The History of Woman Suffrage Volume IV Part 11

It was finally voted that the letter be read without the resolution.

The resolution was brought up later in open convention and the final vote resulted in 32 ayes and 24 noes. This was not at that time a delegate body, but usually only those voted who were especially connected with the work of the a.s.sociation. Before the present convention adjourned a basis of delegate representation was adopted, and provision made that hereafter only regularly accredited delegates should be ent.i.tled to vote.

The resolution calling upon Congress to take the necessary measures to secure the ballot for women through an amendment to the Federal Const.i.tution, was vigorously opposed by the Southern delegates as contrary to States' Rights, but was finally adopted. There was some discussion also on the resolution which condemned the disfranchising of Gentile as well as Mormon women, but which approved the action of Congress in making disfranchis.e.m.e.nt a punishment for the crime of polygamy. A difference of opinion was shown in regard to the latter clause. This closed the convention.

As a favorable Senate report was pending, no hearing was held before that committee.

The House Judiciary Committee[28] granted a hearing on the morning of February 20. The speakers, as usual, were introduced to the chairman of the committee by Miss Anthony. The first of these, Mrs. Virginia L.

Minor, had attempted to vote in St. Louis, been refused permission, carried her case to the Supreme Court and received an adverse decision.[29] Miss Anthony said in reference to this decision: "Chief Justice Waite declared the United States had no voters. The Dred Scott Decision was that the negro, not being a voter, was not a citizen. The Supreme Court decided that women, although citizens, were not protected in the rights of citizens.h.i.+p by the Fourteenth Amendment."

Mrs. Minor said in part:

I do not stand here to represent rich women but poor women.

Should you give me the right to vote and deny it to my sister I should spurn the gift. Without the ballot no cla.s.s is so helpless as the working women. If the ballot is necessary for man, it is necessary for woman. We must have one law for all American citizens.

The Supreme Court has half done the work. When my case came up, and I asked them that the same law should protect me as protected the negro, the court said, "When the State gives you the right to vote, we will perpetuate it; the United States has no voters." I want to ask you one question. If there are no United States voters, what right has the U. S. Court to go into the State of New York, arrest Susan B. Anthony and condemn her under Federal Law?[30]

Another decision of the Supreme Court said in relation to the Fourteenth Amendment, that the negro, because of citizens.h.i.+p, was made a voter in every State of the Union. The court went on to say that it had a broader significance, that it included the Chinese or any nationality that should become citizens. That court has said we are citizens. If the Chinese would have the right to vote if they were citizens, have not we the right to vote because of citizens.h.i.+p?

A third decision was in the case of the United States vs. Kellar in the State of Illinois. A man arrested for illegal voting was brought before the court; he was born abroad and was the son of an American woman. Justice Harlan held that because his mother was a citizen, she had transmitted citizens.h.i.+p to her son, therefore he had a right to vote. This right must have been inherent in the mother, else she could not have transmitted it to her son.

Mrs. Julia B. Nelson (Minn.), who had been for many years teaching the freed negroes of the South, said:

What are the obligations of the Government to me, a widow, because my husband gave his life for it? I have been forced to think. As a law-abiding citizen and taxpayer and one who has given all she could give to the support of this Government, I have a right to be heard. I am teaching for it, teaching citizens. I began teaching freedmen when it was so unpopular that men could not have done it. The voting question met me in the office of the mission, which sends out more women than men because better work is done by them. A woman gets for this work $15 per month; if capable of being a princ.i.p.al she has $20. A man in this position receives $75 a month. There must be something wrong, but I do not need to explain to you that an unrepresented cla.s.s must work at a disadvantage.

If it were granted to women to fill all positions for which they are qualified, they would not be so largely compelled to rush into those occupations where they are unfairly remunerated. As so many people have faith that whatever is is right, the law as it stands has great influence. If it puts woman down as an inferior, she will surely be regarded as such by the people. If I am capable of preparing citizens, I am capable of possessing the rights of a citizen myself. I ask you to remove the barriers which restrain women from equal opportunities and privileges with men.

Mrs. Meriwether pointed out the helplessness of mothers to obtain legal protection for themselves and their children, or to influence the action of munic.i.p.al bodies, without the suffrage. Miss Eastman said in the course of her address:

The first business of government is foreshadowed in the Const.i.tution, that it is to secure justice between man and man by allowing no intrusion of any on the rights of others. This principle is large in application although simple in statement.

The first words, "We, the people," contain the foundation of our claim. If we limit the application of the word "people," all the rest falls to the ground. Whatever work of government is referred to, it all rests on its being managed by "We, the people." If we strike that out, we have lost the fundamental principle. Who are the people? I feel that it is not my business to ask men to vote on my right to be admitted to the franchise. I have been debarred from my right. You hold the position to do me justice. Why should I go to one-half of the people and ask whether so clear and explicit a declaration as this includes me? The suffrage is not theirs to give, and I would not get it from them easily if it were. Neither would you get even education if you had to ask them for it. This question is not for the people at large to settle.

