History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 28

I have just this moment read your letter, and received the tracts; the "testimonies" I mean. We took 250 pounds of tracts with us, and we have sowed them thick; and Susan, the crop will be impartial suffrage in the fall. It will carry, beyond a doubt, in this State. Now, as I can not be in New York next week, I want you to see Aunt f.a.n.n.y and Anna d.i.c.kinson, and get them pledged to come here in the fall. We will raise the pay somehow. You and Mrs. Stanton will come, of course. I wish Mrs. Harper to come. I don't know if she is in New York; please tell her I got her letter, and will either see or correspond with her when I get home. There is no time to write here. We ride all day, and lecture every night, and sometimes at noon too. So there is time for nothing else. I am sorry there is no one to help you, Susan, in New York. I always thought that when this hour of our bitter need come--this darkest hour before the dawn--Mr. Higginson would bring his beautiful soul and his fine, clear intellect to draw all women to his side; but if it is possible for him to be satisfied at _such_ an hour with writing the best literary essays, it is because the power to help us has gone from him. The old lark moves her nest only when the farmer prepares to cut his gra.s.s himself. This will be the way with us; as to the _Standard_, I don't count upon it at all. Even if you get it, the circulation is so limited that it amounts almost to nothing. I have not seen a copy in all Kansas. But the _Tribune_ and _Independent_ alone could, if they would urge _universal_ suffrage, as they do negro suffrage, carry this whole nation upon the only just plane of equal human rights. What a power to hold, and not use! I could not sleep the other night, just for thinking of it; and if I had got up and written the thought that burned my very soul, I do believe that Greeley and Tilton would have echoed the cry of the old crusaders, "G.o.d wills it;" and rus.h.i.+ng to our half-sustained standard, would plant it high and firm on immutable principles. _They_ MUST take it up. I shall see them the very first thing when I go home. At your meeting next Monday evening, I think you should insist that all of the Hovey fund used for the _Standard_ and Anti-Slavery purposes, since slavery is abolished, must be returned with interest to the three causes which by the express terms of the will were to receive _all_ of the fund when slavery was abolished. You will have a good meeting, I am sure, and I hope you will not fail to rebuke the cowardly use of the terms "universal," and "impartial," and "equal," applied to hide a dark skin, and an unpopular client.

All this talk about the infamous thirteen who voted against "negro suffrage" in New Jersey, is unutterably contemptible from the lips or pen of those whose words, acts, and votes are not against ignorant and degraded negroes, but against every man's mother, wife, and daughter. We have crowded meetings everywhere.

I speak as well as ever, thank G.o.d! The audiences move to tears or laughter, just as in the old time. Harry makes capital speeches, and gets a louder cheer always than I do, though I believe I move a deeper feeling. The papers all over the State are discussing pro and con. The whole thing is working just right. If Beecher is chosen delegate at large to your Const.i.tutional Convention, I think the word male will go out before his vigorous cudgel. I do not want to stay here after the 4th, but Wood and Harry have arranged other meetings up to the 18th or 20th of May, so that we shan't be back even for the Boston meetings.

Very truly, LUCY STONE.

In a letter dated Atchison, May 9, 1867, Lucy Stone says: I should be so glad to be with you to-morrow, and to know this minute whether Phillips has consented to take the high ground which sound policy as well as justice and statesmans.h.i.+p require.

I can not send you a telegraphic dispatch as you wish, for just now there is a plot to get the Republican party to drop the word "male," and also to agree to canva.s.s _only_ for the word "white."

There is a call, signed by the Chairman of the State Central Republican Committee; to meet at Topeka on the 15th, to pledge the party to the canva.s.s on that single issue. As soon as we saw the call and the change of tone of some of the papers, we sent letters to all those whom we had found true to principle, urging them to be at Topeka and vote for both words. This effort of ours the Central Committee know nothing of, and we hope they will be defeated, as they will be sure to be surprised. So, till this action of the Republicans is settled, we can affirm nothing.

Everywhere we go we have the largest and most enthusiastic meetings, and any one of our audiences would give a majority for woman suffrage. But the negroes are all against us. There has just now left us an ignorant black preacher named Twine, who is very confident that women ought not to vote. These men _ought not to be allowed to vote before we do_, because they will be just so much more dead weight to lift.

