The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 58

Editors who have been battling the new reform with a zeal equaled only by that manifested against abolitionism a few years since, can see no necessary connection between the new movement and the general cause of woman's emanc.i.p.ation. Whether necessary or not, there is a practical connection between them which is being felt more and more every day. I a.s.sert, with no fear of contradiction by any observing man, that Vermont is no more committed against woman suffrage than any other State in the East, and the fact that but one man in our late convention voted to extend the right of suffrage to all, can well be explained when we consider the manner of choosing delegates by towns; one town, for instance, with twelve voters, having the same voice in the representation that this city has with 1,500. With a popular vote upon that question the State would give such a majority as would fairly astonish all those who regarded the late convention as a complete demolition of the "reformers."

ST. ANDREW.

The following criticism of the Rev. Mr. Holmes, from the pen of a woman, shows the growing self-a.s.sertion of a cla.s.s. .h.i.therto held in a condition of subordination by clerical authority. Such tergiversation in the pulpit as his has done much to emanc.i.p.ate woman from the reverence she once felt for the teaching of those supposed to be divinely ordained of heaven:

BENSON, Vt., June 20, 1871.

I have heard it stated from the pulpit within a year that the woman suffrage question in Vermont is dead. Well, we believe in the resurrection. Week by week this question of the hour and of the age confronts those who claim to have given it decent burial.

The same clergyman who p.r.o.nounced it dead has since spoken of it as one of the "growing evils of the times," and in this beautiful summer weather he has felt called upon to preach another sermon, ostensibly on "marriage," really upon this "dead question,"

dragging it out to daylight again, that we might see how easily he could bury it fifty fathoms deep--with mud. It reminded me of Robert Laird Collier's sermon, "The Folly of the Woman Movement,"

in its logic and its spirit. Mr. Collier and our Mr. Holmes see but one thing in all this struggle for truth and justice, and that is "free-love." Here are some specimens of Mr. Holmes'

a.s.sertions:

The advocates of woman's rights want, not the ballot so much as the dissolution of the marriage tie. They propose to form a tie for the term of five, six or seven years. Mark the men or women who are the most strenuous advocates of woman suffrage. They are irreligious and immoral.

Who are more strenuous advocates of woman suffrage than Mrs.

Julia Ward Howe, Mrs. Harriet Beecher Stowe, Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, Mrs. Lucy Stone, Mrs. Lucretia Mott, Mrs.

Livermore, T. W. Higginson, Henry Ward Beecher, Bishop Simpson, Governor Claflin, Gilbert Haven, Wendell Phillips, and scores of others whose lives are as pure and intellects as fine as his who dares stand in the sacred desk and call these persons "irreligious and immoral"? His argument seems to be like this: Some advocates of woman suffrage are in favor of easy divorces.

These men and women advocate woman suffrage; therefore these men and women are in favor of easy divorces. Or, to make the matter still plainer, some ministers of the Gospel are immoral. Mr. H.

is a minister of the Gospel; therefore Mr. H. is immoral. The method of reasoning is the same, but it don't sound quite fair and honorable, does it?

"In our land woman is a queen; she is loved and cared for," says Mr. Holmes. In sight from the window where I write is a sad commentary upon this. One of these queens, so tenderly cared for, is hoeing corn, while her five-months-old baby--the youngest of nine children--lies on the gra.s.s while she works. Her husband is away from home, but has left word for the "old woman" to "take care of the corn and potatoes, for he has to support the family."

When they are out of meat, she must go out was.h.i.+ng and earn some, for "he has to support the family," and cannot have her idle. Not long since they were planting corn together, she doing as much as he. At noon, although she had a pail of milk and another of eggs, he brought her the two hoes to carry home, as he could not be troubled with them. Had he ever read:

"I will be master of what is my own; She is my goods, my chattels-- My horse, my ox, my a.s.s, my anything"?

"No woman reaches such dignity as the New England wife and mother," says Mr. H. Is wifehood more honorable, or motherhood more sacred, in New England than in other places? Is to be a wife and mother, and nothing else, the sole end and aim of woman? Or is there not other work in G.o.d's universe which some woman may possibly be called upon to do? Is Florence Nightingale or Anna d.i.c.kinson less dignified than Mrs. John Smith, who happens physically to be the mother of half-a-dozen children, but mentally and morally is as much of a child as any of them?

"Woman has just the sphere she wants. She has more privileges than she could vote herself into," says Mr. H. Has she, indeed? I know women, who would gladly vote themselves into the privilege of having the custody of their own children, whose husbands are notoriously drunken and licentious. They are pure, good women, who, rather than part with their children, live on with men whose very breath is pollution. I know others who would like to vote themselves into the privilege of retaining their own hard earnings instead of having them sacrificed by a drunken husband.

Widows have been literally turned out of doors after their husbands' death, and the property they had helped to acc.u.mulate divided among those who never earned it. Do you think such women would not change the laws of inheritance if they had the power?

