History of Woman Suffrage Volume II Part 68

Here again arises what I have shown to be the question of the hour. Is the United States a Nation? If it does not possess powers to protect its own citizens it is not a Nation. Citizens of the United States are ent.i.tled to protection, whether they are robbed of their liberties in a Spanish dungeon, or in the States of Rhode Island or New York. The Judiciary Committee of Congress has reported adversely upon the pet.i.tion of the 10,000 naturalized citizens of Rhode Island. Does Congress intend to sustain State Rights? What better is it for those 10,000 men that they became naturalized? If they are first citizens of the United States, as the XIV. Amendment declares, they should be protected in their rights of citizens.h.i.+p by the United States against the States, and their thirty-seven isolated methods of legislation.

This adverse report of the Judiciary Committee in regard to the 10,000 disfranchised men of Rhode Island, foreshadows the course of Congress in regard to the great cla.s.s of citizens now knocking at its door. Women claim National protection as citizens of the Nation.

The original Const.i.tution in its fourth article touches upon State control, for it declares that the Const.i.tution shall guarantee to every State a republican form of government. The "shall" is imperative. It shall! Even as long ago as 1787 it was declared that the people of the States should no longer be dependent upon State caprice for their rights, but the general government took upon itself the authority and the duty of enforcing in each State a republican form of government. Either this article is a mere sounding phrase, or the Const.i.tution has such power, although until the XIV. Amendment the real status of citizens.h.i.+p had not been settled. People thought of themselves as first citizens of the States, then of the United States, but now such a position can not be taken. The eighth step in centralization settled that point; "every person," not every male person--but "every person born or naturalized in the United States"--"is a citizen of the United States, and of the State in which he resides." First, ent.i.tled to national protection, and through the Nation to State protection. Moreover,

The Const.i.tution and the laws made in pursuance thereof, are by article sixth of the Const.i.tution, declared to be the supreme law of the land, and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby; anything in the Const.i.tution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding.

Is the Const.i.tution supreme in the case of the 10,000 naturalized citizens of Rhode Island, whose pet.i.tion the honorable judiciary reported adversely upon, the 12th of December?

The naturalized citizens of our country should rise _en ma.s.se_ against his attack upon their liberties. If Rhode Island can say that a naturalized citizen shall not vote unless possessed of a certain amount of property, any State can, with equal justice, enact a law declaring that only those naturalized citizens who live in brick houses shall vote; a law, equally as binding as the present property qualification in Rhode Island, can be enacted, that only those foreign-born citizens who come over in a Cunarder shall vote. Why not? If a State has a right to deprive one cla.s.s of citizens of its vote for one cause, it has a right to deprive any other cla.s.s of its vote for any reason.

The power and the mischief do not stop here. If a State has power over the political rights of a naturalized citizen of the United States, it has like power over the native-born citizen. If a State has power over the franchise of the women citizens of the United States, it also has power over the men citizens. Unjust laws, like curses, go home to roost; they can always be made to plague their enactors. When the rights of any one cla.s.s of citizens are a.s.sailed, a blow is struck against the rights of all. The danger to individual liberty lies in special laws. If States are powerful enough to weaken the National const.i.tution, then are we weak indeed. The safety of the citizen lies in a strong National const.i.tution: it lies in a National centralization of power that shall override the States in their attempt to destroy individual rights.

If the National government has not power over the ballot in the several States, where did the United States Commissioner get his authority to inst.i.tute proceedings against Miss Anthony for voting in the State of New York? If the ballot is in the control of the States, then is the United States guilty of a high-handed outrage against New York, in the case of the fourteen women who are now bound over for trial in Rochester for voting at the last election. If the control of the franchise is the right of each State as sovereign, then the National law of 1870 in regard to frauds in voting was an unauthorized interference of the United States in a matter belonging solely to the respective States. On the contrary, if the question as to who may vote in any State--exclusive of black men, over whom it is conceded the nation has thrown its aegis of protection--is one of National control, how does it happen that the Judiciary Committee of the present Congress reported adversely upon the pet.i.tion of the 10,000 naturalized citizens of Rhode Island? If, then, voting is a matter of State control alone, what authority had the United States to prosecute Susan B. Anthony? One of two things is plainly true. Either the United States authorities had no right to prosecute Miss Anthony in the State of New York, or, if they had, then they had the right to regulate suffrage in Rhode Island. If the general government could not extend suffrage to Irishmen in Rhode Island, it could not abolish it for women in New York.

