allowed to vote for school
committees, the same intolerant spirit which ignored and shut them
out of the centennial celebration was again manifested toward
them--not only by the leading magnates, but also by the petty
officials of the town. Some of them have from the first shown a
great deal of ingenuity in inventing ways to intimidate and mislead
the women voters.
At the annual convention of the Massachusetts Association, in May,
1880, the following resolution was passed:
WHEREAS, We believe in keeping the land-marks and traditions of
our movement; and
WHEREAS, It will be thirty years next October since the first
woman's rights meeting was held in the State, and it seems
fitting that there should be some celebration of the event;
therefore,
_Resolved_, That we will hold a woman suffrage jubilee in
Worcester, October 23 and 24 next, to commemorate the anniversary
of our first convention.
A committee[115] of arrangements was chosen, and the meeting was
held. There were present many whose silver hairs told of long and
faithful service. The oldest ladies there were Mrs. Lydia Brown of
Lynn, Mrs. Wilbour of Worcester, and Julia E. Smith Parker of
Glastonbury, Conn. On the afternoon of the first day there was an
informal gathering of friends in the ante-room of Horticultural
Hall. Old-time memories were recalled by those who had not seen
each other for many years, and the common salutation was: "How gray
you've grown!" Many of them had indeed grown gray in the service,
and their faces were changed, but made beautiful by a life devoted
to a noble purpose. There were many present who had attended the
convention of thirty years ago--Abby Kelley Foster, Lucy Stone,
Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Paulina Gerry, Rev. Samuel May, Rev. W.
H. Channing, Joseph A. Howland, Adeline H. Howland, Dr. Martha H.
Mowry and many, many others. It was very pleasant indeed to hear
these veterans whose clear voices have spoken out so long and so
bravely for the cause. The speaking[116] at all the sessions was
excellent, and the spirit of the convention was very reverent and
hopeful.
The tone of the press concerning woman's rights meetings had
changed greatly since thirty years before. "Hen conventions" had
gone by, and a woman's meeting was now called by its proper name.
Representatives of leading newspapers from all parts of the State
were present, and the reports were written in a just and friendly
spirit.
[Illustration: Harriet H. Robinson]
The Massachusetts School Suffrage Association was formed in 1880,
Abby W. May, president.[117] Its efforts are mostly confined to
Boston. An independent movement of women voters in Boston, distinct
from all organizations, was formed in 1884, and subdivided into
ward and city committees. These did much valuable work and secured
a larger number of voters than had qualified in previous years. In
1880 the number of registered women in the whole State was 4,566,
and in Boston 826. In 1884, chiefly owing to the ward and city
committees, the number in Boston alone was 1,100. This year (1885)
a movement among the Roman Catholic women has raised the number who
are assessed to vote to 1,843; and it is estimated that when the
tax-paying women are added, the whole number will be about 2,500.
The National Woman Suffrage Association[118] of Massachusetts was
formed in January, 1882, of members who had joined the National
Association at its thirteenth annual meeting, held in Tremont
Temple, Boston, May 26, 27, 1881. According to Article II. of its
constitution, its object is to secure to women their right to the
ballot, by working for national, State, municipal, school, or any
other form of suffrage which shall at the time seem most expedient.
While it is auxiliary to the National Association, it reserves
to itself the right of independent action. It has held
conventions[119] in Boston and some of the chief cities of the
State, sent delegates to the annual Washington Convention[120] and
published valuable leaflets.[121] It has rolled up petitions to the
State legislature and to congress. Its most valuable work has been
the canvass made in certain localities in the city and country in
1884, to ascertain the number of women in favor of suffrage, the
number opposed and the number indifferent. The total result showed
that there were 405 in favor, 44 opposed, 166 indifferent, 160
refusing to sign, 39 not seen; that is, over nine who would sign
themselves in favor to one who would sign herself opposed. This
canvass was made by women who gave their time and labor to this
arduous work, and the results were duly presented to the
legislature.
In 1883 this Association petitioned the legislature to pass a
resolution recommending congress to submit a proposition for a
sixteenth amendment to the national constitution. The Senate
Committee on Woman Suffrage granted a hearing March 23, and soon
after presented a favorable report; but the resolution, when
brought to a vote, was lost by 21 to 11. This was the first time
that the National doctrine of congressional action was ever
presented or voted upon in the Massachusetts legislature. A second
hearing[122] was granted on February 28, 1884, before the Committee
on Federal Relations. They reported leave to withdraw.
The associations mentioned are not the only ones that are aiding
the suffrage movement. Its friends are found in all the women's
clubs, temperance associations, missionary movements, charitable
enterprises, educational and industrial unions and church
committees. These agencies form a network of motive power which is
gradually carrying the reform into all branches of public work.
The _Woman's Journal_ was incorporated in 1870 and is owned by a
joint stock company, shares being held by leading members of the
suffrage associations of New England. Shortly after it was
projected, the _Agitator_, then published in Chicago by Mary A.
Livermore, was bought by the New England Association on condition
that she should "come to Boston for one year, at a reasonable
compensation, to assist the cause by her editorial labor and
speaking at conventions." Lucy Stone and Henry B. Blackwell,
invited by the same society to "return to the work in
Massachusetts," at once assumed the editorial charge. T. W.
Higginson, Julia Ward Howe and W. L. Garrison were assistant
editors. "Warrington," Kate N. Doggett, Samuel E. Sewall, F. B.
Sanborn, and many other good writers, lent a helping hand to the
new enterprise. The _Woman's Journal_ has been of great value to
the cause. It has helped individual women and brought their
enterprises into public notice. It has opened its columns to
inexperienced writers and advertised young speakers. To sustain the
paper and furnish money for other work, two mammoth bazars or fairs
were held in Music Hall in 1870, 1871. Nearly all the New England
States and many of the towns in Massachusetts were represented by
tables in these bazars. Donations were sent from all directions and
the women worked, as they generally do in a cause in which they are
interested, to raise money to furnish the sinews of war. The
newspapers from day to day were full of descriptions of the
splendors of the tables, and the reporters spoke well of the women
who had taken this novel method to carry on their movement. People
who had never heard of woman suffrage before came to see what sort
of women were those who thus made a public exhibition of their zeal
in this cause. In remote places, as well as nearer the scene of
action, many people who had never thought of the significance of
the woman's rights movement, began to consider it through reading
the reports of the woman suffrage bazar.
Female opponents of the suffrage movement began to make a stir as
early as 1868. A remonstrance was sent into the legislature, from
two hundred women of Lancaster, giving the reasons why women should
not enjoy the exercise of the elective franchise: "It would
diminish the purity, the dignity and the moral influence of woman,
and bring into the family circle a dangerous element of discord."
In _The Revolution_ of August 5, 1869, Parker Pillsbury said:
Dolly Chandler and the hundred and ninety-four other women who
asked the Massachusetts legislature not to allow the right of
suffrage, were very impudent and tyrannical, too, in petitioning
for any but themselves. They should have said: "We, Dolly
Chandler and her associates, to the number of a hundred and
ninety-five in all, do not want the right of suffrage; and we
pray your honorable bodies to so decree and enact that we shall
never have it." So far they might go. But when they undertake to
prevent a hundred and ninety-four thousand other women who do
want the ballot and who have an acknowledged right to it, and are
laboring for it day and night, it is proper to ask, What business
have Dolly Chandler and her little coterie to interpose? Nobody
wants them to vote unless they themselves want to. They can stay
at home and see nobody but the assessor, the tax-gatherer and the
revenue collector, from Christmas to Christmas, if they so
prefer. Those gentlemen they will be pretty likely to see,
annually or quarterly, and to feel their power, too, if they have
pockets with anything in them, in spite of all petitions to the
legislature.
It did not occur to these women that by thus remonstrating they
were doing just what they were protesting against. What _is_ a
vote? An expression of opinion or a desire as to governmental
affairs, in the shape of a ballot. The "aspiring blood of
Lancaster" should have mounted higher than this, since, if it
really was the opinion of these remonstrants that woman cannot vote
without becoming defiled, they should have kept themselves out of
the legislature, should have kept their hands from petitioning and
their thoughts from agitation on either side of the subject. Just
such illogical reasoning on the woman suffrage question is often
brought forward and passes for the profoundest wisdom and
discreetest delicacy! The same arguments are used by the
remonstrants of to-day, who are now fully organized and doing very
efficient political work in opposing further political action by
women. In their carriages, with footman and driver, they solicit
names to their remonstrances. As a Boston newspaper says:
The anti-woman suffrage women get deeper and deeper into politics
year by year in their determination to keep out of politics. By
the time they triumph they will be the most accomplished
politicians of the sex, and unable to stop writing to the papers,
holding meetings, circulating remonstrances, any more than the
suffrage sisterhood.
These persons, men and women, bring their whole force to bear
before legislative committees at woman suffrage hearings, and use
arguments that might have been excusable forty years ago. However
this is merely a phase of the general movement and will work for
good in the end. It can no more stop the progress of the reform
than it can stop the revolution of the globe.
Political agitation on the woman suffrage question began in
Massachusetts in 1870. A convention to discuss the feasibility of
forming a woman suffrage political party was held in Boston, at
which Julia Ward Howe presided, and Rev. Augusta Chapin offered
prayer. The question of a separate nomination for State officers
was carefully considered.[123] Delegates were present from the
Labor Reform and Prohibition parties, and strong efforts were made
by them to induce the convention to nominate Wendell Phillips, who
had already accepted the nomination of those two parties, as
candidate for governor. The convention at one time seemed strongly
in favor of this action, the women in particular thinking that in
Mr. Phillips they would find a staunch and well tried leader. But
more politic counsels prevailed, and it was finally concluded to
postpone a separate nomination until after the Republican and
Democratic conventions had been held. A State central committee was
formed, and at once began active political agitation. A memorial
was prepared to present to each of the last-named conventions; and
the candidates on the State tickets of the four political parties
were questioned by letter concerning their opinions on the right of
the women to the ballot. At the Republican State convention held
October 5, 1870, the question was fairly launched into politics, by
the admission, for the first time, of two women, Lucy Stone and
Mary A. Livermore, as regularly accredited delegates. Both were
invited to speak, and the following resolution drawn up by Henry B.