Mr. Frothingham's course of lectures, happily, is over. Were you ever so cruelly hurt by any course of lectures before? "If it had been an enemy I could have borne it." But for this man, wise, educated, and good, who thinks he is our friend, to do just the things that our worst enemies will be glad of, is the unkindest cut of all. Ninety-nine pulpits out of every hundred have taught that women should not meddle in politics; as large a proportion of papers have done the same; and by every hearthstone the lesson is repeated to the little girl; and when she has learned it, and grows up, and does not throw away the teaching of a life time, Mr. Frothingham accepts this _effect_ for a _cause_, and blames the unhappy victim, when he should stand by her side, and with all his power of persuasion win her away from her false teaching, to accept the truth and the n.o.bler life that comes with it. But, thank G.o.d, the popular pulse is setting in the right direction.

We must see Wade, and Garfield, and Julian, and when Sumner proposes, as he says he shall, to make negro suffrage universal, _they_ must _insist_ upon _our_ claim; urged not for our sake merely, but that the government may be based upon the consent of the governed. There is safety in no other way. We shall leave for home on the 20th. We had the largest meeting we have yet had in the State at Leavenworth night before last. Your brother and his wife called upon us at Col. Coffin's. They are well. But Dan don't want the Republicans to take us up. Love to Mrs. Stanton.

LUCY STONE.

P. S.--The papers here are coming down on us, and every prominent reformer, and charging us with being Free Lovers. I have to-day written a letter to the editor, saying that it has not the shadow of a foundation.

Rev. Olympia Brown arrived in the State in July, where her untiring labors, for four months were never equaled by man or woman. Mrs.

Stanton, Miss Anthony, and the Hutchinson family followed her early in September. What these speakers could not do with reason and appeal, the Hutchinsons, by stirring the hearts of the people with their sweet ballads, readily accomplished. Before leaving New York Miss Anthony published 60,000 tracts, which were distributed in Kansas with a liberal hand under the frank of Senators Ross and Pomeroy. Thus the thinking and unthinking in every school district were abundantly supplied with woman suffrage literature, such as Mrs. Mill's splendid article in the _Westminster Review_, the best speeches of John Stuart Mill, Theodore Parker, Wendell Phillips, George William Curtis, Elizabeth Cady Stanton's argument before the Const.i.tutional Convention, Parker Pillsbury's "Mortality of Nations," Thomas Wentworth Higginson's "Woman and her Wishes," Henry Ward Beecher's "Woman's Duty to Vote," and Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols' "Responsibility of Woman." There was scarcely a log cabin in the State that could not boast one or more of these doc.u.ments, which the liberality of a few eastern friends[81] enabled the "Equal Rights a.s.sociation" to print and circulate.

The opposition were often challenged to debate this question in public, but uniformly refused, knowing full well, since their powder in this battle consisted of vulgar abuse and ridicule, that they had no arguments to advance. But it chanced that on one occasion by mistake, a meeting was appointed for the opposing forces at the same time and place where Olympia Brown was advertised to speak. This gave her an opportunity of testing her readiness in debate with Judge Sears. Of this occasion a correspondent says:

DISCUSSION AT OSKALOOSA.--_To the Editor of the Kansas State Journal_: For the first time during the canva.s.s for Universal Suffrage, the opponents of the two wrongs, "Manhood Suffrage" and "Woman Suffrage," met in open debate at this place last evening.

The largest church in the place was crowded to its utmost, every inch of s.p.a.ce being occupied. Judge Gilchrist was called to the chair, and first introduced Judge Sears, who made the following points in favor of Manhood Suffrage:

1st. That in the early days of the Republic no discrimination was made against negroes on account of color.

He proved from the const.i.tutions and charters of the original thirteen States, that all of them, with the exception of South Carolina, allowed the colored freeman the ballot, upon the same basis and conditions as the white man. That we were not conferring a right, but restoring one which the fathers in their wisdom had never deprived the colored man of. He showed how the word white had been forced into the State const.i.tutions, and advocated that it should be stricken out, it being the last relic of the "slave power."

2d. That the negro needed the ballot for his protection and elevation.

3d. That he deserved the ballot. He fought with our fathers side by side in the war of the revolution. He did the same thing in the war of 1812, and in the war of the rebellion. He fought for us because he was loyal and loved the old flag. If any cla.s.s of men had ever earned the enjoyment of franchise the negro had.

4th. The Republican party owed it to him.

5th. The enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro was indispensable to reconstruction of the late rebellious States upon a basis that should secure to the loyal men of the South the control of the government in those States. Congress had declared it was necessary, and the most eminent men of the nation had failed to discover any other means by which the South could be restored to the Union, that should secure safety, prosperity, and happiness.

There was not loyalty enough in the South among the whites to elect a loyal man to an inferior office.

