"In the Kentucky House of Representatives, on Friday last, an
address was received by the Speaker, from Mrs. ----, of New York,
and read by the Clerk, asking the Legislature of the Southern
States to grant suffrage to white women in the South, so as to give
the Democratic party the advantage over the negro votes, if
Congress passes a general negro-suffrage law. By following out this
plan, Mrs. ---- thinks the South can govern the country, as in the
days of Jefferson."
I suppress the name, which was printed in full, in this paragraph,
because it is the name of a woman I respect; and I earnestly hope the
whole charge is false. If women seek to advance their own cause by mean
and meretricious tricks,--such as those which have dishonored the policy
of men,--may God for ever disappoint their hope! I would rather be
defeated with the friends of liberty than crowned with its foes. It is
because I believe woman strong enough to withstand the low and loose and
degrading temptations of public life that I would lead her towards it.
If she cannot enter it as an inspiration, may she be for ever shut out!
Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, assisted by Lucy Stone and Antoinette
Blackwell, have been busy in agitating all legal questions, and
especially the right of suffrage, ever since the formation of the
Equal-Rights Association, in New York, in May, 1866. Wherever there is
any prospect of a convention to change a State Constitution, it would
seem wise to agitate the matter; but here, in Massachusetts, almost
every thing has been done that should be to protect women, except to
give them the right of suffrage. That question we are too wise to
agitate, until the country recovers somewhat from the anxieties and
perplexities of the war. We have no desire to win from an unjust judge,
for our importunity's sake, a right which could never be useful, unless
it were accorded with the hearty sympathy of the best part of the
community. On March 16, 1867, a motion was made in the Massachusetts
House to instruct the Judiciary Committee to report an amendment to the
State Constitution, granting the right of suffrage to women. The yeas
and nays were taken, and the motion was lost: yeas 44, nays 97.
In New York, Illinois, and Michigan, the question is to be brought
before the Constitutional Convention. Wisconsin is our banner State,
both branches of her government having concurred, April 4, 1867, in a
resolution to submit it to the people. In New York, last year, Mrs.
Stanton proposed herself as a candidate for Congress, and received, I
think, thirty votes. It was so well understood that her election was
impossible, that her card excited neither ridicule nor discussion. No
one cared to turn aside from more pressing interests to consider it. It
was therefore a waste of strength. I saw, with pain, that some women
did not shrink from employing last year a politician's trick, and sent
to Democratic members of the Senate and House the petitions for the
right of suffrage for women, with which they knew them to possess no
sympathy. Had these petitions been sent to Republican members of either
House, they might have been overlooked in the press of graver anxieties.
Mischievously sent to men like Cowan, women must have known that the
petition would be produced, if it was only to annoy and perplex our
honest friends of the Republican party. In what would our influence upon
politics be better than that of men, if we resort to such measures?
During the past year, I drew up, and forwarded to the Hon. Charles
Sumner, a petition for the right of suffrage, and afterwards sustained
it by two or three letters. I think Mr. Sumner never brought it forward;
but I gladly defer to his judgment as to that. It was my duty to keep
the subject in mind, and see that we did not appear, even in the tumult
left by civil war, to lose sight of our claim. I am glad to offer public
thanks to the Hon. George Thompson, who, in the meeting of the
Equal-Rights Association, held in Philadelphia on Jan. 17, 1867,
defeated a resolution of thanks to Mr. Cowan, and condemnation to Mr.
Sumner, on precisely these grounds. "To thank men like Cowan, who did
not _desire_ to enfranchise woman any more than the negro, was to
stultify ourselves," he said. "To condemn Sumner, because he did not
think _this_ the time to push the claims of woman, was not honorable to
the long-tried friend of human progress."
Abroad, such things look better. The clean hands of John Stuart
Mill--which no noble woman need fear to touch--have presented to
Parliament the petition of fifteen hundred women for the right of
franchise. This petition is so moderate and sensible, that it deserves
to be preserved.
"The humble petition of the undersigned showeth,--
"That it having been expressly laid down by high authorities, that
the possession of property, in this country, carries with it the
right to vote in the election of representatives in Parliament, it
is an evident anomaly, that some holders of property are allowed to
use this right, while others, forming no less a constituent part of
the nation, and equally qualified by law to hold property, are not
able to exercise this privilege; that the participation of women in
the government is consistent with the principles of the British
Constitution, inasmuch as women in these islands have always been
held capable of sovereignty, and women are eligible for various
public offices.
"Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray your honorable House to
consider the expediency of providing for the representation of all
householders, without distinction of sex, who possess such property
or rental qualification as your honorable House may determine. And
your petitioners will ever pray.
"Mrs. W.B. CARPENTER, 56, Regent's Park Road, London, N.W.
C.M. CLARKSON, Hatfield Road, Wakefield.
FRANCES POWER COBBE, 26, Hereford Square, London, S.W.