Blackwell, was presented by Charles W. Slack:
_Resolved_, That the Republican party of Massachusetts is mindful
of its obligations to the loyal women of America for their
patriotic devotion to the cause of liberty; that we rejoice in
the action of the recent legislature in making women eligible as
officers of the State; that we thank Governor Claflin for having
appointed women to important political trusts; that we are
heartily in favor of the enfranchisement of women, and will hail
the day when the educated, intelligent and enlightened conscience
of the women of Massachusetts has direct expression at the ballot
box.
This resolution was presented to the committee, who did not agree
as to the propriety of reporting it to the convention, and they
instructed their chairman, George F. Hoar, to state the fact and
refer the resolution back to that body for its own action. A warm
debate arose, in which several members of the convention made
speeches on both sides of the question. The resolution was finally
defeated, 137 voting in its favor, and 196 against it. Although
lost, the large vote in the affirmative was thought to mean a great
deal as a guaranty of the good faith of the Republican party, and
the women were willing to trust to its promises. It was thought
then, as it has been thought since, that most of the friends of
woman suffrage were in the Republican party, and that the interests
of the cause could best be furthered by depending on its action.
The women were, however, mistaken, and have learned to look upon
the famous resolution in its true light. It is now known as the
_coup d'etat_ of the Worcester convention of 1870, which
really had more votes than it was fairly entitled to. After
that,--"forewarned, forearmed," said the enemies of the enterprise,
and woman suffrage resolutions have received less votes in
Republican conventions.
When the memorial prepared by the State Central Committee was
presented to the Democratic State convention, that body, in
response, passed a resolution conceding the _principle_ of women's
right to suffrage, but at the same time declared itself against its
being _enforced_, or put into practice. To finish the brief record
of the dealings of the Democratic party, with the women of the
State, it may be said that since 1870, it has never responded to
their appeals, nor taken any action of importance on the question.
In 1871 a resolution endorsing woman suffrage was passed in the
Republican convention. In June, 1872, the national convention at
Philadelphia, passed the following:
_Resolved_, That the Republican party is mindful of its
obligations to the loyal women of America for their noble
devotion to the cause of freedom; their admission to wider fields
of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction; and the honest demand
of any class of citizens for additional rights, should be treated
with respectful consideration.
The Massachusetts Republican State Convention, following this lead,
again passed a woman suffrage resolution:
_Resolved_, That we heartily approve the recognition of the
rights of woman contained in the fourteenth clause of the
national Republican platform; that the Republican party of
Massachusetts, as the representative of liberty and progress, is
in favor of extending suffrage to all American citizens
irrespective of sex, and will hail the day when the educated
intellect and enlightened conscience of woman shall find direct
expression at the ballot-box.
This was during the campaign of 1872, when General Grant's chance
of reelection was thought to be somewhat uncertain, and the
Republican women in all parts of the country were called on to
rally to his support. The National Woman Suffrage Association had
issued "an appeal to the women of America," asking them to
cooeperate with the Republican party and work for the election of
its candidates. In response to this appeal a ratification meeting
was held at Tremont Temple, in Boston, at which hundreds stayed to
a late hour listening to speeches made by women on the political
questions of the day. An address was issued from the "Republican
women of Massachusetts to the women of America." In this address
they announced their faith in and willingness to "trust the
Republican party and its candidates, as saying what they mean and
meaning what they say, and in view of their honorable record we
have no fear of betrayal on their part." Mrs. Livermore, Lucy Stone
and Huldah B. Loud took part in the canvass, and agents employed by
the Massachusetts Association were instructed to speak for the
Republican party.[124] Women writers furnished articles for the
newspapers and the Republican women did as much effective work
during the campaign as if each one had been a "man and a voter."
They did everything but vote. All this agitation was a benefit to
the Republican party, but not to woman suffrage, because for a time
it arrayed other political parties against the movement and caused
it to be thought merely a party issue, while it is too broad a
question for such limitation.
General Grant was reelected and the campaign was over. When the
legislature met and the suffrage question came up for discussion,
that body, composed in large majority of Republicans, showed the
women of Massachusetts the difference between "saying what you mean
and meaning what you say," the Woman Suffrage bill being defeated
by a large majority. The women learned by this experience that
nothing is to be expected of a political party while it is in
power. To close the subject of suffrage resolutions in the platform
of the Republican party, it may be said that they continued to be
put in and seemed to mean something until after 1875, when they
became only "glittering generalities," and were as devoid of real
meaning or intention as any that were ever passed by the old Whig
party on the subject of abolition. Yet from 1870 to 1874 the
Republican party had the power to fulfill its promises on this
question. Since then, it has been too busy trying to keep breath in
its own body to lend a helping hand to any struggling reform. At
the Republican convention, held in Worcester in 1880, an attempt
was made by Mr. Blackwell to introduce a resolution endorsing the
right conferred upon women in the law allowing them to vote for
school committees, passed by the legislature of 1879. This
resolution was rejected by the committee, and when offered in
convention as an amendment, it was voted down without a single
voice, except that of the mover, being raised in its support. Yet
this resolution only asked a Republican convention to endorse an
existing right, conferred on the women of the State by a Republican
legislature! A political party as a party of freedom must be very
far spent when it refuses at its annual convention to endorse an
act passed by a legislature the majority of whose members are
representatives elected from its own body. Since that time the
Republican party has entirely ignored the claims of woman. In 1884,
at its annual convention, an effort was made, as usual, by Mr.
Blackwell, to introduce a resolution, but without success, and yet
some of the best of our leaders advised the women to "stand by the
Republican party."[125]
The question of forming a woman suffrage political party had, since
1870, been often discussed.[126] In 1875 Thomas J. Lothrop proposed
the formation of a separate organization. But it was not until 1876
that any real effort in this direction was made. The Prohibitory
(or Temperance) party sometimes holds the balance of political
power in Massachusetts, and many of the members of that party are
also strong advocates of suffrage. The feeling had been growing
for several years that if forces could be joined with the
Prohibitionists some practical result in politics might be reached,
and though there was a difference of opinion on this subject, many
were willing to see the experiment tried.
The Prohibitory party had at its convention in 1876 passed a
resolution inviting the women to take part in its primary meetings,
with an equal voice and vote in the nomination of candidates and
transaction of business. After long and anxious discussions, the
Massachusetts Woman Suffrage State Central Committee, in whose
hands all political action rested, determined to accept this
invitation. A woman suffrage political convention was held, at
which the Prohibitory candidates were endorsed and a joint State
ticket was decided on, to be headed "Prohibition and Equal Rights."
These tickets were sent to women all over the State, and they were
strongly urged to go to the polls and distribute them on election
day. Lucy Stone, Mary A. Livermore and other leading speakers took
part in the campaign, and preparations were completed by which it
was expected both parties would act harmoniously together. Clubs
were formed at whose headquarters were seen men and women gathered
together to organize for political work. From some of these
headquarters hung transparencies with "Baker and Eddy" on one side,
and "Prohibition and Equal Rights" on the other. Caucuses and
conventions were held in Chelsea, Taunton, Malden, Lynn, Concord,
and other places. A Middlesex county (first district) senatorial
convention was called and organized by women, and its proceedings
were fully reported by the Boston newspapers.[127]
The nominations made at these caucuses were generally unanimous,
and it seemed at the time as if the two wings of the so-called
"Baker party" would work harmoniously together. But, with a few
honorable exceptions, the Prohibitionists, taking advantage of the
fact that the voting power of the women was over, once outside the
caucus, repudiated the nominations, or held other caucuses and shut
the doors of entrance in the faces of the women who represented
either the suffrage or the Prohibitory party. This was the case
invariably, excepting in towns where the majority of the voting
members of the Prohibitory party were also in favor of woman
suffrage. This result is what might have been expected. Of what use
was woman in the ranks of any political party, with no vote outside
the caucus?
After being thus ignored in one of their caucuses in Malden,
Middlesex county, the suffragists in that town determined to hold
another caucus. This was accordingly done, and two "straight"
candidates were nominated as town representatives to the
legislature. A "Woman Suffrage ticket"[128] was thereupon printed
to offer to the voters on election day. The next question was, who
would distribute these ballots most effectively at the polls. Some
men thought that the women themselves should go and present in
person the names of their candidates. At first the women who had
carried on the campaign shrank from this last test of their
faithfulness; but, after carefully considering the matter, they
concluded that it was the right thing to do. The repugnance felt at
that time, at the thought of "women going to the polls" can hardly
be appreciated to-day. Since they have begun to vote in
Massachusetts the terror expressed at the idea of such a proceeding
has somewhat abated; but in 1876 it was thought to be a rash act
for a woman to appear at the polls in company with men. Some
attempt was made to deter them from their purpose, and stories of
pipes and tobacco and probable insults were told; but they had no
terrors for women who knew better than to believe that their
neighbors would be turned into beasts (like the man in the fairy
tale) for this one day in the year.[129]
It was a sight to be remembered, to behold women "crowned with
honor" standing at the polls to see the freed slave go by and vote,
and the newly-naturalized fellow-citizen, and the blind, the
paralytic, the boy of twenty-one with his newly-fledged vote, the
drunken man who did not know Hayes from Tilden, and the man who
read his ballot upside down. All these voted for the men they
wanted to represent them, but the women, being neither colored, nor
foreign, nor blind, nor paralytic, nor newly-fledged, nor drunk,
nor ignorant, but only _women_, could not vote for the men they
wanted to represent them.[130]
The women learned several things during this campaign in
Massachusetts. One was, that weak parties are no more to be trusted
than strong ones; and another, that men grant but little until the
ballot is placed in the hands of those who make the demand. They
learned also how political caucuses and conventions are managed.