Justice demands that we should be referred to the most intelligent tribunals in the land, and not remanded to the popular vote.

Mrs. Clay Bennett based her argument largely on the authority of the Scriptures. Mrs. Gougar said:

We do not come as Democrats or Republicans, not as Northern or as Southern, but as women representing a great principle. This is in line with the Magna Charta, with the Pet.i.tion of Rights, with the Articles of Confederation, with the National Const.i.tution. This is in direct line of the growth of human liberty. The Declaration of Independence says, "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." Are you making a single law which does not touch me as much as it does you?

Questions are upon you which you can not solve without the moral sentiment of womanhood. You need us more than we need suffrage.

In our large cities the vicious element rules. The reserve force is in the womanhood of the nation. Woman suffrage is necessary for the preservation of the life of the republic. To give women the ballot is to increase the intelligent and law-abiding vote.

The tramp vote is entirely masculine. By enfranchising the women of this country, you enfranchise humanity.

Mrs. Colby thus described to the committee the recent vote in Nebraska on a woman suffrage amendment:

The subject was well discussed; the leading men and the majority of the press and pulpit favored it. Everything indicated that here at last the measure might be safely submitted to popular vote. On election day the women went to the polling places in nearly every precinct in the State, with their flowers, their banners, their refreshments and their earnest pleadings. But every saloon keeper worked against the amendment, backed by the money and the power of the liquor league. The large foreign vote went almost solidly against woman suffrage. Nebraska defies the laws of the United States by allowing foreigners to vote when they have been only six months on the soil of America. Many of these, as yet wholly unfamiliar with the inst.i.tutions of our country, voted the ballot which was placed in their hands. The woman suffrage amendment received but a little over one-third of the votes cast.

Men were still so afraid women did not want to vote that only one thing remained to convince them we were in earnest, and that was for us to vote that way. So the next session we had another amendment introduced, to be voted on by the men as before, but not to take effect until ratified by a majority of the women. We were willing to be counted if the Legislature would make it legal to count us. It refused because the question, it said, had already been settled by the people. Although we had worked and pleaded and done all that women could do to obtain our rights of citizens.h.i.+p, yet the Legislature looking at "the people" did not see us, and refused to submit the question again. Having failed to obtain our rights by popular vote, we now appeal to you.

Miss Anthony related the unsuccessful efforts of Mrs. Caroline E.

Merrick and other ladies of Louisiana to have women placed on the school boards of that State, due wholly to their disfranchis.e.m.e.nt. In a forcible speech Mrs. Sewall declared:

In coming here my sense of justice is satisfied, for we belong to this nation as well as you. This room, this building, this committee, the whole machinery of government is supported in part by the money of women and is for their protection as well as for that of men....

Our question should never be partisan. We do not wish to go before our State Legislatures crippled with the fact that an amendment has been submitted by one party rather than the other.

The Republican party gave the ballot to the negro and claimed its vote in return. We do not wish any party to feel it has a right to our vote. The Senate now has a majority of Republicans and the House of Democrats, consequently any measure which is pa.s.sed by this Congress will be unpartisan. This question should receive support of both parties by the higher laws of the universe.

Another name for life is helpfulness. Separation of parts belonging to one whole is death. Separation of parties on questions not of partisan interest is death to many issues. It is in your power to bring the parties together by that higher law of the universe on this proposition to submit a Sixteenth Amendment to our Legislatures, that without entanglement of partisan interests this question can be decided.

The committee were so interested in the address of Madame Neymann that the time of the hearing was extended in order that she might finish it. She said in part:

Why Americans, so keen in their sense of what is right and just, should be so dull on this question of giving woman her due share of independence, I can not comprehend. Is not this the land where foreigners flock because they have heard the bugle call of freedom? Why then is it that your own children, the patriotic daughters of America, who have been reared and nurtured in free homes, brought up under the guidance and amidst the blessings of freedom--why is it that you hold them unworthy of the honor of being enrolled as citizens and voters? England, Canada and even Ireland have gone ahead of us, and was not America destined by its tradition to be first and foremost in this important movement of making women the equal, the true partner of man?

In a free country the national life stands in direct relation to the home life, the public life reacts upon the family, and the family furnishes the material for the State. The lives and the characters of our children are influenced by the manners and methods of our Government, and to say that mothers have no right to be concerned in the politics of the country is simply saying that the life and character of our children are of no concern to us.

The citizen's liberty instead of being sacrificed by society has to be defended by society. Who defends woman's individuality in our modern State? Universal suffrage is the only guarantee against despotism. Every man who believes in the subjection of woman will play the despot whenever you give him an opportunity.

We have no right to ask if it is expedient to grant suffrage to women. We recognize that the principle is just and justice must be done though the heavens fall. It is small minds that bring forth small objections. The man who believes in a just principle trusts and confides in it, and thus we ask you to confide in suffrage for women.