Upon each one of these points the Judge elaborated at length, and made really a fine speech, but his evident disconcertion showed that he knew what was to follow. It was expected that when Miss Brown was introduced many would leave, owing to the strange feeling against Female Suffrage in and about Oscaloosa; but not one left, the crowd grew more dense. A more eloquent speech never was uttered in this town than Miss Brown delivered; for an hour and three-quarters the audience was spell-bound as she advanced from point to point. She had been longing for such an opportunity, and had become weary of striking off into open air; and she proved how thoroughly acquainted she was with her subject as she took up each point advanced by her opponent, not denying their truth, but showing by unanswerable logic that if it were good under certain reasons for the negro to vote, it was ten times better for the same reasons for the women to vote.

The argument that the right to vote is not a natural right, but acquired as corporate bodies acquire their rights, and that the ballot meant "protection," was answered and explained fully. She said the ballot meant protection; it meant much more; it means education, progress, advancement, elevation for the oppressed cla.s.ses, drawing a glowing comparison between the working cla.s.ses of England and those of the United States. She scorned the idea of an aristocracy based upon two accidents of the body. She paid an eloquent tribute to Kansas, the pioneer in all reforms, and said that it would be the best advertis.e.m.e.nt that Kansas could have to give the ballot to women, for thousands now waiting and uncertain, would flock to our State, and a vast tide of emigration would continually roll toward Kansas until her broad and fertile prairies would be peopled. It is useless to attempt to report her address, as she could hardly find a place to stop.

When she had done, her opponent had nothing to say, he had been beaten on his own ground, and retired with his feathers drooping.

After Miss Brown had closed, some one in the audience called for a vote on the female proposition. The vote was put, and nearly every man and woman in the house rose simultaneously, men that had fought the proposition from the first arose, even Judge Sears himself looked as though he would like to rise, but his principles, much tempted, forbade. After the first vote, Judge Sears called for a vote on his, the negro proposition, when about one-half the house arose. Verily there was a great turning to the Lord that day, and many would have been baptized, but there was no water. When Mrs. Stanton has pa.s.sed through Oscaloosa, her fame having gone before her, we can count on a good majority for Female Suffrage....

OSCALOOSA, October 11, 1867.

SALINA, KANSAS, Sept. 12, 1867.

DEAR FRIEND:--We are getting along splendidly. Just the frame of a Methodist church with sidings and roof, and rough cotton-wood boards for seats, was our meeting place last night here; and a perfect jam it was, with men crowded outside at all the windows.

Two very brave young Kentuckian sprigs of the law had the courage to argue or present sophistry on the other side. The meeting continued until eleven o'clock. To-day we go to Ellsworth, the very last trading post on the frontier. A car load of wounded soldiers went East on the train this morning; but the fight was a few miles West of Ellsworth. No Indians venture to that point.

Our tracts gave out at Solomon, and the Topeka people failed to fill my telegraphic order to send package here. It is enough to exhaust the patience of any "Job" that men are so wanting in promptness. Our tracts do more than half the battle; reading matter is so very scarce that everybody clutches at a book of any kind. If only reformers would supply this demand with the right and the true--come in and occupy the field at the beginning--they might mould these new settlements. But instead they wait until everything is fixed, and the comforts and luxuries obtainable, and then come to find the ground preoccupied.

Send 2,000 of Curtis' speeches, 2,000 of Phillips', 2,000 of Beecher's, and 1,000 of each of the others, and then fill the boxes with the reports of our last convention; they are the best in the main because they have everybody's speeches together.

S. B. A.

HOME OF EX-GOV. ROBINSON, LAWRENCE, KANSAS, Sept. 15, 1867.

I rejoice greatly in the $100 from the Drapers.[82] That makes $250 paid toward the tracts. I am very sorry Mr. J. can not get off Curtis and Beecher. There is a perfect greed for our tracts.

All that great trunk full were sold and given away at our first fourteen meetings, and we in return received $110, which a little more than paid our railroad fare--_eight cents per mile_--and hotel bills. Our collections thus far fully equal those at the East. I have been delightfully disappointed, for everybody said I couldn't raise money in Kansas meetings. I wish you were here to make the tour of this beautiful State, in which to live fifty years hence will be charming; but now, alas, the women especially see hard times; to come actually in contact with all their discomforts and privations spoils the poetry of pioneer life.