The resolution passed by the Prohibitionists enabled them to do
this. So the great "open sesame" is reached. It is but fair to
state that since 1876 the Prohibitory party has treated the woman
suffrage question with consideration. In its annual convention it
has passed resolutions endorsing woman's claims to political
equality, and has set the example to other parties of admitting
women as delegates. At the State convention in 1885 the following
resolution was adopted by a good majority:
_Resolved_, That women having interests to be promoted and rights
to be protected, and having ability for the discharge of
political duties, should have the right to vote and to be voted
for, as is accorded to man.
In the early history of Massachusetts, when the new colony was
governed by laws set down in the Province charter (1691, third year
of William and Mary) women were not excluded from voting. The
clause in the charter relating to this matter says:
The great and general court shall consist of the governor and
council (or assistants for the time being) and of such
freeholders as shall be from time to time elected or deputed by
the major part of the freeholders and other inhabitants of the
respective towns or places, who shall be present at such
elections.
In the original constitution (1780) women were excluded from voting
except for certain State officers.[131] In the constitutional
convention of 1820, the word "male" was first put into the
constitution of the State, in an amendment to define the
qualifications of voters. In this convention, a motion was made at
three different times, during the passage of the act, to strike out
the intruding word, but the motion was voted down. Long before the
second attempt was made to revise the constitution of the State,
large numbers of women began to demand suffrage. Woman's sphere of
operations and enterprise had become so widened, that they felt
they had not only the right, but also an increasing fitness for
civil life and government, of which the ballot is but the sign and
the symbol.
In the constitutional convention of 1853, twelve petitions were
presented, from over 2,000 adult persons, asking for the
recognition of woman's right to the ballot, in the proposed
amendments to the constitution of the State. The committee reported
leave to withdraw, giving as their reason that the "consent of the
governed" was shown by the small number of petitioners. Hearings
before this committee were granted.[132] The chairman of this
committee, in presenting the report, moved that all debate on the
subject should cease in thirty minutes, and on motion of Benjamin
F. Butler of Lowell, the whole report, excepting the last clause,
was stricken out. There was then left of the whole document
(including more than two closely-printed pages of reasoning) only
this: "It is inexpedient for this convention to take any action."
Legislative action on the woman's rights question began in 1849,
when William Lloyd Garrison presented the first petition on the
subject to the State legislature. Following him was one from
Jonathan Drake and others, "for a peaceable secession of
Massachusetts from the Union." Both these petitions were probably
considered by the legislature to which they were addressed as of
equally incendiary character, since they both had "leave to
withdraw." In 1851 an order was introduced asking "whether any
legislation was necessary concerning the wills of married women?"
In 1853 a bill was enacted "to exempt certain property of widows
and unmarried women from taxation." In the legislature of 1856 the
first great and important act relating to the property rights of
women was passed. It was to the effect that women could hold all
property earned or acquired independently of their husbands. This
act was amended and improved the next session.
In 1857 a hearing was held before the Committee on the Judiciary to
listen to arguments in favor of the petition of Lucy Stone and
others for equal property rights for women and for the "right of
suffrage." Another hearing was held in the same place in February,
1858, before the Joint Special Committee on the Qualifications of
Voters. A second hearing on the right of suffrage for women was
held the following week before the same committee. Thomas W.
Higginson made an address and Caroline Kealey Dall read an essay.
In 1858, Stephen A. Chase of Salem, from the same Committee on the
Qualifications of Voters, made a long report on the petitions. This
report closed with an order that the State Board of Education make
inquiry and report to the next legislature "whether it is not
practicable and expedient to provide by law some method by which
the women of this State may have a more active part in the control
and management of the schools." There is nothing in legislative
records to show that the State Board of Education reported
favorably; but from the above statement it appears that ten years
before Samuel E. Sewall's petition on the subject, a movement was
made towards making women "eligible to serve as members of
school-committees."
The petitions for woman's rights were usually circulated by women
going from house to house. They did the drudgery, endured the
hardships and suffered the humiliations attendant upon the early
history of our cause; but their names are forgotten, and others
reap the benefit of their labors. These women were so modest and so
anxious for the success of their petitions, that they never put
their own names at the head of the list, preferring the signature
of some leading man, so that others seeing his name, might be
induced to follow his example. Among the earliest of these silent
workers was Mary Upton Ferrin. Her petitions were for a change in
the laws concerning the property rights of married women, and for
the political and legal rights of all women. In 1849 she prepared a
memorial to the Massachusetts legislature in which are embodied
many of the demands for woman's equality before the law, which have
so often been made to that body since that time.[133]
In 1861 the legislature debated a bill to allow a widow, "if she
have woodland as a part of her dower, the privilege of cutting wood
enough for one fire." This bill failed, and the widow, by law, was
_not_ allowed to keep herself warm with fuel from her own wood-lot.
In 1863 a bill providing that "a wife may be allowed to be a
witness and proceed against her husband for desertion," was
reported inexpedient, and a bill was passed to _prevent_ women from
forming copartnerships in business. In 1865, Gov. John A. Andrew,
seeing the magnitude of the approaching woman question, in his
annual message to the legislature, made a memorable suggestion:
I know of no more useful object to which the commonwealth can
lend its aid, than that of a movement, adopted in a practical
way, to open the door of emigration to young women who are wanted
for teachers and for every appropriate, as well as domestic,
employment in the remote West, but who are leading anxious and
aimless lives in New England.
By the "anxious and aimless" it was supposed the governor meant the
widowed, single or otherwise unrepresented portion of the citizens
of the State. No action was taken by the legislature on this
portion of the governor's message. But a member of the Senate
actually made the following proposition before that body:
That the "anxious and aimless women" of the State should assemble
on the Common on a certain day of the year (to be hereafter
named), and that Western men who wanted wives, should be invited
to come here and select them.
Legislators who make such propositions, do not foresee that the
time may come, when perhaps those nearest and dearest to them, may
be classed among the superfluous or "anxious and aimless" women!
In 1865 bills allowing married women to testify in suits at law
where their husbands are parties, and permitting them to hold trust
estates were rejected. It will be seen that though all this
legislation was adverse to woman's interest, the question had
forced itself upon the attention of the members of both House and
Senate. In 1866 a joint committee of both houses was appointed to
consider:
If any additional legislation can be adopted, whereby the means
of obtaining a livelihood by the women of this commonwealth may
be increased and a more equal and just compensation be allowed
for their labor.
In 1867, Francis W. Bird presented the petition of Mehitable
Haskell of Gloucester for "an amendment to the constitution
extending suffrage to women." In 1868 Mr. King of Boston presented
the same petition, and it was at this time, and in answer thereto,
that the subject first entered into the regular orders of the day,
and became a part of the official business of the House of
Representatives. Attempts to legislate on the property question
were continued in 1868, in bills "to further protect the property
of married women," "to allow married women to contract for
necessaries," and if "divorced from bed and board, to allow them to
dispose of their own property." These bills were all defeated.
Annual legislative hearings on woman suffrage began in 1869. These
were first secured through the efforts of the executive committee
of the New England Woman Suffrage Association. Eight thousand women
had petitioned the legislature that suffrage might be allowed them
on the same terms as men, and in answer, two hearings were held in
the green room at the State House.[134] In 1870 a joint special
committee on woman suffrage was formed, and since that time there
have been one or more annual hearings on the question. To what
extent legislative sentiment has been created will be shown later
in the improvement of many laws with regard to the legal status of
woman.
William Claflin was the first governor of Massachusetts to present
officially to the voters of the commonwealth the subject of woman's
rights as a citizen. In his address to the legislature of 1871, he
strongly recommended a change in the laws regarding suffrage and
the property rights of woman. His attitude toward this reform made
an era in the history of the executive department of the State.
Since that time nearly every governor of the State has, in
his annual message, recommended the subject to respectful
consideration. In 1879 Governor Thomas Talbot proposed a
constitutional amendment which should secure the ballot to women on
the same terms as to men. In response to this portion of the
governor's message, and to the ninety-eight petitions presented on
the subject, a general suffrage bill passed the Senate by a
two-thirds majority, and an act to "give women the right to vote
for members of school committees," passed both branches of the
legislature and became a law of the State.[135] Governor John D.
Long, in his inaugural address before the legislature of 1880,
expressed his opinion in favor of woman suffrage perhaps more
decidedly than any who had preceded him in that high official
position. He said:
I repeat my conviction of the right of woman suffrage. If the
commonwealth is not ready to give it in full by a constitutional
amendment, I approve of testing it in municipal elections.
The law allowing women to vote for school committees is one of the
last results of the legislative agitations, though it is true that
the petition, the answer to which was the passage of this act, did
not emanate from any suffrage association. It was the outcome of a
conference on the subject, held in the parlors of the New England
Women's Club.[136]
But the petitions of the suffragists had always been for general
and unrestricted suffrage, and they opposed any scheme for securing
the ballot on a class or a restricted basis, holding that the true
ground of principle is equality of rights with man. The practical
result, so far, of voting for school committees has justified this
position; for, as shown by the recent elections, the women of the
State have not availed themselves to any extent of their new right
to vote, and, therefore, the measure has not forwarded the cause of
general suffrage. In fact, the school-committee question is not a
vital one with either male or female voters, and it is impossible
to get up any enthusiasm on the subject. As a test question upon
which to try the desire of the women of the State to become voters,
it is a palpable sham. Our Revolutionary fathers would not have
fought, bled and died for such a figment of a right as this; and
their daughters, or grand-daughters, inherit the same spirit, and
if they vote at all, want something worth voting for. The result
is, that the voting has been largely done by those women who have
long been in favor of suffrage, and who have gone to the polls on
election day from pure principle and a sense of duty.[137]
The law allowing women to vote for school committees was very
elastic and capable of many interpretations. It reminded one of the
old school exercise in transposing the famous line in Gray's Elegy,
"The ploughman homeward plods his weary way,"
which has been found to be capable of over twenty different
transpositions. The collectors and registrars in some towns and
cities took advantage of this obscurity of expression, and
interpreted the law according to their individual opinion on the
woman suffrage question. In places where these officials were in
sympathy, a broad construction was put upon the provisions of the
law, the poll-tax payers were allowed to vote upon the payment of
one dollar (under the divided tax law of 1879), and the women
voters generally were given all necessary information, and treated
courteously both by the assessors and registrars and at the polls.
