Mr. A. K. Yount of Boulder, spoke in favor of the motion to

strike out the word "male" in section 1: "That every male person

over the age of 21 years, possessing the necessary

qualifications, shall be entitled to vote," etc. He called

attention to the large number of petitions which had been sent

in, asking for this, and to the fact that not a single

remonstrance had been received. He believed the essential

principles of human freedom were involved in this demand, and he

insisted that justice required that women should help to make the

laws by which they are governed. The amendment was lost by a vote

of 24 to 8.

Mr. Storm offered an amendment that women be permitted to vote

for, and hold the office of, county superintendent of schools.

This also was lost. The only other section of the report which

had any present interest to women, was the one reading:

SECTION 2. The General Assembly may at any time extend by

law the right of suffrage to persons not herein enumerated,

but no such law shall take effect or be in force until the

same shall have been submitted to a vote of the people, at a

general election, and approved by a majority of all the

votes cast for and against such law.

After much discussion it was voted that the first General

Assembly should provide a law whereby the subject should be

submitted to a vote of the electors.

After this the curtain fell, the lights were put out, and all the

atmosphere and _mise en scene_ of the drama vanished. It was well

known, however, that another season would come, the actors would

reaeppear, and an "opus" would be given; whether it should turn

out a tragedy, or a Miriam's song of deliverance, no one was able

to predict. Meantime, the women of Colorado--to change the

figure--bivouacked on the battle-field, and sent for

reinforcements against the fall campaign. They held themselves

well together, and used their best endeavors to educate public

sentiment.

A column in the Denver _Rocky Mountain News_, a pioneer paper

then edited by W. N. Byers, was offered the woman suffrage

association, through which to urge our claims. The column was put

into the hands of Mrs. Campbell, the wife of E. L. Campbell, of

the law firm of Patterson & Campbell of Denver, for editorship.

This lady, from whose editorials quotations will be given, was

too timid (she herself begs us to say cowardly) to use her name

in print, and so translated it into its German equivalent of

_Schlachtfeld_, thus nullifying whatever of weight her own name

would have carried in the way of personal and social endorsement

of an unpopular cause. Her sister, Mrs. T. M. Patterson, an early

and earnest member of the Colorado Suffrage Association, "bore

testimony" as courageously and constantly as her environment

permitted.

Mrs. Gov. McCook, as previously stated, had been the first woman

in Colorado to set the example of a spirited claim to simple

political justice for her sex, but she, alas! at the date now

reached in our sketch, was dead--in her beautiful youth, in the

first flower of her sweet, bright womanhood. Her loss to the

cause can best be measured by those who know what an immense

uplifting power is present when an intelligent man in an

influential position joins his personal and political force to

his wife's personal and social force in the endeavor to

accomplish an object dear to both.

It is a pity not to register here, however inadequately, some

outline of many figures that rise to form a part of the picture

of Colorado in 1876-7. When liberty shall have been achieved, and

all citizens shall be comfortably enjoying its direct and

indirect blessings, this book should be found to have preserved

in the amber of its pages the names of those who bravely wrought

for freedom in that earlier time. Would that one might indeed

summon them all by a roll-call! But they will not answer--they

say only: "Let our work stand for us, be its out-come small or

great."

To Dr. Alida C. Avery, however, whatever the outcome, a weighty

obligation is due from all past, present and future laborers in

this cause in Colorado. She it was who set at work and kept at

work the interplay of ideas and efforts which accomplished what

was done. Through her personal acquaintance with the immortals at

the East, Lucy Stone, Susan B. Anthony, Henry B. Blackwell, she

drew them to Colorado during the campaign about to be described,

and with them came others. Mrs. M. W. Campbell and her husband

reaeppeared to do faithful service, and then came also Miss Lelia

Patridge of Philadelphia, a young, graceful, and effective

speaker,--so the local papers constantly describe her, and then

came, in the person of Miss Matilda Hindman of Pittsburg Pa., one

of the ablest women of the whole campaign. Gentle, persuasive,

womanly, she was at the same time armed at all points with fact,

argument, and illustration, and her zeal was only equaled by her

power of sustained labor.

Many of these same qualities belong to Mrs. M. F. Shields, of

Colorado Springs, one of the committee on constitutional work in

the campaign of 1876, and an ardent, unceasing, unselfish laborer

in the church, in suffrage and temperance, for more than ten

years. She did not lecture, but "talked"; talked to five hundred

men at a time as if they were her own sons, and only needed to be

shown they were conniving at injustice, in order to turn about

and do the right thing. This same element of "motherliness" it

was, which gained her the respectful attention of an audience of

the roughest and most ignorant Cornish miners up in Caribou, who

would listen to no other woman speaking upon the subject. When

the members of the famous constitutional committee were

considering the suffrage petition, prior to making their report,

Judge Stone of Pueblo, tried to persuade the Spanish-speaking

member that to grant the franchise to women would be to be false

to his party, as those women were all Democrats. But Senor Vigil

replied that he had been talking through his interpreter to the

"nice old lady, who smiled so much" (meaning Mrs. Shields), and

he knew what they asked was all right, and he should vote for it.

Of the men who were willing to obey Paul's entreaty to "help

those women," must be named in the front rank David M. Richards

of Denver, a pioneer of '59, and as brave and generous and true a

heart as ever beat in time to the pulse of progress, Rev. B. F.

Crary, a true apostolic helper, Mr. Henry C. Dillon, a young

western Raleigh for knightly chivalry, Hon. J. B. Belford, member

of congress then and now, Judge H. P. H. Bromwell, who needs no

commendation from the historian, as his eloquent minority report

speaks adequately for him; these, and very many more, both men

and women, have, as the French say, "deserved well of the State

and of their generation."

And it was once more to the aid of these men and women that the

East sent reinforcements as soon as the winter of 1877 was well

ushered in. An annual convention was announced for January 15, in

Denver. When the bitter cold evening came it seemed doubtful if

any great number of persons would be present, but the large

Lawrence street Methodist Church was, on the contrary, packed to

its utmost capacity. Rev. Mr. Eads, pastor of the church, opened

the meeting with prayer, and Dr. Avery, as president of the

association, gave a brief _resume_ of the work during its one

year of existence. Colonel Henry Logan of Boulder (formerly of

Illinois), made a manly and telling speech in favor of a measure

which he called one of axiomatic justice. Mrs. Wright of New

York, after a piquant address, announced the meeting of the

convention for the next day. On the following morning a business

session was held, and officers elected for the year.[489] In the

afternoon speeches were made by Dr. Crary, Mrs. Shields, and Mr.

David Boyd of Greeley, and in the evening by Mr. Henry C. Dillon

and Rev. J. R. Eads, the closing and crowning speech of the

convention being given by Miss Laura Hanna of Denver, a _petite_,

pretty young girl, whose remarks made a _bonne bouche_ with which

to close the feast. Interest in the subject rose to fever heat

before October. Pulpit, press and fireside were occupied with its

discussion. The most effective, and at the same time,

exasperating opposition, came from the pulpit, but there was also

vigorous help from the same quarter. The Catholic Bishop preached

a series of sermons and lectures, in which he fulminated all the

thunders of apostolic and papal revelation against women who

wanted to vote:

Though strong-minded women who are not satisfied with the

disposition of Providence and who wish to go beyond the

condition of their sex, profess no doubt to be Christians,

do they consult the Bible?--do they follow the Bible? I fear

not. Had God intended to create a companion for man, capable

of following the same pursuits, able to undertake the same

labors, he would have created another man; but he created a

woman, and she fell. * * * The class of women wanting

suffrage are battalions of old maids disappointed in

love--women separated from their husbands or divorced by men

from their sacred obligations--women who, though married,

wish to hold the reins of the family government, for there

never was a woman happy in her home who wished for female

suffrage. * * * Who will take charge of those young children

(if they consent to have any) while mothers as surgeons are

operating indiscriminately upon the victims of a terrible

railway disaster? * * * No kind husband will refuse to

nurse the baby on Sunday (when every kind of business is

stopped) in order to let his wife attend church; but even

then, as it is not his natural duty, he will soon be tired

of it and perhaps get impatient waiting for the mother,

chiefly when the baby is crying.

These, with the omnipresent quotations from St. Paul to the

effect that women shall keep silence in the church, etc., formed

the argument of the Bishop in two or three lengthy sermons.

Indignant men, disgusted with the caliber of the opposition and

yet obliged to notice it on account of the position of the

divine, made ample rejoinders. Rev. Dr. Crary of Golden, in an

exhaustive review of the Bishop's discourse, deprecated the

making permanent and of universal application the commands which

with Paul were evidently temporary and local, and said half the

churches in Christendom would be closed if these were literally

obeyed:

"Women should not usurp authority, therefore men should

usurp all authority." This is the sort of logic we have

always heard from men who are trotting along in the wake of

progress and howling because the centuries do not stop

rolling onward. In barbarous regions Paul is paraded against

educating girls at all. In half-civilized nations Paul is

doing service against educating girls except in the

rudiments. Among people who are just beginning to see the

hill-tops of a higher, nobler world, Paul is still on duty

crowding off women from high-schools and colleges. Proud

universities to-day have Paul standing guard over medical

meanness and pushing down aspiring female souls from the

founts of knowledge. Within our memory Paul has been the

standing demonstration in favor of slavery, intemperance and

the oppression of women.

Another sermon in which the Bishop lays solemn stress on the one

sacred, inevitable duty of women to become wives and mothers, was

answered by Mr. David Boyd of Greeley, who, among other things,

asks the Bishop:

How, in view of the injunction to increase and multiply, he

can justify the large celibate class created by positive

command of the Catholic church, not only by the ordination

of priests, but by the constant urging of the church that

women should become the barren brides of Christ by taking on

them the vows of nuns.

The Bishop published his lectures in pamphlet form, that their

influence might be far-reaching, and curiously enough, the very

same lectures were printed and scattered by the friends of

suffrage as the best sort of document for the campaign now fairly

inaugurated. D. M. Richards, the able chairman of the executive

committee, and Dr. Avery, president of the association, showed

themselves capable of both conceiving and executing a plan of

operations which had the merit of at least deserving victory.

There was no lack of pens to defend women's claim to equal

chances in the struggle for existence. In Denver, the _Rocky

Mountain News_ and the _Times_ planted themselves fairly and

squarely in an affirmative attitude, and gave generous aid to the

effort. The _Tribune's_ columns were in a state of chronic

congestion from a plethora of protests, both feminine and

masculine. One young lawyer said: "If suffrage is to come, let it

come by man's call, and not by woman's clamor"; and, "When all

the women of the land can show the ability to rear a family, and

at the same time become eminent in some profession or art, then

men will gladly welcome them." Whereupon the women naturally

rushed into print to protest against the qualifications required

of them, compared with those required of men.

It is safe to say, that from the middle of January, 1877, until

the following October, the most prominent theme of public

discussion was this question of suffrage for women. Miners

discussed it around their camp-fires, and "freighters" on their

long slow journeys over the mountain trails argued _pro_ and

_con_, whether they should "let" women have the ballot. Women

themselves argued and studied and worked earnestly. One lawyer's

wife, who declared that no refined woman would contend for such a

right, and that no woman with self-respect would be found

electioneering, herself urged every man of her acquaintance to

vote against the measure, and even triumphantly reported that she

had spoken to seventy-five men who were strangers to her, and

secured their promise to vote against the pending amendment.

This, however, must not be mistaken for electioneering.

On Wednesday, August 15, an equal rights mass-meeting was held in

Denver, for the purpose of organizing a county central committee,

and for an informal discussion of plans for the campaign. Judge

H. P. H. Bromwell and H. C. Dillon spoke, with earnest repetition

of former pledges of devotion to the cause, and Gov. Evans said:

Equal suffrage is necessary to equal rights. It is fortunate

that we have in Colorado an opportunity of bringing to bear

the restraining, purifying and ennobling influence of women

upon politics. It is a reform that will require all the

benign influences of the country to sustain and carry out,

and, as I hope for the perpetuation of our free

institutions, I dare not neglect the most promising and

potent means of purifying politics, and I regard the

influence of women as this means.

Major Bright of Wyoming, was introduced as the man who framed and

brought in the first bill for the enfranchisement of women. Judge

W. B. Mills said: "It is an anomalous condition of affairs which

made it necessary for a woman to ask a man whether she should

vote," and referring to all the reforms and changes of the last

half century, predicted that the extension of the franchise to

woman would be the next in order.