The opposition, the "Anti-Female Suffragists," are making a bold push now; but all prophesy a short run for them. They held a meeting here the day after ours, and the friends say, did vastly more to make us converts than we ourselves did. The fact is nearly every man of the movers is like Kalloch, notoriously wanting in right action toward woman. Their opposition is low and scurrilous, as it used to be fifteen and twenty years ago at the East. Hurry on the tracts.

As ever, S. B. A.

Seeing that the republican vote must be largely against the woman's amendment, the question arose what can be done to capture enough democratic votes to outweigh the recalcitrant republicans. At this auspicious moment George Francis Train appeared in the State as an advocate of woman suffrage. He appealed most effectively to the chivalry of the intelligent Irishmen, and the prejudices of the ignorant; conjuring them not to take the word "white" out of their const.i.tution unless they did the word "male" also; not to lift the negroes above the heads of their own mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters. The result was a respectable democratic vote in favor of woman suffrage.

In a discussion with General Blunt at a meeting in Ottawa, Mr. Train said:

You say, General, that women in politics would lower the standard. Are politicians so pure, politics so exalted, the polls so immaculate, men so moral, that woman would pollute the ballot and contaminate the voters? Would revolvers, bowie-knives, whisky barrels, profane oaths, brutal rowdyism, be the feature of elections if women were present? Woman's presence purifies the atmosphere. Enter any Western hotel and what do you see, General?

Sitting around the stove you will see dirty, unwashed-looking men, with hats on, and feet on the chairs; huge cuds of tobacco on the floor, spittle in pools all about; filth and dirt, condensed tobacco smoke, and a stench of whisky from the bar and the breath (applause, and "that's so,") on every side. This, General, is the manhood picture. Now turn to the womanhood picture; she, whom you think will debase and lower the morals of the elections. Just opposite this sitting room of the King, or on the next floor, is the sitting room of the Queen, covered chairs, clean curtains, nice carpets, books on the table, canary birds at the window, everything tidy, neat and beautiful, and according to your programme the occupants of this room will so demoralize the occupants of the other as to completely undermine all society.

Did man put woman in the parlor? Did woman put man in that bar room? Are the instincts of woman so low that unless man puts up a bar, she will immediately fall into man's obscene conversation and disreputable habits? No, General, women are better than men, purer, n.o.bler, hence more exalted, and so far from falling to man's estate, give her power and she will elevate man to her level.

One other point, General, in reply to your argument. You say woman's sphere is at home with her children, and paint her as the sovereign of her own household. Let me paint the picture of the mother at the washtub, just recovering from the birth of her last child as the Empress. Six little children, half starved and s.h.i.+vering with cold, are watching and hoping that the Emperor will arrive with a loaf of bread, he having taken the wash money to the baker's. They wait and starve and cry, the poor emaciated Empress works and prays, when lo! the bugle sounds. It is the Emperor staggering into the yard. The little famished princesses'

mouths all open are waiting for their expected food. Your friend, General, the Emperor, however, was absent minded, and while away at the polls voting for the license for his landlord, left the wash money on deposit with the bar-keeper (laughter) who wouldn't give it back again, and the little Queen birds must starve another day, till the wash-tub earns them a mouthful of something to eat. Give that woman a vote and she will keep the money she earns to clothe and feed her children, instead of its being spent in drunkenness and debauchery by her lord and master....

You say, General, that you intend to vote for _negro suffrage_ and against _woman suffrage_. In other words, not satisfied with having your mother, your wife, your sisters, your daughters, the equals _politically_ of the negro--by giving him a vote and refusing it to woman, you wish to place your family politically still lower in the scale of citizens.h.i.+p and humanity. This particular twist, General, is working in the minds of the people, and the democrats, having got you where Tommy had the wedge, intend to hold you there. Again you say that Mrs. Cady Stanton was three days in advance of you in the border towns, calling you the Sir John Falstaff of the campaign. I am under the impression, General, that these strong minded woman's rights women _are more than three days in advance of you_. (Loud cheers.) Falstaff was a jolly old brick, chivalrous and full of gallantry, and were he stumping Kansas with his ragged regiment, he would do it as the champion of woman instead of against her. (Loud cheers.) Hence Mrs. Stanton owes an apology to Falstaff, not to General Blunt.

(Laughter and cheers.)

One more point, General. You have made a terrific personal attack on Senator Wood, calling him everything that is vile. I do not know Mr. Wood. Miss Anthony has made all my arrangements; but perhaps you will allow me to ask you if Mr. Wood is a democrat?

