making divorce impossible for any cause save adultery, Mrs.
Meriwether wrote the ablest article I ever read, in opposition,
which Mr. Keating published in his paper, and distributed among
the members of the legislature. The result was a clear vote
against the bill.
With Mrs. Lide Meriwether and Mrs. M. J. Holmes, she publicly
assailed the cross examination of women in criminal trials,
either as culprits or witnesses, until the practice was broken
up, and private hearings accorded. In 1876 she sent a memorial to
the National Democratic convention at St. Louis, asking that
party to declare for woman suffrage in its platform. Though her
appeal was not read, hundreds of copies were circulated among the
members in the hope of stirring thought on the subject in the
South. It provoked much sarcasm because it was signed only by
Mrs. Meriwether and Mrs. Saxon. In 1880-81 Mrs. Meriwether was
one of the speakers in the series of conventions held by the
National association in the Western and New England States.
VI.--VIRGINIA.
In the winter of 1870, immediately after the National Washington
convention, Mrs. Paulina Wright Davis, while spending a few days in
Richmond, formed the acquaintance of Mrs. Anna Whitehead Bodeker, a
most earnest advocate of the ballot for women. Mrs. Davis held a
parlor meeting in the home of Mrs. Bodeker, enlisting the interest
of several prominent citizens of Richmond, who very soon invited
Mrs. Joslyn Gage to their city to give a series of lectures. Of the
result of this visit we give Mrs. Bodeker's report as published in
_The Revolution_ of May, 1870:
DEAR REVOLUTION:--I glory in announcing a grand achievement in
the great reform of the day in Virginia. Our energetic and heroic
leader, Mrs. M. Joslyn Gage, after giant efforts on her part, and
with the aid of some strong advocates of the reform, on Friday
evening, May 6, 1870, organized in the city of Richmond a
Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association. The whole proceedings
I here append, for immediate publication in your columns.
Mrs. Gage, advisory counsel for New York, in the National Woman
Suffrage Association of America, delivered a lecture upon
"Opportunity for Woman," at Bosher's Hall, corner of Ninth and
Main streets, on Thursday evening. The lecture was able, earnest
and eloquent, and was listened to with rapt attention by the
friends of the cause present. At its conclusion, Judge John C.
Underwood gave notice that on the following evening a meeting
would be held at the United States Court room (which he freely
proffered for the purpose) to organize a State Association, adopt
a constitution, elect officers, and appoint delegates to the
anniversary of the National Association soon to be held in New
York city. The judge remarked that, upon conversing with Governor
Wise upon the subject, he expressed his warm sympathy with the
objects of the movement save upon the question of giving women
the ballot. With all the other rights claimed, he was heartily in
accord; especially, he thought, should the professions be opened
to women, more particularly the medical, they being the natural
physicians of their sex and of children.
Pursuant to the above notice, a meeting was held in the United
States court-room. Judge John C. Underwood was called to preside.
Previous to action on the regular business of the meeting,
several articles favorable to the movement were read. Miss Sue L.
F. Smith, daughter of the late Rev. Dr. Wm. A. Smith, read very
charmingly a well-written essay prepared by herself in advocacy
of granting to women the full meed of powers and responsibilities
now enjoyed by men. Mr. William E. Colman read an article
entitled "Clerical Denunciation of Woman Suffrage--A Defense,"
being a reply to a violent attack made by the Rev. Dr. Edwards of
this city, upon the adherents of the movement, in a sermon
delivered by him recently. A proposed constitution for the
government of the Virginia State Woman Suffrage Association was
adopted; after which came the election of officers[532] of the
society. On motion of Judge Underwood, Miss Sue L. F. Smith was
appointed delegate to represent Virginia in the National
Association to be held in New York city May 12, 13, the society
having by resolution connected itself as an auxiliary to said
National Association. Mrs. Gage offered resolutions, which were
unanimously adopted, after which she delivered a forcible
address, enumerating many of the wrongs to which women are
subjected in this State, dwelling particularly upon the laws
depriving mothers of the right to their own children, placing the
property of married women at the mercy of their husbands, and
depriving the wives of all voice in the disposition of the
property possessed by them before marriage.
In the winter of 1871, Miss Anthony was honored by an invitation
from the society, and held several meetings in Judge Underwood's
court-room. About this time appeared the following:
Judge Underwood, having stated in a letter that after mature
consideration he had come to the conclusion that the fourteenth
and fifteenth amendments to the Constitution of the United
States, together with the enforcement act of May 31, 1870, have
secured the right to vote to female citizens as fully as it is
now exercised and enjoyed by male citizens, a test case is to be
made at once in the Virginia courts. As there are very few
advocates of woman suffrage in Virginia, some of the leaders of
the movement in Washington are about to move to Alexandria to
perfect an organization and be ready with a case when Judge
Underwood opens court there.
But Mrs. Bodeker, who also memorialized the general assembly, was
first to make the attempt to vote. The Richmond _Dispatch_
describes the occasion:
Yesterday morning the judges of the second precinct of Marshall
ward, J. F. Shinberger, esq., presiding, were surprised at the
appearance of a lady at the polls. She wished to deposit a
ballot, but as the judges declined to allow this, in view of her
not having registered, she then asked to be permitted to have a
paper with the following inscription placed in the ballot-box:
"By the Constitution of the United States, I, Anne Whitehead
Bodeker, have a right to give my vote at this election, and in
vindication of it drop this note in the ballot-box, November 7,
1871." This paper was taken by the judges, and will be deposited
with the ballots in the archives of the Hustings court.
One remarkable incident in Gen. Grant's administration was Miss
Elizabeth VanLew's appointment as postmaster at Richmond. She held
the office eight years, notwithstanding the persistent opposition
of politicians. The _Ballot-Box_ said:
Miss VanLew was postmaster in Richmond under Grant, introducing
many reforms in the office, but through the envy of men, who were
voters, she, a non-voter, lost her office, as she had lost wealth
and friends from her devotion to the Union during the war. Now,
since its close, she finds not only her former slave men
permitted to make laws for her, but also those whom she opposed
when they were seeking their country's life. But women of all
ranks, white and colored, are awaking to their need of the ballot
for self-protection.
The Philadelphia _Press_, edited by J. W. Forney, said:
Some covert enemies of the president and the new civil-service
reform have been spreading a report, through sensational
specials, that the Richmond post-office is to be given to some
prominent Virginian of local standing as soon as Miss VanLew's
commission expires. If there is any post-office in the United
States in which the whole nation at this time has a special
interest, it is this one of Richmond which the present incumbent
holds, as it were, by a national right, and certainly by popular
acclaim. We have not time in a brief paragraph to tell the
striking story of what Miss VanLew has done and what she has
suffered for the country. Her story will pass into standard
history, however, as sadly illustrative of our times. She herself
is known and loved wherever the horrors of Libby and Belle Isle
are mourned and denounced.
VII.--WEST VIRGINIA.
Hon. Samuel Young, in a letter to _The Revolution_, dated Senate
Chamber, Wheeling, West Virginia, February 22, 1869, writes:
In 1867, I introduced a bill in the State Senate, looking to the
enfranchisement of all women in West Virginia, who can read the
Declaration of Independence intelligently, and write a legible
hand, and have actually paid tax the year previous to their
proposing to vote. But even this guarded bill had no friends but
myself. * * * I introduced a resolution during the present
session of our legislature, asking congress to extend the right
of suffrage to women. Eight out of the twenty-two members of the
Senate voted for it. This is quite encouraging--advancing from
one to eight in two years. At this rate of progress, we may
succeed by next winter. I give the names of those who are in
favor of and voted for female suffrage in the Senate: Drummond,
Doolittle, Humphreys, Hoke, Wilson, Workman, Young, and
Farnsworth, president. The same senators voted to invite Miss
Anna E. Dickinson to lecture in the state-house during her late
visit to Wheeling.
VIII.--NORTH CAROLINA.
We are indebted to Mrs. Mary Bayard Clarke of New Berne for the
following:
Since 1868, when the constitution was changed, a married woman
has absolute control of all the real estate she possessed before
marriage or acquired by gift or devise after it, except the power
to sell without the consent of her husband, who in his turn is
not at liberty to sell any real estate possessed by him before
marriage, or acquired after it, without the consent of his wife.
Should he sell any real estate without the wife's consent, in
writing, she can, after his death, claim her dower of one-third
in such real estate. If she owns a farm and her husband manages
it, she can claim full settlements from him, he having no more
rights than any other agent whom she may employ. So her property,
real and personal, is her individual right, with the income
therefrom. But she cannot contract a debt that is binding on her
property without the consent of her husband. With his written
consent, which must be registered in the office of the clerk of
the county in which she resides, she may become a free-trader
with all the rights of a man, her husband having no claim to her
gains and not being responsible for any debt which she may
contract. By giving this written consent her husband virtually
places her in the position of an unmarried woman, as far as her
property is concerned.
In 1881, finding that a widow had no right to appoint a guardian
for her children by "letters testamentary," I, through my son,
William E. Clarke, who was then senator for this county in our
State legislature, succeeded in getting this law so changed that
she now has the same rights as a man. In cases of divorce or
separation while the children are under age, it is discretionary
with the judge to give the children to either parent; but public
sentiment always gives them to the mother while young.
As a rule the women of the South are better educated than the
men, the boys being put to work while the girls are at school.
The girls are not trained to work in any way, and very few, as
yet, see the necessity of being regularly trained to do anything
by which they may make a living except as teachers. Our
public-school system requires a course through the normal school
for all teachers. Mixed schools are not popular with us, but we
have been forced into them by the public-graded-school tax, which
has crushed out our private schools. I am now, and have been for
the past two years, making an effort to have women on our
school-boards, and a female as well as a male principal for every
mixed public school, on the ground that mothers have as much
right to a voice in the education of their daughters as fathers
have in that of their sons. We have female teachers in our public
schools but not as principals, and the pay of the women is,
regardless of the quality of their work, always considerably less
than that of men.
Our Supreme Court granted a license to Miss Tabitha A. Holton to
practice law, and there is no legal impediment in the way of one
doing so. The same is true of the medical profession. Dr. Susan
Dimock was a North Carolinian by birth and on her application
for admission to the State Medical Society was unanimously
elected a member of that body. The African Methodist-Episcopal
Conference, Bishop Turner presiding, ordained Miss Sarah A.
Hughes of Raleigh, a bright mulatto girl, as deacon in the
church. Shortly after the close of the late war, my husband being
then incapacitated for work by wounds received in the Mexican and
the civil war, and my sons under age, I applied to Governor
Jonathan Worth for the position of State librarian. Though
cordially acknowledging my fitness, intellectually, for the
office, and admitting that my sex did not legally disqualify me
to hold it, he positively refused to appoint me or any other
woman to any office in his gift. Public sentiment then sustained
him, but it would not now do so; so many ladies of culture,
refinement and social position have been, since the war, forced
to work or starve, that it is now nothing remarkable to see them
and their daughters doing work which twenty years ago they would
have been ostracised for undertaking.
In a letter to the Boston _Index_, published August, 1885, the
venerable Mrs. Elizabeth Oakes Smith, who is now a resident of
this State, truthfully says,
The women of the North can have little conception of the
hindrances which their sisters of the South encounter in
their efforts to accept new and progressive ideas. The other
sex, in a blind sort of way, hold fast to an absolute kind
of chivalry akin to that of the renowned Don Quixote, by
which they try to hold women in the background as a kind of
porcelain liable to crack and breakage unless daintily
handled. Women here see the spirit of the age and the need
of change far more clearly than the men, and act up to this
light, but with a flexible grace that disarms opposition.
They see the necessity of work and are turning their
attention to methods for remunerative labor, far more
difficult to obtain at the South than at the North.
I cordially endorse this extract. The Southern man does not wish
his "women folks" to be self-supporting, not because he is
jealous of their rivaling him, but because he feels it is his
duty to be the bread-winner. But the much sneered at "chivalry"
of the South, while rendering it harder for a woman to break
through old customs, most cordially and heartily sustains her
when she has successfully done so. There are fewer large centers
in the South than in the North, and much less attrition of mind
against mind; the people are homogeneous and slower to change,
and public opinion is much less fluctuating. But once let the
tide of woman suffrage fairly turn, and I believe it will be
irresistable and advance far more steadily and rapidly in the
South than it has done in the North. Let the Southern women be
won over and the cause will have nothing to fear from the
opposition of the men. But, after twenty years' experience as a
journalist, my honest opinion is that until the Southern women
can be made to feel the pecuniary advantages to them of suffrage,
they will not lift a finger or speak a word to obtain it.
In 1881, at the March meeting of the Raleigh Typographical Union,
No. 194, my son, being then a member of that Union, introduced
and, after some hard fighting, succeeded in carrying a resolution
placing women compositors on a par in every respect with men.
There was not at that time a single woman compositor in the
State, to my son's knowledge; there is one now in Raleigh and two
apprentices, who claimed and receive all the advantages that men
applying for admission to the Union receive.
