History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 52

Mrs. WILBOUR remarked that she was fully aware of the truth that humanity was a unit. She knew the day was coming when a woman would be considered the equal of man. No disabilities to vote or hold office should exist in a free country on account of s.e.x or color. She was anxious to know by what authority the word "male"

had been placed in the const.i.tution, which governed woman as well as man. Woman's rights were natural rights--nothing more or less.

She claimed the right of self-rule or self-government as a natural right. Men were united in saying, "We have the right to vote." She was not present to be an advocate of woman's rights, whatever they may be, but of human rights. The largest giant had no more rights than Tom Thumb. It was brain, not force, that governed the world. A small hand was able to discharge a musket, guide an engine, or edit a paper as well as a large one. The womanly in nature should be expressed by woman, the manly by man; the two were distinct, and could not be blended together without spoiling the harmony of the whole. Society had to be governed by the sacred right of self-government. How could a woman be responsible for her deeds to G.o.d if somebody had control over her conscience?

Mr. ALBERT G. RIDDLE believed that the question of universal franchise would be tried before the grand tribunal of the world, and, if not victorious, it would appeal and appeal again. The question ought to be met squarely by the "masculines" as well as by the women. He was an earnest advocate of woman's rights, because he claimed the same rights for his daughters as for his sons; he wanted for them the same atmosphere, the same public opinion, the same prestige. Women were often heard to exclaim, "I wish I were a man." This elucidates how keenly they feel their position. Mr. Riddle spoke at length in favor of universal rights, and his logical arguments attracted the admiration of all who heard him.

Mrs. JOSEPHINE S. GRIFFING stated that the city clergy had evinced a disinclination to attend the convention, as they could not see any justification for the same in Divine revelation. She read a letter from Bishop Simpson, in which he wished the convention G.o.d-speed.

Senator POMEROY said he was in favor of the XVI. Amendment, and he thought the best place in the world to try the experiment was in the District of Columbia. They had tried negro suffrage in the District, and it had proved a success and a benefit. There were plenty of offices in the city that could be filled by capable and now idle young ladies, which were at present filled by men weighing two hundred pounds, who were able to do a day's work but now received large salaries for little labor.

Rev. SAMUEL J. MAY proposed to test the ladies present as to their ideas of suffrage. He asked that every lady in the house who desired the ballot should hold up her hand. A few ladies responded.

Mrs. STANTON stated that Mr. May had adopted a very bad manner of submitting the question. She would, therefore, reconsider the vote, and ask all ladies who opposed the XVI. Amendment to rise from their seats, and those in favor to retain them. About sixteen ladies arose, amidst great mirth and laughter.

THE CHAIR then announced that the meeting had expressed itself largely in favor of female suffrage.

Madam ANNEKE, a German lady, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, stated that, being a foreigner, allowance should be made for her defective p.r.o.nunciation. If she could not speak the English language, she could speak the language of the heart. She came from the West, burdened heavily with pet.i.tions, signed by one thousand residents of the State of Wisconsin. She would appeal to her countrymen, Carl Schurz and Finkelnburg, to a.s.sist in this last struggle for universal liberty.

The Rev. OLYMPIA BROWN addressed herself particularly to that small minority of ladies who had expressed themselves opposed to the XVI. Amendment. She admired their independence of character, for it showed they were the kind of women that the friends of woman suffrage wished to win over to their cause. She thought them honest in their opinions, but prejudiced. It required strong minds to combat against the common enemy--prejudice. They may think they do not require this right, as they might be blessed with comfortable homes, and be satisfied with the condition they were in. A change might come--even to them, but if it did not, ought they not to pity other women whose situation was less comfortable than their own? She alluded to the idle lives of young women, to which they were condemned by the customs of society, and said Christianity demanded a useful life from every woman as well as every man. This cause is the cause of the civilized world, and will go on till the ballot is in the hands of every American woman.

Mr. STILLMAN, of R. I., had no doubt that the result of this agitation would be to secure the universal franchise of all women. Women would be admitted to all colleges of the land, and to the study of the arts and sciences.

Miss ANTHONY said that Senator Pomeroy's being here to advocate woman suffrage, might be attributed to the fact that he had a const.i.tuency to sustain him. Let the people of other States make as strong an expression as Kansas, and their representatives would quickly find their places here too. She wanted women to emigrate to Wyoming and make a model State of it by sending a woman Senator to the National capitol. She would go there, if she had time, but her mission was in the States until this great reform was accomplished. She desired women to become members of the National organization, and to pay their dollar, or twenty-five, or twenty-five hundred dollars. She requested the Finance Committee to take their pencils and paper, and canva.s.s the hall for members.h.i.+p and money, commencing at the door, so as to catch every fugitive. She invited all ladies who visit New York to call at the Woman's Bureau, and her own sanctum, the editorial rooms of _The Revolution_.

At the second evening session, letters[130] were read from Senators Ross, of Kansas, and Carpenter, of Wisconsin.