The meeting was a full and fervid one, and great confidence of

success was felt and expressed. A committee of seventeen was

appointed[490] and this committee did its full duty in

districting the territory and sending out speakers. Mr. Henry B.

Blackwell, Lucy Stone and Miss Anthony arrived almost immediately

after this, and henceforth the advocates of suffrage swarmed

through the rocky highways and byways of Colorado as eagerly, if

not as multitudinously, as its gold seekers. Mrs. Campbell wrote

to the _Woman's Journal_:

We have now been at work two weeks. Some of our meetings are

very encouraging, some not so much so. But the meetings are

only one feature of the work. We stop along the way and

search out all the leading men in each voting precinct, and

secure the names of those who will work on election day. We

do more talking out of meeting than in. We rode thirty-five

miles yesterday, and arrived here after six o'clock in the

evening. While Mr. Campbell was taking care of the horse, I

filled out bills before taking off my hat and duster; in

fifteen minutes they were being distributed, and at eight

o'clock I was speaking to a good-sized audience.

On October 1, a monster meeting was held in the Lawrence street

Methodist Church, and was addressed by Lucy Stone, Miss Matilda

Hindman, Mrs. Campbell, and Dr. Avery. The most intense interest

was manifested, and the excellent speeches heartily applauded.

The next day (Sunday) the Rev. Dr. Bliss of the Presbyterian

Church, preached a sermon in his own pulpit, on "Woman Suffrage

and the Model Wife and Mother," in which he alluded to "certain

brawling, ranting women, bristling for their rights," and said

God had intended woman to be a wife and mother, and the eternal

fitness of things forbade her to be anything else. If women could

vote, those who were wives now would live in endless bickerings

with their husbands over politics, and those who were not wives

would not marry."

These utterences brought out many replies. One was in the column

edited by "Mrs. Schlachtfeld," and may perhaps be quoted as a

specimen of her editorial work, such being, as we have intimated,

her one service to suffrage, and that incognito:

One of the daily, dismal forecasts of the male Cassandras of

our time is, that in the event of women becoming emancipated

from the legal thralldom that disables them, they will

acquire a sudden distaste for matrimony, the direful

consequences of which will be a gradual extermination of

homes, and the extinction of the human species. This is an

artless and extremely suggestive lament. In the first

place--accepting that prophecy as true--why will women not

marry? Because, they will then be independent of men;

because in a fair field for competition where ability and

not sex shall determine employment and remuneration, women

will have an equal chance with men for distinction and

reward, for triumphs commercial and professional as well as

social, and hence, needing men less, either to make them

homes, or to gratify indirectly their ambitions, their

affections will become atrophied, the springs of domestic

life will disappear in the arid sands of an unfeminine

publicity, and marriage, with all the wearying cares and

burdens and anxieties that it inevitably brings to every

earnest woman, will be regarded more and more as a state to

be shunned. The few who enter it will be compassionated much

as a minister is who undertakes a dangerous foreign mission.

Men will stand mateless, and the ruins of the hymeneal

altars everywhere crumble mournfully away, and be known to

tradition only by their vanishing inscriptions: "To the

unknown god." But it is ill jesting over that which tugs at

every woman's heartstrings and which impinges upon the very

life-centres of society. If women, on being made really free

to choose, will not marry, then we must arraign men on the

charge of having made the married state so irksome and

distasteful to women that they prefer celibacy when they

dare enjoy it. Observe, however, the inconsistency of

another line of reasoning running parallel with this in the

floating literature of the day: "Motherhood," these writers

say, "is the natural vocation of women; is, indeed, an

instinct so mighty, even if unconscious, that it draws women

toward matrimony with a yearning as irresistible as that

which pulls the great sea upon the land in blind response to

the moon." If this be true, society is safe, and women will

still be wives, no matter how much they may exult in

political freedom, no matter how alluringly individual

careers may open before them, nor how accessible the

tempting prizes of human ambition may become.

Well, the day came,--the _dies irae_ for one side or the other,

and it proved to be for the "one." The measure was defeated. Ten

thousand votes were for it, twenty thousand against it. Women

remained at the polls all day, distributing ballots, and

answering objections. They had flowers on all the little tables

where the tickets were heaped, on which were printed the three

words, "Woman Suffrage Approved," words for many pregnant with

hope for a new impetus to civilization, for others with a

misfortune only to be compared to that which happened in Greece

when Ino boiled the seed corn of a whole kingdom, and thus not

only lost the crop of that year, but, by the subtle interplay of

the laws by which evolution proceeds, set back humanity for a

period not to be reckoned in years. Mrs. H. S. Mendenhall of

Georgetown wrote to Dr. Avery on the evening of election day:

Before this reaches you the telegraph will have given you

the result of the day's work all over the State, but I

thought I would jot down a line while the experiences of the

last ten hours were fresh in my mind. Last evening our

committee appointed ladies to represent the interests of

woman suffrage at the polls. To my surprise, many evaded the

work who were, nevertheless, strongly in favor of the

measure. Mrs. Dr. Collins and I were the only ones at the

lowest and most important precinct until one o'clock, when

we were joined by the wife of the Presbyterian minister. Our

course was somewhat as follows: On the approach of a voter,

we would ask him, "have you voted?" If he had, we usually

troubled him no further; if he had not, we asked, "Can you

vote for woman suffrage?" If he approved, we supplied him

with his ticket; if he disapproved, we asked him for his

objections, and we have listened to some comical ones

to-day. One man asked me, though not rudely, "Who is cooking

your husband's dinner?" I promptly invited him to dine with

us. Another spoke of neglected household duties, and when I

mentioned a loaf of bread I had just baked, and should be

glad to have him see, he said, "I expect you can bake

bread," but he voted against us. The Methodist men were for

us; the Presbyterians and Episcopalians very fairly so, and

the Roman Catholics were not all against us, some of the

prominent members of that church working and voting for

woman suffrage. The liquor interest went entirely against

us, as far as I know.

The observations of the day have led me to several general

conclusions, to which, of course, exceptions exist: (1)

Married men will vote for suffrage if their wives appreciate

its importance. (2) Men without family ties, and especially

if they have associated with a bad class of women, will vote

against it. (3) Boys who have just reached their majority

will vote against it more uniformly than any other class of

men. We were treated with the utmost respect by all except

the last class. Destitute of experience, and big with their

own importance, these young sovereigns will speak to a woman

twice their years with a flippancy which the most ignorant

foreigner of mature age would not use, and I have to-day

been tempted to believe that no one is fitted to exercise

the American franchise under twenty-five years of age.

The main objection which I heard repeatedly urged was, women

do not want to vote. This seems to be the great

stumbling-block to our brethren. Men were continually saying

that their wives told them not to vote for woman suffrage.

If we are defeated this time I know we can succeed in the

next campaign, or just as soon as we can educate enough

prominent women up to the point of coming out plainly on the

subject. Then all men, or all but the vicious men who always

vote against every good thing, will give in right away.

Lucy Stone, in a letter to the _Woman's Journal_ describes

similar scenes enacted that day in Denver; speaks of the order

and quiet prevailing at the polls, of the flowers on all the

tables, and, in spite of the strangeness of the occasion, of the

presence of women as evidently a new and beneficent element

there. Rev. Dr. Ellis of the Baptist Church, who, on the Sunday

before had preached from the text, "Help those Women," was using

his influence to convert those doubtful or opposed. Rev. Mr.

Bliss, who had declared in his pulpit that "the only two women

the Bible mentioned as having meddled in politics were Jezebel

and Herodias," was there also, to warn men not to vote for equal

rights for women. At other polls I saw colored men, once slaves,

electioneering and voting against the rights of women. When

remonstrated with, one said: "We want the women at home cooking

our dinners." A shrewd colored woman asked whether they had

provided any dinner to cook, and added that most of the colored

women there had to earn their dinner as well as cook it.

* * * * *

Hear the conclusion of the whole matter. In the words of the last

editorial of the woman's column in the _Rocky Mountain News_:

Woman's hour has not yet struck! The chimes that were

waiting to ring out the tidings of her liberty--the candles

furtively stored against an illumination which should typify

a new influx of light, the achievement of a victory whose

meaning and promise at least seemed to those who both prayed

and worked for it, neither trivial nor selfish--all these

are relegated to the guardianship of Patience and Hope.

Colorado has refused to enfranchise its women. * * * * * *

The Germans, the Catholics, and the negroes were said to be

against us. Naturally, those who themselves most keenly

feel, or most recently have felt, the galling yoke of

arbitrary rule, are most disposed to derive a certain

enjoyment from the daily contemplation of a noble class

still in bondage. * * * * * * But _all_ opposition, in

whatever guise, comes back at last to be written under one

rubric--the immaturity of woman. We make this dispassionate

statement of a fact. We feel neither scorn nor anger, and we

trust that we shall excite none. It is a fault which time

will cure, but meantime it is the grand factor in our

account. Every other argument has been met--every other

stronghold of opposition taken. Woman's claim to the ballot

has been shown to rest in justice on the very foundation

stone of democratic government--has been, from the Christian

standpoint, as completely exonerated from the charge of

impiety as ever anti-slavery and anti-polygamy were, and the

fact which was the slogan of the anti-suffragists still

remains: the mass of the women do not want it. We do not

quarrel with the fact, but state it to give the real reason

for our failures--the real objective point for our future

work.

The complacency with which we are able to state without fear

of contradiction that the body of intelligent and thoughtful

women _do_ want suffrage must not obscure our perception of

the equal truth of what we have just stated above. To accept

this verity and turn our energies toward the emancipation of

our own sex--toward their emancipation from frivolous aims,

petty prejudices, and that attitude toward the other sex

which is really the sycophancy born of vanity and weakness;

to make them recognize the State as a multiplication of

their own families, and patriotism as the broadening of

their love of home; to make them see that that mother will

be most respected whose son does not, when a downy beard is

grown, suddenly tower above her in the supercilious

enjoyment of an artificial superiority--a superiority which

consists simply, as Figaro says, in his having taken the

trouble to be born; to make them see, finally, that in the

highest exercise of all the powers with which God has

endowed her, woman can no more refuse the duties of

citizenship, than she can refuse the duties of wifehood and

motherhood, once having accepted those sacred relations.

This is our first duty, and this the scope of our work, if

we would attain suffrage in 1879, or even in 1900.

FOOTNOTES:

[487] _President_, Alida C. Avery, M. D., Denver.

_Vice-Presidents_, Rev. Mr. Harford, Denver; Mr. J. E. Washburn,

Big Thompson; Mrs. H. M. Lee, Longmont; Mrs. M. M. Sheetz, Canon

City; Mrs. L. S. Ruhn, Del Norte; Mr. N. C. Meeker, Greeley; Hon.

Willard Teller, Central; Mr. D. M. Richards, Denver; Mr. J. B.

Harrington, Littleton; Mr. A. E. Lee, Boulder; Rev. Wm. Shephard,

Canon City. _Recording Secretary_, Miss Eunice D. Sewall, Denver.

_Corresponding Secretary_, Mrs. A. L. Washburn, Big Thompson.

_Treasurer_, Mrs. I. T. Hanna, Denver. _Executive Committee_, Mrs.

M. F. Shields, Colorado Springs; Mr. A. L. Ellis, Boulder; Mrs. M.

E. Hale, Denver; Mr. W. A. Wilkes, Colorado Springs; Mr. J. R.

Hanna, Denver; Mrs. S. C. Wilber, Greeley; Rev. Dr. Crary, Pueblo.

[488] Of the membership of this committee a grateful word is to be

said: Mrs. Campbell is a woman of agreeable and stately presence,

and adds to thorough information on all points connected with

the claims made in this campaign, an unusual facility and

persuasiveness of language. Mrs. Shields is one of the most lovable

women to be seen in the suffrage panorama; a tower of strength in

her own family, where she is at once the comrade and commander of

her children--the help-meet and friend of her husband. She inspires

immediate confidence whenever she confronts an audience. Mrs.

Washburn is also an attractive and large-hearted woman--a

"Granger," and thus experienced in united, organized action of men

and women for furthering the interests of both. Mrs. Hanna, a tall,

graceful blonde, more reserved in speech but entirely intelligent

in faith and in labor, represented to many men of the convention

the very qualities they liked in their own wives.