Mrs. C. Harris started the _South Atlantic_ at Wilmington. The
Misses Bernheim and their father started a magazine in the same
city called _At Home and Abroad_, which was afterwards moved to
Charlotte; both were short-lived. We have now the _Southern
Woman_. This is the only journal ever edited and managed by a
woman alone, with no man associated with or responsible for it. I
have been for twenty years connected with the press of this State
in one way and another, and am called the "Grandmother of the
North Carolina Press Association." In 1880 I delivered an
original poem before the association, and another Masonic one
before the board of the orphan asylum; making me, I believe, the
first native North Carolina woman that ever came before the
public as a speaker. I was both denounced and applauded for my
"brass" and "bravery." Public sentiment has changed since then.
Mrs. Marion A. Williams, president of the State National Bank at
Raleigh for several years, is probably the first woman ever
elected to that responsible position in any State of this Union.
In 1885 Louisa B. Stephens was made president of the First
National Bank of Marion, Iowa; and a national bank in Newbery,
South Carolina, honored itself by placing a woman at the head of
its official board.
The _North Carolinian_ of January, 1870, contained an able
editorial endorsing woman suffrage, closing with:
For one we say, tear down the barriers, give woman an
opportunity to show her wisdom and virtue; place the ballot
in her hands that she may protect herself and reform men,
and ere a quarter of a century has elapsed many of the
foulest blots upon the civilization of this age will have
passed away.
From an interesting article in the _Boston Advertiser_, May 22,
1875, by Rev. James Freeman Clark, concerning Dr. Susan Dimock, one
of North Carolina's promising daughters, whose career was ended in
the wreck of the Schiller near the Scilly islands, we make a few
extracts:
One of our eminent surgeons, Dr. Samuel Cabot, said to me
yesterday:
"This community will never know what a loss it has had in
Dr. Dimock. It was not merely her skill, though that was
remarkable, considering her youth and limited experience,
but also her nerve, that qualified her to become a great
surgeon. I have seldom known one at once so determined and
so self-possessed. Skill is a quality much more easily found
than this self-control that nothing can flurry. She had that
in an eminent degree; and, had she lived, she would have
been sure to stand, in time, among those at the head of her
profession. The usual weapons of ridicule would have been
impotent against a woman who had reached that supreme
position which Susan Dimock would certainly have attained."
During the war of the rebellion, Miss Dimock sought admission
into the medical school of Harvard University, preferring, if
possible, to take a degree in an American college. Twice she
applied, and was twice refused. Hearing that the University of
Zurich was open to women, she went there, and was received with a
hospitality which the institutions of her own country did not
offer. She pursued her medical studies there, and graduated with
honor. A number of the "Revue des Deux Mondes" for August, 1872,
contains an article called "Les Femmes a l'Universitie de
Zurich," which speaks very favorably of the success of the women
in that place. The first to take a degree as doctor of medicine
was a young Russian lady, in 1867. Between 1867 and 1872 five
others had taken this degree, and among them Miss Dimock is
mentioned. From the medical school at Zurich, she went to that at
Vienna; and of her appearance there we have this record: A
distinguished German physician remarked to a friend of mine
residing in Germany that he had always been opposed to women as
physicians--but that he had met a young American lady studying at
Vienna, whose intelligence, modesty and devotion to her work was
such as almost to convince him that he was wrong. A comparison of
dates shows that this American student must have been Dr. Dimock.
On her return to the United States Dr. Dimock became resident
physician at "The Hospital for Women and Children," on Codman
Avenue, in Boston. Both the students of medicine and the patients
became devotedly attached to her; they were fascinated by this
remarkable union of tenderness, firmness and skill. The secret
was in part told by what she said in one of her lectures in the
training-school for nurses connected with the woman's hospital:
"I wish you, of all my instructions, especially to remember this.
Where you go to nurse a patient, imagine that it is your own
sister before you in that bed; and treat her as you would wish
your own sister to be treated." While at this hospital, she was
also able to carry out a principle in which she firmly believed,
namely--that in a hospital the rights of every patient, poor and
rich, should be sacredly regarded, and never be postponed even to
the supposed interests of medical students. No student was
allowed to be present at any operation, except so far as the
comfort and safety of her patients rendered the student's
presence desirable. Her interest in the woman's hospital was
very great. She was in the habit, at the beginning of each year,
of writing and sealing up her wishes for the coming year. Since
her death, her mother has opened the envelope of January 1, 1875,
and found it to contain a prayer for a blessing on "my dear
hospital."
And now this young, strong soul so ardent in the pursuit of
knowledge, so filled with a desire to help her suffering sisters,
has been taken by that remorseless deep.
IX.--SOUTH CAROLINA.
The first action we hear of in South Carolina was a Woman's Right's
Convention in Columbia, Dec. 20, 1870, of which the Charleston
_Republican_ said:
The chairman, Miss Rollin, said: "It had been so universally the
custom to treat the idea of woman suffrage with ridicule and
merriment that it becomes necessary in submitting the subject for
earnest deliberation that we assure the gentlemen present that
our claim is made honestly and seriously. We ask suffrage not as
a favor, not as a privilege, but as a right based on the ground
that we are human beings, and as such, entitled to all human
rights. While we concede that woman's ennobling influence should
be confined chiefly to home and society, we claim that public
opinion has had a tendency to limit woman's sphere to too small a
circle, and until woman has the right of representation this will
last, and other rights will be held by an insecure tenure."
Mr. T. J. Mackey made a forcible argument in favor of the
movement. He was followed by Miss Hosley, who made a few brief
remarks upon the subject. General Moses thought woman's
introduction upon the political platform would benefit us much in
a moral point of view, and that they had a right to assist in
making the laws that govern them as well as the sterner sex.
Messrs. Cardozo, Pioneer and Rev. Mr. Harris followed in short
speeches, endorsing the movement and wishing it success.
Resolutions were adopted, and officers chosen.[533] The following
letters were read:
EXECUTIVE DEPARTMENT, Columbia, Jan. 19, 1871.
_Miss L. M. Rollin_:--I have the honor to acknowledge the
receipt of your invitation to be present at the preliminary
organization of the association for the assertion of woman's
rights in this State, and regret that the pressure of public
duties precludes my indulging myself in that pleasure. Be
assured, however, that the cause has my warmest sympathy,
and I indulge the hope that the time is not far distant when
woman shall be the peer of man in political rights, as she
is peerless in all others, and when she will be able to
reclaim some of those privileges that are now monopolized by
the sterner sex.
I have the honor to be, very respectfully, etc.,
R. K. SCOTT, _Governor_.
OFFICE OF THE ATTORNEY-GENERAL, Columbia, Feb. 1, 1871.
I hoped when I received your invitation to the meeting
to-night of the friends of woman suffrage, that I should be
able to attend in person, but at a late hour I find other
duties standing in the way, and I can only say a word of
approval and encouragement with my pen. The woman suffrage
cause is to my mind so just and so expedient as to need
little argument. To say that my mother, my sisters or my
wife have less interest in good government than I have, or
are less fitted by nature to understand and use the ballot
than I am, is to contradict reason and fact.
Upon the same grounds that I defend my own right to share in
the government which controls and protects me, do I now
assert the right of woman to a voice in public affairs. For
the same reasons that I would regard an attempt to rob me of
my civil rights as tyranny, do I now protest against the
continued civil inequality and thralldom of woman. I take no
merit or pride to myself for such a position. I have felt
and said these things during my whole life. They are to me
self-evident truths; needing no more demonstration by
argument than the first lines of the Declaration of American
Independence. My claim for woman is simply this: Give her a
full and fair chance to act in any sphere for which she can
fit herself. Her sphere is as wide as man's. It has no
limits except her capacity. If woman cannot perform a
soldier's duty, then the army is not her sphere; if she can,
it is her sphere, as much as it is man's.
I value the ballot for woman chiefly because it opens to her
a wide, free avenue to a complete development of all her
powers. The Chinese lady's shoe is nothing compared to the
clamps and fetters which we Americans have put upon woman's
mind and soul. An impartial observer would scarcely condemn
the one and approve the other. What we need now is to
accustom the public to these radical truths. Demand the
ballot; demand woman's freedom. It is not a conflict of
argument or reason, so much as a crusade against habit and
prejudice. To tell the truth, I don't think there is a
respectable argument in the world against woman suffrage.
People think they are arguing or reasoning against it when
they are in fact only repeating the prejudices in which they
have been trained. With the sincerest wishes for the success
of your meeting and of all your efforts for woman suffrage,
I remain, yours very truly,
D. H. CHAMBERLAIN.
The American association memorialized the legislature March 13,
1872. The joint committee recommended an amendment to the
constitution of the State, providing that every person, male or
female, possessed of the necessary qualifications, should be
entitled to vote. B. F. Whittemore, H. J. Maxwell, W. B. Nash, G.
F. McIntyre, were the committee on the part of the Senate; C. D.
Hayne, W. J. Whipper, Benj. Byas, B. G. Yocom, F. H. Frost,
committee on the part of the House.
In the debate in congress in 1874, Hon. Alonzo J. Ransier of South
Carolina, the civil-rights bill being under discussion, claimed
that equal human rights should be extended to women as follows:
And may the day be not far distant when American citizenship in
civil and political rights and public privileges shall cover not
only those of our sex, but those of the opposite one also; until
which time the government of the United States cannot be said to
rest upon the "consent of the governed," or to adequately protect
them in life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
Miss Sallie R. Banks, for some years a teacher of colored schools
in South Carolina, has been appointed collector of internal revenue
for the Sumter district.
X.--FLORIDA.
In 1880, the agricultural department at Washington, paid a premium
of $12 to Madame Atzeroth of Manatee, for the first pound of coffee
ever grown out of doors in the United States.
The following is from a letter to the Savannah _News_, reporting a
judgment rendered by a Florida county judge, in a case between an
old black man and his wife:
OCALA, Fla., May 12, 1874.
Be it known throughout all christendom that the husband is the
head of the wife, and whatever is his is his'n, and whatever is
hers is his'n, and come weal or woe, peace or war, the right of
all property is vested in the husband, and the wife must not take
anything away. The ox belongs to Uncle Ben, and he must keep it,
and the other things, and if the old woman quits she must go
empty-handed. Know all that this is so by order of the Judge of
Probate.
[Signed] WM. R. HILLYER.
Though quaintly expressed, yet this decision is in line with the
old common law and the statutes of many of the States in this Union
to-day.
XI.--ALABAMA.
The women of Alabama are evidently awake on the temperance
question, though still apparently unprepared for suffrage. In a
report of a meeting in Birmingham in 1885, the following, from a
prominent editor, was read by the president:
Tell the admirable lady, Mrs. Bryce, that I would devote
everything to the cause she espouses, but there's no use. Let
women demand the ballot, and with it they can destroy whisky, and
by no other agency. There is no perfect family or state in which
woman is not an active governing force. They should have the
courage to assert themselves and then they can serve the country
and the race.
If a thunderbolt had fallen it would not have created a greater
sensation. The ladies at first grew indignant and uttered
protestations. When they grew calmer, the corresponding secretary
was ordered to furnish the editor with the following:
The ladies of the W. C. T. U. return thanks to the editor for his
kindly and progressive suggestions, but, in their opinion, they
are not ready to ask any political favors. Whenever suffrage is
granted to the women of the United States, those of Alabama will
be found on the right side.
At Huntsville lives Mrs. Priscilla Holmes Drake, whose name has
stood as representative of our National Association in Alabama
since 1868.
XII.--GEORGIA.
We give a letter from Georgia's great statesman, defining his views
of woman's sphere:
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON, D. C., May 29, 1878.
_Mrs. E. L. Saxon, New Orleans, La._
MY DEAR MADAM:--Your letter to Hon. Alexander H. Stephens, of the
22d inst., came duly to hand. He requests me to thank you for it,
and to say in reply that he has ever sympathized with woman in
her efforts for a higher and broader sphere of intellectual and
moral culture, as well as physical usefulness in life. He does
not go so far as to endow woman with the ballot, or to fit her
for the more masculine duties of the State. Her sphere, by
nature, is circumscribed within certain physical boundaries, but
in all those things to which she is fitted by nature, and can
enter without interference with the laws of God, he would open
the doors wide to her.
Very respectfully yours, C. P. CULVER, _Secretary_.
FOOTNOTES:
[523] Myrtilla Miner; published by Houghton, Mifflin & Co., Boston
and New York.
[524] See Vol. II., page 90.
[525] _President_, Hon. Samuel C. Pomeroy; _Vice-Presidents_,
Josophine S. Griffing, Belva A. Lockwood, Jas. H. Holmes, John H.
Craney; _Advisory Council_, Mary E. O'Connor, Josephine S.
Griffing, Caroline B. Winslow, Dr. Susan A. Edson, Lydia S. Hall,
Mr. and Mrs. Boyle, Caroline B. Colby, and others.