In places where leading officials were opposed to women's voting,
the case was far different. Without regarding the clause in the law
which said that a woman may vote upon paying either State or county
poll-tax, such officials have threatened the women with arrest when
they refused to pay both. In some towns they have been treated with
great indignity, as if they were doing an unlawful act. In one town
the women were actually required to pay a poll-tax the second year,
in spite of the clause in the law that a female citizen who has
paid a State or county tax within two years shall have the right to
vote. The town assessor, whose duty it was to inform the women on
this point of the law when asked concerning the matter, _willfully_
withheld the desired information, saying he "did not know," though
he afterwards said that he _did_ know, but intended to let the
women "find out for themselves." This assessor forgot that the
women, as legal voters, had a right to ask for this information,
and that by virtue of his official position he was legally obliged
to answer. In another town two ladies who were property tax-payers
were made to pay the two dollars poll-tax, and the record of this
still stands on the town books. Some ladies were frightened and
paid the tax under protest; others ran the risk. Here is a letter
addressed to a lady 83 years of age:
MALDEN, Dec. 2, 1879.
HARRIET HANSON: There is a balance of ninety cents due on your
poll-tax of 1879, duly assessed upon you. Payment of the same is
hereby demanded, and if not paid within fourteen days from this
date, with twenty cents for the summons, the collector is
required to proceed forthwith to collect the same in manner
provided by law.
THEODORE N. FOGUE, _Collector_.
Mrs. Hanson paid no attention to the summons, and that was the end
of it.
In 1881, under the amended act the poll-tax was reduced to fifty
cents, and the property tax-paying women (who are not required to
pay a poll-tax) are no longer obliged to make a return of property
exempt from taxation, as was required under the original statute.
Though some of the disabilities were removed, yet the privileges
are no greater; and it is for members of school-committees and for
nothing else, that the women of this State can vote. This is hardly
worthy to be called "school suffrage"! It is to be regretted that a
better test than that of school-committee suffrage, could not have
been given to the women of the State, so that the issue of what
under the circumstances cannot be called a fair trial of their
desire to vote, might be more nearly what the friends of reform had
desired.
The first petition to the Massachusetts legislature, asking that
women might be allowed to serve on school-boards was presented in
1866 by Samuel E. Sewall of Boston. The same petition was again
presented in 1867. About this time Ashfield and Monroe, two of the
smallest towns in the State, elected women as members of the school
committee. Worcester and Lynn soon followed the good example, and
in 1874, Boston, for the first time, chose six women to serve in
this capacity.[138] There had hitherto been no open objection to
this innovation, but the school committee of Boston not liking the
idea of women co-workers, declared them ineligible to hold such
office. Miss Peabody applied to the Supreme Court for its opinion
upon the matter, but the judges refused to answer, and dismissed
the petition on the ground that the school committee itself had
power to decide the question of the qualifications of members of
the board. The subject was brought before the legislature of the
same year, and that body, almost unanimously, passed "An Act to
Declare Women Eligible to Serve as Members of School Committees."
Thus the women members were reinstated.[139]
This refusal on the part of the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts to answer a question relating to woman's rights under
the law, was received with a knowing smile by those who remembered
the three adverse decisions relating to women which had been given
by that august body. The first of these was on the case of Sarah E.
Wall of Worcester. The second was concerning a clause in the will
of Francis Jackson of Boston, who left $5,000 and other property to
the woman's rights cause. Its third adverse decision was given in
1871. In that year, Julia Ward Howe and Mary E. Stevens were
appointed by Governor Claflin as justices of the peace. Some member
of the governor's council having doubted whether women could
legally hold the office, the opinion of the Supreme Court was asked
and it decided substantially that because women were women, or
because women were not _men_, they could _not_ be justices of the
peace; and the appointment was not confirmed.
Changes in the common law began in 1845 with reference to the
wife's right to hold her own property. In 1846 she could legally
sign a receipt for money earned or deposited by herself.[140]
Before 1855 a woman could not hold her own property, either earned
or acquired by inheritance. If unmarried, she was obliged to place
it in the hands of a trustee, to whose will she was subject. If she
contemplated marriage, and desired to call her property her own,
she was forced by law to make a contract with her intended husband,
by which she gave up all title or claim to it. A woman, either
married or unmarried, could hold no office of trust or power. She
was not a person. She was not recognized as a citizen. She was not
a factor in the human family. She was not a unit; but a zero, a
nothing, in the sum of civilization.
To-day, a married woman can hold her own property, if it is held or
bought in her own name, and can make a will disposing of it. A man
is no longer the sole heir of his wife's property. A married woman
can make contracts, enter into co-partnerships, carry on business,
invest her own earnings for her own use and behoof,--and she is
also responsible for her own debts. She can be executor,
administrator, guardian or trustee. She can testify in the courts
for or against her husband. She can release, transfer, or convey,
any interest she may have in real estate, subject only to the life
interest which the husband may have at her death. Thirty years ago,
when the woman's rights movement began, the status of a married
woman was little better than that of a domestic servant. By the
English common law, her husband was her lord and master. He had the
sole custody of her person, and of her minor children. He could
"punish her with a stick no bigger than his thumb," and she could
not complain against him.[141] But the real "thumb" story seems to
have originated with a certain Judge Buller of England, who lived
about one hundred years ago. In his ruling on one of those cases of
wife-beating, now so common in our police courts, he said that a
man had a right to punish his wife, "with a stick no bigger than
his thumb." That was his opinion. Shortly after this some ladies
sent the judge a letter in which they prayed him to give the size
of his thumb! We are not told whether he complied with their
request.]
The common law of this State held man and wife to be one person,
but that person was the husband. He could by will deprive her of
every part of his property, and also of what had been her own
before marriage. He was the owner of all her real estate and of her
earnings. The wife could make no contract and no will, nor, without
her husband's consent, dispose of the legal interest of her real
estate. He had the income of her real estate till she died, and if
they ever had a living child his ownership of the real estate
continued to his death. He could forbid her to buy a loaf of bread
or a pound of sugar, or contract for a load of wood to keep the
family warm. She did not own a rag of her own clothing. She had no
personal rights, and could hardly call her soul her own.
Her husband could steal her children, rob her of her clothing, and
her earnings, neglect to support the family; and she had no legal
redress. If a wife earned money by her labor, the husband could
claim the pay as his share of the proceeds. There is a clause
sometimes found in old wills, to the effect that if a widow marry
again, she shall forfeit all right to her husband's property. The
most conservative judge in the commonwealth would now rule that a
widow cannot be kept from her fair share of the property, by any
such unjust restriction. In a husband's eyes of a hundred and fifty
years ago, a woman's mission was accomplished after she had been
_his_ wife and borne _his_ children. What more could be desired of
her, he argued, but a corner somewhere in which, respectably
dressed as his _relict_, she could sit down and mourn for him, for
the rest of her life.[142]
The law no longer sanctions such a will, but provides that the
widow shall have a fair share of all personal property. If a widow
permits herself to-day to be defrauded of her legal rights in the
division of property, it is her own fault, and because she does not
study and understand for herself the general statutes of
Massachusetts, and the laws concerning the rights of married women.
The result of thirty years of property legislation for women is
well stated by Mr. Sewall in his admirable pamphlet, in which he
says, "the last thirty years have done more to improve the law for
married women than the four hundred preceding." The legislature
has, during this time, enacted laws allowing women to vote in
parishes and religious societies, declaring that women _must_
become members of the board of trustees of the three State primary
and reform schools, of the State workhouse, of the State almshouse
at Tewksbury, and of the board of prison commissioners; also, that
certain officers and managers of the reformatory prison for women
at Sherborn "shall be women." Without legislation, women now are
school supervisors, overseers of the poor, trustees of public
libraries and members of the State Board of Education and of the
State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity.[143]
These great changes in legislation for the women of Massachusetts
are the result of their own labors. By conventions and documents
they have informed the people and enlightened public sentiment. By
continued agitation the question has been kept prominently before
their representatives in the legislature. And, though so much has
been gained, they are still hard at work, nor will they rest until,
woman's equality with man before the law is firmly established.
Among the most important acts passed recently is one of 1879, by
which a married woman is the owner of her own clothing to the value
of $2,000, although the act granting this calls such apparel the
"gifts of her husband," not recognizing the fact that most married
women earn or help to earn their own clothes. A law was passed, in
1881, to "mitigate the evils of divorce." Two important acts were
passed by the legislature of 1882, one allowing women to become
practising attorneys, and the other providing, that in case of the
death of a married woman intestate and leaving children, one-half
only of her personal estate shall go to her husband, instead of the
whole, as in previous years. In 1883, a wife was given the right of
burial in any lot or tomb belonging to her husband. In 1884, the
only measures were a bill providing for the appointment of women on
the board of State lunatic hospitals, and another providing for the
appointment of women assistant physicians in the same hospitals,
and an act giving women the power to dispose of their separate
estates by will or deed. In 1885, very little was done to improve
the legal status of women.
When any vote on the Suffrage bill is taken, it is enough to make
the women who sit in the gallery weep to hear the "O's" and the
"Mc's," almost to a man, thunder forth the emphatic "_No!_"; and to
think that these men (some of whom a few years ago were walking
over their native bogs, with hardly the right to live and breathe)
should vote away so thoughtlessly the rights of the women of the
country in which they have found a shelter and a home. When they
came to this country, poor, and with no inheritance but the
"shillalah," the ballot was freely given to them, as the poor man's
weapon for defence. Why cannot men, who have been political serfs
in their own country, see the incongruity of voting against the
enfranchisement of over one-half of the inhabitants of the State
which has made free human beings of them? It is not long since one
of these adopted citizens, in a discussion, said:
When the women show that they want to vote, I am willing to give
them all the rights they want.