[489] _President_, Dr. Alida C. Avery of Denver; _Vice-Presidents_,

D. Howe, Mrs. M. B. Hart, J. E. Washburn, Mrs. Emma Moody, Willard

Teller, J. B. Harrington, A. E. Lee, and N. C. Meeker; _Recording

Secretary_, Birks Carnforth of Denver; _Corresponding Secretary_,

Mrs. T. M. Patterson of Denver; _Treasurer_, Mrs. H. C. Lawson of

Denver; _Executive Committee_, D. M. Richards, Mrs. M. F. Shields,

Mrs. M. E. Hale, H. McAllister, Mrs. Birks Carnforth, J. A.

Dresser, A. J. Wilber, B. F. Crary, Miss Annie Figg, H. Logan, J.

R. Eads, F. M. Ellis, C. Roby, Judge Jones, General Cameron, B. H.

Eaton, Agapita Vigil, W. B. Felton, S. C. Charles and J. B.

Campbell.

[490] Consisting of Dr. R. G. Buckingham, chairman, Hon. John

Evans, Judge G. W. Miller, Benjamin D. Spencer, A. J. Williams,

Captain Richard Sopris, E. B. Sluth, John Armor, Hon. E. L.

Campbell, John Walker, J. U. Marlow, Col. W. H. Bright, John G.

Lilly, John S. McCool, J. W. Nesmyth, Henry O. Wagoner, and Dr.

Martimore.

CHAPTER LII.

WYOMING.

The Dawn of the New Day, December, 1869--The Goal Reached in

England and America--Territory Organized, May, 1869--Legislative

Action--Bill for Woman Suffrage--William H. Bright--Gov. Campbell

Signs the Bill--Appoints Esther Morris, Justice of the Peace,

March, 1870--Women on the Jury, Chief-Justice Howe, Presiding--J.

W. Kingman, Associate-Justice, Addresses the Jury--Women Promptly

take their Places--Sunday Laws Enforced--Comments of the

Press--Judge Howe's Letter--Laramie _Sentinel_--J. H.

Heyford--Women Voting, 1870--Grandma Swain the First to Cast her

Ballot--Effort to Repeal the Law, 1871--Gov. Campbell's Veto--Mr.

Corlett--Rapid Growth of Public Opinion in Favor of Woman

Suffrage.

After recording such a long succession of disappointments and

humiliations for women in all the States in their worthy endeavors

for higher education, for profitable employment in the trades and

professions and for equal social, civil and political rights, it is

with renewed self-respect and a stronger hope of better days to

come that we turn to the magnificent territory of Wyoming, where

the foundations of the first true republic were laid deep and

strong in equal rights to all, and where for the first time in the

history of the race woman has been recognized as a sovereign in her

own right--an independent, responsible being--endowed with the

capacity for self-government. This great event in the history of

human progress transpired in 1869.

Neither the point nor the period for this experiment could have

been more fitly chosen. Midway across this vast western continent,

on the highest plane of land, rising from three to eight thousand

feet above the level of the sea, where gigantic mountain-peaks

shooting still higher seem to touch the clouds, while at their feet

flow the great rivers that traverse the State in all directions,

emptying themselves after weary wanderings into the Pacific ocean

at last; such was the grand point where woman was first crowned

with the rights of citizenship. And the period was equally marked.

To reach the goal of self-government the women of England and

America seemed to be vieing with each other in the race, now one

holding the advance position, now the other. And in many respects

their struggles and failures were similar. When seeking the

advantages of collegiate education, the women of England were

compelled to go to France, Austria and Switzerland for the

opportunities they could not enjoy in their own country. The women

of our Eastern States followed their example, or went to Western

institutions for such privileges, granted by Oberlin and Antioch in

Ohio, Ann Arbor in Michigan, Washington University in Missouri, and

refused in all the colleges of the East. For long years, alike they

endured ridicule and bitter persecution to secure a foothold in

their universities at home.

Our battles in Parliament and in the Congress of the United States

were simultaneous. While nine senators,[491] staunch and true,

voted in favor of woman suffrage in 1866, and women were rolling up

their petitions for a constitutional amendment in '68 and '69, with

Samuel C. Pomeroy in the Senate and George W. Julian in the House,

the women of England, keeping step and time, found their champions

in the House of Commons in John Stuart Mill and Jacob Bright in

1867-69, and no sooner were their mammoth petitions presented in

parliament than ours were rolled into the halls of congress. At

last we reached the goal, the women of England in 1869 and those of

Wyoming in 1870. But what the former gained in time the latter far

surpassed in privilege. While to the English woman only a limited

suffrage was accorded, in the vast territory of Wyoming, larger

than all Great Britain, all the rights of citizenship were fully

and freely conferred by one act of the legislature--the right to

vote at all elections on all questions and to hold any office in

the gift of the people.

The successive steps by which this was accomplished are given us by

Hon. J. W. Kingman, associate-justice in the territory for several

years:

It is now sixteen years since the act was passed giving women the

right to vote at all elections in this territory, including all

the rights of an elector, with the right to hold office. The

language of the statute is broad, and beyond the reach of

evasion. It is as follows:

That every woman of the age of twenty-one years, residing in

the territory, may, at every election to be holden under the

laws thereof, cast her vote; and her rights to the elective

franchise, and to hold office, shall be the same, under the

election laws of the territory, as those of the electors.

There was no half-way work about it, no quibbling, no grudgingly

parting with political power, no fear of consequences, but a

manly acknowledgment of equal rights and equal privileges, among

all the citizens of the new territory. Nor was this the only act

of that first legislature on the subject of equal rights. They

passed the following:

AN ACT _to protect married women in their separate property,

and the enjoyment of their labor._

SECTION 1. That all the property, both real and personal,

belonging to any married woman as her sole and separate

property, or which any woman hereafter married, owns at the

time of her marriage, or which any married woman during

coverture acquires in good faith from any person other than

her husband, by descent or otherwise, together with all the

rents, issues, increase and profits thereof, shall,

notwithstanding her marriage, be and remain during

coverture, her sole and separate property, under her sole

control, and be held, owned, possessed and enjoyed by her,

the same as though she were sole and unmarried, and shall

not be subject to the disposal, control or interference of

her husband, and shall be exempt from execution or

attachment for the debts of her husband.

SEC. 2. Any married woman may bargain, sell, and convey, her

personal property, and enter into any contract in reference

to the same, as if she were _sole_.

SEC. 3. Any woman may, while married, sue and be sued in all

matters having relation to her property, person or

reputation, in the same manner as if she were _sole_.

SEC. 4. Any married woman may, while married, make a will

the same as though she were _sole_.

SEC. 5. Any married woman may carry on any trade or

business, and perform any labor or service on her sole and

separate account, and the earnings of any married woman from

her trade, business, labor or services, shall be her sole

and separate property, and may be used and invested by her

in her own name; and she may sue and be sued, as if _sole_,

in regard to her trade, business, labor, services, and

earnings. * * *

SEC. 9. The separate deed of the husband shall convey no

interest in the wife's lands.

Under the statute for distributions, the wife is treated exactly

as the husband is; each having the same right in the estate of

the other. The provisions are so unusual and peculiar, that I

venture to copy some of them:

* * * * If such intestate leave a husband or wife, _and_

children, him or her surviving, one-half of such estate

shall descend to such surviving husband or wife, and the

residue thereof * * * * to the children; if such intestate

leave a husband or wife and _no_ child, * * * * then the

property shall descend as follows, to wit: three-fourths

thereof to such remaining husband or wife, and one-fourth

thereof to the father and mother of the intestate, or the

survivor of them; provided that if the estate of such

intestate, real and personal, does not exceed in volume the

sum of ten thousand dollars, then the whole thereof shall

descend to and rest in the surviving husband or wife as his

or her absolute estate. Dower and the tenancy by the curtesy

are abolished.

The school law also provides:

SEC. 9. In the employment of teachers no discrimination

shall be made, in the question of pay, on account of sex,

when the persons are equally qualified.

Such are some of the radical enactments of the first legislature

of Wyoming territory in reference to woman's rights; and to a

person who has grown up under the common law and the usages of

English-speaking people, they undoubtedly appear extravagant if

not revolutionary, and well calculated to disturb or overthrow

the very foundations of social order. Experience has not,

however, justified any such apprehensions. The people of Wyoming

have prospered under these laws, and are growing to like them

better and better, and adapt themselves more and more to their

provisions. The object of this sketch is to trace the progress

and development of this new legislation, and gather up some of

its consequences as they have been observed in our social and

political relations.

The territory of Wyoming was first organized in May, 1869. The

Union Pacific railroad was completed on the 9th of the month, and

the transcontinental route opened to the public. There were but

few people in the territory at that time, except such as had been

brought hither in connection with the building of that road, and

while some of them were good people, well-educated, and came to

stay, many were reckless, wicked and wandering. The first

election was held in September, 1869, for the election of a

delegate in congress, and members of the Council and House of

Representatives for the first territorial legislature. There was

a good deal of party feeling developed, and election day

witnessed a sharp and vigorous struggle. The candidates and their

friends spent money freely, and every liquor shop was thrown open

to all who would drink. I was about to say that any one could

imagine the consequences; but in fact I do not believe that any

one could picture to himself the mad follies, and frightful

scenes of that drunken election. Peaceful people did not dare to

walk the streets, in some of the towns, during the latter part of

the day and evening. At South Pass City, some drunken fellows

with large knives and loaded revolvers swaggered around the

polls, and swore that no negro should vote. One man remarked

quietly that he thought the negroes had as good a right to vote

as any of them had. He was immediately knocked down, jumped on,

kicked and pounded without mercy, and would have been killed, had

not his friends rushed into the brutal crowd and dragged him out,

bloody and insensible. It was a long time before the poor fellow

recovered from his injuries. There were quite a number of colored

men who wanted to vote, but did not dare approach the polls until

the United States Marshal placed himself at their head and with

revolver in hand escorted them through the crowd, saying he would

shoot the first man that interfered with them. There was much

quarreling and tumult, but the negroes voted. This was only a

sample of the day's doings, and characteristic of the election

all over the territory. The result was that every Republican was

defeated, and every Democratic candidate elected; and the whisky

shops had shown themselves to be the ruling power in Wyoming.

From such an inspiration one could hardly expect a revelation of

much value! Yet there were some fair men among those elected.

The legislature met October 12, 1869. Wm. H. Bright was elected

president of the Council. As he was the author of the woman

suffrage bill, and did more than all others to secure its

passage, some account of him may be of interest. He was a man of

much energy and of good natural endowments, but entirely without

school education. He said frankly, "I have never been to school a

day in my life, and where I learned to read and write I do not

know." His character was not above reproach, but he had an

excellent, well-informed wife, and he was a kind, indulgent

husband. In fact, he venerated his wife, and submitted to her

judgment and influence more willingly than one could have

supposed; and she was in favor of woman suffrage.[492] There were

a few other men in that legislature, whose wives exercised a

similar influence; but Mr. Bright found it up-hill work to get a

majority for his bill, and it dragged along until near the close

of the session. The character of the arguments he used, and the

means he employed to win success are perhaps worthy of notice, as

showing the men he had to deal with. I ought to say distinctly,

that Mr. Bright was himself fully and firmly convinced of the

justice and policy of his bill, and gave his whole energy and

influence to secure its passage; he secured some members by

arguing to support their pet schemes in return, and some he won

over by even less creditable means. He got some votes by

admitting that the governor would veto the bill (and it was

generally understood that he would), insisting at the same time,

that it would give the Democrats an advantage in future elections

by showing that they were in favor of liberal measures while the

Republican governor and the Republican party were opposed to

them. The favorite argument, however, and by far the most

effective, was this: it would prove a great advertisement, would

make a great deal of talk, and attract attention to the

legislature, and the territory, more effectually than anything

else. The bill was finally passed and sent to the governor. I

must add, however, that many letters were written from different

parts of the territory, and particularly by the women, to members

of the legislature, urging its passage and approving its object.

On receipt of the bill, the governor was in great doubt what

course to take. He was inclined to veto it, and had so expressed

himself; but he did not like to take the responsibility of

offending the women in the territory, or of placing the

Republican party in open hostility to a measure which he saw

might become of political force and importance. I remember well

an interview that Chief-Justice Howe and myself had with him at

that time, in which we discussed the policy of the bill, and both

of us urged him to sign it with all the arguments we could

command. After a protracted consultation we left him still

doubtful what he would do.[493] But in the end he signed it, and

drew upon himself the bitter curses of those Democrats who had

voted for the bill with the expectation that he would veto it.

From this time onward, the measure became rather a Republican

than a Democratic principle, and found more of its friends in the

former party, and more of its enemies in the latter.