The time has pa.s.sed when men can take their choice between "State sovereignty" and "centralized power." What State of the thirty-seven has power to make a treaty, to form an alliance, to declare war? Not one, because not one of them is a sovereign State. An attempt would be treason against the Nation. If the general government can not be secure with a diversity of laws in regard to war, or the tariff, in regard to questions of property, how much less secure is it with diverse laws in regard to personal rights; in regard to the elective franchise, the vital principle of our government.

This government does not stand to-day on free trade, or tariff, or the war-power, or its right to manage post-offices, or to coin money, or to make treaties. Not one of these singly, nor all collectively, form the ground-plan of this Nation. This Nation stands upon the ballot, the self-governing power; it stands upon the right of every person governed by the Nation to share in the election of its rulers.

How can statesmen believe the Nation secure unless personal rights are held inviolable? The National government has control over money, currency, and national banks. It will not trust its question of finance to individual States; shall it trust the personal political rights of its citizens where it can not its money? Is it not an anomaly that the lesser rights shall be held by the Nation, the greater by the States?

In the case of the 10,000 naturalized citizens of Rhode Island, and that of Susan B. Anthony and other women of New York and elsewhere, who try to vote, there is one great dissimilarity. The suffrage of the 10,000 is only regulated. As soon as each one secures real estate to the small value of one hundred and thirty-four dollars, he votes; but there women can never vote, simply because they are _women_. Property amounts to nothing; education amounts to nothing; even native-born citizens.h.i.+p amounts to nothing; the ballot for them is not regulated but prohibited because they were born women instead of men. Congress would quickly waken up to an appreciation of its power over the ballot, if under pretense of "regulating" suffrage, all the male citizens of a State were denied the ballot simply because they were men. The Nation would lose no time in deciding that a regulation of a character not possible to overcome was not a regulation, but a prohibition destructive of every natural right.

The word "deny" would be elucidated by able lawyers and lexicographers. We should then be told that to deny pre-supposes an existing right; that only positive rights can be denied, and force of arms would be invoked to maintain the existence of those rights.

The battle for suffrage is narrowed down to the meaning of "privileges and immunities." Those who believe the consent of the governed to be the fundamental principle of the Nation, define "privileges and immunities" as the right of voting, which is the only "consent." Thaddeus Stevens went so far as to affirm that "inalienable rights" in the Declaration meant the ballot. Persons who thus define "inherent rights" belong to the true national, patriotic cla.s.s. But others, deeply tinctured with belief in the supreme right of States, declare "privileges and immunities" to comprehend anything and everything except the ballot. Even some good Republicans, contrary to the principles indorsed and sustained by them in the war amendments, led by their prejudices against acknowledging woman's right to self-government; have declared that "privileges and immunities" merely signify civil and legal rights, but not political. Such was the groundwork of the argument of the Hon. Matt. Carpenter in the Myra Bradwell case. What a farce! It declared at an early day that the United States possessed the greatest trust ever confided to a "political society." "Political society" is the foundation of our nation, and our political trust is the ballot.

It has been said by a member of the present Congress that no man in that body doubts that the Const.i.tution authorizes women to vote, precisely as it authorizes trial by jury and many other rights guaranteed to the citizens of the United States, but that in order to give them practical force there must be legislation; that these guaranteed rights are not self-executing. This is a fine legal quibble, stated for a purpose; but since legal minds disagree upon this point, a caviller might say no law is self-executing; all laws require enforcement. It may be said that the Ten Commandments are not self-executing; yet though given to Moses, not only as the underlying const.i.tution of the Jewish nation and all nations, they contain self-executing provisions, bearing the penalties of their infraction within themselves. By their simple statement they carry within themselves the authority for their enforcement. The provision that the sun shall each day rise and run its accustomed rounds is a self-executing provision, until some Joshua vetoes this divine right of the sun.

The Const.i.tution is the supreme law of the land, and no difficulty should be found in executing its provisions. But while, as aimed against the exercise of arbitrary power, we have no objection to the pa.s.sage of a declaratory law which shall make plain to every United States judge, and to the most obtuse inspector of election, that women are voters, we still claim that the recent "Act for enforcing the XIV. Amendment" should protect woman in the exercise of her rights of self-government.