ELIZABETH GARRETT, L.S.A., 20, Upper Berkeley Street, London, W.
MARY ANN GASKELL, Plymouth Grove, Manchester.
MATILDA M. HAYS, Great Malvern.
MARY HOWITT, West Hill Lodge, Highgate, N.
M.S. KINGLAKE, 50, Upper Brunswick Place, Brighton. ISA CRAIG
KNOX, 14, Clyde Terrace, New Cross, S.E. S.J. LEWIN, Birkenhead.
HARRIET LUPTON, St. Asaph. ELIZABETH MALLISON, Camp Cottage,
Wimbledon. HARRIET MARTINEAU, The Knoll, Ambleside. JANE MARTINEAU,
21, Tariton Street, London, W.C. JANE MOXON, 1, Cundall's Yard,
Leeds. MRS. ELIZABETH PEASE NICHOL, Huntly Lodge, Edinburgh. BESSIE
R. PARKES, 15, Wimpole Street, London, W. ELIZABETH PROCTOR, Polam
Hall, Darlington. C. STURCH, Cumberland Terrace, Regent's Park,
London, N.W. MRS. THOMAS TAYLOR, Aston House, Oxfordshire. SARAH
UNWIN, Hale Lodge, Edgeware, Middlesex. ANNA MARY HOWITT WATTS, 24,
Grove Terrace, Highgate Road."
I append to the above petition a few of the fifteen hundred names, which
will serve to give it identity, and interest in this country. We miss,
among the names, many names of the beloved dead; and many would
doubtless be there that we know, could it be signed by any save
property-holders.
A very powerful influence was brought to sustain this petition in
Parliament; and among its advocates were James Martineau, Herbert
Spencer, Professor Huxley, and Goldwin Smith. Mr. Mill seems to have
presented a second petition, headed by Lady Goldschmid, and signed by
three thousand persons; and another was offered, at the same time, by
Mr. Russell Gurney. On April 11, 1867, the subject of female suffrage
was first discussed in the House of Commons without being greeted with a
laugh. A petition presented by Mr. Duncan Maclaren, from Edinburgh, was
signed by eight university professors, six doctors of law, eighteen
clergymen, eight barristers, ten physicians, ten officers, and two
thousand other persons. Two women are said to have been lately elected
parish overseers: Mrs. Slocomb for Brittadon, and Mrs. Craig for Bratton
Fleming. The step-daughter of John Stuart Mill, Miss Helen Taylor,
contributed to the January number of the "Westminster" an article which
worthily sustained the far more comprehensive statement of her mother in
1851. It would be difficult to imagine a paper, however, that would
appeal more forcibly to the English people. There is in England a
Woman-Suffrage Association, which proposes to circulate that article as
a tract. Mrs. P.A. Taylor and Frances Power Cobbe are among its most
active members. Mrs. Bodichon has recently brought out two pamphlets on
this subject. They contain one instance, which is not familiar, of the
inconvenience of withholding the franchise from English women. Owners of
estates seek to further their own interest through the voting power of
their tenantry, and frequently eject women from farms, to replace them
by men who have a freehold. On one Suffolk farm, seven women have been
ejected. Among the instances which Mrs. Bodichon adduces to show the
need of female votes are the neglect of female education; the refusal of
leases, or the ejection of old tenants; the want of proper public
spirit, which women might be expected to infuse into affairs; and the
condition of workhouses, and charitable appropriations in general. In
Austria, information furnished to one of Mrs. Bodichon's papers seems to
show that the women have the same electoral rights as men, only that in
a few cases they are compelled to vote by proxy. They vote as nobles, in
their corporate capacity as nuns, and as tax-payers or merchants; but I
need not say that there is much uncertainty in the Austrian
administration of such a law.
In connection with the name of Fredrika Bremer, I have mentioned the
great changes in Swedish law, mainly due to her influence. An indirect
right of suffrage was further granted to women in 1862; but in December,
1865, the Reform Bill gave the election of members of the Upper Chamber
to municipal and county bodies. In the election of these bodies, women
take part. They must be unmarried or widows, be twenty-five years old,
and have more than four hundred rixdollars per annum.
Article 15 of the Italian electoral law provides "that the taxation paid
by a widow, or by a wife separated from her husband, shall give a vote
to whichever of her children or near relatives she may select."
A curious petition has been lately presented to the Hungarian Diet. It
is signed by a number of widows and other women who are landed
proprietors, and asks for them the same equality of political rights
with the male inhabitants of the country, as they possessed in 1848.
These ladies represent that they have much more difficulty in bringing
up their children, and attending to the estates, than men; that they
have to bear the same State burdens; that they are not allowed to take
part in the communal elections; and that, although many of them possess
much more ground than the male electors, they have no political rights.
In 1848, these women were, for the first time, excluded from the
franchise.