[526] The officers elected were: _President_, United States Senator
S. C. Pomeroy; _Vice-Presidents_, Mrs. Josephine S. Griffing, Mrs.
Belva McNall Lockwood, Miss Stickney, Thaddeus Hyatt, Caroline B.
Winslow, M. D., S. Yorke At Lee, Mrs. Josephine L. Slade, Prof.
William J. Wilson, Mrs. Mary Olin, Judge A. B. Olin, Mrs. C. M. E.
Y. Christian, Prof. George B. Vashon, J. H. Crossman, Mrs. Angeline
S. Hall, Dr. C. B. Purvis, Mrs. Dr. Hathaway, Bishop Moore, Mrs. C.
A. F. Stebbins, Giles B. Stebbins, Miss Emily Stanton, Dr. John
Mayhew, John R. Elvana, J. C. O. Whaley, Charles Roeser, George T.
Downing; _Recording Secretary_, George F. Needham; _Treasurer_,
Daniel Breed; _Board of Managers_, Josephine S. Griffing, Hamilton
Wilcox, Dr. Daniel Breed, Mrs. Corner, Geo. F. Needham, Mrs. Lydia
S. Hall, J. H. Crane; _Corresponding Secretary_, Mrs. Mary T.
Corner. Letters were reported from Frederick Douglass, George
William Curtis, Mrs. E. Oakes Smith. Addresses were delivered by J.
H. Crossman, G. F. Needham, Mrs. Lockwood, R. J. Hinton, and Mr.
Tibbits of Virginia. Dr. Breed recited an original poem, entitled,
"Woman's Pledge to Freedom."
[527] The names of the women who attempted to register and vote
were: Jane A. Archibald, Clara M. Archibald, Mary Anderson, S. W.
Aiken, Sallie S. Barrett, Mary B. Baumgras, Florence Riddle
Bartlett, Ann M. Boyle, M. W. Browne, Deborah B. Clarke (Grace
Greenwood's mother, eighty years of age), C. W. Campbell, Elizabeth
T. Cowperthwaite, Mary T. Corner, Mary M. Courtenay, Mary A.
Donaldson, Mary A. Dennison, Ruth Carr Dennison, L. S. Doolittle,
Dr. Susan A. Edson, Sarah P. Edson, B. F. Evans, E. W. Foster,
Olive Freeman, Maggie Finney, Julia H. Grey, Josephine S. Griffing,
A. A. Henning, Susie J. Hickey, Calista Hickey, E. M. Hickey, Mary
Hooper, Ruth G. D. Havens, E. E. Hill, Lydia S. Hall, Julia
Archibald Holmes, N. M. Johnson, Jennie V. Jewell, Carrie Ketchum,
Joanna Kelly, Sara J. Lippincott (Grace Greenwood), Belva A.
Lockwood, Susie S. McClure, A. Jennie Miles, Augusta E. Morris, M.
T. Middleton, Savangie E. Mark, A. E. Newton, M. C. Page, Eliza Ann
Peck, Mary A. Riddle, A. R. Riddle, Caroline Risley, Sarah Andrews
Spencer, E. D. E. N. Southworth, Caroline A. Sherman, Mary S.
Scribner, Belle Smith, Maria T. Stoddard, Ada E. Spurgeon, Rubina
Taylor, Harriet P. Trickham, Eliza M. Tibbetts, Dr. Caroline B.
Winslow, Sarah E. Webster (mother of Dr. Susan A. Edson), Julia A.
Wilbur, Mrs. Westfall, Mary Willard, Amanda Wall, Lucy A. Wheeler.
[528] For full account see Vol. II., page 587.
[529] David Eastburn and Henry Swaine of New Castle county.
[530] The officers were: Sally Clay Bennett, Maggie S. Burnham,
Mrs. Somers, Mary B. Clay.
[531] The incorporators who formed the Board of Regents were, the
Right Rev. Thomas U. Dudley, D. D., Bishop of Kentucky; Rev. James
P. Boyce, D. D., President of the Baptist Theological Seminary;
Rev. E. F. Perkins, Rector of St. Paul's Church; Hon. I. H.
Edwards, Chancellor of Louisville Chancery Court; Theodore Harris,
President Louisville Banking and Insurance Co.; W. N. Haldeman,
President _Courier Journal_ Co.; Nicholas Finzer, President of
Finzer tobacco works; Samuel L. Avery, President B. F. Avery Co.;
G. H. Cochran, President Louisville School Board; Robert Cochran,
Commissioner of Chancery Court; Hon. Charles Godshaw, Trustee of
Jury Fund; Dr. E. A. Grant and Mr. James K. Lemon. The board was
organized by the election of Mr. Theodore Harris, _President_, Dr.
E. A. Grant, _Secretary_, and James K. Lemon, _Treasurer_. The
school opened with fifteen students, and continued until June,
1883. A lecture and practical course combined, occupy ten months of
the year--lectures being given five afternoons of each week during
the term.
[532] _President_, Mrs. Anne W. Bodeker, Richmond;
_Vice-Presidents_, Mrs. Maria G. and Judge John C. Underwood, Mr.
and Mrs. Judge Westal Willoughby, Mr. and Mrs. Judge Lysander Hill,
all of Alexandria; Mr. R. M. Manly, Richmond; Mrs. Martha Haines
Bennett, Norfolk; Mr. Andrew Washburne and Mr. William E. Coleman,
Richmond; _Secretary_, Miss Sue L. F. Smith, Richmond; _Executive
Committee_, Rev. W. F. Hemenway, Mrs. Andrew Washburne, Mrs. Dr. E.
H. Smith, Dr. and Mrs. Langstedt, Richmond, and Mrs. Allen
(Florence Percy) of Manchester.
[533] _President_, Gov. R. K. Scott; _Vice-Presidents_, Hon. B. F.
Whittemore, Hon. G. F. McIntyre, Gen. W. J. Whipper, Mrs. R. C.
DeLarge, Hon. D. H. Chamberlain, Mrs. A. J. Ransier, and Mrs. R. K.
Scott; _Secretary_, Miss K. Rollin; _Treasurer_, Mrs. K. Harris.
CHAPTER LV. (CONCLUDED).
CANADA.
We are indebted to Miss Phelps of St. Catharines and Mrs. Curzon of
Toronto for the facts we give in regard to women's position in the
Dominion. Miss Phelps says:
History tells us that when the thirteen American colonies
revolted and their independence was declared there were 25,000
who adhered to the policy of King George, under the name of the
United Empire Loyalists, some of whom came to Canada, others to
Acadia and others wandered elsewhere. The 10,000 who sought a
home in Canada at once formed a government in harmony with
English laws and usages. Parliament was established in 1803 at
York, now Toronto, and during that session the first law for the
protection of married women was passed. At first, if a married
woman desired to dispose of her property, she was obliged to go
before the courts to testify as to her willingness to do so. In
1821 a bill was passed enabling her to go before justices of the
peace. This was a great convenience, for the courts were not
always in session when it was imperative for her to sell. In 1849
a bill was passed to naturalize women who married native-born or
naturalized subjects. In 1859, under the old parliament of
Canada, the Married Woman's Property act was passed, which in
brief provides that every woman who may marry without any
marriage-contract or settlement shall, after May 4, 1859,
notwithstanding her coverture, have, hold and enjoy all her real
estate, whether belonging to her before marriage or in any way
acquired afterward, free from her husband's debts and obligations
contracted after May 4, 1859. A married woman may also hold her
personal property free from the debts and contracts of her
husband, and obtain an order of protection for her own earnings
and those of her minor children. She may become a stockholder of
any bank, insurance company or any incorporated association, as
if she were a _feme sole_, and may vote by proxy or otherwise. A
married woman is liable on contracts respecting her own real
estate. No married woman is liable to arrest either on mesne or
final process. Any superior court of law or equity or any judge
of said court, or a judge of a surrogate court, or deputy, may,
on hearing the petition of a mother, or minor whose father is
dead, appoint her as guardian--notwithstanding the appointment of
another person by the father--of the estate to which the minor is
entitled, and of such sums of money as are necessary from time to
time for the maintenance of the minor. In 1881 a law was passed
enabling a woman to discharge a mortgage on her lands without her
husband being a party to it, while a husband cannot dispose of
his property without her consent.
More than thirty years ago school suffrage was granted to women
on the same grounds as to male electors, and they are eligible to
all school offices. Women have, however, been slow to avail
themselves of this privilege, owing to their ignorance of the
laws and their lack of interest in regard to all public measures.
When they awake to their political rights they will feel a deeper
responsibility in the discharge of their public duties. But the
steady increase in the number of those who avail themselves of
this privilege is the one encouraging indication of the growth of
the suffrage movement in Canada.
In 1882 the municipal act was so amended as to give married
women, widows and spinsters, if possessed of the necessary
qualifications, the right to vote on by-laws and some other minor
municipal matters. Again, in 1884, the act was still further
amended, extending the right to vote at municipal elections to
widows and unmarried women on all matters. In Toronto, January 4,
1886, the women polled a large vote, resulting in the election of
the candidate pledged to reform. But it must be remembered that
this progressive legislation belongs only to the Province of
Ontario.
Mrs. Curzon writes:
In the year 1876 Dr. Emily H. Stowe--graduated in New
York--settled in Toronto for the practice of her profession.
Thoroughly imbued with the principles roughly summed up in the
term "woman's rights," and finding that her native Canada was not
awake to the importance of the subject, she lectured in the
principal towns of Ontario on "Woman's Sphere and Woman in
Medicine." By reason of the agitation caused by these lectures a
Woman's Literary Club[534] was organized in Toronto with Dr.
Stowe, president, and Miss Helen Archibald, secretary. The
triumphs scored through the efforts of this club were the
admission of women to the University College and School of
Medicine of Toronto, Queen's University and the Royal Medical
School of Kingston, and the founding of a medical school for
women in each city. When the municipal franchise was granted to
women the club decided to come out boldly as a suffrage
organization. Accordingly by resolution the Toronto Woman's
Literary Club was dissolved and the Canadian Woman Suffrage
Association[535] formed, March 9, 1883.
McGill University at Montreal has an annex for women founded
through the munificence of one of the merchants of that
city.----Dalhousie College, Halifax, admits women on the same
footing as men. The Toronto _Mail_ says it is only a question of
time when all Canadian colleges will do the same thing.----In
1883 the provincial legislature of Nova Scotia gave duly
qualified women the right to vote, and they exercised it very
generally the following year.----In New Brunswick the old laws
and prejudices remain, but woman suffrage has its friends and
advocates in Mrs. E. W. Fisher and Mr. and Mrs. W. Frank Hathaway
of St. Johns.----In 1885 the Mount Allison Methodist College at
Sackville, N. B., conferred the degree of M. A. on Miss Harriet
Stewart. This is the first instance of an educational institution
in the Dominion conferring such an honor upon a lady.
FOOTNOTES:
[534] _The Ballot-Box_ in 1880 said: "_The Citizen_ of Toronto,
Ont., has established a 'Ladies' Column' under the auspices of the
Toronto Woman's Literary Club, the first ladies' club ever formed
in Canada. This club has been in existence four years. _The
Citizen_ is said to be the first Canadian paper devoted, even in
part, to woman's interest. Heading this change 'Important Notice,'
it says: 'We have great pleasure in announcing that we have made an
arrangement with the Toronto Woman's Literary Club to occupy an
important space in our columns, for the advance of moral, social,
educational and family matters affecting woman generally. Mrs. S.
A. Curzon has charge of this column as associate editor.' The club
in a stirring salutatory defines its work and objects. It is the
intention to give, each week, a _resume_ of the current topics
concerning women, education, the franchises, the legal abilities
and disabilities of women, etc., hoping to arouse a national
sentiment among Canadian women and intelligence upon these
important subjects. This appeal is signed by Mrs. McEwen, the
president, and Emily H. Stowe, Mrs. W. J. MacKenzie, Mrs. W. B.
Hamilton and Mrs. S. A. Curzon, the executive committee."
[535] The officers were: _President_, Mrs. Donald McEwen;
_Vice-Presidents_, Mrs. Curzon, Mrs. E. H. Stowe, M. D., Captain W.
F. McMaster, John Hallam, esq.; _Treasurer_, Mrs. W. B. Hamilton;
_Secretary_, Miss J. Foulds; _Executive Committee_, Mrs. McKenzie,
Mrs. S. McMaster, Mrs. Riches, Mrs. Miller, Miss Hamilton, Miss
McMaster, Miss Alexander, William Houston, J. L. Foulds, P.
McIntyre, Phillips Thompson, Thomas Bengough.
[Illustration: Mentia Taylor]
CHAPTER LVI.
GREAT BRITAIN.
BY CAROLINE ASHURST BIGGS.