Soon after the passage of the bill, a vacancy occurred in the

office of justice of the peace, at South Pass City, the county

seat of Sweetwater county, and the home of Mr. Bright and of Mrs.

Esther Morris. At the request of the county attorney--who favored

woman suffrage--the commissioners, two of whom also approved of

it, appointed Mrs. Morris to fill the vacancy. The legislature

had vested the appointment of officers, in case of a vacancy, in

the county commissioners, but the organic act of congress,

creating the territory, provided that the governor "shall

commission all officers who shall be appointed under the laws of

said territory." Governor Campbell being absent from the

territory at the time, the secretary, acting as governor, sent

Mrs. Morris her commission. It is due to Secretary Lee to say

that he was an earnest advocate of woman's enfranchisement, and

labored for the passage of the bill, and gladly embraced the

opportunity to confirm a woman in office. The important fact is,

however, that Mrs. Morris' neighbors first suggested the

appointment that secured her the office, and manfully sustained

her during her whole term. She tried between thirty and forty

cases, and decided them so acceptably that not one of them was

appealed to a higher court; and I know of no one who has held the

office of justice of the peace in this territory, who has left a

more acceptable record, in all respects, than has Mrs. Esther

Morris. Some other appointments of women to office were made, but

I do not find that any of them entered upon its duties.

The first term of the District Court, under the statutes passed

by the first legislature, was to be held at Laramie City, on the

first Monday of March, 1870. When the jurors were drawn, a large

number of women were selected, for both grand and petit jurors.

As this was not done by the friends of woman suffrage, there was

evidently an intention of making the whole subject odious and

ridiculous, and giving it a death-blow at the outset. A great

deal of feeling was excited among the people, and some effort

made to prejudice the women against acting as jurors, and even

threats, ridicule and abuse, in some cases, were indulged in.

Their husbands were more pestered and badgered than the women,

and some of them were so much inflamed that they declared they

would never live with their wives again if they served on the

jury. The fact that women were drawn as jurors was telegraphed

all over the country, and the newspapers came loaded with hostile

and uncomplimentary criticisms. At this stage of the case Col.

Downey, the prosecuting attorney for the county, wrote to Judge

Howe for advice and direction as to the eligibility of the women

as jurors, and what course should be taken in the premises. At

first Judge Howe was much inclined to order the women discharged,

and new juries drawn; and it certainly required no small amount

of moral courage to face the storm of ridicule and abuse that was

blowing from all quarters. We had a long consultation, and came

to the conclusion that since the law had clearly given all the

rights of electors to the women of the territory, they must be

protected in the exercise of these rights if they chose to assume

them; that under no circumstances could the judges permit popular

clamor to deprive the women of their legal rights in the very

presence of the courts themselves. The result was that Judge Howe

wrote the county attorney the following letter:

CHEYENNE, March 3, 1870.

S. W. DOWNEY--_My Dear Sir_: I have your favor of yesterday,

and have carefully considered the question of the

eligibility of women who are "citizens," to serve on juries.

Mr. Justice Kingman has also considered the question, and we

concur in the opinion that such women are eligible. My

reason for this opinion will be given at length, if occasion

requires. I will thank you to make it known to those ladies

who have been summoned on the juries, that they will be

received, protected, and treated with all the respect and

courtesy due, and ever paid, by true American gentlemen to

true American ladies, and that the Court, in all the power

of government, will secure to them all that deference,

security from insult, or anything which ought to offend the

most refined woman, which is accorded in any walks of life

in which the good and true women of our country have

heretofore been accustomed to move. Thus, whatever may have

been, or may now be thought of the policy of admitting women

to the right of suffrage and to hold office, they will have

a fair opportunity, at least in my Court, to demonstrate

their ability in this new field, and prove the policy or

impolicy of occupying it. Of their right to try it I have no

doubt. I hope they will succeed, and the Court will

certainly aid them in all lawful and proper ways. Very

respectfully,

J. H. HOWE, _Chief-Justice_.

When the time came to hold the court, Judge Howe, whose duty it

was to preside, requested me to go with him to Laramie City, and

sit with him during the term. I gladly availed myself of the

opportunity. As soon as we arrived there, Judge Howe was waited

on by a number of gentlemen who endeavored to induce him to order

the discharge of the female jurors without calling them into

court. Some spoke of the impolicy of the proceeding, and said the

women all objected to it and wished to be excused; while some

were cross, and demanded the discharge of their wives, saying

that it was an intentional insult and they would not submit to

it. But Judge Howe told them all firmly, that the women must come

into court, and if, after the whole question was fairly explained

to them, they chose to decline, they should be excused. At the

opening of the court next morning, the house was crowded, and the

female jurors were all there. After the usual preliminaries, an

attorney arose and moved that all the women summoned as jurors be

excused, saying he made the motion at the request of the women

themselves; and that he was assured they did not wish to serve.

Judge Howe then requested me to express my opinion and make some

remarks to the women on the duties devolving on them. I said:

It was a real pleasure to me to see ladies in the

court-room, with the right to take a responsible part in the

proceedings, as grand and petit jurors; that no one knew so

well as they did, the evils our community suffered from

lawless and wicked people; and no one better understood the

difficulties the court labored under in its efforts to

administer justice and punish crime; that the time had come

when the good women of the territory could give us

substantial aid, and we looked to them especially, as the

power which should make the court efficient in the discharge

of its duties; that the new law had conferred on them

important rights, and corresponding duties necessarily

devolved upon them; that I hoped and believed they would not

shrink when so many influences were calling on them for

noble and worthy action; that if they failed us now, the

cause of equal rights would suffer at their hands, not only

in our territory, but in every land where its advocates were

struggling for its recognition; that if they would remain,

their presence would secure a degree of decorum in the

court-room and add a dignity to the proceedings, which the

judges had been unable to command; that we required the

assistance of good women all over the territory, and I

begged them to help us.

Judge Howe then spoke as follows:

It is an innovation and a great novelty to see, as we do

to-day, ladies summoned to serve as jurors. The extension of

political rights and franchise to women is a subject that is

agitating the whole country. I have never taken an active

part in these discussions, but I have long seen that woman

is a victim to the vices, crimes and immoralities of man,

with no power to protect and defend herself from these

evils. I have long felt that such powers of protection

should be conferred upon woman, and it has fallen to our lot

here to act as the pioneers in the movement and to test the

question. The eyes of the whole world are to-day fixed upon

this jury of Albany county. There is not the slightest

impropriety in any lady occupying this position, and I wish

to assure you that the fullest protection of the court shall

be accorded to you. It would be a most shameful scandal that

in our temple of justice and in our courts of law, anything

should be permitted which the most sensitive lady might not

hear with propriety and witness. And here let me add that it

will be a sorry day for any man who shall so far forget the

courtesy due and paid by every American gentleman to every

American lady as to ever by word or act endeavor to deter

you from the exercise of those rights with which the law has

invested you. I conclude with the remark that this is a

question for you to decide for yourselves. No man has any

right to interfere. It seems to me to be eminently proper

for women to sit upon grand juries, which will give them the

best possible opportunities to aid in suppressing the dens

of infamy which curse the country. I shall be glad of your

assistance in the accomplishment of this object. I do not

make these remarks from distrust of any of the gentlemen. On

the contrary, I am exceedingly pleased and gratified with

the indication of intelligence, love of law and good order,

and the gentlemanly deportment which I see manifested here.

The ladies were then told that those who could not conveniently

serve, and those who insisted on being excused, might rise and

they should be discharged. Only one rose and she was excused. But

a victory had been won of no small moment. Seeing the earnestness

of the judges and the dignified character they had given to the

affair, the women were encouraged and pleased, and the enemies of

equal rights, who had planned, as they thought, a stunning blow

to further progress, were silenced and defeated. The current set

rapidly in the other direction and applause, as usual, followed

success. The business of the court proceeded with marked

improvement. The court-room, always crowded, was quiet and

decorous in the extreme. The bar in particular was always on its

good behavior, and wrangling, abuse and buncome speeches were

not heard. When men moved about they walked quietly, on tip-toe,

so as to make no noise, and forbore to whisper or make any

demonstrations in or around the court-room. The women when called

took their chairs in the jury-box with the men, as they do their

seats in church,[494] and no annoyance or reluctance was visible

from the bench. They gave close and intelligent attention to the

details of every case, and the men who sat with them evidently

acted with more conscientious care than usual. The verdicts were

generally satisfactory, except to convicted criminals. They did

not convict every one they tried, but "no guilty man escaped," if

there was sufficient evidence to hold him. The lawyers soon found

out that the usual tricks and subterfuges in criminal cases would

not procure acquittal, and they began to challenge off all the

women called. The court checkmated this move by directing the

sheriff to summon other women in their places, instead of men,

and then came motions for continuances. The result was a great

success and was so acknowledged by all disinterested persons. On

the grand jury were six women and nine men, and they became such

a terror to evil-doers that a stampede began among them and very

many left the town forever. Certainly there was never more

fearless or efficient work performed by a grand jury.

The legislature copied most of the statutes which it enacted from

the laws of Nebraska, and among others the following clauses in

the crimes act, to wit.:

If any person shall keep open any tippling or gaming-house

on the Sabbath day or night, * * * he shall be fined not

exceeding one hundred dollars, or imprisoned in the county

jail not exceeding six months.

Any person who shall hereafter knowingly disturb the peace

and good order of society by labor on the first day of the

week, commonly called Sunday (works of necessity and charity

excepted), shall be fined, on conviction thereof, in any sum

not exceeding fifty dollars.

No attention whatever had been paid to these statutes, and Sunday

was generally the great drinking day of the whole week; the

saloons sold more whiskey and made more money that day than any

other. The women on that grand jury determined to put a stop to

it and enforce these laws. They therefore indicted every liquor

saloon in town. This made a great outcry, not only among the

liquor-sellers but among their customers also. They were all

arrested, brought into court and gave bail; but Judge Howe told

them as this was a new law recently passed, and as it was quite

probable that most of them were ignorant of its provisions, he

would continue the cases with this express understanding, that if

they would strictly obey the law in future these cases should be

dismissed; but if any of them violated it, these cases would be

tried and the full penalty inflicted. They all agreed to this,

and the "Sunday Law," as it was called, was carefully observed

afterwards in Laramie City; and so great has been the change in

that town in the habits of the people and the quiet appearance of

the streets on Sunday, as compared with other towns in the

territory, that it has been nick-named the "Puritan town" of

Wyoming, and, I may add, rejoices in its singularity.

And how was this most successful experiment in equal rights

received and treated by the press and the people out of the

territory? The New York illustrated papers made themselves funny

with caricatures of female juries, and cheap scribblers invented

all sorts of scandals and misrepresentations about them. The

newspapers were overflowing with abuse and adverse criticism, and

only here and there was a manly voice heard in apology or

defense. I copy these extracts as a sample of the rest.

"LADY JURORS."--Under this head the New Orleans _Times_, the

ablest and largest paper in the South, said:

Confusion is becoming worse confounded by the hurried march

of events. Mad theorizings take the form of every-day

realities, and in the confusion of rights and the confusion

of dress, all distinctions of sex are threatened with swift

obliteration. When Anna Dickinson holds forth as the teacher

of strange doctrines in which the masculinity of woman is

preposterously asserted as a true warrant for equality with

man in all his political and industrial relations; when

Susan B. Anthony flashes defiance from lips and eyes which

refuse the blandishment and soft dalliance that in the past

have been so potent with "the sex"; when, in fine, the women

of Wyoming are called from their domestic firesides to serve

as jurors in a court of justice, a question of the day, and

one, too, of the strangest kind, is forced on our attention.

From a careful review of all the surroundings, we think the

Wyoming experiment will lead to beneficial results. By

proving that lady jurors are altogether impracticable--that

they cannot sit as the peers of men without setting at

defiance all the laws of delicacy and propriety--the

conclusion may be reached that it will be far better to let

nature alone in regulating the relations of the sexes.

The Philadelphia _Press_ had the following:

WOMEN AS JURORS.--Now one of the adjuncts of female

citizenship is about to be tested in Wyoming. Eleven women

have been drawn as jurors to serve at the March term of the

Albany County Court. It is stated that immense excitement

has been created thereby, but the nature of the aforesaid

excitement does not transpire. Will women revolutionize

justice? What is female justice, or what is it likely to be?