Miss JENNIE COLLINS, of Lowell, Ma.s.s., addressed the meeting in a speech of some length, which was broken by frequent applause. She came to plead the cause of the working women, her a.s.sociates. She knew the dignity of the kitchen, many of whose occupants were the daughters of refined and wealthy parents. If these girls could tell their story to the ladies of Was.h.i.+ngton, they would not rest till Congress had conceded to them their rights. The sufferings of the factory girls could hardly be described; poor wages for hard labor, in dirty rooms, shut out from bright suns.h.i.+ne, with dreary homes, were but part of their misery. With a love of the enn.o.bling and beautiful, a natural taste for reading and study, many of them were led astray from the path of virtue by the artifices of men, often the sons of their own employers, and nothing was done to prevent their fall.

The President announced that so great was the interest evinced, that a third day's session had been arranged.

THIRD DAY--MORNING.--Among the large and fas.h.i.+onable audience present were the Governor of Wyoming Territory, many Senators and Members of Congress, as well as other distinguished persons. Mrs. GRIFFING read an interesting letter from Mrs. Frances D. Gage:

More than one-half of the "people," are to-day without the right of franchise, and can exert no power in the government, and have no voice in electing its representatives. They have no voice in making the laws under which they live. If they commit offenses they are punished the same as voters. If they have property it is taxed precisely the same and for the same purposes as is the property of the voter. Government money and lands and revenues are appropriated for schools, colleges, and inst.i.tutions of learning by the voters for their own use, while the non-voters are debarred all rights and privileges in the same. And it may be said that the disfranchised "have no rights that the enfranchised are bound to respect." ... A government that fails to execute its own laws and mocks at its own enactments, can not be respected by its people. We therefore demand that our representatives "shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government;" that the right of suffrage be guaranteed to all persons of sound mind and adult years, without regard to race, color, or s.e.x.

Respectfully, FRANCES D. GAGE.

Rev. SAMUEL J. MAY said this movement was the most radical one ever proposed to the civilized world. America had suffered severely because it had violated the rights of 4,000,000 people.

If the rights of 15,000,000 were much longer violated, severer suffering still would be induced.

CHARLOTTE B. WILBOUR said: In demanding suffrage for women we are not making any innovation on political principles, but only attempting to restore the broken connection between practice and profession. A steady, constant, palpable ignoring of the application of great truths, like the claim of woman's rights, and the equality of all before the law, begets a reckless manner of a.s.sertion, an illogical application of premises, and thence a sort of organic dishonesty of mind which is carried into practice almost unconsciously. Every subject of a government who has not a voice in its conduct is openly degraded, and must be something more or less than human not to show it in the conduct of his life. We demand the ballot for women in the name of that very domesticity which is urged against it, of that home whose peace has always been more marred by pa.s.sive servility and masculine authority than by any over-a.s.sertion of individuality, on the part of the so-called partner.

Speeches were also made by Mr. Hinton of Was.h.i.+ngton, and Miss Phoebe Couzins.

Miss ANTHONY called upon Senator Sherman, of Ohio, to address the meeting, who expressed himself highly pleased with the convention to which he only came as a listener. The following letters were then read:

SYRACUSE, January 18, 1870.

Mrs. M. J. GAGE--_Dear Friend_: I doubt not this meeting will urge emphatically upon Congress the duty of striking the word "male" from the suffrage bill for the District of Columbia. It is a gross injustice, a _shame_ that such a term should be in any legal paper defining citizens.h.i.+p in any civilized State, especially a shame that it should stand in a bill touching suffrage, in what ought to be the model District, the choice sample ground of wise and just government for the _model republic_. Let an indignant protest and admonition go up in regard to this matter from your convention, that Congress shall not dare to disregard.

I trust also that the convention will urge upon Congress the eminent fitness and duty of pa.s.sing without delay the XVI.

Amendment, and submitting the same to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification.

The world is moving to-day in the direction of the abolition of all monopolies of privilege and that of equal and exact justice and fair play to all cla.s.ses. Woman now has the floor; the hour has struck for her. Wyoming and Colorado are already setting example for the older communities. Let the preaching of this faith in effective ways, its benign and thorough working, begin at Jerusalem, at the Capitol of the nation, and may your convention urge the work to immediate undertaking, aye, and completion then, at home.

Yours truly, CHAS. D. B. MILLS.

CORNELL UNIVERSITY, ITHACA, N. Y., Jan. 17, 1870.

Mrs. M. JOSLYN GAGE--_Dear Madam_: I beg you to be a.s.sured that I heartily sympathize with all well directed efforts to secure to woman equality before the law. Whatever can be done to give her a fair and equal chance with man, is due to her, and no effort of mine shall be wanting to secure so desirable a consummation.

Very respectfully yours, HOMER B. SPRAGUE.

Mrs. Helen Taylor, of London, after expressing the wish that she might be with us, says:

It is a great delight to hear of the numerous societies, in various countries, working well and vigorously for that justice which for so long has been denied to women. The time can not be far distant now, when we shall attain the right of expressing our opinion by giving a vote.