Women Send Members to Parliament--Sidney Smith, Sir Robert Peel,
Richard Cobden--The Ladies of Oldham--Jeremy Bentham--Anne
Knight--Northern Reform Society, 1858--Mrs. Matilda
Biggs--Unmarried Women and Widows Petition
Parliament--Associations formed in London, Manchester, Edinburgh,
1867--John Stuart Mill in Parliament--Seventy-three Votes for his
Bill--John Bright's Vote--Women Register and
Vote--Lord-Chief-Justice of England Declares their Constitutional
Right--The Courts give Adverse Decisions--Jacob Bright secures
the Municipal Franchise--First Public Meeting--Division on Jacob
Bright's Bill to Remove Political Disabilities--Mr. Gladstone's
Speech--Work of 1871-2--Fourth Vote on the Suffrage Bill--Jacob
Bright fails of Reelection--Efforts of Mr. Forsyth--Memorial of
the National Society--Some Account of the Workers--Vote of the
New Parliament, 1875--Organized Opposition--Diminished Adverse
Vote of 1878--Mr. Courtney's Resolution--Letters--Great
Demonstrations at Manchester--London--Bristol--Nottingham--
Birmingham--Sheffield--Glasgow--Victory in the Isle of Man--Passage
of Municipal Franchise Bill for Scotland--Mr. Mason's Resolution--
Reduction of Adverse Majority to 16--Conference at Leeds--Mr.
Woodall's Amendment to Reform Bill of 1884--Meeting at Edinburgh--
Other Meetings--Estimated Number of Women Householders--Circulars
to Members of Parliament--Debate on the Amendment--Resolutions of
the Society--Further Debate--Defeat of the Amendment--Meeting at
St. James Hall--Conclusion.
In writing a history of the woman suffrage movement, it is
difficult to say where one should begin, for although the organized
agitation which arose when John Stuart Mill first brought forward
his proposal in parliament dates back only eighteen years, the
foundations for this demand were laid with the very earliest
parliamentary institutions in England. As a nation we are fond of
working by precedents, and it is a favorite saying among lawyers
that modern English law began with Henry III. In earlier Saxon
times women who were freeholders of lands or burgesses in towns had
the same electoral rights as men. We have records of the reigns of
Mary and Elizabeth, showing that ladies of the manse, in their own
right, sent members to parliament. Down to the time of the civil
wars women were accustomed to share in the election of "parliament
men." In 1640, some women voted in an election for the county of
Suffolk, Sir Simonds d'Ewes being high-sheriff:
Who, as soon as he had notice thereof, sent to forbid the same,
conceiving it a matter verie unworthy of anie gentleman, and most
dishonourable in such an election to make use of their voices,
although in law they might have been allowed.
The spirit of the Puritans was not favorable to woman's equality;
but, though disused, the right was never absolutely taken away by
law. In a celebrated trial, Olive _vs._ Ingram (reign of George
II.) the chief-justice gave it as his opinion that "a person paying
scot and lot," and therefore qualified to vote, was a description
which included women; and all the writs of election down to the
time of William IV. were made to "persons" who were freeholders.
However, for all purposes of political life this right was as good
as dead, being absolutely forgotten. But still the local franchises
remained. We have no data to determine whether these were as
completely neglected as the parliamentary franchise. Parishioners
voted for overseers of the poor and for other local boards; and
women were never legally disqualified from voting in these
elections. The lowest period in the condition of women appears to
have been reached at the end of the last century, though they were
not then indifferent to politics. "You cannot," says Miss
Edgeworth's Lady Davenant, "satisfy yourself with the common
namby-pamby phrase, 'Ladies have nothing to do with politics.' * *
* Female influence must exist on political subjects as well as on
all others; but this influence should always be domestic not
public; the customs of society have so ruled it." This sentence
exactly represented ordinary English feeling. It was never
considered derogatory to an English lady to take an active part in
elections, provided she did so for some member of her family; but
of direct responsibility she had none.
In the ferment of opinion which preceded the great Reform bill,
woman's claim to participate in it was never heard. The new
franchises which were then for the first time created applied
exclusively to _male_ persons, but in the old franchises continuing
in force, the word "person" alone is strictly used. Mr. Sidney
Smith said:
In reserving and keeping alive the qualifications in existence
before those itself created, this statute falls back exactly to
the accustomed phraseology of the earlier acts. Whenever it
confers a new right it restricts it to every male person.
Whenever it perpetuates existing franchises, it continues them
to every person, leaving the word "male" out on system.
This may have been little more than an oversight, or it may have
been that respect for precedent which used to be an inherent
quality in English statesmen. But it is curious that the first
petition ever, to our knowledge, presented for women's suffrage to
the House of Commons should date from this same year. It was
presented on August 3, 1832, and is the worthy predecessor of many
thousands in later times. Hansard thus describes it:
Mr. Hunt said he had a petition to present which might be a
subject of mirth to some honorable gentlemen, but which was one
deserving of consideration. It came from a lady of rank and
fortune, Mary Smith of Stanmore, in the county of York. The
petition stated that she paid taxes, and therefore did not see
why she should not have a share in the election of a
representative; she also stated that women were liable to all the
penalties of the law, even death, and ought to have a voice in
the fixing of them; but so far from this, on their trials both
judges and jurors were of the opposite sex. She could see no good
reason for the exclusion of women from political rights while the
highest office of the State, that of the crown, was open to the
inheritance of females; and, so we understood, the petitioner
expressed her indignation against those vile wretches who would
not marry, and yet would exclude females from a share in the
legislation. The prayer of the petition was that every unmarried
female, possessing the necessary pecuniary qualifications, should
be entitled to vote for members of parliament.
The following year Sir Robert Peel in opposing vote by ballot said:
The theoretical arguments in favor of woman suffrage were at
least as strong as those in favor of vote by ballot. There were
arguments in favor of extending the franchise to women to which
it was no easy matter to find a logical answer. Other and more
important duties were entrusted to women. Women were allowed to
hold property, to vote on many occasions in right of that
property; nay, a woman might inherit the throne and perform all
the functions of the first office of the State. Why should they
not vote for a member of parliament?
But Sir Robert Peel evidently had no idea that a time would come
when women would ask this question in downright seriousness.
Meanwhile the preference for the words "male person" in the new
enactments still continued. It was employed in the Municipal
Corporation Reform act, 1835; and in the Irish poor-law act of
1838, women, as well as clergymen, were expressly excluded from
election as poor-law guardians. The repeal of the corn-laws brought
the political work of women to the front; they formed local
committees, collected funds and attended meetings. In a speech on
free-trade, delivered in Covent Garden Theater January 15, 1845,
Richard Cobden said:
There are many ladies present, I am happy to say; now, it is a
very anomalous fact that they cannot vote themselves, and yet
that they have a power of conferring votes upon other people. I
wish they had the franchise, for they would often make much
better use of it than their husbands.
Again in 1848, in supporting a motion of Mr. Joseph Hume in the
House of Commons to the effect that the elective franchise should
be extended to all householders, Mr. Cobden said:
A gentleman asked me to support universal suffrage on the ground
of principle, and I said to him, if it is a principle that a man
should have a vote because he pays taxes, why should not a widow
who pays taxes and is liable to serve as church-warden and
overseer, have a vote for members of parliament? The gentleman
replied that he agreed with me.
In 1853, Mr. W. J. Fox, member for Oldham, in acknowledging the
presentation to him by the ladies of Oldham of a signet-ring
bearing the inscription, "Education, the birthright of all," spoke
strongly in favor of women having a definite share in political
life:
If women have nothing to do with politics, honest men ought to
have nothing to do with politics. They keep us pure, simple,
just, earnest, in our exertions in politics and public life. They
have to do with it, because while the portion of man may be by
the rougher labors of the head and hands to work out many of the
great results of life, the peculiar function of woman is to
spread grace and softness, truth, beauty, benignity over all. Nor
is woman confined to this. In fact I wish that her direct as well
as indirect influence were still larger than it is in the sphere
of politics. Why, we trust a woman with the sceptre of the realm,
consider her adequate to make peers in the State and bishops in
the Church; surely she must be adequate to send her
representatives to the lower House. I know the time may not have
come for mooting a question of this sort; but I know the time
will come, and that woman will be something more than a mere
adjective to man in political matters. She will become a
substantive also. And why not?
Other speakers and writers brought forward the same point. Jeremy
Bentham declared he could find no reasons for the exclusion of
women, though he laid no stress on the matter; Herbert Spencer in
"Social Statics" (1851), Mr. Thomas Hare in his book on
"Representation," and Mr. Mill in "Representative Government," all
discussed it. In 1843 Mrs. Hugo Reid published an excellent volume,
"A Plea for Woman," in which she maintained that "There is no good
ground for the assumption that the possession and exercise of
political privileges are incompatible with home duties." In 1841 a
strong article appeared in the _Westminster Review_, written by
Mrs. Margaret Mylne, a Scotch lady still living. Mrs. Stuart Mill's
admirably comprehensive article appeared in the same review in
1851.[536] In 1846, also, Col. T. Perronet Thompson, the well-known
anti-corn-law advocate, wrote:
Whenever the popular party can agree upon and bring forward any
plan which shall include the equal voting of women, they will not
only obtain an alliance of which most men know the importance,
but they will relieve the theory of universal suffrage from the
stigma its enemies never fail to draw upon it, of making its
first step a wholesale disqualification of half the universe
concerned.
Among other writers and speakers on the subject, we must also
enumerate Anne Knight, an earnest warm-hearted Quaker lady. She
sometimes lectured upon it, and many of her letters written to Mrs.
Elizabeth Pease Nichol of Edinburgh, Lord Brougham, and others, are
still preserved, in which she eagerly advocates the admission of
women to the suffrage. She assisted in founding the Sheffield
Female Political Association. On February 26, 1851, this
association held a meeting at the Democratic Temperance Hotel,
Sheffield, and unanimously adopted an address, which was the first
manifesto dealing with the suffrage ever formulated by a meeting of
women in England:
ADDRESS OF THE SHEFFIELD POLITICAL ASSOCIATION TO THE WOMEN OF
ENGLAND--_Beloved Sisters_: We, the women of the democracy of
Sheffield, beg the indulgence of addressing you at this important
juncture. We have been observers for a number of years of the
various plans and systems of organization which have been laid
down for the better government and guidance of democracy, and we
are brought to the conclusion that women might with the strictest
propriety be included in the proclamation of the people's
charter; for we are the majority of the nation, and it is our
birth-right, equally with our brother, to vote for the man who is
to sway our political destiny, to impose the taxes which we are
compelled to pay, to make the laws which we with others must
observe; and heartily should we rejoice to see the women of
England uniting for the purpose of demanding this great right of
humanity, feeling assured that were women thus comprehended, they
would be the greatest auxiliaries of right against might. For
what would not the patient, energetic mind of woman accomplish,
when once resolved? The brave and heroic deeds which history
records are our testimony that no danger is too great, no
struggle too arduous for her to encounter; thus confirming our
convictions that woman's cooeperation is greatly needed for the
accomplishment of our political well-being. But there are some
who would say: "Would you have woman enjoy all the political
rights of men?" To this we emphatically answer: Yes! for does she
not toil early and late in the factory, and in every department
of life subject to the despotism of men? and we ask in the name
of justice, must we continue ever the silent and servile victims
of this injustice? perform all the drudgery of his political
societies and never possess a single political right? Is the
oppression to last forever? We, the women of the democracy of
Sheffield, answer, No! We put forth this earnest appeal to our
sisters of England to join hand and heart with us in this noble
and just cause, to the exposing and eradicating of such a state
of things. Let us shake off our apathy and raise our voices for
right and liberty, till justice in all its fulness is conceded to
us. This we say to all who are contending for liberty, for what
is liberty if the claims of women be disregarded? Our special
object will be the entire political enfranchisement of our own
sex; and we conjure you, our sisters of England, to aid us in
accomplishing this holy work. We remain with heartfelt respect,
your friends.[537]
At the end of 1858 there was established in Newcastle-on-Tyne an
association called the Northern Reform Society, which had universal
suffrage for its object, and it expressly invited the contributions
of women. Letters were written by Matilda Ashurst Biggs, and
afterwards by two or three women in different parts of the country,
offering to become members. In acknowledging these letters, the
secretary stated that the Northern Reform Union only contemplated
the extension of the franchise to men, although he admitted that
many of its leading members were individually in favor of "woman
suffrage" but they believed that by asking for manhood suffrage,
they were advancing a step towards universal franchise. He added.
"The society will be very glad of women's subscriptions, and trusts
that they will use their best efforts to promote its extension."
Undoubtedly, there has never been any reluctance to accept the
subscriptions of women towards promoting the objects of men. In
commenting upon this letter, Mrs. Biggs[538] said in the _Newcastle
Guardian_, February 19, 1859:
I have never given my rights to be merged in those of any other
person, and I feel it an injustice that I, who am equally taxed
with men, should be denied a voice in making the laws which
affect and dispose of my property, and made to support a State
wherein I am not recognized as a citizen. I consider that a
tyranny which renders me responsible to laws in the making of
which I am not consulted. The Northern Reform Society, which
"takes its stand upon justice," should claim for us at least that
we be exempted from the duties, it we are to be denied the rights
belonging to citizens.