Would twelve women return the same verdict as twelve men,

supposing that each twelve had heard the same case? Is it

possible for a jury of women, carrying with them all their

sensitiveness, sympathies, predilections, jealousies,

prejudices, hatreds, to reach an impartial verdict? Would

not every criminal be a monster, provided not a female? Can

the sex, ordinarily so quick to pronounce pre-judgments,

divest itself of them sufficiently to enter the jury-box

with unbiased minds? Perhaps it were best to trust the

answer to events. Women may learn to be jurymen, but in so

doing they have a great deal to learn.

So persistent were the attacks and so malignant were the

perversions of truth that Judge Howe, at the request of the

editor, wrote the following letter for publication anonymously in

the Chicago _Legal News_, every statement in which I can confirm

from my own observation. The Judge, after writing the letter,

consented to its publication over his own signature:

CHEYENNE, Wyoming, April 4, 1870.

_Mrs. Myra Bradwell, Chicago, Ill.:_

DEAR MADAM: I am in receipt of your favor of March 26, in

which you request me to "give you a truthful statement, over

my own signature, for publication in your paper, of the

history of, and my observations in regard to, women as grand

and petit jurors in Wyoming." I will comply with your

request, with this qualification, that it be not published

over my own signature, as I do not covet newspaper

publicity, and have already, without any agency or fault of

my own, been subjected to an amount of it which I never

anticipated nor conceived of, and which has been far from

agreeable to me.

I had no agency in the enactment of the law in Wyoming

conferring legal equality upon women. I found it upon the

statute-book of that territory, and in accordance with its

provisions several women were legally drawn by the proper

officers on the grand and petit juries of Albany county, and

were duly summoned by the sheriff without any agency of

mine. On being apprised of these facts, I conceived it to be

my plain duty to fairly enforce this law, as I would any

other; and more than this, I resolved at once that, as it

had fallen to my lot to have the experiment tried under my

administration, it should have a fair trial, and I therefore

assured these women that they could serve or not, as they

chose; that if they chose to serve, the Court would secure

to them the most respectful consideration and deference, and

protect them from insult in word or gesture, and from

everything which might offend a modest and virtuous woman in

any of the walks of life in which the good and true women of

our country have been accustomed to move.

While I had never been an advocate for the law, I felt that

thousands of good men and women had been, and that they had

a right to see it fairly administered; and I was resolved

that it should not be sneered down if I had to employ the

whole power of the court to prevent it. I felt that even

those who were opposed to the policy of admitting women to

the right of suffrage and to hold office would condemn me if

I did not do this. It was also sufficient for me that my own

judgment approved this course.

With such assurances these women chose to serve and were

duly impanelled as jurors. They were educated, cultivated

eastern ladies, who are an honor to their sex. They have,

with true womanly devotion, left their homes of comfort in

the States to share the fortunes of their husbands and

brothers in the far West and to aid them in founding a new

State beyond the Missouri.

And now as to the results. With all my prejudices against

the policy, I am under conscientious obligations to say that

these women acquitted themselves with such dignity, decorum,

propriety of conduct and intelligence as to win the

admiration of every fair-minded citizen of Wyoming. They

were careful, pains-taking, intelligent and conscientious.

They were firm and resolute for the right as established by

the law and the testimony. Their verdicts were right, and,

after three or four criminal trials, the lawyers engaged in

defending persons accused of crime began to avail themselves

of the right of peremptory challenge to get rid of the

female jurors, who were too much in favor of enforcing the

laws and punishing crime to suit the interests of their

clients. After the grand jury had been in session two days,

the dance-house keepers, gamblers and _demi-monde_ fled out

of the city in dismay, to escape the indictment of women

grand jurors! In short I have never, in twenty-five years of

constant experience in the courts of the country, seen more

faithful, intelligent and resolutely honest grand and petit

juries than these.

A contemptibly lying and silly dispatch went over the wires

to the effect that during the trial of A. W. Howie for

homicide (in which the jury consisted of six women and six

men) the men and women were kept locked up together all

night for four nights. Only two nights intervened during the

trial, and on these nights, by my order, the jury was taken

to the parlor of the large, commodious and well-furnished

hotel of the Union Pacific Railroad, in charge of the

sheriff and a woman bailiff, where they were supplied with

meals and every comfort, and at 10 o'clock the women were

conducted by the bailiff to a large and suitable apartment

where beds were prepared for them, and the men to another

adjoining, where beds were prepared for them, and where they

remained in charge of sworn officers until morning, when

they were again all conducted to the parlor and from thence

in a body to breakfast, and thence to the jury-room, which

was a clean and comfortable one, carpeted and heated, and

furnished with all proper conveniences.

The cause was submitted to the jury for their decision about

11 o'clock in the forenoon, and they agreed upon their

verdict, which was received by the court between 11 and 12

o'clock at night of the same day, when they were discharged.

Everybody commended the conduct of this jury and was

satisfied with the verdict, except the individual who was

convicted of murder in the second degree. The presence of

these ladies in court secured the most perfect decorum and

propriety of conduct, and the gentlemen of the bar and

others vied with each other in their courteous and

respectful demeanor toward the ladies and the court. Nothing

occurred to offend the most refined lady (if she was a

sensible lady) and the universal judgment of every

intelligent and fair-minded man present was and is, that the

experiment was a success.

I dislike the notoriety this matter has given me, but I do

not shrink from it. I never sought it nor expected it, and

have only performed what I regarded as a plain duty, neither

seeking nor desiring any praise, and quite indifferent to

any censure or criticism which my conduct may have invoked.

Thanking you for your friendly and complimentary

expressions, I am very respectfully yours,

J. H. HOWE.

As showing how the matter was received at home, in Laramie City,

I copy the following from the _Laramie Sentinel_ of April 7,

1870:

If we should neglect to give some idea of the results of our

jury experiment, the world would say we were afraid or

ashamed of it. For our own part we are inclined to admit

that it succeeded beyond all our expectations. We naturally

wished it to succeed; still we scarcely wished it to

demonstrate a theory that women were better qualified for

these duties than men. Hence, when Chief-Justice Howe said,

"In eighteen years' experience I have never had as fair,

candid, impartial and able a jury in court, as in this term

in Albany county," and when Associate-Justice Kingman said,

"For twenty-five years it has been an anxious study with me,

both on the bench and at the bar, how we are to prevent jury

trials from degenerating into a perfect burlesque, and it

has remained for Albany county to point out the remedy and

demonstrate the cure for this threatened evil," we confess

to having been _more_ than satisfied with the result. It may

be safely stated as the unanimous verdict of bench, bar and

public opinion, that the jurors of Albany county did well

and faithfully discharge their duties, with honor and credit

to themselves and to the satisfaction of the public.

Among the few exceptions to the general abuse of the press, the

following from the Cincinnati _Gazette_ of April 14, 1870, is

well worth preserving:

Now, in the name of the inalienable right of every person to

the pursuit of happiness, we have to ask: Are not these

women competent to decide for themselves whether their

households, their children or their husbands are of more

importance than their public duties? And having the best

means for deciding this question, have they not the right to

decide? Who has the right to pick out the females of a jury

and challenge them with the question whether they are not

neglecting their households or their husbands? Who

challenges a male juror and demands whether he left his

family well provided, and his wife well cherished? or if,

through his detention in court, the cupboard will be bare,

the wife neglected, or the children with holes in their

trousers? This is simply the crack of the familiar whip of

man's absolute domination over women. It means nothing short

of their complete subjection. Not to use rights is to

abandon them. There are inconveniences and cares in all

possessions; but who argues that therefore they should be

abandoned? It would much promote the convenience of man if

he would let his political rights and duties be performed by

a few willing persons; but he would soon find that he had no

rights left.

And what is this family impediment which is thus set up as a

female disability? The family obligation is just as strong

in man as in woman. It is much stronger, for the manners

which compel woman to be the passive waiter on the male

providence leave to him the real responsibility. Yet many

men forego marriage and homes and children, and nobody

imagines that it disqualifies them for public duties. Nobody

challenges them as jurors, and demands if they have

discharged the family obligation. Rather it is held wise in

them to give themselves wholly to their pursuits, without

the distraction of conjugal joys, until they have achieved

success. Why should the family requirement, which man throws

off so easily, be made a yoke for woman? There is something

more fundamental than nursing babies or coddling the

appetites of husbands. The sentiment, "Give me liberty, or

give me death," is the American instinct. Breathes there a

woman with soul so dead that she would bring forth slaves?

Babes had better not be born if they are not to have their

rights. It is the duty of women to first provide the state

of freedom for their progeny. Then they may consent to

become wives and mothers. Liberty and the exercise of all

political rights are so bound together, that to neglect one

is to abandon all. Trial by a jury of one's peers is the

essential principle of the administration of justice. To be

a peer on a jury involves the whole principle of equal

rights. To abandon this to man, is to accept subjection to

man.

For women to neglect jury duty is to give men the exclusive

privilege to _judge women_, and to abandon the right to be

tried by a jury of their peers. How can men justly judge a

woman? They cannot have that knowledge of her peculiar

physical and mental organization which is requisite to the

judgment of motives and temptations. They cannot comprehend

the variable moods and emotions, nor the power of her

impulses. It is monstrous injustice to judge women by the

same rules as men. And men lack that intuitive charity and

tender sympathy which women always feel for an exposed,

erring sister. Furthermore, many of the crimes of men are

against women. How can men appreciate their injury? That

which is her ruin, they call, as Anna Dickinson says, sowing

their wild oats. How can justice be expected from those who

instinctively combine to preserve their privilege to abuse

women? For the administration of justice to women who are

accused, and to men who have wronged women, judges and

jurors of their own sex are indispensable.

As long as Judge Howe remained on the bench he had women on his

juries.[495] His first term at Cheyenne, after the law was

passed, several women were among the jurors, and they did fully

as well, and exerted quite as good an influence there, as the

women had recently at Laramie City.

The first election under the woman suffrage law was held in

September 1870, for the election of a delegate in congress, and

county officers. There was an exciting canvass, and both parties

applied to the whisky shops, as before, supposing they would

wield the political power of the territory, and that not enough

women would vote to influence the result. The morning of election

came, but did not bring the usual scenes around the polls. A few

women came out early to vote, and the crowd kept entirely out of

sight. There was plenty of drinking and noise at the saloons, but

the men would not remain, after voting, around the polls. It

seemed more like Sunday than election day. Even the negro men and

women voted without objection or disturbance. Quite a number of

women voted during the day, at least in all the larger towns, but

apprehension of a repetition of the scenes of the former

election, and doubt as to the proper course for them to pursue,

kept very many from voting. The result was a great disappointment

all around. The election had passed off with unexpected quiet,

and order had everywhere prevailed. The whisky shops had been

beaten, and their favorite candidate for congress, although he

had spent several thousand dollars to secure an election, was

left out in the cold. I cannot deny myself the pleasure of

quoting at length the following letter of the Rev. D. J. Pierce,

at that time a resident of Laramie City, and a very wealthy man,

to show the powerful influence that was exerted on the mind of a

New England clergyman by that first exhibition of women at the

polls, and as evidence of the singular and beneficial change in

the character of the election, and the conduct of the men:

_Editor Laramie Sentinel:_ I am pleased to notice your

action in printing testimonials of different classes to the

influence of woman suffrage in Wyoming. With the apathy of

conservatism and prejudice of party spirit arrayed against

the idea in America, it is the duty of the residents in

Wyoming to note the simple facts of their noted experiment,

and lay them before the world for its consideration. I came

from the vicinity of Boston, arriving in Laramie two weeks

before the first regular election of 1870. I had never

sympathized with the extreme theories of the woman's rights

platform, to the advocates of which I had often listened in

Boston. But I had never been able to learn just why a woman

is naturally excluded from the privilege of franchise, and I

sometimes argued in favor in lyceum debates. Still the

question of her degradation stared me in the face, and I

came to Wyoming unsettled in the matter, determined to be an

impartial judge. I was early at the polls, but too late to

witness the polling of the first female vote--by "Grandma"

Swain, a much-esteemed Quaker lady of 75 summers, who

determined by her words and influence to rally her sex to

defend the cause of morality and justice.

I saw the rough mountaineers maintaining the most respectful

decorum whenever the women approached the polls, and heard

the timely warning of one of the leading canvassers as he

silenced an incipient quarrel with uplifted finger, saying,

"Hist! Be quiet! A woman is coming!"