Although the States ratified the XIII., XIV. and XV. Amendments by the requisite two-thirds vote, they still find it difficult to realize the fact that these amendments have actually strengthened the National power. The Enforcement Act, and the previous law in regard to frauds in voting, may be called definitions of these last centralizing steps, but as yet neither amendments nor definitions are fully comprehended. A Rhode Island lawyer astutely said: "The people of the United States have not yet awakened to a sense of the vast centralizing power hidden in the XIV. Amendment." Opposition and struggles have already come, and will continue to arise, but legislators may beat their brains as they will, the fact of new National centralization still remains.

Though State power dies never so hard, die it must, as only through reorganized National power can the political rights of citizens of the United States be protected.

"Citizen suffrage" is to-day the battle-ground of "State Rights,"

and the denial of woman's const.i.tutional right to vote, and of National protection in voting, is the weapon it uses against the Nation. This question of citizen suffrage is not a woman question alone, but it is a question of the rights of citizens.h.i.+p affecting every man in this wide land. Let us, then, have the centralization which shall recognize the United States as the supreme political power of the land, which shall no longer allow the political rights of citizens of the United States to be the plaything of thirty-seven petty legislatures, of thirty thousand ambitious demagogues. Without this, our National experiment is a failure; without this, we are not freemen, but slaves; without this, we are neither protected nor self-protecting; without this, centralized State power, under the specious name of "State rights," will continue to be a many-headed monster, impossible to overcome. Elect the President direct by the people, and for a single term, if you will; take from him his immense official patronage; base senators.h.i.+p upon population, not upon State sovereignty through legislative gift; limit the power of the judiciary: these steps must come; make of the people in reality what they now are in theory--sovereigns, not first of States, or the Nation, but of themselves, possessing in themselves all rights, all powers, whose exercise is only delegated to the Nation as their servant.

The call[152] for the annual May Convention in New York announced the interesting fact that it was the Twenty-fifth Anniversary of the Woman Suffrage movement. The speakers[153] represented many of the far Western States. Among the letters of interest was one from Madam Mathilde Francisca Anneke, of Milwaukee, Wisconsin, who accompanied her letter with a beautiful laurel wreath to be presented to the founder of the Woman's Rights movement, the venerable Lucretia Mott.[154] The resolutions embody the substance of the various speeches made at that Convention. The following letters were read:

MY DEAR MISS ANTHONY:--Being detained from attending this very important Convention, which celebrates twenty-five years of as honest and glorious work as ever was done by man or woman upon the face of the earth, permit me through yourself, as president of the National Society, to address a few words to my fellow-workers in the cause of political equality.

At first, let me beg you, my friends, one and all, to read the report of the first Convention held at Seneca Falls, twenty-five years ago, as I have just been doing for the third time, that you may join me in heartfelt admiration of the distinguished women who there enunciated a "declaration of sentiments" equal to the old Declaration of Independence, and founded on a similar list of grievances as those which provoked and justified the Revolutionary war. Especially will you note the speech of a woman there, hardly thirty years of age, which for philosophic comprehension of the great truths of liberty and responsibility, for patriotism and eloquence, has not been surpa.s.sed in the history of our country. This alone should be sufficient to send the name of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, side by side with the grandest of our revolutionary statesmen, down to the latest posterity.

The moving spirit of the occasion, however, we are told, was Lucretia Mott, who spoke with her usual eloquence to a large and intelligent audience on the subject of "Reform in General," and, from time to time, during the numerous sessions of the Convention, swayed the a.s.sembly by her beautiful and spiritual appeals, and was the first to affix her name to this prophetic and inspired "Declaration of sentiments"--an act which she will tell you to-day, I trust, has brought to her more joy than, perhaps, any other act of her life.

Had I the means, the printed report of this Convention should be placed in the hands of every woman in the United States capable of reading it and understanding its high import. And, my friends, if this could be done, our labors would be well nigh ended, and those women who so desire might approach the polls unmolested, leaving their sisters "who have all the rights they want" in the comfortable security of homes made twice secure in that they are guarded by the watchful care of the mothers as well as by the courage of the fathers of the republic. That these n.o.ble women, so intensely in earnest to secure the blessings of liberty to all their posterity, and so deeply conscious of the heavy responsibilities of such a trust, should have suspended their claims during the season of our civil war, and have thrown themselves into the contest for the rights of enslaved black men, is only new proof, where none was wanting, of the unselfishness of their nature, and the purity of their motive. But the war being over, and a new million of black males being added to the many million white males as rulers of the land, what do we find to-day? Susan B. Anthony, the Garrison of the woman's rights movement, not dragged by a rope round her neck, through the streets of Rochester, precisely, but indicted for the crime of attempting to vote for her rulers, she being an honest citizen of the United States, and a tax-paying, law-abiding citizen of the State of New York! Nevertheless, permit me, dear friend, to congratulate you upon the immense progress in our work which this indicates. It is but a little time since you and your ill.u.s.trious compeers were counted only worthy of jests and sneers or contemptuous neglect. That you are called to-day to answer for the crime of loving liberty too well, declares to us who are watching your career, that the beginning of the end is close at hand, that slavery is soon to cease, and reconstruction to begin under the auspices of n.o.ble women not a few, and of the n.o.ble men who have acted as a body-guard through all these years of struggle.