These books, speeches and letters though scattered and unconnected,
slowly prepared the ground for the organized agitation. Another
Reform bill grew into preparation. Men's thoughts were turned again
towards the question of representation, and every word spoken on
behalf of the enfranchisement of women assumed double force as it
drew near to a political issue. The enfranchisement of women
advanced from a question of philosophical speculation to actual
politics in the election of John Stuart Mill member of parliament
for Westminster in 1865. In his election address, Mr. Mill, as
previously in his work on representative government, openly avowed
this article of political faith. Nevertheless, the first speech of
which we have record in the House of Commons plainly vindicating
the right of women to the vote, was that of a man who differed from
Mr. Mill in every other feature of his political life and
creed--Mr. Disraeli. He used almost the same form of argument as
Sir Robert Peel had done thirty years before, but unlike the former
statesman he backed it up with his vote and personal influence for
many succeeding years. It was in 1866 that he spoke these words,
long and gratefully remembered by the women of the country:
In a country governed by a woman--where you allow woman to form
part of the estate of the realm--peeresses in their own right for
example--where you allow a woman not only to hold land, but to be
a lady of the manor and hold legal courts--where a woman by law
may be a church-warden and overseer of the poor,--I do not see,
where she has so much to do with the State and Church, on what
reasons, if you come to right, she has not a right to vote.
These words from Disraeli were the spark that fired the train. In
answer to a request from Miss Jessie Boucherett, Mrs. Bodichon and
Miss Bessie R. Parkes, Mr. Mill replied that if they could find a
hundred women who would sign a petition for the franchise, he would
present it to the House of Commons. A committee was immediately
formed in London, and the petition was circulated. In two or three
weeks it had received 1,499 signatures. Among these were many who
in after years took a prominent part, not only in suffrage, but in
other movements for the elevation of women. The petition was
presented by Mr. Mill in May, 1866, and was received with laughter.
He then gave notice of a motion to introduce into the Reform bill a
provision to the same effect. The committee[539] immediately began
to circulate petitions and pamphlets. Two of these were by Mrs.
Bodichon, "Reasons for, and Objections against the Enfranchisement
of Women," being the substance of a paper she had read at the
Social Science Congress, in October, 1866. We give the text of the
petition, as it differed somewhat from those circulated in after
years:
_To the Honorable, the Commons of the United Kingdom of Great
Britain and Ireland, in Parliament assembled:_
The humble petition of the undersigned,--showeth, That your
petitioners fulfill the conditions of property or rental
prescribed by law as the qualification of the electoral
franchise, and exercise in their own names the rights pertaining
to such conditions; that the principles in which the government
of the United Kingdom is based, imply the representation of all
classes and interests in the State; that the reasons alleged for
withholding the franchise from certain classes of her majesty's
subjects do not apply to your petitioners. Your petitioners
therefore humbly pray your honorable House to grant to such
persons as fulfill all the conditions which entitle to a vote in
the election of members of parliament, excepting only that of
sex, the privilege of taking part in the choice of fit persons to
represent the people in your honorable House.
This form of petition was only signed by unmarried women and widows
of full age, holding the legal qualification for voting in either
county or borough, but there were other forms for other classes of
persons. On March 28, the Right Hon. H. A. Bruce presented a
petition from 3,559 persons, mostly women. Mr. Mill, in April,
presented one with 3,161 names collected by the Manchester
committee, and the Right Hon. Russell Gurney one signed by 1,605
qualified women, _i. e._, free-holders and householders who would
have had the vote had they been men. In all 13,497 were counted in
the parliamentary report this session; among these were many
clergymen, barristers, physicians and fellows of colleges.
While we are on the subject of petitions we may as well briefly
glance at what was done in this branch of work during succeeding
years.[540] No better method could be found of testing public
opinion, or of affording scope for quiet, intelligent agitation.
Many friends could help by circulating petitions, distributing
literature at the same time and arguing away objections. In 1868
there were presented 78 petitions with nearly 50,000 signatures.
One of them, headed by Mrs. Somerville and Florence Nightingale,
contained 21,000 names, and was a heavy but delightful burden which
Mr. Mill could hardly carry to the table. This petition excited
great attention. During all these years no petitions were presented
against granting the suffrage to women. These numbers were
undoubtedly a surprise to many members of parliament who were
inclined to look upon woman suffrage as an "impracticable fad,"
"the fantastic crochet of a few shrieking sisters." But the
collection and arrangement of the signatures took up incalculable
time, and after a few years this method of agitation was discarded
to a great extent in the large political centres. Friends became
wearied out with the toilsome process of year by year collecting
signatures, which when presented were silently and indifferently
dropped into the bag under the table of the House of Commons. But
during the early days of the movement these petitions, signed by
all classes of men and women, were invaluable in arousing interest
in our movement.
In 1867, for the better prosecution of the work, instead of one
committee embracing the whole of England, separate associations
were formed in London, Manchester and Edinburgh. The London
committee consisted of ladies only, Miss Frances Power Cobbe, Mrs.
Fawcett, Miss Hampson, Miss Hare, Mrs. Lucas, Mrs. Stansfeld, with
Mrs. Taylor as secretary. In the Manchester committee Mr. Jacob
Bright, M. P., at once took up the position of leader and advocate
which he afterwards so long and nobly maintained in the House of
Commons. Miss Becker was appointed secretary. The Edinburgh
committee elected Mrs. McLaren[541] for their president. At a
special general meeting, November 6, 1867, it was resolved that
these three societies should form one national society, thus
securing the advantages of cooeperation while maintaining freedom of
action. The same rule applied to societies in Birmingham, Bristol
and other towns.
To return to the debate in the House of Commons on May 20, 1867 on
clause 4 of the Representation of the People bill. Mr. Mill moved
to leave out the word "man" and insert the word "person." His
speech has been too long before the public to need quotation; it is
a model of inductive reasoning and masterly eloquence. The debate
which followed was very unequal in character, but the division was
gratifying, for he received 73 votes (including pairs, 81); 194
voted against him. Mr. Mill wrote afterwards to a friend:
We are all delighted at the number of our minority, which is far
greater than anybody expected the first time, and would have been
greater still had not many members quitted the House, with or
without pairing, in the expectation that the subject would not
come on. But the greatest triumph of all was John Bright's vote.
At the election for Manchester, held near the end of 1867 (when Mr.
Jacob Bright was elected), Lily Maxwell, whose name had been
accidentally left on the parliamentary register, recorded her vote.
No objection was taken to it by the returning officer, or by the
agents of either candidate. The _Times_ devoted a leading article
to it. The circumstance was of no legal value, but it was useful to
show that a woman could go through the process of recording a vote
in a parliamentary election even before the Ballot act was passed.
The idea gained ground that by the new Reform act the right to vote
had been secured to women. The Reform act of 1867, sec. 3, declares
that:
Every man shall in and after the year 1868 be entitled to be
registered as a voter, and when registered, to vote for a member
to serve in parliament.
In the substitution of the word "man" for that of "male person"
in the Reform act of 1832, a great difference was already
discernable, but this difference was more important when taken into
conjunction with what was popularly known as "Lord Romilly's act,"
an act for shortening the language used in acts of parliament (13
and 14 Vict.). This act provides, "that all words importing
the masculine gender shall be deemed and taken to include
females, unless the contrary is expressly provided"; and in the
Representation of the People act there was no express provision to
the contrary. This had been pointed out by one or two members at
the time.
Accordingly the several societies united in a systematic endeavor
to procure the insertion of women's names on the registers of
electors under the new Reform act. A circular respectfully
requesting the boards of overseers to insert on the list of voters
the names of all persons who had paid their rates, was sent to
several hundred boards in different parts of the country. Very few
replies were received, but women were placed on the lists in many
counties, in Aberdeen, Salford and many small districts in
Lancaster, Middlesex, Kent, etc. The overseers of Manchester
declined compliance. In that city there were 5,100 women
householders who claimed their votes, and when the revision courts
were opened in September, this claim came on for consideration. The
case was ably argued, but the revising barrister decided against
admitting it, granting, however, a case for trial at the Court of
Common Pleas. Another case was also granted, being that of Mrs.
Kyllman, a free-holder, her claim being under the old free-holding
franchise 8 Henry VI., to wit.:
Elections of knights of the shire shall be made in each county by
people dwelling and resident therein of whom each has free-hold
to the value of L40 by the year.
In the majority of districts the revising barristers disallowed the
claims; but in four district-revision courts the women's names were
admitted. In Finsbury, one of the metropolitan boroughs, Mr.
Chisholm Anstey was revising barrister, and he admitted them on
account of ancient English law; in Cockermouth, Winterton and two
townships of Lancashire, the revising barrister admitted them upon
his interpretation of the Reform act taken in conjunction with Lord
Romilly's act. In the suffrage report for this year the number of
women placed on the electoral roll by these decisions is estimated
at about 230, but undoubtedly there were others concerning whom no
information was received. In many cases the women voted: 15 did so
in Finsbury (not only was there no disturbance, but hardly any
remark was made, and they expressed their surprise that it was so
easy a thing to do); 12 in Gordon and 10 in Levenshulme, both
little districts in Lancashire, and smaller numbers in other
places. In Chester the parliament candidate issued his election
placards to "Ladies and Gentlemen."
On November 7, the case of the 5,000 Manchester women householders
was argued before the Court of Common Pleas. Mr. J. D. Coleridge
(now Lord Coleridge, Lord-chief-justice of England) and Dr.
Pankhurst were the counsel for the appellants. Mr. John Coleridge
in an able argument spoke of the ancient constitutional right of
women to take part in elections. He produced copies from the record
office of several indentures returning members to parliament, the
signatures of which were in the hand-writing of women, or to which
women were parties. He argued that the term "man" in the Reform act
included woman, not only generally but specifically, under the
provisions of Lord Romilly's act. The case was argued before
Lord-chief-justice Boville; the decision was given on November 9,
and decisively pronounced that the new Reform act had never
intended to include women, and that they were incapacitated from
voting. This decision did not affect the women who were already on
the register, and many voted in the general election which took
place afterwards. Thus women have been shut out from electoral
rights, not by any decree of parliament, but by this decision of
the Court of Common Pleas. However there was no appeal from this
Court, except to parliament, and from this time forward the
character of the agitation changed. The year 1868 ended with a
legal decision which seemed crushing in its finality, while the
same year had given the most conclusive proof that women wished to
vote, and would do so whenever the opportunity offered.
The next year, 1869, gave another convincing proof that women were
eager to vote, and brought us the most substantial triumph yet
obtained, due to the wisdom and skilful tactics of Mr. Jacob
Bright, member of parliament for Manchester. This victory was the
municipal franchise for women. Early in 1869 Mr. Hibbert introduced
a bill to regulate the conditions of the municipal franchise. By
the Municipal Corporation Amendment act, passed in 1835, male
persons only were authorized to vote. The present bill was to amend
that. Mr. Jacob Bright, seconded by Sir Charles Dilke and Mr.
Peter Rylands, proposed the omission of the word "male" from the
bill, and the insertion of a clause securing to women the right of
voting in municipal elections. Mr. Hibbert concurred in the
introduction of these amendments, though he did not anticipate they
would lead to any result beyond a discussion. A circular containing
full information upon the ancient and existing rights of women to
vote in local affairs was sent to each member of parliament by the
Manchester committee. It showed that before the passing of the
Municipal Corporation act of 1835, women rate-payers had rights
similar to those of men in all matters pertaining to local
government and expenditure; and that in non-corporate districts
they still exercised such rights, under the provisions of the
Public Health act, and other statutes guarding the electoral
privileges of the whole body of rate-payers. But when any district
was incorporated into a municipal borough, the women rate-payers
were disfranchised, although those not included within its
boundaries remained possessed of votes. It showed also that women
can vote in parochial matters, and take part in vestry meetings,
called for various purposes, such as the election of church-wardens
and way-wardens, the appointment of overseers, the sale of parish
property, and, formerly, the levying of church-rates; also that
they can vote in the election of poor-law guardians--that in fact,
in none of those ancient voting customs, was the sex of the
ratepayers taken into consideration as either a qualification or
disqualification. We quote from the Manchester society:
In the House of Commons on June 7, 1869, on consideration of the
Municipal Franchise bill as amended, Mr. Jacob Bright rose to
move that in this act and the said recited act (Municipal
Corporation Reform act, 1835) wherever words occur which import
the masculine gender, the same shall be held to include females
for all purposes connected with and having reference to the
election of or power to elect representatives of any municipal
corporation. He stated that his object was to give the municipal
vote to every rate-payer within the municipal limits; to give to
municipal property the representation which all property enjoyed
elsewhere; that had the proposition been an innovation, a
departure from the customary legislation of the country, he would
not have brought it in as an amendment to a bill; but that his
object was to remove an innovation--to resist one of the most
remarkable invasions of long-established rights which the
legislation of this or any other country could show. The bill
before the house was an amendment of the Municipal Corporation
act of 1835. That act was the only act in regard to local
expenditure and local government which established this
disability. Before and since, all acts of parliament gave every
local vote to every rate-payer. The Health of Towns act of 1848
had a clause almost identical with the one he was moving. He was
therefore asking the House not only to make the bill in harmony
with the general legislation of the country, but to allow it to
be in harmony with its latest expressed convictions as shown in
the act of 1848. There were in England 78 non-corporate towns
which were not parliamentary boroughs, with populations varying
from 20,000 to 6,000. In these every rate-payer voted. There was
little if any difference between their government and that of
municipal towns. Who could assign a reason why women should vote
in one and not in the other? Every parochial vote was in the
hands of the whole body of rate-payers. Women held the most
important parochial offices. The sister of the member for
Stockport had acted as overseer. Miss Burdett Coutts had been
urged to take the office of guardian. Had she been a large
rate-payer in a municipal town, what an absurdity to shut her out
from the vote! He then showed how the process of disfranchisement
was going on, and quoted Darlington and Southport. The latter
town was incorporated in 1867. In 1866, 2,085 persons were
qualified to vote for commissioners; 588 of these were women.