And I was compelled to allow that in this new country,

supposed at that time to be infested by hordes of

cut-throats, gamblers and abandoned characters, I had

witnessed a more quiet election than it had been my fortune

to see in the quiet towns of Vermont. I saw ladies attended

by their husbands, brothers, or sweethearts, ride to the

places of voting, and alight in the midst of a silent crowd,

and pass through an open space to the polls, depositing

their votes with no more exposure to insult or injury than

they would expect on visiting a grocery store or

meat-market. Indeed, they were much safer here, every man of

their party was pledged to shield them, while every member

of the other party feared the influence of any signs of

disrespect.

And the next day I sent my impressions to an eastern paper,

declaring myself convinced that woman's presence at the

polls would elevate the tone of public sentiment there as it

does in churches, the social hall, or any other place, while

her own robes are unspotted by the transient association

with evil characters which she is daily obliged to meet in

the street or dry-goods store. My observation at subsequent

annual elections has only confirmed my opinion in this

respect.

Without reference to party issues, I noticed that a majority

of women voted for men of the most temperate habits, thus

insuring success to the party of law and order.

After three years' absence from my old home, I could not

fail to notice in the elections of 1877 and 1878 that both

parties had been led to nominate men of better standing in

moral character, in order to secure the female vote.

I confess that I believe in the idea of aristocracy--_i. e._

"the rule of the best ones"--not by blood or position, but

the aristocracy of character, to which our laws point when

they declare that prison characters shall not vote.

The ballot of any community cannot rise above its character.

A town full of abandoned women would be cursed by the

application of woman suffrage.

We need to intrust our State interests to the class most

noted for true character. As a class, women are more moral

and upright in their character than men. Hence America would

profit by their voting.

D. J. PIERCE, _Pastor Baptist Church_.

The next general election occurred in September, 1871, for

members of the second territorial legislature. The usual tactics

were employed and considerable sums of money were given to the

drinking saloons to secure their influence and furnish free

drinks and cigars for the voters. But no one thought of trying to

buy up the women, nor was it ever supposed that a woman's vote

could be secured with whiskey and cigars! Election day passed off

with entire quiet and good order around the polling-places; the

noise and bustle were confined to the bar-rooms. The streets

presented no change from an ordinary business day, except that a

large number of wagons and carriages were driven about with the

watch-words and banners of different parties, or different

candidates, conspicuously posted on them. A much larger number of

women voted at this election than at the former one, but quite a

number failed or refused to take part in it. The result was again

a surprise, and to many a disappointment. Some candidates were

unexpectedly elected, and some who had spent large amounts of

money and worked hard around the drinking saloons, and were ready

to bet largely on being elected, were defeated. The Republicans

had shown an unexpected strength and had returned several members

to each House, although it was quite certain that some of the

Democrats were indebted to the women for their success. It was

admitted, however, that their votes had generally gone against

the favorites of the whiskey shops and that the power of the

saloons had been largely neutralized and in some cases entirely

overthrown. Some remarkable instances of woman's independence and

moral character occurred at this election which I cannot help

recording, but must not mention names.

As above stated in reference to the grand jury in Laramie City,

the "Sunday law" had there been put into vigorous operation. The

evening before the election, and after both the political parties

had nominated their candidates for the legislature, the

saloon-keepers got together very secretly and nominated a ticket

of their own number, pledged to repeal the "Sunday law." This

move was not discovered until they began to vote that ticket at

the polls next day. Then it was found that the saloons were

pushing it with all their influence and giving free drinks to all

who would vote it. This aroused the women and they came out in

force; many who had declined to vote before not only voted, but

went round and induced others to do the same. At noon the

rum-sellers' ticket was far ahead and it looked as though it

would be elected by a large majority; at the close of the polls

at night it was overwhelmingly defeated. In one case the wife of

a saloon-keeper who was a candidate on that ticket, told her

husband that she would defeat him if she could. He was beaten,

and he was man enough to say he was glad of it--glad he had a

wife so much better than he was, and who had so much more

influence in town than he had.

Another candidate on that ticket was a saloon-keeper who had

grown rich in the traffic, but whose private character was much

above the morals of his business. He had recently married a very

nice young lady in the East, and she was much excited when she

learned how matters were progressing. She told her husband she

was ashamed of him and would vote against him, and would enlist

all the members of her church against him if she could; and she

went to work in earnest and was a most efficient cause of the

defeat of the ticket. Her husband also was proud of her, and said

it served him right and he was glad of it. I have never heard

that the domestic harmony of either of these families was in

anyway disturbed by these events, but I know that they have

prospered and are still successful and happy.

Still the legislature was strongly Democratic. There were four

Republicans and five Democrats in the Council, and four

Republicans and nine Democrats in the House. When they met in

November, 1871, many Democrats were found to be bitterly opposed

to woman suffrage and determined to repeal the act; they said it

was evident they were losing ground and the Republicans gaining

by reason of the women voting, and that it must be stopped. The

Republicans were all inclined to sustain the law. Several

caucuses were held by the Democrats to determine on their course

of action and overcome the opposition in their own ranks. These

caucuses were held in one of the largest drinking saloons in

Cheyenne and all the power of whiskey was brought to bear on the

members to secure a repeal of the woman suffrage act. It required

considerable time and a large amount of whiskey, but at last the

opposition was stifled and the Democratic party was brought up

solid for repeal. A bill was introduced in the House for the

purpose, but was warmly resisted by the Republicans and a long

discussion followed. It was finally carried by a strict party

vote and sent to the Council, where it met with the same

opposition and the same result followed. It then went to the

governor for his approval. There was no doubt in his mind as to

the course he ought to take. He had seen the effects produced by

the act of enfranchisement, and unhesitatingly approved all of

them. He promptly returned the bill with his veto; and the

accompanying message is such an able paper and so fully sets

forth the reasons in favor of the original act, and the good

results of its operation, that at least a few extracts well

deserve a prominent place in this record:

I return herewith to the House of Representatives, in which

it originated, a bill for "An Act to repeal Chapter XXXI. of

the Laws of the First Legislative Assembly of the Territory

of Wyoming."

I regret that a sense of duty compels me to dissent from

your honorable body with regard to any contemplated measure

of public policy. It would certainly be more in accordance

with the desire I have to secure and preserve the most

harmonious relations among all the branches of our

territorial government, to approve the bill. A regard,

however, for the rights of those whose interests are to be

affected by it, and for what I believe to be the best

interests of the territory, will not allow me to do so. The

consideration, besides, that the passage of this bill would

be, on the part of those instrumental in bringing it about,

a declaration that the principles upon which the

enfranchisement of women is urged are false and untenable,

and that our experience demonstrates this, influences me not

a little in my present action.

While I fully appreciate the great danger of too much

attention to abstract speculation or metaphysical reasoning

in political affairs, I cannot but perceive that there are

times and circumstances when it is not only proper but

absolutely necessary to appeal to principles somewhat

general and abstract, when they alone can point out the way

and they alone can guide our conduct. So it was when, two

years ago, the act which this bill is designed to repeal was

presented for my approval. There was at that time no

experience to which I might refer and test by its results

the conclusions to which the application of certain

universally admitted principles led me. In the absence of

all such experience I was driven to the application of

principles which through the whole course of our national

history have been powerfully and beneficially operative in

making our institutions more and more popular, in framing

laws more and more just and in securing amendments to our

federal constitution. If the ballot be an expression of the

wish, or a declaration of the will, of the tax-payer as to

the manner in which taxes should be levied and collected and

revenues disbursed, why should those who hold in their own

right a large proportion of the wealth of the country be

excluded from a voice in making the laws which regulate this

whole subject? If, again, the ballot be for the physically

weak a guarantee of protection against the aggression and

violence of the strong, upon what ground can the delicate

bodily organism of woman be forbidden this shelter for her

protection? If, once more, each ballot be the declaration of

the individual will of the person casting it, as to the

relative merit of opposed measures or men, surely the

ability to judge and determine--the power of choice--does

not depend upon sex, nor does womanhood deprive of

personality. If these principles are too general to be free

from criticism, and if this reasoning be too abstract to be

always practically applicable, neither the principles nor

the reasoning can fail of approbation when contrasted with

the gloomy misgivings for the future and the dark

forebodings of evils, imaginary, vague and undefined, by

dwelling upon which the opponents of this reform endeavor to

stay its progress. Aggressive reasoning and positive

principles like these must be met with something more than

mere doubtful conjectures, must be resisted by something

more than popular prejudices, and overthrown--if overthrown

at all--by something stronger than the force of inert

conservatism; yet what is there but conjecture, prejudice

and conservatism opposing this reform? * * * * * * * *

The law granting to women the right to vote and to hold

office in this territory was a natural and logical sequence

to the other laws upon our statute-book. Our laws give to

the widow the guardianship of her minor children. Will you

take from her all voice in relation to the public schools

established for the education of those children? Our laws

permit women to acquire and possess property. Will you

forbid them having any voice in relation to the taxation of

that property? This bill says too little or too much. Too

little, if you legislate upon the assumption that woman is

an inferior who should be kept in a subordinate position,

for in that case the other laws affecting her should be

repealed or amended; and too much, if she is, as no one will

deny, the equal of man in heart and mind, for in that case

we cannot afford to dispense with her counsel and assistance

in the government of the territory.

I need only instance section 9 of the school act, which

declares that, "In the employment of teachers no

discrimination shall be made in the question of pay on

account of sex when the persons are equally qualified." What

is more natural than that the men who thought that women

were competent to instruct the future voters and legislators

of our land, should take the one step in advance of the

public sentiment of yesterday and give to her equal wages

for equal work? And when this step had been taken, what more

natural than that they should again move forward--this time

perhaps a little in advance of the public sentiment of

to-day--and give to those whom they consider competent to

instruct voters, the right to vote.

To the statement, so often made, that the law which this

bill is intended to repeal was passed thoughtlessly and

without proper consideration, I oppose the fact to which I

have adverted, that the law perfectly conforms to all the

other laws in relation to women upon our statute-book.

Studied in connection with the other laws it would seem to

have grown naturally from them. It harmonizes entirely with

them, and forms a fitting apex to the grand pyramid which is

being built up as broadly and as surely throughout all the

States of the Union as it has been built up and capped in

Wyoming.

The world does not stand still. The dawn of Christianity was

the dawn of light for woman. For eighteen centuries she has

been gradually but slowly rising from the condition of

drudge and servant for man, to become his helpmeet,

counselor and companion. As she has been advanced in the

social scale, our laws have kept pace with that advancement

and conferred upon her rights and privileges with

accompanying duties and responsibilities. She has not abused

those privileges, and has been found equal to the duties and

responsibilities. And the day is not far distant when the

refining and elevating influence of women will be as clearly

manifested in the political as it now is in the social

world.

Urged by all these considerations of right, and justice, and

expediency, and the strong conviction of duty, I approved

that act of which this bill contemplates the repeal, and it

became a law. To warrant my reconsidering that action, there

ought to be in the experience of the last two years

something to show that the reasons upon which it was founded

were unsound, or that the law itself was wrong or at least

unwise and inexpedient. My view of the teachings of this

experience is the very reverse of this. Women have voted,

and have the officers chosen been less faithful and zealous

and the legislature less able and upright? They have sat as

jurors, and have the laws been less faithfully and justly

administered, and criminals less promptly and adequately

punished? Indeed the lessons of this two years' experience

fully confirm all that has been claimed by the most ardent

advocate of this innovation.

In this territory women have manifested for its highest

interests a devotion strong, ardent, and intelligent. They

have brought to public affairs a clearness of understanding

and a soundness of judgment, which, considering their

exclusion hitherto from practical participation in political

agitations and movements, are worthy of the greatest

admiration and above all praise. The conscience of women is

in all things more discriminating and sensitive than that of

men; their sense of justice, not compromising or

time-serving, but pure and exacting; their love of order,

not spasmodic or sentimental merely, but springing from the

heart; all these,--the better conscience, the exalted sense

of justice, and the abiding love of order, have been made by

the enfranchisement of women to contribute to the good

government and well-being of our territory. To the plain

teachings of these two years' experience I cannot close my

eyes. I cannot forget the benefits that have already

resulted to our territory from woman suffrage, nor can I

permit myself even to seem to do so by approving this bill.