"Husband and wife are one, hence one vote is sufficient," says Mr. H. Follow out the reasoning, if you please. "Both one," hence one dinner is sufficient, "both one," hence if a man is a member of a church his wife is also. In plain English, "the husband and wife are both one," and the husband is that one. Now in case _that one_ should die, is it fair, or just, or fitting, that the widow--"the relict"--or, in the words of Mr. H., "the feminine spirit that has supplemented this masculine nature," whose hands have been tied all these years, should be called upon to pay taxes upon the share of property the law allows her? Taxation without representation was the immediate cause of the famous tea-party in Boston harbor, and, in fact, of a good many other unpleasant things that followed.

"Woman has just the sphere she wants," says Mr. H., closing the discussion. No, sir, she has not. Had those young ladies in Philadelphia who were studying medicine, and were insulted day after day by the male medical students, the sphere they wanted?

Our American girls have been to Europe for the sake of pursuing their studies in medicine, and have met with kindness and courtesy, while in this land, where they are called "queens,"

they received only hisses. Last winter Governor Claflin of Ma.s.sachusetts--one of those "irreligious and immoral" advocates of woman suffrage--reminded the gentlemen of that State who claim to be woman's representatives in the legislature, "that a wife in that State is deprived of the free control of property that was her own before marriage, and is denied an equal right in the property acc.u.mulated during the marriage partners.h.i.+p; that a married mother has no legal right to her child; and that a widow has not equal rights with a widower." When woman has the sphere she wants, these things will be changed.

As a majority of the men in this community are opposed to woman suffrage, I will relate one circ.u.mstance that will do to "point a moral or adorn a tale." Of course, the voters in this or any other place always elect their best men to hold office, and the board of selectmen would naturally be the very wisest and best, the "_creme de la creme_." Now it so happens that one selectman being away from home, there was not enough arithmetic left with the other two to make out the tax-bills for the town, and they hired a woman, the mother of two children, to do it for them. It certainly took more of her time than it would for her to have walked across the street and voted for men who could make out their own tax-bills. Then arithmetic is not a womanly accomplishment, like tatting, crocheting, etc. These things sink into our hearts, and will bear fruit in due season.

SARAH A. GIBBS.

In 1877, July 21, Miss Thyrza F. Pangborn, for the last six years the capable and efficient recorder in the probate office of Burlington, was appointed and sworn as a notary public. In a letter of December 7, 1872, our correspondent says:

In the year 1870, the world was somewhat startled by the fact that in the const.i.tutional convention, held that year in Vermont, but one vote was cast for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman; and no one wonders that the friends of that movement exclaimed, "Can any good come out of--Vermont"? Yesterday the first biennial session of the legislature closed its session of fifty-seven days. A bill has been pending in each House, giving female tax-payers a right to vote at all school-district meetings. It was advocated by Mr.

b.u.t.terfield, one of the leading members of the House, in an able and learned speech, and received 64 votes to 103 against. Is not that doing well for such a staid old State as Vermont, and one where the enemies of equal suffrage supposed, two years since, that the measure was indefinitely postponed? But this is not all.

The measure was introduced in the Senate, composed of thirty members, who are supposed to be the balance-wheel of the General a.s.sembly. It was warmly discussed by several Senators, and the vote taken, when there were three members absent, resulting in, yeas 13, nays 14. Had the Senate been full, the vote would have been, yeas 14,[198] nays 16. A change of one of the "no" votes would have carried the measure, as the lieutenant-governor, who presides in the Senate, would have given the casting vote in its favor.

The supporters of the measure included some of the ablest members of the Senate, among them the chairmen of the very important Committees on Finance, Claims, Education, Agriculture, Manufactures, Railroads and Printing.

Following the defeat of the above-mentioned bill came up a measure granting to women the same right to vote as men have in all elections everywhere in the State. It received the support of all who voted for the school measure, save two, Mr. Mason and Mr.

Rogers, who prefer to see the first tried as an experiment in the school meetings. You thus perceive that twelve out of our thirty grave and reverend Senators are real out-and-out equal suffrage men. Verily, the world moves! Another year, 1874, we hope will carry off the measure. Meanwhile, we say, three cheers for old Vermont, and glory enough for one day!

ST. ANDREW.

_Burlington, Vt._

In 1880 the School Suffrage bill pa.s.sed the Vermont House of Representatives, with only four dissenting votes. When the bill came to a third reading and only four men stood up for the negative, there was so marked an expression of derision that the speaker called for "order," and reminded the House that "no man was to be scorned for voting alone any more than with a crowd." The action and the voting came cheerily. More than one man, to the objection of "an entering wedge," said "he was ready to grant the whole." The bill pa.s.sed the Senate triumphantly and was approved by the governor, December 18, 1880:

Women shall have the same right to vote as men have, in all school-district meetings and in the election of school commissioners in towns and cities, and the same right to hold office relating to school affairs.