(Laughter and applause from the democrats.) Gen. Blunt--No, he is a republican, (laughter) and chairman of the woman suffrage committee. Mr. Train--Good. I understand you and your argument against Wood is so forcible, (and Mr. Train said this with the most biting sarcasm, every point taking with the audience.) I believe with you that Wood is a bad man, (laughter) a man of no principle whatever. (Laughter.) A man who has committed all the crimes in the calendar, (loud laughter) who, if he has done what you have said, ought to be taken out on the square and hung, and _well hung_ too. (Laughter and cheers.) Having admitted that I am converted to the fact of Wood's villainy, (laughter) and you having admitted that he is not a democrat, but a republican, (laughter) I think it is time the honest democratic and republican voters should rise up in their might and wipe off all those corrupt republican leaders from the Kansas State committee.

(Loud cheers.) Democrats do your duty on the fifth of November and vote for woman suffrage. (Applause.) The effect of turning the General's own words back upon his party was perfectly electric, and when the vote was put for woman's suffrage it was almost unanimous. Mr. Train saying amid shouts of laughter, that he supposed that a few henpecked men would say "No" here, because they didn't dare to say their souls were their own at home....

Mr. TRAIN continued: Twelve o'clock at night is a late hour to take up all your points, General; but the audience will have me talk. Miss Anthony gave you, General, a very sarcastic retort to your a.s.sertion that every woman ought to be married. (Laughter.) She told you that to marry, it was essential to find some decent man, and that could not be found among the Kansas politicians who had so gallantly forsaken the woman's cause. (Loud laughter.) She said, as society was organized there was not one man in a thousand worthy of marriage--marrying a man and marrying a whisky barrel were two distinct ideas. (Laughter and applause.) Miss Anthony tells me that your friend Kalloch said at Lawrence that _of all the infernal humbugs of this humbugging Woman's Rights question, the most absurd was that woman should a.s.sume to be ent.i.tled to the same wages for the same amount of labor performed, as man_. Do you mean to say that the school mistress, who so ably does her duty, should only receive three hundred dollars, while the school master, who performs the same duty, gets fifteen hundred? (Shame.) All the avenues of employment are blocked against women. Embroidering, tapestry, knitting-needle, sewing needle have all been displaced by machinery; and women speakers, women doctors, and women clerks, are ridiculed and insulted till every modest woman fairly cowers before her Emperor Husband, her King, her Lord, for fear of being called "strong minded." (Laughter and applause.) Why should not the landlady of that hotel over the way share the profits of their joint labors with the landlord? _She_ works as hard--yet _he_ keeps all the money, and she goes to him, instead of being an independent woman, for her share of the profits, as a _beggar_ asking for ten dollars to buy a bonnet or a dress. (Applause from the ladies.) Nothing is more contemptible than this slavery to the husband on the question of money. (Loud applause.) Give the s.e.x votes and men will have more respect for women than to treat them as children or as dolls. (Applause.) The ten-year old boy will say to his women relatives, "Oh you don't know anything, you are only a woman," and when man wishes to insult his fellow man, he calls him a woman--and if the insult is intended to be more severe, he will speak of a cabinet statesman even as an "old woman." The General and Mr. Kalloch are afraid that women will be corrupted by going to the polls, yet they as lawyers have no hesitation in bringing a young and beautiful girl into court where a curiosity seeking audience are staring at her; where the judge makes her unveil her face, and the jury watch every feature, turning an honest blush into guilt. (Applause.)

Woman first, and negro last, is my programme; yet I am willing that intelligence should be the test, although some men have more brains in their hands than others in their heads. (Laughter.) Emmert's Resolution, introduced into your Legislature last year, disfranchising, after July 4, 1870, all of age who can not read the American Const.i.tution, the State Const.i.tution, and the Bible, in the language in which he was educated, (applause) expresses my views.

Again you alluded to the Foreign Emissary--who had no interest in Kansas. Do you mean me, General? General Blunt--No, sir. Thank you. The other four Foreign Emissaries are women, n.o.ble, self-sacrificing women, bold, never-tiring, unblemished reputation; women who have left their pleasant Eastern homes for a grand idea, (loud applause,) and to them and them alone is due the credit of carrying Kansas for woman suffrage. General Blunt--It won't carry. Train--Were I a betting man I would wager ten thousand dollars that Kansas will give 5,000 majority for women. (Loud cheers from Blunt's own audience of anti-women men.) As an advertis.e.m.e.nt to this beautiful State, it is worth untold millions.

Kansas will win the world's applause, As the sole champion of woman's cause.

So light the bonfires! Have the flags unfurled, To the Banner State of all the World!

(Loud cheers.)