There is another, and in my judgment, a serious objection to

this bill, which I submit for the consideration and action

of your honorable body. It involves a reference to that most

difficult of questions, the limitations of legislative

power. High and transcendent as that power undoubtedly and

wisely is, there are limits which not even it can pass. Two

years ago the legislature of this territory conferred upon

certain of its citizens valuable rights and franchises. Can

a future legislature, by the passage of a law not liable to

the objection, that it violates the obligation of contracts,

take away those rights? It is not claimed, so far as I have

been informed, that the persons upon whom these franchises

were conferred have forfeited or failed to take advantage of

them. But even if such were the case it would be rather a

matter for judicial determination than for legislative

action. What that determination would be is clearly

indicated in the opinion of Associate-justice Story in the

celebrated case of Trustees of Dartmouth College _vs._

Woodward: "The right to be a freeman of a corporation is a

valuable temporal right. * * It is founded on the same basis

as the right of voting in public elections; it is as sacred

a right; and whatever might have been the prevalence of

former doubts, since the time of Lord Holt, such a right has

always been deemed a valuable franchise or privilege."

But even if we concede that these rights once acquired may

be taken away, the passage of this bill would be, in my

judgment, a most dangerous precedent. Once admit the right

of a representative body to disfranchise its own

constituents, and who can establish the limits to which that

right may not be carried? If this legislature takes from

women their franchises or privileges, what is to prevent a

future legislature from depriving certain men, or classes of

men, that, from any consideration they desire to

disfranchise, of the same rights? We should be careful how

we inaugurate precedents which may "return to plague the

inventors," and be used as a pretext for taking away our

liberties.

It will be remembered that in my message to the legislature

at the commencement of the present session I said: "There is

upon our statue book an act granting to the women of Wyoming

territory the right of suffrage and to hold office which has

now been in force two years. Under its liberal provisions

women have voted in the territory, served on juries, and

held office. It is simple justice to say that the women,

entering for the first time in the history of the country

upon these new and untried duties, have conducted themselves

with as much tact, sound judgment, and good sense as the

men. While it would be claiming more than the facts justify,

to say that this experiment, in a limited field, has

demonstrated beyond a doubt the perfect fitness of woman, at

all times and under all circumstances, for taking a part in

the government, it furnishes at least reasonable presumptive

evidence in her favor, and she has a right to claim that, so

long as none but good results are made manifest, the law

should remain unrepealed."

These were no hastily formed conclusions, but the result of

deliberation and conviction, and my judgment to-day approves

the language I then used. For the first time in the history

of our country we have a government to which the noble words

of our _Magna Charta_ of freedom may be applied,--not as a

mere figure of speech, but as expressing a simple grand

truth,--for it is a government which "derives all its just

powers from the consent of the governed." We should pause

long and weigh carefully the probable results of our action

before consenting to change this government. A regard for

the genius of our institutions, for the fundamental

principles of American autonomy, and for the immutable

principles of right and justice, will not permit me to

sanction this change.

These reasons for declining to give my consent to the bill,

I submit with all deference for the consideration and

judgment of your honorable body.

J. A. CAMPBELL.

The Republicans in the House made an ineffectual effort to

sustain the veto, but the party whip and the power of the saloons

were too strong for them, and the bill was passed over the veto

by a vote of 9 to 4. It met a different and better fate, however,

in the Council, where it was sustained by a vote of 4 to 5, a

strict party vote in each case. Mr. Corlett, a rising young

lawyer, at that time in the Council and since then a delegate in

congress, made an able defense of the suffrage act and resisted

its repeal, sustaining the veto with much skill and final

success. And there was much need, for the Democrats had made

overtures to one of the Republican members of the Council (they

lacked one vote) and had obtained a promise from him to vote

against the veto; but Mr. Corlett, finding out the fraud in

season, reclaimed the fallen Republican and saved the law. It is

due to Mr. Corlett to say that he has always been an able and

consistent supporter of woman's rights and universal suffrage. He

is now the leading lawyer of the territory.

Since that time the suffrage act has grown rapidly in popular

favor, and has never been made a party question. The leading men

of both parties, seeing its beneficial action, have given it an

unqualified approval; and most, if not all, of its former

enemies have become its friends and advocates. Most of the new

settlers in the territory, though coming here with impressions or

prejudices against it, soon learn to respect its operation, and

admire its beneficial results. There is nowhere in the territory

a voice raised against it, and it would be impossible to get up a

party for its repeal.

The women uniformly vote at all our elections, and are exerting

every year a more potent influence over the character of the

candidates selected by each party for office, by quietly

defeating those most objectionable in point of morals. It is true

they are not now summoned to serve on juries, nor are they

elected to office; and there are some obvious reasons for this.

In the first place, they never push themselves forward for such

positions, as the men invariably do; and in the second place, the

judges who have been sent to the territory, since the first ones,

have not insisted on respecting the women's rights as jurors, and

in some cases have objected to their being summoned as such. But

these matters will find a remedy by and by. It used to be an

important question in the nominating caucuses, "Will this

candidate put up money enough to buy the saloons, and catch the

loafers and drinkers that they control?" Now the question is,

"Will the women vote for this man, if we nominate him?" There

have been some very remarkable instances where men, knowing

themselves to be justly obnoxious to the women, have forced a

nomination in caucus, relying on their money and the drinking

shops and party strength to secure an election, who have been

taught most valuable lessons by signal defeat at the polls. It

would be invidious to call names or describe individual cases,

and could answer no necessary purpose. But I would ask particular

attention to the following articles, taken from recent

newspapers, as full and satisfactory evidence of the truth of

these statements, and of the wisdom of granting universal

suffrage and equal rights to the citizens of Wyoming territory.

The Laramie City _Daily Sentinel_ of December 16, 1878, J. H.

Hayford, editor, has the following leading editorial:

For about eight years now, the women of Wyoming territory

have enjoyed the same political rights and privileges as the

men, and all the novelties of this new departure, all the

shock it carried to the sensibilities of the old

conservatives, have long since passed away. For a long

time--even for years past--we have frequently received

letters asking for information as to its practical results

here, and still more frequently have received copies of

eastern papers with marked articles which purported to be

written by persons who resided here, or had visited the

territory and witnessed the awful results or the total

failure of the experiment. We have usually paid no attention

to these false and anonymous scribblers, who took this

method to display their shallow wit at the sacrifice of

truth and decency. But recently we have received more than

the usual number of such missives, and more letters, and

from a more respectable source than before, and we take this

occasion and method to answer them all at once, and once for

always, and do it through the columns of the _Sentinel_, one

of the oldest and most widely circulated papers in the

territory, because it will be readily conceded that we would

not publish here at home, false statements and

misrepresentations upon a matter with which all our readers

are familiar, and which, if false, could be easily refuted.

We assert here, then, that woman suffrage in Wyoming has

been in every particular a complete success.

That the women of Wyoming value as highly the political

franchise, and as generally exercise it, as do the men of

the territory.

That being more helpless, more dependent and more in need of

the protection of good laws and good government than are

men, they naturally use the power put into their hands to

secure these results.

That they are controlled more by principle and less by party

ties than men, and generally cast their votes for the best

candidates and the best measures.

That while women in this territory frequently vote contrary

to their husbands, we have never heard of a case where the

family ties or domestic relations were disturbed thereby,

and we believe that among the pioneers of the West there is

more honor and manhood than to abuse a wife because she does

not think with her husband about politics or religion.

We have never seen any of the evil results growing out of

woman suffrage which we have heard predicted for it by its

opponents. On the contrary, its results have been only good,

and that continually. Our elections have come to be

conducted as quietly, orderly and civilly as our religious

meetings, or any of our social gatherings, and the best men

are generally selected to make and enforce our laws. We have

long ago generally come to the conclusion that woman's

influence is as wholesome and as much needed in the

government of the State as in the government of the family.

We do not know of a respectable woman in the territory who

objects to or neglects to use her political power, and we do

not know of a decent man in the territory who wishes it

abolished, or who is not even glad to have woman's help in

our government.

Our laws were never respected or enforced, and crime was

never punished, or life or property protected until we had

woman's help in the jury box and at the polls, and we

unhesitatingly say here at home that we do not believe a man

can be found who wishes to see her deprived of voice and

power, unless it is the one "who fears not God nor regards

man," who wants to pursue a life of vice or crime, and

consequently fears woman's influence and power in the

government. We assert further that the anonymous scribblers

who write slanders on our women and our territory to the

eastern press, are either fools, who know nothing about what

they write, or else belong to that class of whom the poet

says:

"No rogue e'er felt the halter draw

With good opinion of the law."

We took some pains to track up and find out the author of

one of the articles against woman suffrage to which our

attention was called, and found him working on the streets

of Cheyenne, with a ball and chain to his leg. We think he

was probably an average specimen of these writers. And,

finally, we challenge residents in Wyoming who disagree with

the foregoing sentiments, and who endorse the vile slanders

to which we refer, to come out over their own signature and

in their own local papers and take issue with us, and our

columns shall be freely opened to them.

There are some obvious inferences to be drawn and some rather

remarkable lessons to be learned, from the foregoing narrative.

In the first place, the responsibilities of self government, with

the necessity of making their own laws, was delegated to a

people, strangers to each other, with very little experience or

knowledge in such matters, and composed of various nationalities,

with a very large percentage of the criminal classes. It is a

matter of surprise that they should have so soon settled

themselves into an orderly community, where all the rights of

person and property are well protected, and as carefully guarded

and fully respected as in any of our old eastern commonwealths.

It is a still greater surprise that a legislature selected by

such a constituency, under such circumstances as characterized

our first election, and composed of such men as were in fact

elected, should have been able to enact a body of laws

containing so much that was good and practicable, and so little

that was injudicious, unwise or vicious.

In the next place, it is evident that there was no public

sentiment demanding the passage of the woman suffrage law, and

but few advocates of it at that time in the territory; that its

adoption, under such circumstances, was not calculated to give it

a fair chance to exert a favorable influence in the community, or

even maintain itself among the permanent customs and laws of the

territory. The prospect was, that it would either remain a dead

letter, or be swept away under the ridicule and abuse of the

press, and the open attacks of its enemies. But it has withstood

all these adverse forces, and from small beginnings has grown to

be a permanent power in our politics, a vital institution,

satisfactory to all our people. The far-reaching benefits it will

yet accomplish can be easily foreseen. To make either individuals

or classes respected and induce them to respect themselves, you

must give them power and influence, a fair field and full

enjoyment of the results of their labors. We have made a very

creditable beginning in this direction, so far as woman is

concerned, and we have no doubts about the outcome of it. Wyoming

treats all her citizens alike, and offers full protection, equal

rewards, and equal power, to both men and women.

Again it is very evident that while our women take no active part

in the primary nomination of candidates for office, they exercise

a most potent influence by the independent manner in which they

vote, and the signal defeat they inflict on many unworthy

candidates. Their successful opposition to the power of the

bar-rooms is a notable and praiseworthy instance of the wise use

of newly-acquired rights. The saloon-keepers used to sell

themselves to that party, or that man, who would pay the most,

and while robbing the candidates, degraded the elections and

debauched the electors. So long as it was understood that in

order to secure an election it was necessary to secure the

rum-shops, good men were left out of the field, and unscrupulous

ones were sought after as candidates. The women have already

greatly modified this state of affairs and are likely to change

it entirely in the end.

Another wonderful consequence which has attended the presence of

women at the polls, is the uniform quiet and good order on

election day. All the police that could be mustered, could not

insure half the decorum that their simple presence has everywhere

secured. No man, not even a drunken one, is willing to act like a

rowdy when he knows the women will see him. Nor is he at all

anxious to expose himself in their presence when he knows he has

drank too much. Such men quit the polls, and slink out of the

streets, to hide themselves from the eyes of the women in the

obscurity of the drinking shops.

Another fact of great importance is the uniform testimony as to

woman's success as a juror. It is true that there has been but a

limited opportunity, thus far, to establish this as a fact beyond

all doubt. But a good beginning has been made, a favorable

impression produced, and no bad results have accompanied or

followed the experiment. If our jury system of trying cases is to

be preserved, as a tolerable method of settling disputes and

administering justice in our courts, every one will admit that a

great improvement in the character of the jurors must be speedily

found. At present, a jury trial is generally regarded as a farce,

or something worse. The proof of this is seen in the fact that in

most of our courts the judges are required to try all cases

without a jury, where the parties to the action consent, and that

in a great portion of the cases the parties do consent.

Another notable observation is the rapid growth of opinion in

favor of woman suffrage among our people, after its first

adoption; but more particularly the change effected in the minds

of the new settlers, who come to the territory with old

prejudices and fixed notions against it. Neither early education,

nor personal bias, nor party rancor, has been able to withstand

the overwhelming evidence of its good effects, and of its

elevating and purifying influence in our political and social

organization.