Letters joining in the demand for a XVI. Amendment were received from E. H. G. Clarke, of Troy, N. Y.; S. D. Dillaye, of Syracuse; Martha B. d.i.c.kinson, Sarah Pugh, Mrs. E. K. Pugh, Abby Kimber, of Philadelphia; Mrs. Mary J. O'Donovan-Rossa, and Hon. Jacob H.

Ela. The following extracts from private letters of Mrs. Hooker show somewhat the spirit of the occasion.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, January 19, 1870.

I have just come from a good meeting; just such a house as we had at Hartford the mornings of our Convention. Senator Pomeroy spoke admirably, and carried every one with him.

Then came Olympia Brown, and nothing could have been better than her speech and the effect of it on the audience, which, by the way, was earnest and intelligent. But Madam Anneke, the German patriot who fought with her husband and slept beside her horse in the field, carried the day over everyone else. It was fairly overwhelming to hear her English, so surcharged with feeling, yet so exact in the choice of words, and the burden of it all was that the trials of the battle-field were as naught compared to this inward struggle of her soul toward liberty for woman. Her presence, gestures, oratory, were simply magnificent.

Mrs. F., of Cincinnati, who lives here now, came to me this morning with great warmth, saying she had brought two Senators' wives who were opposed, and they said a few more such women as Olympia Brown would convert them. She has promised to bring them to our reception at the Arlington this evening.

_Jan. 20._--We have had to hold a three days' meeting, interest grew so fast. Yesterday morning Lincoln Hall jammed, even aisles full. I never heard better speaking in my life, not a disturbance in the audience, not a jar on the platform, all loving, tender, earnest. Olympia Brown is wonderful; she talked Christ and His Gospel just I should have done with her voice and practice; can't enlarge, but she surely is a remarkable woman. We are to have a hearing by a committee from both Houses on Sat.u.r.day, and Senator Pomeroy will present a bill for suffrage in the District of Columbia next week, and would not be much surprised if it were carried at once--does not really expect that--but Senator Trumbull, Chairman of Judiciary, says he shall vote for it, and so do many others in both Houses. Mrs. Pomeroy received yesterday afternoon, and to my surprise, nearly all her callers had been at the Convention--at least three hundred young ladies were in the hall, they said, and all spoke with perfect respect of the movement--many seemed in sympathy with it.

_Jan. 21, two o'clock._--Just from the Committee Room, and too full to write. Mrs. Stanton standing at the head of the long table (Committee all round the table, Sumner so attentive as to fix my eyes upon him with intense interest, watching changes of expression) read a magnificent argument.

Mrs. Davis and Miss Anthony followed, and then sitting in my chair, I made a five minutes' talk on my favorite point--personal responsibility G.o.d's only method in human affairs. Then questions from various gentlemen and conversation all round the room for two hours. The large room was full of gentlemen and ladies, and there were congratulations without stint, but Sumner, grandest of all, approaching Mrs. Stanton and myself, said in a deep voice, really full of emotion, "I have been in this place, ladies, for twenty years; I have followed or led in every movement toward liberty and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt; but I have it to say to you now, that I never attended such a committee meeting as this in my life, it exceeds all that I have ever witnessed."

Mrs. Howland was there, and excited to her highest eloquence in speech; with flushed cheeks she said to me, "If only that scene could have been photographed--it was the grandest one of history--the first time that _woman_ has ever appeared in halls of legislation--women often, but woman never before."

I have sent her home to write a letter for the _Courant_, and I hope she will make it out; she has promised to try.

Senator Pomeroy counts thirteen Senators ready to vote for us now, but I can not attempt to do justice to the situation.

_The Revolution_ of March 24, 1870, gives the following call for the May Anniversary of the National Woman's Suffrage a.s.sociation, which held its regular annual meeting in Irving Hall, New York, May 10th and 11th:

The various woman suffrage a.s.sociations throughout this country and the Old World are invited to send delegates to the Convention, prepared to report the progress of our movement in their respective localities. And, in order that this annual meeting may be the expression of the whole people, we ask all friends of woman suffrage to consider themselves personally invited to attend and take part in its discussions. With the political rights of woman secured in the Territories of Utah and Wyoming--with the agitation of the question in the various State Legislatures, with the proposition to strike the word "male" from the State Const.i.tution of Vermont--with New York, New England, and the great West well organized, we are confident that our leading political parties will soon see that their own interest and the highest interests of the country require them to recognize our claim.

The Executive Committee recommend the friends of woman suffrage, everywhere, to concentrate their efforts upon the work of securing a XVI. Amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution that shall prohibit the States from disfranchising any of their citizens on account of s.e.x.

Many of the ablest advocates[131] of the cause--both men and women--will address the meetings. Communications and contributions should be addressed to the Corresponding Secretary.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, _President_.

ERNESTINE L. ROSE, _Chairman Executive Committee_.

CHARLOTTE B. WILBOUR, _Corresponding Secretary_, 151 East 51st Street, New York.