From the moment of incorporation these votes were extinguished
without a reason being assigned, though they had exercised them
from time immemorial. Such would be the case with any town
incorporated in the future. He appealed to the metropolitan
members, and showed them that unless his clauses were carried,
when they came to establish corporations throughout the
metropolis, as some of them desired, all the female rate-payers
would be struck off the roll; that over a population of 3,000,000
this exclusion would prevail. He stated that where women had the
vote they exercised it to an equal degree with the men. Mr.
Lings, the comptroller for the city of Manchester, affirms that
according to his experience the number of men and women who vote
in local affairs bears a just proportion to the number of each on
the register. He showed that as the bill was a largely
enfranchising measure, his clause was in strict harmony with it,
but that while the bill sought to increase the representation of
those who were already considerably represented, the clause which
he wished to add would give representation to those who within
municipal towns were totally deprived of it. He concluded by
saying that questions had come to him, since these amendments had
been on the paper, from women in different parts of the country,
and from those who by their social and intellectual positions
might be regarded as representatives of their sex, asking why
there should always be this tender regard for the representation
and therefore the protection of men, and this apparent disregard
for the interest of women; and he appealed to the House, by its
decision, to show that as regards these local franchises it had a
common regard for the whole body of rate-payers.
Mr. Jacob Bright's motion, which he supported with all the tact,
earnestness and judgment of which he afterwards gave such repeated
proofs in bringing forward his Women's Disabilities bill, was
seconded by Mr. Rylands. Mr. Bruce (the home secretary) said he
had shown conclusively that this proposition was no novelty, and
that women were allowed to vote in every form of local government,
except under the Municipal Corporations act. The clause introduced
no anomaly, and he should give it his cordial support. Mr. Hibbert
also supported the clause, which was agreed to amid cheers, and it
was passed without a dissentient word or the faintest shadow of
opposition, as was also the proposal of Sir Charles Dilke, to leave
out the word "male" in the first clause.
In the House of Lords an attempt was made by Lord Redesdale to
reverse the decision of the House of Commons, but the proposal
found no seconder, and therefore fell to the ground. The Earl of
Kimberley, on behalf of the government, supported the proposition,
as did also Lord Cairns, from the opposition benches. The Municipal
Franchise bill became law in August, 1869. One well-known statesman
said at the time, "This is a revolution; this vote means still
another, and there never was so great a revolution so speedily
accomplished." In 1869 the Ballot act had not been passed; this was
in the days of open voting. It was therefore possible to ascertain
with accuracy in how large a proportion the women householders
availed themselves of their restored right to vote whenever a
contested election took place. On the following November a letter
of inquiry was sent to the town clerk of every municipal borough in
England and Wales, and by their courtesy in replying it was
ascertained that the women voted in very large numbers. In our
municipal towns the average ratio of women householders to men
householders is about one to seven. This varies greatly in
different localities. In Tewkesbury, for instance, there was only
one woman householder to twenty-three men householders, while in
Bath the proportion had risen as high as one to three. The women
voters were in about the same proportion. In the larger boroughs
the proportion was especially good, while there were cases in which
the polling of the women exceeded that of the men. In Bodmin,
Cornwall, two women voted, one of whom was 92 and the other 94
years of age.
The first public meeting in connection with women's suffrage was
held in Manchester, April 14, 1868, in the assembly room of the
Free Trade Hall. The occasion was one of great interest. Mr. Henry
D. Pochin, the mayor of Salford (which adjoins Manchester), took
the chair, and the first resolution was moved by Miss Becker,
seconded by the venerable Arch-deacon Sandford, and supported by
Mr. T. B. Potter, M. P.:
_Resolved_, That the exclusion of women from the exercise of the
franchise in the election of members, being unjust in principle
and inexpedient in practice, this meeting is of opinion that the
right of voting should be granted to them on the same conditions
as it is or may be granted to men.
The other resolutions were spoken to by Dr. Pankhurst, Mrs. Pochin
(who had also written a very exhaustive pamphlet on "The Claim of
Woman to the Elective Franchise," signed, _Justitia_), Mr. Chisholm
Anstey, Mr. Jacob Bright, M. P., Miss Annie Robertson of Dublin,
Mr. F. W. Myers, fellow of Trinity College, Cambridge, and Mr. J.
W. Edwards. This meeting, and the one which followed in Birmingham,
May 6, are fair types of those which have followed by thousands.
With few exceptions they have been addressed by men and women
jointly; the resolutions passed have generally been of a directly
practical and political character. They have been presided over,
whenever possible, by the chief magistrate, or some other
well-known man in the locality; in comparatively few cases have
women presided, and very seldom, indeed, strangers. Thus they have
been modeled closely on the ordinary English political meeting; and
this form, quite apart from the principles discussed at the
meetings, has done much to identify women's suffrage with the
practical politics of the day. The first meeting ever held in
London (July, 1869,) excited much attention. Admittance here was by
ticket. Mrs. Peter A. Taylor took the chair; Miss Biggs read the
report, and a noble array of speakers followed.[542]
The principle of women's suffrage was unhesitatingly conceded by
the passing of the Municipal Amendment act of 1869. The time was
come to demand its application in parliamentary elections.
Moreover, the decision of the Court of Common Pleas had left no
mode of action possible except for parliament to reverse that
decision. Mr. Jacob Bright, therefore, on the first day of the
session gave notice of his intention to introduce a bill to remove
the electoral disabilities of women. Sir Charles Dilke, a Liberal,
and Mr. E. B. Eastwick, a Conservative, also gave their names on
the back of the bill.
A BILL _to remove the Electoral Disabilities of Women_:
Be it enacted by the Queen's most excellent Majesty, by and with
the advice and consent of the Lords, spiritual and temporal, and
Commons in this present parliament assembled, and by the
authority of the same, as follows:
_First_--That in all acts relating to the qualification and
registration of voters or persons entitled or claiming to be
registered and to vote in the election of members of parliament,
wherever words occur which import the masculine gender, the same
shall be held to include females for all purposes connected with,
and having reference to the right to be registered as voters, and
to vote in such elections, any law or usage to the contrary
notwithstanding.
On February 16, the bill was read for the first time, and on May 4,
it came on for its second reading. Mr. Jacob Bright earnestly
appealed to the House to grant this measure of justice:
The women who are interested in this subject, he concluded, are
only acting in the spirit of one of the noblest proverbs of our
language, "God helps those who help themselves." Is it a matter
of regret to us that they should have these aspirations? Ought it
not rather to be a subject of satisfaction and of pride? That
this bill will become law, no one who has observed the character
of this agitation and who knows the love of justice in the
British people can doubt. I hope it will become law soon, for I
have a desire which will receive the sympathy of many in this
House. I have a strong desire that when our children come to read
the story of their country's fame, it may be written there that
the British parliament was the first great legislative assembly
in the world, which, in conferring its franchises, knew nothing
of the distinctions of strong and weak, of male and female, of
rich and poor.
The result of the division surprised and cheered all the supporters
of the measure. The government was neutral, and members of the
cabinet voted on either side according to their own opinions. The
second reading was carried by a vote of 124 to 91, being a majority
in its favor of 33. Those who witnessed that division will never
forget the grateful enthusiasm with which Mr. Jacob Bright was
received when he came up to the ladies' gallery, with his wife
leaning upon his arm. But our triumph was short-lived. Before the
bill went into committee, a week later, it became known that the
government intended to depart from its attitude of neutrality. A
strong pressure was exercised to crush the bill, and the contest of
course became hopeless. On the division for going into committee
220 votes were counted against 94 in its favor.
It became evident that we were in for a long contest, which would
require not only patience, courage and determination, but a high
degree of political sagacity. Organizations had to be perfected,
and additional societies established; meetings had to be called,
and lectures given to explain the question. In March of this year
the _Women's Suffrage Journal_ was established in Manchester. Miss
Becker has conducted this monthly from the beginning with great
talent and spirit; it is frequently quoted by the ordinary press,
and its pages contain the best record extant of the movement. This
same year of 1870, which witnessed our first parliamentary defeat,
brought compensation also of such magnitude as to outweigh the
temporary overthrow of the franchise bill. This was the Elementary
Education act, by which women were not only admitted to vote for
school-board candidates, but expressly enabled to sit on these
boards, and thus exercise not only elective, but legislative
functions of the most important character. The election clause
reads thus:
The school-board shall be elected in the manner provided by this
act, in a borough by the persons whose names are on the burgess
roll of such borough for the time being in force, and in a parish
not situated in the metropolis, by the rate-payers.
In London, with the sole exception of the city, the persons who
elect the vestries, _i. e._ the rate-payers, are the electors--this
includes women as a matter of course. In the city only,
the electors were to be the same persons who elected
common-council-men, and as these included men only, women are thus
excluded from voting in the school-board election, though even here
it may be observed they are eligible to sit on the board. Thus,
within the space of two years, two important measures were extended
unexpectedly.
In 1871 Mr. Jacob Bright again introduced the Women's Disabilities
Removal bill, and it was also supported by Mr. Eastwick and Dr.
Lyon Playfair. It was thrown out in the division upon the second
reading on May 3, by a majority of 69; 151 (including tellers and
pairs 159) voting for it, and 220 (including tellers and pairs 228)
voting against it. The most remarkable feature of the debate was a
speech made by Mr. Gladstone, which certainly justified the
confidence that women have subsequently entertained that the great
minister was willing to see justice done to them:
The ancient law recognized the rights of women in the parish; I
apprehend they could both vote and act in the parish. The modern
rule has extended the right to the municipality, so far as the
right of voting is concerned.... With respect to school-boards, I
own I believe that we have done wisely, on the whole, in giving
both the franchise and the right of sitting on the school-board
to women. Then comes a question with regard to parliament, and we
have to ask ourselves whether we shall or shall not go
further.... I admit, at any rate, that as far as I am able to
judge, there is more presumptive ground for change in the law
than some of the opponents of the measure are disposed to
own.... I cannot help thinking that, for some reason or other,
there are various important particulars in which women obtain
much less than justice under social arrangements.... I may be
told that there is no direct connection between this and the
parliamentary franchise, and I admit it, but at the same time I
am by no means sure that these inequalities may not have an
indirect connection with a state of law in which the balance is
generally cast too much against women, and too much in favor of
men. There is one instance which has been quoted, and I am not
sure there is not something in it--I mean the case of farms.... I
believe to some extent in the competition for that particular
employment women suffer in a very definite manner in consequence
of their want of qualification to vote. I go somewhat further
than this, and say that so far as I am able to form an opinion of
the general tone and color of our law in these matters, where the
peculiar relation of men and women is concerned, that law does
less than justice to women [hear, hear], and great mischief,
misery and scandal result from that state of things in many of
the occurrences and events of life. [Cheers.] ... If it should be
found possible to arrange a safe and well-adjusted alteration of
the law as to political power, the man who shall attain that
object, and who shall see his purpose carried onward to its
consequences in a more just arrangement of the provisions of
other laws bearing upon the condition and welfare of women, will,
in my opinion, be a real benefactor to his country. [Cheers.]
In another portion of his speech Mr. Gladstone said that the
personal attendance of women in election proceedings, until the
principle of secret voting should be adopted, was in his eyes an
objection of the greatest force--thus giving reason to believe that
as soon as vote by ballot was secured, this objection would be
removed. Mr. Gladstone did not on this occasion vote against the
bill, but left the House without voting.
In 1872, our indefatigable leader again moved the second reading of
the bill on the 4th of May. His speech was calm and masterly, and
he was ably supported, but the division remained much the same; 143
for the bill and 222 against it. This year the Scotch Education
bill was passed, which extended the voting of women and their
election on school-boards to Scotland; thus the principle of direct
representation on a matter so important as national education was
recognized. The Ballot act also, which at once rendered elections
orderly and safe, henceforth gave increased security and comfort to
women who were voting in municipal elections.