I must add, in conclusion, that the seventh legislature of our

territory has just closed its session of sixty days. It was

composed of more members than the earlier legislatures were,

there being thirteen in the Council and twenty-six in the House.

Many important questions came up for consideration, and a wide

field of discussion was traveled over, but not one word was at

any time spoken by any member against woman suffrage.

Hon. M. C. Brown, district-attorney for the territory, confirms the

testimony given by the judges and Governor Campbell, in a letter to

the National Suffrage Convention held in Washington in 1884, which

will be found in the pamphlet report of that year.

FOOTNOTES:

[491] Messrs. Wade, Anthony, Gratz Brown, Buckalew, Cowan, Foster,

Nesmith, Patterson, Riddle. See Vol. II., Chapter XVII.

[492] Ex-Governor Hoyt in his public speeches frequently gives this

bird's-eye view of Bright's domestic and political discussions:

"Betty, it's a shame that I should be a member of the legislature

and make laws for such a woman as you. You are a great deal better

than I am; you know a great deal more, and you would make a better

member of the Assembly than I, and you know it. I have been

thinking about it and have made up my mind that I will go to work

and do everything in my power to give you the ballot. Then you may

work out the rest in your own way." So he went over and talked with

other members of the legislature. They smiled. But he got one of

the lawyers to help him draw up a short bill, which he introduced.

It was considered and discussed. People smiled generally. There was

not much expectation that anything of that sort would be done; but

this was a shrewd fellow, who managed the party card in such a way

as to get, as he believed, enough votes to carry the measure before

it was brought to the test. I will show you a little behind the

curtain, so far as I can draw it. Thus he said to the Democrats:

"We have a Republican governor and a Democratic Assembly. Now,

then, if we can carry this bill through the Assembly and the

governor vetoes it, we shall have made a point, you know; we shall

have shown our liberality and lost nothing. But keep still; don't

say anything about it." They promised. He then went to the

Republicans and told them that the Democrats were going to support

his measure, and that if _they_ did not want to lose capital they

had better vote for it too. He didn't think there would be enough

of them to carry it, but the vote would be on record and thus

defeat the game of the other party. And they likewise agreed to

vote for it. So when the bill came to a vote it went right through!

The members looked at, each other in astonishment, for they hadn't

intended to do it, _quite_. Then they laughed and said it was a

good joke, but they had "got the governor in a fix." So the bill

went, in the course of time, to John A. Campbell, who was then

governor--the first governor of the territory of Wyoming--and he

promptly signed it! His heart was right. He saw that it was

long-deferred justice, and so signed it as gladly as Abraham

Lincoln wrote _his_ name to the Proclamation of Emancipation of the

slaves. Of course the women were astounded! If a whole troop of

angels had come down with flaming swords for their vindication,

they would not have been much more astonished than they were when

that bill became a law and the women of Wyoming were thus clothed

with the habiliments of citizenship.

[493] No sooner had these gentlemen left than Mrs. Post and Mrs.

Arnold had a long interview with the governor, urging him to sign

the bill on the highest moral grounds; not only to protect the

personal rights of the women of the territory but to compel the men

to observe the decencies of life and to elevate the social and

political status of the people.--[E. C. S.

[494] In the summer of 1871 Mrs. Stanton and myself, _en route_ for

California, visited Wyoming and met the women who were most active

in the exercise of their rights of citizenship. At Cheyenne we were

the guests of Mrs. M. B. Arnold and Mrs. Amalia B. Post. Mrs.

Arnold had a large cattle-ranch and Mrs. Post an equally large

sheep-ranch a few miles out of the city, which they superintended,

and from which each received an independent income. They had not

only served as jurors, but acted as foremen. At Laramie we were the

guests of Mr. J. H. Hayford, editor of the _Laramie Sentinel_, and

met Grandma Swain, who was the first woman to cast her ballot in

that city. We also met Judges Howe and Kingman and Governor

Campbell, and heard from them of the wonderful changes wrought in

the court-room and at the polls by the presence of enfranchised

women. We spoke in the very court-room in which women had sat as

jurors and felt an added inspiration from that fact.--[S. B. A.

[495] The following is the list of the first grand jury at Laramie

City, composed of nine men and six women, as impanneled and sworn:

C. H. Bussard, foreman; Mrs. Jane E. Hilton, T. W. DeKay, Jeremiah

Boies, Mrs. H. C. Swain. Joseph DeMars, M. N. Merrill, Mrs. M. A.

Pierce, Mrs. C. Blake, Richard Turpin, G. W. Cardwell, Mrs. S. L.

Larimer, N. C. Worth, Mrs. Jane Mackle, W. H. Mitchell.

CHAPTER LIII.

CALIFORNIA.

Liberal Provisions in the Constitution--Elizabeth T.

Schenck--Eliza W. Farnham--Mrs. Mills' Seminary, now a State

Institution--Jeannie Carr, State Superintendent of Schools--First

Awakening--_The Revolution_--Anna Dickinson--Mrs. Gordon

Addresses the Legislature, 1868--Mrs. Pitts Stevens Edits _The

Pioneer_--First Suffrage Society on the Pacific Coast,

1869--State Convention, January 26, 1870, Mrs. Wallis,

President--State Association Formed, Mrs. Haskell of Petaluma,

President--Mrs. Gordon Nominated for Senator--In 1871, Mrs.

Stanton and Miss Anthony Visit California--Hon. A. A. Sargent

Speaks in Favor of Suffrage for Woman--Ellen Clarke Sargent

Active in the Movement--Legislation Making Women Eligible to Hold

School Offices, 1873--July 10, 1873, State Society Incorporated,

Sarah Wallis, President--Mrs. Clara Foltz--A Bill Giving Women

the Right to Practice Law--The Bill Passed and Signed by the

Governor--Contest Over Admitting Women into the Law Department of

the University--Supreme Court Decision Favorable--Hon. A. A.

Sargent on the Constitution and Laws--Journalists and

Printers--Silk Culture--Legislative Appropriation--Mrs. Knox

Goodrich Celebrates July 4, 1876--Imposing Demonstration--Ladies

in the Procession.

The central figure in the seal of California is the presiding

goddess of that State, her spear in one hand, the other resting on

her shield, the cabalistic word "Eureka" over her head and a bear

crouching quietly at her feet. She seems to be calmly contemplating

the magnificent harbor within the Golden Gate. The shadows on the

distant mountains, the richly-laden vessels and the floating clouds

indicate the peaceful sunset hour, and the goddess, in harmony with

the scene is seated at her ease, as if after many weary wanderings

in search of an earthly Paradise she had found at last the land of

perennial summers, fruits and flowers--a land of wonders, with its

mammoth trees, majestic mountain-ranges and that miracle of

grandeur and beauty, the Yosemite Valley. Verily it seems as if

bounteous Nature in finishing the Pacific Slope did her best to

inspire the citizens of that young civilization with love and

reverence for the beautiful and grand.

California, admitted to the Union in 1850, owing to the erratic

character of her early population, has passed through more

vicissitudes than any other State, but she secured at last social

order, justice in her courts and a somewhat liberal constitution,

as far as the personal and property rights of the "white male

citizen" were concerned. By its provisions--

All legal distinctions between individuals on religious grounds

are prohibited; the utmost freedom of assembling, of speech and

of the press is allowed, subject only to restraint for abuse;

there is no imprisonment for debt, except where fraud can be

proved; slavery and involuntary servitude, except for crime, are

prohibited; wives are secured in their separate rights of

property; the exemption of a part of the homestead and other

property of heads of families from forced sale is recognized.

So far so good; but while the constitution limits the franchise to

every "white male citizen" over twenty-one, who has been a resident

of the State six months, and thus makes outlaws and pariahs of all

the noble women who endured the hardships of the journey by land or

by sea to that country in the early days, who helped to make it all

that it is, that instrument cannot be said to secure justice,

equality and liberty to all its citizens. The position in the

constitution and laws of that vast territory, of the real woman who

shares the every-day trials and hardships of her sires and sons

inspires no corresponding admiration and respect, with the ideal

one who gilds and glorifies the great seal of the State.

For the main facts of this chapter we are indebted to Elizabeth T.

Schenck.[496] She says:

Out of the stirring scenes and tragical events characterizing the

early days of California one can well understand that there came

of necessity many brave and adventurous argonauts and many women

of superior mental force, from among whom in after years the

woman suffrage cause might receive most devoted adherents. For

nearly a score of years after the great incursion of gold-seekers

into this newly-acquired State no word was uttered by tongue or

pen demanding political equality for women--none at least which

reached the public ear. There were no preceding causes, as in the

older States, to stimulate the discussion of the question, and

even that mental amazon, Eliza W. Farnham who was one of the

distinguished pioneers of California, gathered her inspiration

from afar, and thought and wrote for the whole world of women

without once sounding the tocsin for woman's political

emancipation. Many of the women who braved the perils of the

treacherous deep, or still more terrible dangers of the weary

march over broad deserts, inhospitable mountains, and through the

fastnesses of hostile and merciless Indians, to reach California

in the early times, entertained broad views upon the intellectual

capacity and political rights of women, but their efforts were

confined to fields of literature. While this advanced guard of

progressive women was moulding into form a social system out of

the turbulent and disorganized masses thrown together by the

rapidly-increasing population from all parts of the globe, the

elements were aggregating which in after years produced powerful,

outspoken thought and earnest action in behalf of disfranchised

women.

Here as elsewhere women took the lead in school matters and were

the most capable and efficient educators from the days of "'49."

One of our permanent State institutions, Mills' Seminary, was

founded by a woman whose name it bears, and who, assisted by her

husband, Rev. Mr. Mills, conducted the school for nearly a

quarter of a century, until by an act of the legislature, she

conveyed it to the State. Several principals of the public

schools in San Francisco have held their positions for over

twenty consecutive years. Mrs. Jeanne Carr, deputy state

superintendent of public instruction from 1871 to 1875, was

succeeded by Mrs. Kate M. Campbell, who served most efficiently

for the full term. During Mrs. Carr's public service she visited

nearly every county in the State, attending teachers' institutes,

and lecturing upon educational topics with great ability. For

many years women have been eligible to school offices in

California and there is not a county in the State where women

have not filled positions as trustees or been elected to the

office of county superintendent.[497] Mrs. Coleman has been

reelected to that office in Shasta county, and Mrs. E. W.

Sullivan in Mono county has served for several terms.

The first attempt to awaken the public mind to the question of

suffrage for woman was a lecture given by Laura De Force Gordon

in Platt's Hall, San Francisco, February 19, 1868. Although the

attendance was small, a few earnest women were there[498] who

formed the nucleus of what followed. Soon after Mrs. Gordon

addressed the legislature in the senate-chamber at Sacramento,

and made an eloquent appeal for the political rights of women.

Among the audience were many members of the legislature who

became very deeply impressed with the justice of her demand,

including the subsequent governor of the State, George C.

Perkins, then senator from Butte county. Soon afterwards Mrs.

Gordon removed to Nevada, and no more lectures on woman suffrage

were given until the visit of Anna Dickinson in the summer of

1869.

The way was being prepared however, for further agitation by the

appearance of _The Revolution_ in 1868 in New York, which was

hailed by the women of California (as elsewhere) as the harbinger

of a brighter and better era. Its well filled pages were eagerly

read and passed from hand to hand, and the effect of its

startling assertions was soon apparent. Mrs. Pitts Stevens had

about that time secured a proprietary interest in the _San

Francisco Mercury_, and was gradually educating her readers up to

a degree of liberality to endorse suffrage. Early in 1869 she

became sole proprietor, changing the name to _Pioneer_, and threw

the woman suffrage banner to the breeze in an editorial of marked

ability.

The organization of the National Woman Suffrage Association in

New York, May, 1869, gave fresh impetus to the movement, and the

appointment of Mrs. Elizabeth T. Schenck as vice-president for

California by that association, met with the approval of all

those interested in the movement. Soon after this Mrs. Schenck

with her gifted ally, Mrs. Stevens, decided to organize a

suffrage society, and at an impromptu meeting of some of the

friends at the residence of Mrs. Nellie Hutchinson, July 27,

1869, the first association for this purpose on the Pacific coast

was formed. There were just a sufficient number of members[499]

to fill the offices. This society grew rapidly and within a month

the parlors were found inadequate to the constantly increasing

numbers. Through the courtesy of the Mercantile Library

Association their commodious apartments were secured.