I have heard that with your accustomed indomitableness you have been attempting to instruct your possible jurors of the county upon the just principles of personal liberty and a republican form of government. But have you considered in doing this to what an incompetent jury you are possibly consigning your case, and with it the hopes of mult.i.tudes of your sisters, who, less favored than yourself, in not actually having been allowed to enter the sacred precincts of the polls, have put their trust in you as in one who should not fail, sooner or later, to achieve a victory for herself and for us all? Have you considered the result of white male legislation for nearly one hundred years, in elaborating a jury that must inevitably consist of fools or knaves, and twelve of these to declare in unison upon a case of which they have formed no previous opinion, though the papers have rung with it, and you have lectured every night for more than a month to crowded houses upon it? But even this difficulty you are able to meet, and we leave our destiny in your hands with unfaltering hope and faith, saying only, as many a time before, G.o.d bless Susan B. Anthony.... In conclusion, let me urge upon you, dear friends, one and all, that each man and woman of you shall work for impartial suffrage as though the welfare of our beloved country depended upon the devotion of each single life, and the day is ours. I am now and always yours for liberty,

ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER.

WAs.h.i.+NGTON, May 5, 1873.

MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY:--Your favor requesting my opinion of the recent decisions of the Supreme Court of the United States, in the New Orleans and Bradwell cases, was received yesterday. I had not then seen those decisions, indeed they were not ready for distribution until to-day. I have very hastily run over them and only feel prepared to say that there is nothing in them necessarily conclusive of the suffrage cases. The opinion of the Court in the New Orleans cases is given by a bare majority, four out of the nine justices dissenting, and the majority expressly say: "We hold ourselves excused from defining the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, which no State can abridge until some case involving those privileges may make it necessary to do so." This language leaves us entirely at liberty to present the question whether suffrage is one of these "privileges" to their consideration.

There are expressions in the dissenting opinions that upon the rules of interpretation applied to any other subject than the rights of women would indicate that the minority were fully prepared to admit that the recent amendments to the Const.i.tution--the new _magna charta_ as one of the justices styles them--recognized the right of suffrage in women. Justice Field says: "That only is a free government, in the American sense of the term, under which the inalienable right of every citizen to pursue his happiness is unrestrained, except by just, equal, and impartial laws."

Justice Bradley says: "The States have not now, if they ever had, any power to restrict their citizens.h.i.+p to any cla.s.ses or persons. A citizen of the United States has a perfect const.i.tutional right to go to and reside in any State he chooses, and to claim citizens.h.i.+p therein, and an equality of rights with every other citizen, and the whole power of the nation is pledged to sustain him in that right. He is not bound to cringe to any superior, or to pray for any act of grace, as a means of enjoying all the rights and privileges enjoyed by other citizens."

Such language on any other subject would be conclusive, but the crust of custom and prejudice is hard and thick and strong, and the heat of the lava of regeneration may not yet have weakened it sufficiently to allow of its destruction and removal.

We will try to have our cases fully prepared for argument when reached in the call of the calendar, which will be about next January, and after doing our best in them will have to trust for success if not in this in some other effort.

Very truly yours, FRANCIS MILLER.

Miss Anthony gave the incidents of her arrest and trial to an immense audience in the evening, moving them alternately to laughter and indignation. At the close of this convention a large reception was given to the friends of woman suffrage by Dr. Clemence Lozier at her hospitable home in 34th street, New York. Her s.p.a.cious parlors were crowded until a late hour. The occasion was enlivened with music, readings, and short, spicy speeches.

The National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation held its fifth convention at Was.h.i.+ngton in January, 1874. Before the arrival of the princ.i.p.al actors, the hall was filled with spectators. Soon after 11 o'clock the President, accompanied by a large number of speakers[155] and friends, came on the stage. Many interesting letters were received[156] and a series of resolutions[157] reported.