Give! I thought. Where did you get the right to _give_
Massachusetts women the right to vote? You did not inherit it. In
what consists your prerogative over the women whose ancestors
fought to secure the very right of suffrage of which you so glibly
talk, and which neither you, nor your father before you, did aught
to establish or maintain?
The improvement in the social or general condition of woman has
been even greater than that in legislation. Previous to 1840, women
were employed only as teachers of summer schools, to "spell the
men" during the haying season; and this only occasionally. They
held no responsible position in any public school in the State.
To-day there are eight women to one man employed in all grades of
this profession, and there are numerous instances where women are
head-teachers of departments, or principals of high, normal and
grammar schools. Previous to 1825, girls could attend only the
primary schools of Boston. Through the influence of Rev. John
Pierpont, the first high-school for girls was opened in that city.
There was a great outcry against this innovation; and, because of
the excitement on the subject, and the _great number of girls_ who
applied for admission, the scheme was abandoned. The public-school
system, as it is now called, was established in Boston in 1789;
boys were admitted the whole year round; girls, from April to
October. This inequality in the opportunities for education roused
John Pierpont's indignation, and moved him to make strenuous
efforts to secure justice for girls. Now there are 6,246 schools,
seventy-two academies, six normal schools, two colleges, Boston
University and the "Harvard Annex" all open to girls. In the town
of Plymouth, where the Pilgrim fathers and mothers first landed,
when the question whether girls should receive any public
instruction first came up in town-meeting, there was great
opposition to it. However, the majority showed a liberal spirit,
and voted to give the girls one hour of instruction daily. This
was in 1793. In 1853 a normal school for girls was established in
Boston; in 1855 its name was changed to the Girls' High and Normal
School. In 1878 the Girls' Latin School in Boston was founded. The
establishment of this successful institution was the result of
discussions on the subject first brought before the public by
ladies of Boston. High schools in almost all the towns and cities
of the State have long been established, in which the boys and
girls are educated together. In 1880 the pupils in the high and
normal schools of Boston were about 2,000 girls to 1,000 boys. In
1867 the Lowell Institute and the Massachusetts Institute of
Technology advertised classes free to both sexes in French,
mathematics and in practical science.[144] Since that time Chauncy
Hall School and Boston University have been opened to women, with
the equal privileges of male students. It might be explained here
that the "Harvard Annex," or "Private Collegiate Instruction for
Women," is not an organic part of the University itself. Under a
certain arrangement, a limited number of young women are allowed a
few of the privileges of the young men. They are also permitted to
use all the books belonging to the library and to attend many of
the lectures. No college-building is appropriated for this purpose,
but recitation-rooms are provided in private houses. A witty
Cambridge lady called this mythical college the "Harvard Annex";
the public adopted the name, and many people suppose that there is
such a building. From the last annual report of the "Private
Collegiate Instruction for Women," it appears that in 1885
sixty-five women availed themselves of the privilege of attending
this course of instruction.[145] Three-fourths of this number are
Massachusetts girls. Some of the professors say that the average of
scholarship there is higher than in the University. Fifty courses
of studies are open to women students. Miss Brown of Concord, a
graduate of 1884, astonished the faculty by her high per cent. in
the classics. Her average was higher than that reached by any young
man. These students go unattended to the lectures and to the
library of the college. A great change indeed, since the time when
women began to attend the Lowell Institute lectures! Then it was
thought almost disgraceful to go to a public meeting without male
protection, and they went with veiled faces, as if ashamed to be
seen of men. The "Annex" has some advantages, but they cannot
compare with Girton and Newnham of Cambridge, England.
The treasurer of the "Harvard Annex" declares the great need that
exists for funds to provide a suitable building, etc., for the
numerous women who continue to apply there for admission; and he
appeals to the generosity of the public for contributions of money
to be used for this purpose. The casual observer might suggest that
those women who will hereafter become the benefactors of this
university should remember the needs of their own sex, and leave
their donations or bequests so that they can be used for the
benefit of the "Harvard Annex," which is a wholly private
enterprise, conducted by the University instructors and supervised
by a committee of ladies.
Colleges for women have also been founded. Wellesley and Smith have
long been doing good university work. Thirty years ago there was no
college in the country, except Oberlin, to which women were
admitted. To-day, even conservative Harvard begins to melt a little
under this regenerating influence, and invites women, through the
doors of its "Annex," to come and enjoy some of the privileges
found within its sacred halls of learning. This was a late act of
grace from a college whose inception was in the mind of a
woman[146] longing for a better opportunity than the new colony
could give to educate her afterward ungrateful son.
The number of young men educated by the individual efforts of women
cannot be estimated. T. W. Higginson, in the _Woman's Journal_,
says:
The late President Walker once told me that, in his judgment,
one-quarter of the young men in Harvard College were being
carried through by the special self-denial and sacrifices of
women. I cannot answer for the ratio, but I can testify to having
been an instance of this, myself; and to having known a
never-ending series of such cases of self-devotion.
Some of these men, educated by the labor and self-sacrifice of
others, look down upon the social position in which their women
friends are still forced to remain. The result to the recipient has
often been of doubtful value, so far as the development of the
affections is concerned. Sometimes the great obligation has been
forgotten. Only in rare instances, to either party did the
life-long sacrifice on the part of the women of the family become
of permanent and spiritual value!
The average woman of forty years ago was very humble in her notions
of the sphere of woman. What if she did hunger and thirst after
knowledge? She could do nothing with it, even if she could get it.
So she made a _fetich_ of some male relative, and gave him the
mental food for which she herself was starving, and devoted all her
energies towards helping him to become what she felt, under better
conditions, she herself might have been. It was enough in those
early days to be the _mother_ or _sister_ of somebody. Women were
almost as abject in this particular as the Thracian woman of old,
who said:
"I am not of the noble Grecian race,
I'm poor Abrotonon, and born in Thrace;
Let the Greek women scorn me, if they please,
I was the mother of Themistocles."
There are women still left who believe their husbands, sons, or
male friends can study, read and _vote_ for them. They are like
some frugal house-mothers, who think their is no need of a dinner
if the good-man of the family is not coming home to share it. Just
as if the man-half of the human family can "eat, learn and inwardly
digest," to make either physical or mental strength for the other
half!
Maria Mitchell of Massachusetts became Professor of Astronomy and
Mathematics at Vassar, in 1866, the first woman in the country to
hold such a position. Since that time women have become members of
the faculty in several of the large colleges in the country.
In the early days of the commonwealth women practiced midwifery,
and were very successful. Mrs. John Eliot, Anne Hutchinson, Mrs.
Fuller and Sarah Alcock were the first in the State. Janet
Alexander, a Scotchwoman, was a well-trained midwife.[147] She
lived in Boston, and was always recognized as a good practitioner
in her line by the leading doctors in that city. Dr. John C. Warren
of Boston invited this lady to come to this country. His biography,
recently published, contains a short record of the matter, in which
he says: "We determined to recommend Mrs. Alexander. She was a
Scotchwoman, regularly educated, and having Dr. Hamilton's
diploma." Quite a storm was raised among the younger physicians of
Boston by this attempted innovation, because they thought Dr.
Warren was trying to deprive them of profitable practice. But Mrs.
Alexander, supported by Dr. Warren, and perhaps other physicians,
continued her occupation and educated her daughter in the same
profession. Dr. Harriot K. Hunt practiced in Boston as early as
1835. She sought admission to the Harvard Medical School, and was
many times refused. She was not what is called a "regular
physician." In her day there existed no schools or colleges for the
medical education of women, but she studied by herself, and
acquired some knowledge of diseases peculiar to women. Her success
was so great in her line of practice that she proved the need
existing for physicians of her own sex.
Dr. Hunt's tussle with the medical faculty will long be remembered.
She was the first woman in the State who dared assert her right to
recognition in this profession. For this, and for her persistent
efforts to secure for them a higher education, she deserves the
gratitude of every woman who has since followed her footsteps into
a profession over which the men had long held undisputed control.
In 1853 the degree of M. D. was conferred on her by the Woman's
Medical College of Pennsylvania. The first medical college for
women, organized by Dr. Samuel Gregory of Boston, was chartered in
1856, under the name of the New England Female Medical College, and
in 1874, by an act of the legislature, united with the Boston
University School of Medicine. In 1868 it had graduated seventy-two
women, among whom were Dr. Lucy E. Sewall and Dr. Helen Morton (who
afterwards went to Paris and studied obstetrics at Madame Aillot's
Hospital of Maternity) and Dr. Mercy B. Jackson.[148] There are now
205 regular practitioners in the State.
In 1863, Dr. Zakrzewska, in cooeperation with Lucy Goddard and Ednah
D. Cheney, established the New England Hospital for Women and
Children. Its avowed objects were: (1) to provide women the medical
aid of competent physicians of their own sex; (2) to assist
educated women in the practical study of medicine; (3) to train
nurses for the care of the sick. This was the first hospital in New
England over which women have had entire control, both as
physicians and surgeons. Boston University is open to both sexes,
with equal studies, duties and privileges. This institution was
incorporated in 1869, and includes, among other schools and
colleges, schools of theology, law and medicine. The faculty
consists of many distinguished men and women. Boston University
School of Medicine (homeopathic) was organized in 1873. Of the
thirty-two lecturers and professors who constitute the faculty,
five are women. In 1884 the three highest of the four prizes for
the best medical thesis were won by women. Of the 610 pupils in
1884, 155 were women; sixty of these were in the school of
medicine. There are women in all departments, except agriculture
and theology. They do not study theology because they cannot be
ordained to preach in any of the leading churches.