In this year a new committee was established in London called the
Central committee, to which all other branches of the society had
the right of appointing delegates, and the movement received
thereby a considerable increase of strength and solidity.[543]
Meantime each branch of the society was working away indefatigably.
During 1871, the _Suffrage Journal_ recorded 135 public meetings,
and during 1872, 104 in England and 63 in Scotland. The work in
Scotland was chiefly carried on in the way of lectures by Miss Jane
Taylour, who during these early years of the movement was an
untiring and spirited pioneer, Miss Agnes McLaren often
accompanying her and helping her to organize the meetings.
We must not omit to mention Mary Burton (sister of John Hill Burton
the historiographer of Scotland), who was also one of the most
energetic workers of the Edinburgh committee, especially in the
north of Scotland; and Mrs. Dick Lauder who had the courage to free
herself from the opinions in which she had been educated, and with
much sacrifice devoted herself to the work. Space fails us fitly to
record the indomitable efforts of Eliza Wigham, one of the
honorable secretaries of the Edinburgh committee. In England, Mrs.
Ronniger organized and spoke at many meetings, as did Mrs. Fawcett,
Miss Rhoda Garrett, Miss Becker, Miss Craigen and, less frequently,
Mrs. Josephine Butler, Lady Amberley, Miss Annie Young and others.
Mrs. Grote, wife of the historian and herself a well-known author,
took part in one meeting held in Hanover Square rooms, London, on
March 26, 1870. Mrs. Grote was then upwards of seventy years of
age. Rising with great majesty, she spoke with all the weight that
age, ability and experience could give, greatly impressing her
audience. Miss Helen Taylor, step-daughter of John Stuart Mill,
also made her maiden speech at this meeting; it was delivered with
much grace, excellent in thought as in manner.
Many additional local committees were established, and good work
was done by familiarizing the public mind with the principles of
the association. Ward meetings were held in which the women
burgesses and municipal voters were assembled, and while the
responsibilities of the vote they already possessed were pointed
out to them, attention was called to the prior importance of the
vote which was withheld from them.
In 1873, for the fourth time, our unwearied champion, Mr. Jacob
Bright, brought forward his bill. This time the second reading was
fixed for April 30. He was supported in the debate by Mr. Eastwick,
Sergeant Sherlock, Lord John Manners, Mr. Fawcett, Mr. Heron, Mr.
Henley, and Sir J. Trelawny. While all these gentlemen deserved our
thanks for the able assistance they rendered the cause, the speech
of Mr. Henley, Conservative member for Oxfordshire, so old a member
that he was styled the "Father of the House," excited special
attention. He said he had once felt considerable doubt and dislike
of the measure, but after careful watching of the way in which
women gave the local votes, he had come to the conclusion that an
extension of the principle would be useful. The votes in favor of
the bill increased at this debate to 155 (with tellers and pairs
172), a larger number than had ever before been obtained, while the
opposition remained stationary.
Along with the petitions of this year were two memorials signed by
upwards of 11,000 women, and presented to Mr. Gladstone and Mr.
Disraeli. Every English county, with the exception of the smallest,
Rutland, and most large towns sent representative signatures. An
effort was made this session by Mr. William Johnston, the member
for Belfast, to introduce amendments into the Irish Municipal bill,
which would have had the effect of extending the municipal
franchise to Irish women householders. But the bill was withdrawn,
and similar efforts made in subsequent years have met with the like
fate.
This year the death of Mr. John Stuart Mill saddened the hearts of
all. He will never be forgotten as the first man who carried this
question into the arena of practical politics and gave it the
weight of an honored name. The strength and vitality of the
movement were further tested by a disaster which threatened to do
it a lasting injury. The general election took place early in the
spring of 1874, and to the regret and consternation of the friends
of equal suffrage, their able and devoted leader, Mr. Jacob Bright,
lost his seat for Manchester--a loss in a great degree attributable
to his unshrinking advocacy of an unpopular question. Never did his
clients, for whom he had sacrificed so much, feel so deeply the
need of the power which the franchise would have given them to keep
so good a friend in the House of Commons. Not only was Mr. Bright
defeated, but Mr. Eastwick, the friend who had always seconded the
bill, also lost his seat with about seventy others of our
supporters. We were thus compelled to look around for fresh
leaders. The task of bringing in a bill was accepted by Mr.
Forsyth, the Conservative member for Marylebone, one of the London
boroughs; with him were associated Mr. Stansfeld, Mr. Russell
Gurney and Sir R. Anstruther, men differing widely on matters of
party politics. The bill was introduced early in the session, but
no day was found for it, and in the middle of July it was
withdrawn. Considerable discussion was excited by the unexpected
action of Mr. Forsyth, who on his own responsibility inserted in
the bill an additional clause by which married women were
especially excluded from its operation. Although the insertion of
this clause would probably have made no difference, the bulk of
legal opinion being that under the law of coverture, married women
even when possessed of property are not "qualified persons," yet
the society joined in requesting that this additional clause should
be dropped and the original form of the bill adhered to.
Memorials, signed by upwards of 18,000 women headed by Florence
Nightingale, Harriet Martineau, Lady Anna Gore Langton (sister of
the Duke of Buckingham), Frances Power Cobbe, Anna Swanwick, were
again this year forwarded to Mr. Disraeli and Mr. Gladstone. An
important memorial was also forwarded from a large conference held
in Birmingham in January, which represents very accurately the
special aspects of the question in England. The president of the
conference was Mrs. William Taylor, sister-in-law of Mr. Peter A.
Taylor, M. P.:
_To the Right Honorable William Ewart Gladstone, M. P., First
Lord of Her Majesty's Treasury:_
The memorial of members and friends of the National Society for
Women's Suffrage, in conference assembled at Birmingham, January
22, 1874, showeth, that your memorialists earnestly desire to
urge on the attention of her majesty's government the justice and
expediency of abolishing the disability which precludes women,
otherwise legally qualified, from voting in the election of
members of parliament.
They submit that the disability is anomalous, inasmuch as it
exists only in respect to the parliamentary franchise. The
electoral rights of women have been from time immemorial equal
and similar to those of men in parochial and other ancient
franchises, and in the year 1869 a measure was passed, with the
sanction of the administration of which you are the head,
restoring and confirming the rights of women ratepayers to the
exercise of the municipal franchise.
The electoral disability is further anomalous, because by the law
and constitution of this realm, women are not disabled from the
exercise of political power. Writs, returning members to serve
in the House of Commons, signed by women as electors or returning
officers, are now in existence, and the validity of such returns
has never been disputed. Women who were heirs to peerages and
other dignities exercised judicial jurisdiction and enjoyed other
privileges appertaining to such offices and lordships without
disability of sex. The highest political function known to the
constitution may be exercised by a woman. The principle that
women may have political power is coeval with the British
constitution. On the other hand the practice of women taking part
in voting at popular elections is equally ancient in date, and
has been restored and extended by the action of the present
parliament. Your memorialists therefore submit that to bring the
existing principle and practice into harmony by removing the
disability which prevents women who vote in local elections from
voting in the election of members of parliament, would be a step
in the natural process of development by which institutions,
while retaining the strength and authority derived from the
traditions of the past, and preserving the continuity of the
national life, continually undergo such modifications as are
needed in order to adapt them to the exigencies of the age and
the changed conditions of modern life.
They also submit that the old laws regulating the qualifications
of electors do not limit the franchise to male persons; that the
laws under which women exercised the parochial franchise were
couched in the same general terms as those regulating the
parliamentary suffrage, and that while the latter were not
expressly limited to men, the former were not expressly extended
to women. There is, therefore, a strong presumption that the
exclusion of women from the parliamentary suffrage was an
infringement on their ancient constitutional rights, rendered
possible in a barbarous age by the comparative weakness and
smallness of the number of persons affected by it, and continued
until the exclusion had become customary. The franchise of women
in local elections has been from time to time under judicial
consideration, and their right to take part in such elections has
been repeatedly confirmed by the judges. During the arguments in
these cases, the question of their right to vote in the election
of members of parliament was frequently mooted and conflicting
opinions thereon incidently expressed by various judges, but the
matter was never judicially decided, and no authoritative
judgment was ever given against the right until the year 1868,
after the passing of two modern acts of parliament in 1832 and
1867, the former of which for the first time in English history,
in terms, limited the franchise created by it to every "male
person," and the latter to every "man" qualified under its
provisions. Your memorialists submit that had the question of the
right of women to vote in the election of members of parliament
been raised in the law courts under the old statutes which
contain no reference to sex, and before the passing of the
limiting acts of 1832 and 1867, that the precedents which had
determined the right in their favor in the construction of the
law as to local government must have been held to apply to the
case of qualified freeholders or others who claimed the right as
regards parliamentary government.
They submit also, that even after these limiting acts, women had
reasonable grounds for claiming the suffrage under the existing
law. There is an act of parliament which declares that "in all
acts, words importing the masculine gender shall be deemed and
taken to include females, ... unless the contrary is _expressly
provided_." The act of 1867 contained clauses imposing personal
liabilities and pecuniary burdens on certain classes of
ratepayers. In these clauses, as in the enfranchising clauses,
and throughout the act, words importing the masculine gender were
alone used. No provision was made that these words should not
include females. Accordingly in enforcing the act the extra
liabilities and burdens were imposed on women ratepayers, to many
of whom they caused grievous hardship. There was, therefore,
reason to expect that the enfranchising clauses would bear the
same interpretation, inasmuch as they were confessedly offered as
an equivalent for the increased liabilities. But when the women
who had been subjected to the liabilities claimed their votes,
they found that words importing the masculine gender were held to
include women in the clauses imposing burdens, and to exclude
them in the clauses conferring privileges, in one and the same
act of parliament.
This kind of injustice was shown in a marked manner in the case
of certain women ratepayers of Bridgewater, who, in a memorial
addressed to you in 1871, set forth the grievance of most heavy
and unjust taxation which was levied on them, in common with the
other householders of that disfranchised borough, for the payment
of a prolonged commission respecting political bribery. The
memorialists felt it to be unjust and oppressive, inasmuch as,
not exercising the franchise nor being in any way directly or
indirectly concerned in the malpractices which led to the
commission, they were nevertheless required to pay not less than
three shillings in the pound according to their rental. To that
memorial you caused a reply to be sent through Mr. Secretary
Bruce, stating that "it was not in the power of the secretary of
State to exempt women owning or occupying property from the local
and imperial taxation to which that property is liable." While
fully admitting this, your memorialists beg to represent that it
is in the power of the legislature to secure to women the vote
which their property would confer, along with its liability to
local and imperial taxation, were it owned or occupied by men.
They submit that this concession has recently been granted in
respect to local taxation, and that if justice demands that Women
should have a voice in controlling the municipal expenditure to
which their property contributes, justice yet more urgently
demands that they should have a voice in controlling the imperial
expenditure to which the same property is liable. The local
expenditure of the country amounts to about L30,000,000, the
imperial expenditure to about L70,000,000 annually; if,
therefore, the matter be regarded as one of taxation only, the
latter vote is of more importance than the former. Local
government deals with men and women alike, and knows no
distinction between male and female ratepayers. But imperial
government deals with men and women on different principles, and
in such a manner that whenever there is any distinction made in
the rights, privileges and protection accorded to them
respectively, the difference is always against women and in favor
of men. They believe this state of things is a natural result of
the exclusion of women from representation, and it will be found
impracticable to amend it until women are admitted to a share in
controlling the legislature.
By the deprivation of the parliamentary vote, women, in the
purchase or renting of property, obtain less for their money than
men. In a bill which passed the House of Commons last session,
provision was made for the amalgamation in one list of the
municipal and parliamentary registers of electors. In that list
it appeared that the same house, the same rent and the same taxes
conferred on a man the double vote in municipal and parliamentary
government, and on a woman the single vote only, and that the
less honorable and important one. When the occupation of a house
is transferred from a man to a woman, say to the widow of the
former owner, that home loses the privilege of representation in
the imperial government, though its relations with the
taxgatherer continue unaltered. There have been various societies
formed with a view to enable persons to acquire portions of
landed or real property, partly for the sake of the vote attached
to such property. Should a woman purchase or inherit such an
estate, the vote, which has been one important consideration in
determining the value, would be lost through her legal disability
to exercise it.
The deprivation of the vote is a serious disadvantage to women in
the competition for farms. A case is recorded of one estate in
Suffolk from which seven widows have been ejected, who, if they
had possessed votes, would have been continued as tenants. A
sudden ejection often means ruin to a family that has sunk
capital in the land, and it is only too probable that no day
passes without the occurrence of some such calamity to some
unhappy widow, who, but for the electoral disability, might have
retained the home and the occupation by which she could have
brought up her family in comfort and independence.