On May 6, 1886, the committee report, made by the Hon. John W. Stewart (Vt.), stated that the resolution was laid on the table. The following minority report was submitted:

In a Government by the people the ballot is at once a badge of sovereignty and the means of exercising power. We need not for our present purpose define the right to vote, nor inquire whence it comes. Whether it is a natural or a political right, one arising from social relations and duties, or a necessity incidental to individual protection and communal welfare, is immaterial to the discussion. Let the advocates of man's right to partic.i.p.ate in governmental affairs choose their own ground and we will be content. The voting franchise exists, and it exists because it has been seized by force or because of some right antedating its sanction by law. Nativity does not confer it, because aliens exercise it; it does not arise from taxation, for many are taxed who can not vote and many vote who are not taxed.

Ability to bear arms is not the test of the voting franchise, as many legally vote who were never able to bear arms, and others who have become unable to do so by reason of sickness, accident or age; nor does education mark the line, for the learned and the illiterate meet at the ballot box.

With us a portion of the adult population have a.s.sumed to exercise the right, admitted to exist somewhere, of governing, and have forced another portion into the position of the governed. That this a.s.sumption is just and wise is averred by some and denied by others. If we call upon these rulers for a copy of their commission they present one written by themselves.

Children, idiots and convicted felons properly belong to the governed and not to the governing cla.s.s, as they are intellectually or morally unfit to govern. Necessity only places them there; necessity is an absolute monarch and will be everywhere obeyed. To this governed cla.s.s has been added woman, and we beg the House and the country to inquire why. They are also "people" and we submit that they are neither moral nor intellectual incapables, and no necessity for their disfranchis.e.m.e.nt can be suggested; on the contrary, we believe that they are now ent.i.tled to immediate and absolute enfranchis.e.m.e.nt.

First: Because their own good demands it. Give woman the ballot and she will have additional means and inducements to a broader and better education, including a knowledge of affairs, of which she will not fail to avail herself to the uttermost; give her the ballot and you add to her means of protection of her person and estate. The ballot is a powerful weapon of defense sorely needed by those too weak to wield any other, and to take it from such and give to those already clothed in strength and fully armed, would appear to be unjust, unfair and unwise to one unaccustomed to the sight. Long usage "sanctions and sanctifies" wrongs and abuses, and causes cruelty to be mistaken for kindness.

The history of woman is for the most part a history of wrong and outrage. Created the equal companion of man, she early became his slave, and still is so in most parts of the world. In many so-called Christian nations of Europe she is to-day yoked with beasts and is doing the labor of beasts, while her son and husband are serving in the army, protecting the divine right of kings and men to slay and destroy. In the farther East she is still more degraded, being substantially excluded from the world.

Man has not been consciously unjust to woman in the past, nor is he now, but he believes that she is in her true sphere, not realizing that he has fixed her sphere, and not G.o.d. This is as true of the barbarian as of the Christian, and no more so. If the "unspeakable Turk" should be solicited to open the doors of his harem and let the inmates become free, he would be indignant, doubtless, and would swear by the beard of the Prophet that he never would so degrade lovely woman, who, in her sphere, was intended to be the solace of glorious, superior man.

Yet, as man advances, woman is elevated, and her elevation in turn advances him. No liberty ever given her has been lost or abused or regretted. Where most has been given she has become best. Liberty never degrades her; slavery always does. For her good, therefore, she needs the ballot.

Second: Woman's vote is needed for the good of others. Our horizon is misty with apparent dangers. Woman may aid in dispelling them. She is an enemy of foreign war and domestic turmoil; she is a friend of peace and home. Her influence for good in many directions would be multiplied if she possessed the ballot. She desires the homes of the land to be pure and sober; with her help they may become so. Without her what is the prospect in this regard?

We do not invite woman into the "dirty pool of politics," nor does she intend to enter that pool. Politics is not necessarily unclean; if it is unclean she is not chargeable with the great crime, for crime it is. Politics must be purified or we are lost.

To govern this great nation wisely and well is not degrading service; to do it, all the wisdom, ability and patriotism of all the people is required. No great moral force should be unemployed.

But it is sometimes said that women do not desire the ballot.

Some may not; very many do not, perhaps a majority. Such indifference can not affect the right of those who are not indifferent. Some men, for one or other insufficient reason, decline to vote; but no statesman has yet urged general disfranchis.e.m.e.nt on that account. It may be true, and in our judgment it is, that those individuals who so fail to appreciate the rights and obligations of freemen as to deliberately refuse to vote should be disfranchised and made aliens, but their offense should not be visited on vigilant and patriotic citizens.

Neither male nor female suffragists can be forced to use the ballot, and while the individuals of each cla.s.s may fail to appreciate the privilege or recognize the duty the franchise confers, in the main it will result otherwise.

The conservative woman who feels that her present duties are as burdensome as she can bear, when she realizes what she can accomplish for her country and for mankind by the ballot, will as reverently thank G.o.d for the opportunity and will as zealously discharge her new obligations, as will her more radical sister who has long and wearily labored and fervently prayed for the coming of the day of equality of rights, duties and hopes.

E. B. TAYLOR.

W. P. HEPBURN.

L. B. CASWELL.

I concur in the opinion of the minority that the resolution ought to be adopted.

A. A. RANNEY.