The Massachusetts Medical Society in 1884, on motion of Dr. Henry
I. Bowditch, voted to admit women to membership. Dr. Emma L. Call
and Dr. Harriet L. Harrington were the first two women admitted.
January 11, 1882, at the monthly meeting of Harvard overseers, the
question of admitting women to the Medical School came before the
board. An individual desiring to contribute a fund for the medical
education of women in Harvard University asked the president and
fellows whether such a fund would be accepted and used as designed.
Majority and minority reports were submitted by the committee in
charge, and after a long discussion it was voted, 11 to 6, to
accept the fund, the income to be ultimately used for the medical
education of women. At the April meeting, the Committee on the
Medical Education of Women presented a report, which was adopted by
a vote of 13 to 12:
That, in the opinion of the board, it is not advisable for the
University to hold out any encouragement that it will undertake
the medical education of women.
The Harvard Divinity School at Cambridge sometimes admits women,
but does not recognize them publicly, nor grant them degrees; but
there are other theological schools in the State where a complete
preparation for the ministerial profession can be obtained. The
attitude of the churches toward women has changed greatly within
thirty years. As early as 1869, women began to serve on committees,
and to be ordained deaconesses of churches. They also hold
important offices connected with the different church
organizations. They serve on the boards of State and national
religious associations. There are also missionary associations,
both home and foreign, and Christian unions, all officered and
managed exclusively by women. Even the treasurers of these large
bodies are women, and their husbands or trustees are no longer
required to give bonds for them.[149] At the general conference of
the Methodist Episcopal Church, the word "male" was stricken from
the discipline, and the word "person" inserted in its place, in all
cases save those that concerned the ordination of clergy.
Olympia Brown was the first woman settled as pastor in the State.
Her parish was at Weymouth Landing. In 1864 she petitioned the
Massachusetts legislature "that marriages performed by a woman
should be made legal." The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom the
matter was referred, reported that no legislation was necessary, as
marriages solemnized by women were already legal.[150] Thus the
legislature of the State established the precedent, that "he" meant
"she" under the law, in one instance at least. Phebe Hanaford, Mary
H. Graves and Lorenza Haynes were the first Massachusetts women to
be ordained preachers of the gospel. Rev. Lorenza Haynes has been
chaplain of the Maine House of Representatives.
The three best-known women sculptors in this country were born and
bred in Massachusetts. They are Harriet Hosmer, Margaret Foley and
Anne Whitney. Harriet Hosmer was the first to free herself from the
traditions of her sex and follow her profession as a sculptor. When
she desired to fit herself for her vocation there was no art school
east of the Mississippi river where she could study anatomy, or
find suitable models. Margaret Foley, who, amid the hum of the
machinery of the Lowell cotton mills, first conceived the idea of
chiseling her thought on the surface of a "smooth-lipped shell,"
was obliged to go to Rome in order to get the necessary instruction
in cameo-cutting. There her genius developed so much that she began
to model in clay, and soon became a successful sculptor in marble.
Lucy Larcom, in her "Idyl of Work," says of Miss Foley:
"That broad-browed delicate girl will carve at Rome
Faces in marble, classic as her own."
One of her finest creations is "The Fountain," first exhibited in
Horticultural Hall at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia,
1876. A free art-school was opened to women in Boston in 1867, and
Anne Whitney was not obliged to go to Rome for instruction in the
appliances of her art. Harriet Hosmer and Margaret Foley have both
made statues which adorn the public buildings and parks of their
native country; and Anne Whitney's statues of Samuel Adams and
Harriet Martineau are the crowning works of her genius.
No great work has yet been done by Massachusetts women in oil
painting; but in water colors, and in decorative art, many have
excelled, first prizes in superiority of design having been taken
by them over their masculine competitors. Lizzie B. Humphrey,
Jessie Curtis, Sarah W. Whitman and Fidelia Bridges, take high rank
as artists. Helen M. Knowlton, a pupil of William M. Hunt, is a
skillful artist in charcoal and has produced some fine pictures.
Women form a large proportion of the students in the school of
design recently opened in Boston. A great deal of the ornamental
painting now so fashionable on cards and all fancy articles is done
by the deft fingers of women. The census of 1880 reports 268
artists and 1,270 musicians and teachers of music.
Of woman as actress and public singer, it is unnecessary to speak,
since she has the right of way in both these professions. Here,
fortunately, the supply does not exceed the demand; consequently
she has her full share of rights, and what is better, equitable pay
for her labor. In 1880 there were 111 actresses. Charlotte Cushman,
Clara Louise Kellogg and Annie Louise Cary were born in
Massachusetts.
The drama speaks too feebly on the right side of the woman
question. No successful modern dramatist has made this "humour" of
the times the subject of his play. An effort was made in 1879, by
the executive committee of the New England Association, to secure a
woman suffrage play: but it was not successful, and there is yet to
be written a counteractive to that popular burlesque, "The Spirit
of '76." It is to be regretted that the stage still continues to
ridicule the woman's rights movement and its leaders; for, as
Hamlet says:
"The play's the thing,
Wherein I'll catch the conscience of the king."
In 1650, when Anne Bradstreet lived and wrote her verses, a woman
author was almost unknown in English literature. This lady was the
wife of the governor of Massachusetts, and because of her literary
tendencies was looked upon by the people of her time as a marvel of
womankind. Her contemporaries called her the "tenth muse lately
sprung up in America," and one of them, Rev. Nathaniel Ward, was
inspired to write an address to her, in which he declares his
wonder at her success as a poet, and playfully foretells the
consequences if women are permitted to intrude farther into the
domain of man. The closing lines express so well the conflicting
emotions which torment the minds of the opponents of the woman
suffrage movement, that I venture to quote them:
"Good sooth," quoth the old Don, "tell ye me so?
I muse whither at length these Girls will go.
It half revives my chil, frost-bitten blood
To see a woman once do aught that's good.
And, chode by Chaucer's Boots and Homer's Furrs,
Let men look to't least Women wear the Spurrs."
In 1818, Hannah Mather Crocker, grand-daughter of Cotton Mather,
published a book, called "Observations on the Rights of Women." In
speaking of Mary Wollstonecraft, Mrs. Crocker says, that while that
celebrated woman had a very independent mind, and her "Rights of
Woman" is replete with fine sentiments, yet, she continues,
patronizingly, "we do not coincide with her respecting the total
independence of the sex." Mrs. Crocker evidently wanted her sex to
be not too independent, but just independent enough.[151]
In 1841, when Lydia Maria Child edited the _Anti-Slavery Standard_,
Margaret Fuller the _Dial_, and Harriot F. Curtis and Harriet
Farley the _Lowell Offering_, there were perhaps in New England no
other well-known women journalists or editors. Cornelia Walter of
the _Evening Transcript_ was the first woman journalist in Boston.
To-day, women are editors and publishers of newspapers all over the
United States; and the woman's column is a part of many leading
newspapers. Sallie Joy White was the first regular reporter in
Boston. She began on the _Boston Post_, a Democratic newspaper, in
1870. Her first work was to report the proceedings of a woman
suffrage meeting. She is now on the staff of the _Boston Daily
Advertiser_. Lilian Whiting is on the staff of the _Traveller_, and
most of the other Boston newspapers have women among their editors
and reporters. Some of the best magazine writing of the time is
done by women; one needs but to look over the table of contents of
the leading periodicals to see how large a proportion of the
articles is written by them. Really, the sex seems to have taken
possession of what Carlyle called the "fourth estate"--the literary
profession, and they journey into unexplored regions of thought to
give the omniverous modern reader something new to feed upon. The
census of 1880 reports 445 women as authors and literary persons.
The newspaper itself, that great engine "whose ambassadors are in
every quarter of the globe, whose couriers upon every road," has
slowly swung round, and is at last headed in the right direction.
Reporters for the daily press in Massachusetts no longer write in a
spirit of flippancy or contempt, and there is not an editor in the
State of any account who would permit a member of his staff to
report a woman's meeting in any other spirit than that of courtesy.
Teachers occupying high positions and presidents of colleges have
given pronounced opinions in favor of the reform. Said President
Hopkins of Williams College, in 1875:
I would at this point correct my teaching in "The Law of Love,"
to the effect that _home_ is peculiarly the sphere of woman, and
civil government that of man. I now regard the home as the joint
sphere of man _and_ woman, and the sphere of civil government
more of an open question between the two.
The New England Women's Club, parent[152] of the modern clubs and
associations for the advancement of women, has been one of the
factors in the woman's rights movement. Its members have, in their
work and in their lives, illustrated the doctrine of woman's
equality with man. It was formed in February, 1868.[153]
There has never been, from time immemorial, much difference of
opinion concerning woman's right to do a good share in the
_drudgery_ of the world. But in the remunerative employments,
before 1850, she was but sparsely represented. In 1840, when
Harriet Martineau visited this country, she found to her surprise
that there were only seven vocations, outside home, into which the
women of the United States had entered. These were "teaching,
needlework, keeping boarders, weaving, type-setting, and folding
and stitching in book-bindery." In contrast, it is only necessary
to mention that in Massachusetts alone, woman's ingenuity is now
employed in nearly 300 different branches of industry. It cannot be
added that for doing the same kind and amount of work women are
paid men's wages. The census does not include the services of the
mother and daughter among the _paid_ vocations, though, as is well
known, in many instances they do all the housework of the family.
They get no wages, and therefore do not appear among the
"useful classes." They are not earners, but savers of money. A
money-_saver_ is not a recognized factor, either in political
economy or in the State census. The mother, daughter or wife is put
down in its pages as "keeping house." If they were paid for their
services they would be called "housekeepers," and would have their
place among the paid employments.
Among the many rights woman has appropriated to herself must be
included the "patent right." The charge has often been made that
women never invent anything, but statistics on the subject declare
that in 1880 patents for their own inventions were issued to
eighty-seven different women in the United States. A fair
proportion of these were from Massachusetts.