Mrs. Gage occupied the evening with an address on Judge and Jury. The following brief sketch of the convention by Frances Ellen Burr is as good a summary of the proceedings as we find.

(Correspondence Hartford _Times_,) WAs.h.i.+NGTON, Jan. 15, 1874.

The National Woman Suffrage Convention opened in Lincoln Hall this morning with a full house.

Miss Anthony opened the meeting by reading the call, and then briefly stated its purposes, which were to bring influences to bear upon Congress that will secure National protection for women in their right to vote. Black men are the only ones guaranteed by the National Const.i.tution in their right to vote. Women ask for the same security. A letter from the Hon. E. G. Lapham, of New York, puts a point in the closing paragraph to the effect that the most degraded elector, who would sell his vote for a dollar, or for a dram, couldn't be induced by the offer of a kingdom to sell his right to vote.

Miss Anthony stated that the two articles of the woman suffrage creed were: First, That every woman should get her vote into the ballot box whenever she could get a judge of election to take it; and wherever refused, should go just the same again next time.

Second, That all women owning property should refuse to pay taxes. She read a memorial to Congress for "no taxation without representation," the closing paragraph running as follows:

_Therefore_, We pray your honorable bodies to pa.s.s a law during the present session of Congress, that shall exempt women from taxation for national purposes so long as they are unrepresented in national councils.

Mrs. Spencer has a case now pending in the Supreme Court of the United States. She carried a suit for herself and seventy-two other women who applied to be made voters and were refused. She has prepared a pet.i.tion for woman suffrage for the women of the District of Columbia, on the ground, as Miss Anthony stated it, that as "this little ten-mile square belongs to us all, if the women here are enfranchised, those of the rest of the nation can not long be shut out." As Congress has absolute control over the District, no one can dispute its right to enfranchise the women here, even though they dispute its control of this matter in other parts of the nation. Miss Spencer submitted the following pet.i.tion for woman suffrage by the women of the district of Columbia:

_Whereas_, The Supreme Court or the District or Columbia in the ease of Spencer against the Board of Registration has decided that by the operation of the first section of the XIV. Amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, "Women have been advanced to full citizens.h.i.+p and clothed with the capacity to become voters," and

_Whereas_, The same court further decided that the said first section of the XIV. Amendment does not execute itself, but requires the supervention of legislative power in the exercise of legislative discretion to give it effect.

And

_Whereas_, The Congress of the United States is the legislative body having exclusive jurisdiction over this District,

_Therefore_, We respectfully pray your honorable bodies for the pa.s.sage of an act amending an act ent.i.tled "An act to provide a government for the District of Columbia," approved Feb. 21, 1871, by striking the word "male" from the seventh section of said act, thus placing the const.i.tutional rights of the women of this District, as declared by the highest judicial tribunal, under the protection of the legislative power.

She said it might surprise and encourage many, as it did her, to learn that neither the Const.i.tution of the United States nor any State const.i.tution, nor legislative enactment, general or local, has ever forbidden women to vote. They have simply permitted certain male citizens to vote, and have said nothing about women whatever. It is one thing to forbid women to vote; it is quite another thing to simply fail to expressly declare that they may.

Some people think the Bible forbids women to vote because it doesn't say anything about it from beginning to end. True, it does not give any authority for it. Neither does it give any authority for using sewing-machines or clothes-wringers. The zeal of the people who search the Scriptures in the interest of bigotry and intolerance, a.s.sumes that all that is not commanded to women is strictly forbidden. Judge Cartter says the general Const.i.tution interposes not a single obstacle to woman suffrage, and there is therefore no need of a new amendment; while the State const.i.tutions simply leave her right in abeyance by omitting to declare it. That this view of the general const.i.tution largely prevails is shown by so many women bringing suits against those who have rejected their votes, under the const.i.tution as it is. Mrs. Spencer's manner is very pleasing, and her speech was pungent and to the point. She closed with the following pithy ill.u.s.tration of the need of woman's influence in legislative matters:

I wanted a loaf of bread one day in a great hurry, and found six dram-shops on one square and only one bakery, and that was shut.

Mrs. Spencer was followed by Mrs. Gage, Mrs. Stanton, Mr. Black, and Mr. Davis, of Philadelphia, son-in-law of Lucretia Mott.