An item in the _Woman's Journal_, from Vergennes, March 22, 1881, says:

At the city election to-day General J. H. Lucia, a staunch friend of woman suffrage, was elected mayor, and princ.i.p.ally through his management Miss Electa S. Smith has been chosen to the office of city clerk, which office he has held for the past two years. The legislature of 1880 authorized the election of women to the offices of superintendent of schools and town clerk, and some of the friends of the cause were disposed to try the working of the law here. They selected a candidate whose ability, qualifications and thorough fitness all had to concede, and against whom the only objection that could be raised was her being a woman. It took the conservatives some time to get over their surprise at the first suggestion of her name, but they admitted the propriety of the thing and gallantly lent a hand, so that when the election came all the candidates who had been talked about were conspicuous by their absence, and Miss Smith was elected by acclamation. Surely the world does move.

SPRINGFIELD, February 7, 1884.

_Miss Lydia Putnam, Brattleboro', Vt.:_

Your letter is at hand. I think but few women have, as yet, availed themselves of the privilege of voting in school meetings in this State, and I am not able to say what the effect upon our schools has been up to the present time.

Very respectfully, JUSTUS DARTT.

Notwithstanding the above reply from the state-superintendent of the public schools of Vermont, the a.s.sociated Press reports of every year[199] since 1881 make mention of women being elected to school offices in the various towns and counties of the State.

FOOTNOTES:

[194] No woman in so many varied fields of action has more steadily and faithfully labored than Mrs. Nichols, as editor, speaker, teacher, farmer, in Vermont, New York, Wisconsin, Iowa, Ohio, Kansas, and California where she spent the closing years of her life; and though always in circ.u.mstances of hards.h.i.+p and privation, yet no annual convention was held without a long letter from her pen, uniformly the most cheerful and able of all that were received. A great soul that seemed to rise above the depressing influences of her surroundings! The last letter she ever wrote us was in January, 1885, a few days before she pa.s.sed away. See Volume I., page 171.

[195] Officers of the Vermont Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation: _President_, Hon. Charles Reed, Montpelier. _Vice-presidents_, Hon.

John B. Hollister, Bennington; Hon. Seneca M. Dorr, Rutland; Rev.

Addison Brown, Brattleboro'; Col. Lynus E. Knapp, Middlebury; Hon.

James Hutchinson, jr., West Randolph; Hon. Russell S. Taft, Burlington; Hon. A. J. Willard, St. Johnsbury; Hon. H. Henry Powers, Hyde Park; Hon. Jasper Rand, St. Albans. _Recording Secretary_, Henry Clark, Rutland. _Corresponding Secretary_, Albert Clarke, St. Albans. _Treasurer_, Albert D. Hager, Proctorsville.

_Executive Committee_, Hon. C. W. Willard, Montpelier; Hon. Charles Reed, Montpelier; George H Bigelow, Burlington; Newman Weeks, Rutland; Hon. Jonathan Ross, St. Johnsbury; Rev. Eli Ballou, D. D., Montpelier.

[196] Following the convention at Montpelier, meetings were held at St. Albans, Northfield, Barre, Burlington, St. Johnsbury, Brattleboro', Rutland, Fairhaven, Castleton, Springfield and Bellows Falls.

[197] Among the speakers were Mr. Garrison, Mrs. Howe, Mrs. Stone, Leo Miller, Mrs. Churchill, Mrs. Livermore, Mrs. Campbell, Dr.

Sarah Hathaway, Mrs. Bowles, Mr. Blackwell, Hon. A. J. Williard.

Mr. Taft, Mr. Clark, Judge Carpenter, Mr. Ivison, the Rev. Messrs.

Brigham, Eastwood, Brown and Emerson.

[198] The fourteen who favored the bill were: Mr. Bigelow of Burlington, one of the leading editors in the State; Mr.

b.u.t.terfield of Grafton, one of the most experienced legislators in the State; Mr. Carpenter of Northfield, who is known to be right on all questions that concern humanity, Mr. Colton of Irasburgh, now serving his second term in the Senate; Mr. Estey of Brattleboro', the manufacturer of the celebrated cottage organ; Mr. Houghton of North Bennington, a leading banker and business man who has just been elected one of the directors of our state-prison; Mr. King of North Montpelier, farmer; Mr. Lamb of Royalton, the oldest member in the Senate, a lawyer; Mr. Mason of Richmond, a man who would be described by a Yankee as "chock full of honesty and common-sense"; Mr. Rogers of Wheelock and Mr. Stiles of Montgomery, both farmers, and as near like Mr. Mason as two peas are alike; Mr. Reynolds of Alburgh Springs, one of the absentees, but in favor of the bill, a prominent merchant; Mr. Powers, one of the ablest lawyers in the State, and, finally, Mr. Sprague of Brandon, a leading banker and manufacturer, the head and princ.i.p.al owner of the Brandon Manufacturing Company.

[199] In 1885 there were thirty-three women elected to the office of school superintendent in eleven of the fourteen counties of the State, as follows: _Addison_, Miss A. L. Huntley; _Bennington_, Mrs. R. R. Wiley; _Caledonia_, Miss Nellie Russell, Mrs. A. F.

Stevens, Mrs. E. Bradley, Miss S. E. Rogers; _Chittenden_, Mrs. S.

M. Benedict, Mrs. L. M. Bates, Mrs. J. C. Draper; _Ess.e.x_, Mrs.

Henry Fuller, Hettie W. Matthews, Jennie K. Stanley, Mrs. S. M.