This progress in the various departments encountered great
opposition from certain teachers and writers. Dr. Bushnell's
"Reform Against Nature," Dr. Fulton's talk both in and out of the
pulpit, served to show the weakness of that side of the question.
Frances Parkman, Dr. Holland, Dr. W. H. Hammond, Rev. Morgan Dix,
and even some women have added their so-called arguments in the
vain attempt to keep woman as they think "God made her."
Much the stronger writers and speakers have been found on the right
side of this question. The names of leading speakers, such as
William Lloyd Garrison, Wendell Phillips and Theodore Parker, have
already been mentioned. Perhaps the most suggestive articles in
favor of the reform were T. W. Higginson's "Ought Women to Learn
the Alphabet," published in the _Atlantic Monthly_ of February,
1859, and Samuel Bowles' "The Woman Question and Sex in Politics,"
published at a later date in the _Springfield Republican_.
"Warrington," in his letters to the same newspaper, from 1868 to
1876, never failed to present a good and favorable argument on some
phase of the woman question. Caroline Healey Dall's lectures before
1860, and her book "The College, the Market and the Court,"
published in 1868, were seed-grain sown in the field of this
reform. Samuel E. Sewall's able digest of the laws relating to the
legal condition of married women, and William I. Bowditch's
admirable pamphlets,[154] have done incalculable service.
Of women in the civil service, there are: 58 clerks, 266 employes
and 387 officials--total, 411. This includes postmasters and clerks
in bureaus. In 1880, General F. A. Walker, superintendent of the
census, instructed the supervisors of the several districts to
appoint women as enumerators when practicable. They were
accordingly so appointed in many parts of the United States.
Carroll D. Wright, supervisor of the district of Massachusetts was
in favor of General Walker's instructions, and out of the 903
enumerators appointed by him, thirty were women. This was an
exceedingly large proportion compared with the number appointed in
States where supervisors were not in favor of women enumerators.
Thanks to the efforts of Caroline Healey Dall, the American Social
Science Association, formed in 1865, put women on its board of
officers, as did the Boston Social Science Association, organized
the same year. These were the first large organizations in the
country to admit women on an absolute equality with men. The result
of this action vindicated at once and forever woman's fitness to
occupy positions of honor in associations that man had hitherto
claimed for himself alone. This has encouraged women to express
themselves in the presence of the wisest men, and enabled them to
present to the public the woman side of some great questions. Women
are officers as well as members of many societies originally
established exclusively for men. A national society for political
education, formed in 1880, of which women are members, has at least
one woman on its board of officers. What would have been thought
thirty years ago, if women had studied finance, banks and banking,
money, currency, sociology and political science?
The Summer School of Philosophy at Concord was founded in
1879.[155] A majority of the students are women, as was not the
case in the elder schools of philosophy, and they come from far and
near to spend a few weeks of their summer vacation in the enjoyment
of this halcyon season of rest. Day after day they sit patiently on
the aesthetic benches of the Hillside chapel and bask in the calm
light of mild philosophy. Its seed was sown forty years ago, in
what was called the Transcendental movement in New England. The
Concord school finds in Mr. Sanborn its executive spirit, without
which it could no more have come into existence at this time than
its first seed could have been planted forty years ago, without the
conceptive thought of Mr. Emerson, Mr. Alcott and Margaret Fuller.
Boston University long ago offered the advantages of its law-school
to women, but they do not much avail themselves of this privilege.
Lelia J. Robinson, in March, 1881, made her application for
admission to the bar. In presenting her claim before the court,
April 23, Mr. Charles R. Train admitted that it was a novel one;
but in a very effective manner he went on to state the cogent
reasons why a woman who had carefully prepared herself for the
profession of the law should be permitted to practice in the
courts. At the close, Chief-Justice Gray gave the opinion,
informally, that the laws, as they now exist, preclude woman from
being attorney-at-law; but he reserved the matter for the
consideration of the full bench. The Supreme Judicial Court
rendered an adverse decision. Petitions were then sent to the
legislature of 1882, and that body passed an act[156] declaring
that, "The provisions of law relating to the qualification and
admission to practice of attorneys-at-law shall apply to women."
The petition of Lelia Josephine Robinson to the Supreme Court was
as follows:
1. The best administration of justice may be most safely secured
by allowing the representation of all classes of the people in
courts of justice.
2. To allow women to practice at the bar as attorneys is only to
secure to the people the right to select their own counsel. It is
to give the women of Massachusetts the opportunity of consulting
members of their own sex for that advice and assistance which
none but authorized attorneys and counsellors are legally
qualified to give.
3. To exclude women from the bar would be to do an injustice to
the community, in preventing free and wholesome competition of
existing talent, and to do still greater injustice to those women
who are qualified for the profession, by shutting them out from
an honorable and remunerative means of gaining a livelihood.
4. To exclude women from the bar because there are certain
departments of the profession which are peculiarly ill-adapted to
their sex and nature, would be to assume arbitrarily that, with
entire lack of judgment or discretion, modesty or policy, they
would seek or accept such business; and to close to them those
avenues of the profession for which they are generally admitted
to be eminently well adapted, for such a reason, and upon such an
assumption, would be so grossly unjust that no argument can be
based on such an impossible contingency.
Your applicant, having faithfully and diligently pursued the
study of law for three years, being a graduate of the Boston
University Law School, and having complied with the other
requirements of the statute and the rules of court upon the
subject, respectfully prays that her petition for examination,
which was duly filed, may be favorably considered, and that it be
included in the general notice to the Board of Examiners of
Suffolk county. LELIA JOSEPHINE ROBINSON.
The opinion given by the Supreme Judicial Court, so far as it
relates to the main point at issue, is as follows:
The question presented by this petition and by the report on
which it has been reserved for our determination, is whether,
under the laws of the commonwealth, an unmarried woman is
entitled to be examined for admission as an attorney and
counsellor of this Court. This being the first application of the
kind in Massachusetts, the Court, desirous that it might be fully
argued, informed the executive committee of the Bar Association
of the city of Boston of the application, and has received
elaborate briefs from the petitioner in support of her petition
and from two gentlemen of the bar as _amici curiae_ in opposition
thereto. The statute under which the application is made is as
follows: "A citizen of this State, or an alien who has made the
primary declaration of his intention to become a citizen of the
United States, and who is an inhabitant of this State, at the age
of twenty-one years and of good moral character, may, on the
recommendation of an attorney, petition the Supreme Judicial or
Superior Court to be examined for admission as an attorney,
whereupon the Court shall assign a time and place for the
examination, and if satisfied with his acquirements and
qualifications he shall be admitted." St. 1876, c. 107.
The word "citizen," when used in its most common and most
comprehensive sense, doubtless includes women; but a woman is
not, by virtue of her citizenship, vested by the Constitution of
the United States, or by the constitution of the commonwealth,
with any absolute right, independent of legislation, to take part
in the government, either as voter or as an officer, or to be
admitted to practice as an attorney. _Miuor vs. Happersett, 51
Wall. 162. Bradwell vs. Illinois, 16 Wall. 130._ The rule that
"words importing the masculine gender maybe applied to females,"
like all other general rules of construction of statutes, must
yield when such construction would be either "repugnant to the
context of the same statute," or "inconsistent with the manifest
intent of the legislature." Gen. Sts. c. 3, Sec. 7.
The only statute making any provisions concerning attorneys, that
mentions women, is the poor-debtor act, which, after enumerating
among the cases in which an arrest of the person may be made on
execution in an action of contract, that in which "the debtor is
attorney-at-law," who has unreasonably neglected to pay to his
client money collected, enacts, in the next section but one,
"that no woman shall be arrested on any civil process except for
tort." Gen. Sts. c. 124, Sec.Sec. 5, 7. If these provisions do not
imply that the legislature assumed that women should not be
attorneys, they certainly have no tendency to show that it
intended that they should. The word "citizen," in the statute
under which this application is made, is but a repetition of the
word originally adopted with a view of excluding aliens, before
the statute of 1852, c. 154, allowed those aliens to be admitted
to the bar who had made the preliminary declaration of intention
to become citizens. Rev. Sts., c. 88, Sec. 19. Gen. Sts., c. 121, Sec.
28.
The reenactment of the act relating to the admission of attorneys
in the same words without more so far as relates to the personal
qualifications of the applicant, since other statutes have
expressly modified the legal rights and capacity of women in
other important respects, tends rather to refute than to advance
the theory that the legislature intended that these words should
comprehend women. No inference of an intention of the legislature
to include women in the statutes concerning the admission of
attorneys can be drawn from the mere omission of the word "male."
The only statute to which we have referred, in which that word is
inserted, is the statute concerning the qualifications of voters
in town affairs, which, following the language of the article of
the constitution that defines the qualifications of voters for
governor, lieutenant-governor, senators and representatives,
speaks of "every male citizen of twenty-one years of age," etc.
Gen. Sts. c. 18, Sec. 19. Const. Mass. Amendments, art. 3. Words
which taken by themselves would be equally applicable to women
and to men are constantly used in the constitution and statutes,
in speaking of offices which it could not be contended, in the
present state of law, that women were capable of holding.
The Courts of the commonwealth have not assumed by their rules to
admit to the bar any class of persons not within the apparent
intent of the legislature as manifested in the statutes. The word
"persons," in the latest rule of Court upon the subject, was the
word used in the rule of 1810 and in the statutes of 1785 and
1836, at times when no one contemplated the possibility of a
woman's being admitted to practice as an attorney. 121 Mass. 600.
6. Mass. 382. St. 1785, c. 23. Rev. St. c. 18, 20. Gen. Sts. c.
121, Sec. 29. The United States Court of Claims, at December term,
1873, on full consideration, denied an application of a woman to
be admitted to practice as an attorney upon the ground "that
under the constitution and laws of the United States a Court is
without power to grant such an application, and that a woman is
without legal capacity to take the office of an attorney."