Besides this definite manner in which the electoral disability
injures women farmers, it has a more or less directly injurious
influence on all self-dependent women who maintain themselves and
their families by other than domestic labor. A disability, the
basis of which is the presumed mental or moral incapacity of the
subject of it to form a rational judgment on matters within the
ordinary ken of human intelligence, carries with it a stigma of
inferiority calculated to cause impediment to the entrance on or
successful prosecution of any pursuit demanding recognized
ability and energy. This presumed incapacity is probably the
origin of the general neglect of the education of women, which is
only now beginning to be acknowledged, and the absence of
political power in the neglected class renders it difficult if
not impossible to obtain an adequate share for girls in the
application of educational funds and endowments. So long as women
are specifically excluded from control over their parliamentary
representatives, so long will their interests be postponed to
claims of those who have votes to give; and while parliament
shall continue to declare that the voices of women are unfit to
be taken into account in choosing members of the legislature, the
masses of men will continue to act as if their wishes, opinions
and interests were undeserving of serious consideration.
It is now nearly two years since you, in your place in the House
of Commons, said that the number of absolutely self-dependent
women is increasing from year to year, and that the progressive
increase in the number of such women is a very serious fact,
because those women are assuming the burdens that belong to men;
and you stated your belief that when they are called upon to
assume those burdens, and to undertake the responsibility of
providing for their own subsistence, they approach the task under
greater difficulties than attach to their more powerful
competitors. Your memorialists therefore ask you to aid women in
overcoming these difficulties, by assisting to place them,
politically at least, on a level with those whom you designate as
"their more powerful competitors."
One of the greatest hindrances in the path of self-dependent
women is the opposition shown by members of many trades and
professions to women who attempt to engage in them. The medical
and academical authorities of the University of Edinburgh have
successfully crushed the attempt of a small band of female
students to qualify themselves for the medical profession, and
the same spirit of "trades unionism" is rife in the industrial
community. A few months ago the printers of Manchester, learning
that a few girls were practicing type-setting, and endeavoring to
earn a little money thereby, instantly passed a rule ordaining a
strike in the shop of any master printer who should allow type
set up by women to be sent to his machines to be worked. At the
present time, in a manufacturing district in Yorkshire where
there are "broad" and "narrow" looms, at the former of which much
more money can be earned, the men refuse to allow women to work
at the broad looms, though they are quite able to manage them,
because the work is considered too remunerative for women. At
Nottingham there is a particular machine at which very high wages
can be earned, at which women now work, and the men, in order to
drive them out of such profitable employment, have insisted on
the masters taking no more women on, but as those at present
employed leave, supplying their places by men. A master
manufacturer reports: "We have machines which women can manage
quite as well or better than men, yet are they not permitted by a
selfish combination of the strong against the weak." These are
only samples of the cases that are constantly occurring of
successful attempts to drive women out of remunerative
occupations. Your memorialists submit that women would be more
able to resist such attempts if they had the protection of the
suffrage; and that men would be less likely to be thus aggressive
and oppressive if they had learned to regard women as their
political equals.
Besides the restrictions on the industrial liberties of women
effected by combinations of men, there are existing and proposed
legislative restrictions from which men are exempt, and which
exercise a powerful influence on the market for their labor. For
the coming session we have the proposal further to limit their
hours of paid labor in factories, and to place other restrictions
on their labor in shops; also a proposition to place married
women on the footing of half-timers. Without here expressing any
opinion as to the wisdom of these proposals, we urge that members
of the House of Commons would be more capable of dealing with
them in a just and appreciative spirit if they were responsible
for their votes to the persons whose interests are directly
concerned and whose liberties they are asked to curtail; and,
further, that it is a grave question how far it is safe to trust
the industrial interests of women, as a class, to the
irresponsible control of the men who have manifested to
individuals and to sections of working women the spirit indicated
by the examples we have cited.
In the same speech you spoke of a state of the law in which the
balance is generally cast too much against women and too much in
favor of men. Since you directed your attention to this matter,
you have not been able either to introduce or to assist others
who have introduced measures to ameliorate the state of the law
respecting women, and such proposals have been unable to win
consideration from parliament. Your memorialists cannot believe
that this neglect has arisen from want of a desire on your part
to deal with the grievances under which you have admitted that
your countrywomen suffer; they are therefore led to the
conclusion that you have been unable to take into consideration
the affairs of an unrepresented class, owing to the preoccupation
of parliament with the concerns of those to whom it is directly
responsible.
You stated that "the question was, to devise a method of enabling
women to exercise a sensible influence, without undertaking
personal functions and exposing themselves to personal
obligations inconsistent with the fundamental particulars of
their condition as women," and that the objection to the personal
attendance of women at elections was in your mind an objection of
the greatest force. They respectfully submit that the exercise of
the municipal franchise involves the personal attendance of women
at the polls, and that since your words were uttered changes have
been effected which render the process of voting absolutely
identical for municipal and parliamentary elections, and the
whole proceeding perfectly decorous and orderly. Experience has
proved that women can vote at municipal elections without
prejudice to the fundamental particulars of their condition as
women, whatever these may be; and this experience shows that they
may vote in parliamentary elections without the smallest personal
prejudice or inconvenience. The school-board elections have also
shown that women can appeal to large constituencies and go
through the ordeal of public meetings, addresses and questions
from electors, to which men must submit who seek the suffrages of
a great community, without any sacrifice of womanly dignity, or
of the respect and consideration accorded to their position and
their sex. They therefore submit that events have obviated the
objections you entertained in 1871 to the proposal to give
representation to women, and that the course taken by the
administration over which you preside in assenting to the
extension of the municipal and school-board franchise to them; in
calling them to the public functions of candidates and members of
school-boards; and lastly, of securing the passing of a law which
renders the process of voting silent and secret, have taken away
all reasonable grounds for objecting on the score of practical
inconvenience to the admission of women to the exercise of a
vote, which they would have to give in precisely the same manner,
but not nearly so often, as those votes which they already
deliver.
It has been said that there is neither desire nor demand for the
measure, and further, that women do not care for and would not
use the suffrage if they possessed it. But the demand for the
parliamentary franchise is enormously greater than was the demand
for the municipal franchise, and for the school-board franchise
there was no apparent call. Yet these two measures were passed
purely on their own merits, and it was not held to be necessary
to impose on their promoters, over and above the obligation to
make out their case, the condition that a majority of the women
of England or of a particular district should petition for the
proposed boon. Experience proved the wisdom and justice of this
course, for although women throughout the country had taken no
active part in agitating for the municipal franchise, no sooner
was the privilege accorded than they freely availed themselves of
it, and statistics obtained from some of the largest boroughs in
the kingdom show that from the first year that women possessed
the suffrage, they have voted in about equal proportion with men
to the number of each on the register. The parliamentary vote is
more honorable and important than the municipal vote; it is,
therefore, safe to conclude that women who value and use the
latter will appreciate and exercise the former as soon as it
shall be bestowed upon them. Your memorialists submit that great
injustice and injury are done by debarring these women from a
voting power which there is such strong presumptive ground for
believing that they would freely exercise but for the legal
restraint.
Your memorialists are especially moved to call your attention to
the urgency of the claim at the present time, when a bill
extending the application of the principle of household suffrage
is about to be proposed to parliament, which bill received last
year such expressions of approval from members of her majesty's
government as to lead to the belief that they are willing to take
the proposal into serious consideration. They submit that the
claim and the need for representation of women householders are
even more pressing than that of agricultural laborers. The
grievances under which women suffer are equally great, and the
demand for the franchise has been pressed by a much greater
number of women and for a much longer period of time than in the
case of county householders now excluded. The number of persons
who petitioned last session for the County Franchise bill and for
the Women's Disabilities bill respectively were, for the former,
1,889, and for the latter, 329,206. The latter bill has received
most influential support from both sides of the House, and more
votes have been recorded in its favor than have been given for
any bill not directly supported as a party measure by one or
other of the great parties in the State. Under these
circumstances your memorialists earnestly request that you will
use your influence as leader of the House of Commons and of the
government to secure the passing of the bill introduced by Mr.
Jacob Bright, either as a substantive enactment, or as an
integral portion of the next measure that shall be passed dealing
with the question of the representation of the people.
Signed on behalf of the conference,
CAROLINE M. TAYLOR, _President_.
The first vote that was given by the new parliament was on April 7,
1875, Mr. Forsyth having moved the second reading in an able
speech. It at once became manifest that the question had made great
progress in the country. In spite of the loss of the seventy
friends at the preceding general election, our strength in the new
parliament had greatly increased. Including tellers and pairs, 170
voted for the bill, and only 250 against. This result appears to
have alarmed our opponents, who proceeded to form an association of
peers, members of parliament and other influential persons, to
resist the claims of women to the suffrage. They issued a circular
which will be read by future generations with a smile of
amazement.[544]
It may have been partly owing to the influence of this association
that the next year, when Mr. Forsyth again brought forward his
bill, April 26, 1876, although the numbers of our friends and
supporters remained undiminished, the opponents had considerably
increased. This was due, also, no doubt, in great degree to the
unexpected attitude taken on this question by the Right Hon. John
Bright, the most powerful living advocate for freedom and
representative government. In Mr. Mill's division of 1867, Mr.
Bright had voted in favor of the measure, and while his brother had
charge of the bill, he had never opposed it. His opposition speech
in this debate, therefore, caused extreme disappointment and
discouragement. It had little of the force which had always
characterized his pleas for political justice. The most eloquent
voice in the House of Commons lost its magic power when no longer
inspired by truth. The women in the gallery listened with sorrowful
hearts. Though they knew Mr. Bright's opinion could not block the
wheels of progress, yet they felt intense regret that so honored a
friend to freedom should abandon his most cherished principles when
applied to women.
The parliamentary history of the next few years may be very briefly
recorded. In 1877 the bill had again passed into the hands of our
beloved leader, Mr. Jacob Bright, who had resumed his place in the
House of Commons, as member of parliament for Manchester. After a
debate of great interest, and while our advocate, Mr. Leonard
Courtney, was speaking, the opponents of the measure burst into a
tumultuous uproar, which effectually drowned his voice. This new
method of setting up shouts and howls in place of arguments, has
since been brought to bear on more than one public question, but it
was then comparatively novel. Mr. Courtney, nothing daunted, would
not give way, and when six o'clock, which is the hour for closing
the debates on Wednesday, struck, it was no longer possible to take
a division.
The following year, 1878, Mr. Jacob Bright was unable from failing
health to continue in charge of the bill in the House of Commons,
and a deputation of members from each society waited on Mr.
Courtney and placed it in his hands. June 19, was set for the
second reading. In his speech Mr. Courtney dwelt on the benefits
that may accrue to women from representation. He added:
The political reasons for granting the prayer of the bill appear
to me to be undeniable, but I confess they are not the reasons
why I most strongly support it. I believe it will develop a
fuller, freer and nobler character in women by admitting them
into the sphere of political thought and duty. Some may say, "But
what is to be the end?" I do not know that we are always bound to
see the goal towards which we are moving. If we are moving on
right principles; if we are actuated by a feeling of justice; if
the hand that moves above us and leads us on is a hand in which
we can place implicit confidence,--then I say, trust to that
light, follow that hand, without fear of the future.
The bill was again lost by 219 votes against 140, thus showing a
smaller adverse majority than on the last division. This year Mr.
Russell Gurney died. His name will always be associated with the
women's suffrage movement, which he had supported ever since Mr.
Mill's division in 1867. The death of Lady Anna Gore Langton about
this time was also a severe loss.
The last time that the question was brought before that parliament
was the following summer, 1870. Mr. Courtney, after taking counsel
with his parliamentary friends, made an important change in the
conduct of his measure. It had hitherto been brought forward as a
bill, which, if passed, would have made the actual change desired
in the law; as the parliament was now verging towards its close, it
was thought wiser to test the opinion of the House by bringing the
question forward in the form of a resolution. Two purposes were
served by this change: one was that many men who were in favor of
the principle of women's suffrage had objected to it when brought
forward as an isolated measure of reform involving a large addition
to the constituency, and possibly therefore a new election; the
other was, that the time for discussion of a private member's bill
is very limited. On Wednesdays, when such bills come on, the House
only sits in the morning, and the debate must be concluded at a
quarter before six, while the forms of the House afford greater
facilities for discussing and voting upon motions. Mr. Courtney in
a clear and exhaustive speech moved his resolution as follows:
That in the opinion of this House it is injurious to the best
interests of the country that women who are entitled to vote in
municipal, parochial and school-board elections when possessed of
the statutory qualifications, should be disabled from voting in
parliamentary elections, although possessed of the statutory
qualifications, and that it is expedient that this disability
should be forthwith repealed.
The debate was animated, but the result on division was much the
same as before: 113 (including tellers and pairs, 144) voting for
it, and 217 (with tellers and pairs, 248) against it. Thus closed
the ninth parliament of Victoria, as far as women's suffrage was
concerned.