_Lockwood's Case, 9 Ct. of Claims, 346, 356._ At October terms
1876 of the Supreme Court of the United States, the same
petitioner applied to be admitted to practice as an attorney and
counsellor of that Court, and her application was denied.
The decision has not been officially reported, but upon the
record of the Court, of which we have an authentic copy, it is
thus stated: "Upon the presentation of this application, the
chief-justice said that notice of this application having been
previously brought to his attention, he had been instructed by
the Court to announce the following decision upon it: By the
uniform practice of the Court from its organization to the
present time, and by the fair construction of its rules, none but
men are permitted to practice before it as attorneys and
counsellors. This is in accordance with immemorial usages in
England, and the law and the practice in all the States until
within a recent period, and the Court does not feel called upon
to make a change until such change is required by statute or a
more extended practice in the highest Courts of the States." The
subsequent act of congress of February 15, 1879, enables only
those women to be admitted to practice before the Supreme Court
of the United States who have been for three years members of the
bar of the highest Court of a State or territory, or of the
Supreme Court of the District of Columbia.
The conclusion that women cannot be admitted to the bar under the
existing statutes of the commonwealth is in accordance with
judgments of the highest Courts of the States of Illinois and
Wisconsin. _Bradwell's Case, 55 Ill., 525. Goodell's Case, 39
Wis., 232._ The suggestion in the brief of the petitioner that
women have been admitted in other States can have no weight here,
in the absence of all evidence that (except under clear
affirmative words in a statute) they have ever been so admitted
upon deliberate consideration of the question involved, or by a
Court whose decisions are authoritative.
It is hardly necessary to add that our duty is limited to
declaring the law as it is, and that whether any change in that
law would be wise or expedient is a question for the legislative
and not for the judicial department of the government.
Petition dismissed. MARCUS MORTON, _Chief-Justice_,
[Signed:] CHARLES DEVENS, WILLIAM E. ENDICOTT,
WILLIAM ALLEN, OTIS P. LORD,
CHARLES ALLEN, WALBRIDGE A. FIELD.
The three preceding decisions of the Supreme Judicial Court of
Massachusetts against the rights of the women of the commonwealth
were as follows:
The first decision was in the case of Sarah E. Wall of Worcester,
who had refused to pay her taxes under the following protest:
Believing with the immortal Declaration of Independence that
taxation and representation are inseparable; believing that the
constitution of the State furnishes no authority for the taxation
of woman; believing also that the constitution of the higher law
of God, written on the human soul, requires us, if we would be
worthy the rich inheritance of the past and true to ourselves and
the future, to yield obedience to no statute that shall tend to
fetter its aspirations, I shall henceforth pay no taxes until the
word _male_ is stricken from the voting clauses of the
constitution of Massachusetts.
Worcester _Daily Spy_, October 5, 1858. SARAH E. WALL.
Miss Wall was prosecuted by the city collector, and she carried her
case before the Supreme Court, where she appeared for herself, W.
A. Williams appearing for the collector. In an account of this
matter in 1881, Miss Wall says: "Although it was in 1858 that my
resistance to taxation commenced, it was not until 1863 that the
contest terminated and the decision was rendered. I think the
Supreme Court would always find some way to evade a decision on
this question."
_Wheeler vs. Wall, 6 Allen, 558_: By the constitution of
Massachusetts, c. 1, Sec. 1, article 4, the legislature has power to
impose taxes upon all the inhabitants of and persons resident,
and estates lying within the said commonwealth. By the laws
passed by the legislature in pursuance of this power and
authority, the defendant is liable to taxation, although she is
not qualified to vote for the officers by whom the taxes were
assessed. The Court, acting under the constitution, and bound to
support it and maintain its provisions faithfully, cannot declare
null and void a statute which has been passed by the legislature,
in pursuance of an express authority conferred by the
constitution.--[Opinion by the chief-justice, George Tyler
Bigelow.
The second decision on the will of Francis Jackson is copied
_verbatim_ from _Allen's Reports_:
_Jackson vs. Phillips and others, 14 Allen, 539_: A bequest to
trustees, to be expended at their discretion, * * * * "to secure
the passage of laws granting whether women, married or unmarried,
the right to vote, to hold office, to hold, manage and devise
property, and all other civil rights enjoyed by men," is not a
charity.
_Bill in equity by the executor of the will of Francis Jackson of
Boston, for instructions as to the validity and effect of the
following bequests and devises:_
Art. 6th. "I give and bequeath to Wendell Phillips of said
Boston, Lucy Stone, formerly of Brookfield, Mass., now the wife
of Henry Blackwell of New York, and Susan B. Anthony of
Rochester, N. Y., their successors and assigns, $5,000, not for
their own use, but in trust, nevertheless, to be expended by them
without any responsibility to any one, at their discretion, in
such sums, at such times and in such places as they may deem fit,
to secure the passage of laws granting women, whether married or
unmarried, the right to vote, to hold office, to hold, manage and
devise property, and all other civil rights enjoyed by men; and
for the preparation and circulation of books, the delivery of
lectures, and such other means as they may judge best; and I
hereby constitute them a board of trustees for that intent and
purpose, with power to add two other persons to said board if
they deem it expedient. And I hereby appoint Wendell Phillips
president and treasurer, and Susan B. Anthony secretary of said
board. I direct the treasurer of said board not to loan any part
of said bequest, but to invest, and, if need be, sell and
reinvest the same in bank or railroad shares, at his discretion.
I further authorize and request said board of trustees, the
survivor and survivors of them, to fill any and all vacancies
that may occur from time to time by death or resignation of any
member or any officer of said board. One other bequest,
hereinafter made, will, sooner or later, revert to this board of
trustees. My desire is that they may become a permanent
organization, until the rights of women shall be established
equal with those of men; and I hope and trust that said board
will receive the services and sympathy, the donations and
bequests, of the friends of human rights. And being desirous that
said board should have the immediate benefit of said bequest,
without waiting for my exit, I have already paid it in advance
and in full to said Phillips, the treasurer of said board, whose
receipt therefor is on my files."
OPINION.--Gray, J. IV. It is quite clear that the bequest in
trust to be expended "to secure the passage of laws granting
women, whether married or unmarried, the right to vote, to hold
office, to hold, manage and devise property, and all other civil
rights enjoyed by men," cannot be sustained as a charity. No
precedent has been cited in its support. This bequest differs
from the others, in aiming directly and exclusively to change the
laws; and its object cannot be accomplished without changing the
constitution also. Whether such an alteration of the existing
laws and frame of government would be wise and desirable, is a
question upon which we cannot, sitting in a judicial capacity,
properly express any opinion. Our duty is limited to expounding
the laws as they stand. And those laws do not recognize the
purpose of overthrowing or changing them, in whole or in part, as
a charitable use. This bequest, therefore, not being for a
charitable purpose, nor for the benefit of any particular
persons, and being unrestricted in point of time, is inoperative
and void. For the same reason, the gift to the same object, of
one-third of the residue of the testator's estate after the death
of his daughter, Mrs. Eddy, and her daughter, Mrs. Bacon, is also
invalid, and will go to his heirs-at-law as a resulting trust.
Decision third was on the right of women to hold judicial offices.
To quote again from _Allen's Reports_:
On June 8, 1871, the following order was passed by the governor
and council, and on June 10 transmitted to the Justices of the
Supreme Judicial Court, who, on June 29, returned the reply which
is annexed. _Ordered_, That the opinion of the Supreme Judicial
Court be requested as to the following questions: _First_--Under
the constitution of this commonwealth, can a woman, if duly
appointed and qualified as a justice of the peace, legally
perform all acts appertaining to that office? _Second_--Under the
laws of this commonwealth, would oaths and acknowledgments of
deeds, taken before a married or unmarried woman duly appointed
and qualified as a justice of the peace, be legal and valid?
OPINION.--By the constitution of the commonwealth, the office of
justice of the peace is a judicial office, and must be exercised
by the officer in person, and a woman, whether married or
unmarried, cannot be appointed to such an office. The law of
Massachusetts at the time of the adoption of the constitution,
the whole frame and purport of the instrument itself, and the
universal understanding and unbroken practical construction for
the greater part of a century afterwards, all support this
conclusion, and are inconsistent with any other. It follows that,
if a woman should be formally appointed and commissioned as a
justice of the peace, she would have no constitutional or legal
authority to exercise any of the functions appertaining to that
office. Each of the questions proposed must, therefore, be
respectfully answered in the negative.
[Signed:] REUBEN A. CHAPMAN, HORACE GRAY, JR.,
JOHN WELLS, JAMES D. COLT,
SETH AMES, MARCUS MORTON.
_Boston_, June 29, 1871.
It is to be remarked that the clause on which the court determined
its judgment was of no practical consequence, since the money
devised had already been paid to Wendell Phillips, who had disposed
of it as the bequest required, and he had given his receipt to the
testator for the amount.
Even the Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts has begun to
understand the trend of the woman's rights movement, and has
rendered its first favorable decision, in the famous Eddy-will
case. Wendell Phillips told me that he drew up this will, and that
its provisions were so carefully worded, that even the Supreme
Court could find no flaw in it. It is in his own hand-writing, and
Chandler R. Ransom was the executor. Eliza F. Eddy was the daughter
of Francis Jackson, and just before her death in 1882, desiring to
help the suffrage cause and thus carry out her father's intentions,
she made her will in which she bequeathed $40,000 for this purpose.
The clause relating to this bequest is as follows:
Whatever is left, after paying the above legacies, I direct shall
be divided into equal portions. One of said portions I leave to
Susan B. Anthony of Rochester, N. Y.; and the other portion I
leave to Lucy Stone, wife of Henry B. Blackwell, as her own
absolute separate property, free from any control by him. I
request said Susan and Lucy to use said fund thus given to
further what is called the "Woman's Rights' Cause"; but neither
of them is under any legal responsibility to any one or any court
to do so.