History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II

by Unknown

EVENING SESSION.

The evening session was held in Cooper Institute, Mrs. Stanton presiding. An address to the President was read by Miss Anthony, which was subsequently adopted and sent to him.

The Loyal Women of the Country to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States.

Having heard many complaints of the want of enthusiasm among Northern women in the war, we deemed it fitting to call a National Convention. From every free State, we have received the most hearty responses of interest in each onward step of the Government as it approaches the idea of a true republic. From the letters received, and the numbers assembled here to-day, we can with confidence address you in the name of the loyal women of the North.

We come not to criticise or complain. Not for ourselves or our friends do we ask redress of specific grievances, or posts of honor or emolument. We speak from no considerations of mere material gain; but, inspired by true patriotism, in this dark hour of our nation's destiny, we come to pledge the loyal women of the Republic to freedom and our country. We come to strengthen you with earnest words of sympathy and encouragement. We come to thank you for your proclamation, in which the nineteenth century seems to echo back the Declaration of Seventy-six. Our fathers had a vision of the sublime idea of liberty, equality, and fraternity; but they failed to climb the heights that with anointed eyes they saw. To us, their children, belongs the work to build up the living reality of what they conceived and uttered.

It is not our mission to criticise the past. Nations, like individuals, must blunder and repent. It is not wise to waste one energy in vain regret, but from each failure rise up with renewed conscience and courage for nobler action. The follies and faults of yesterday we cast aside as the old garments we have outgrown. Born anew to freedom, slave creeds and codes and constitutions must now all pass away. "For men do not put new wine into old bottles, else the bottles break, and the wine runneth out, and the bottles perish; but they put new wine into new bottles, and both are preserved."

Our special thanks are due to you, that by your Proclamation two millions of women are freed from the foulest bondage humanity ever suffered. Slavery for man is bad enough, but the refinements of cruelty must ever fall on the mothers of the oppressed race, defrauded of all the rights of the family relation, and violated in the most holy instincts of their nature. A mother's life is bound up in that of her child. There center all her hopes and ambition. But the slave-mother, in her degradation, rejoices not in the future promise of her daughter, for she knows by experience what her sad fate must be. No pen can describe the unutterable agony of that mother whose past, present, and future are all wrapped in darkness; who knows the crown of thorns she wears must press her daughter's brow; who knows that the wine-press she now treads, unwatched, those tender feet must tread alone. For, by the law of slavery, "the child follows the condition of the mother."

By your act, the family, that great conservator of national virtue and strength, has been restored to millions of humble homes, around whose altars coming generations shall magnify and bless the name of Abraham Lincoln. By a mere stroke of the pen you have emancipated millions from a condition of wholesale concubinage. We now ask you to finish the work by declaring that nowhere under our national flag shall the motherhood of any race plead in vain for justice and protection. So long as one slave breathes in this Republic, we drag the chain with him. God has so linked the race, man to man, that all must rise or fall together. Our history exemplifies this law. It was not enough that we at the North abolished slavery for ourselves, declared freedom of speech and the press, built up churches, colleges, and free schools, studied the science of morals, government, and economy, dignified labor, amassed wealth, whitened the sea with our commerce, and commanded the respect and admiration of the nations of the earth, so long as the South, by the natural proclivities of slavery, was sapping the very foundations of our national life....

You are the first President ever borne on the shoulders of freedom into the position you now fill. Your predecessors owed their elevation to the slave oligarchy, and in serving slavery they did but obey their masters. In your election, Northern freemen threw off the yoke. And with you rests the responsibility that our necks shall never bow again. At no time in the annals of the nation has there been a more auspicious moment to retrieve the one false step of the fathers in their concessions to slavery. The Constitution has been repudiated, and the compact broken by the Southern traitors now in arms. The firing of the first gun on Sumter released the North from all constitutional obligations to slavery. It left the Government, for the first time in our history, free to carry out the Declaration of our Revolutionary fathers, and made us in fact what we have ever claimed to be, a nation of freemen.

"The Union as it was"—a compromise between barbarism and civilization—can never be restored, for the opposing principles of freedom and slavery can not exist together. Liberty is life, and every form of government yet tried proves that slavery is death. In obedience to this law, our Republic, divided and distracted by the collisions of caste and class, is tottering to its base, and can only be reconstructed on the sure foundations of impartial freedom to all men. The war in which we are involved is not the result of party or accident, but a forward step in the progress of the race never to be retraced. Revolution is no time for temporizing or diplomacy. In a radical upheaving, the people demand eternal principles to stand upon.

Northern power and loyalty can never be measured until the purpose of the war be liberty to man; for a lasting enthusiasm is ever based on a grand idea, and unity of action demands a definite end. At this time our greatest need is not in men or money, valiant generals or brilliant victories, but in a consistent policy, based on the principle that "all governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." And the nation waits for you to say that there is no power under our declaration of rights, nor under any laws, human or divine, by which free men can be made slaves; and therefore that your pledge to the slaves is irrevocable, and shall be redeemed.

If it be true, as it is said, that Northern women lack enthusiasm in this war, the fault rests with those who have confused and confounded its policy. The page of history glows with incidents of self-sacrifice by woman in the hour of her country's danger. Fear not that the daughters of this Republic will count any sacrifice too great to insure the triumph of freedom. Let the men who wield the nation's power be wise, brave, and magnanimous, and its women will be prompt to meet the duties of the hour with devotion and heroism.

When Fremont on the Western breeze proclaimed a day of jubilee to the bondmen within our gates, the women of the nation echoed back a loud Amen. When Hunter freed a million men, and gave them arms to fight our battles, justice and mercy crowned that act, and tyrants stood appalled. When Butler, in the chief city of the Southern despotism, hung a traitor, we felt a glow of pride; for that one act proved that we had a Government, and one man brave enough to administer its laws. And when Burnside would banish Vallandigham to the Dry Tortugas, let the sentence be approved, and the nation will ring with plaudits. Your Proclamation gives you immortality. Be just, and share your glory with men like these who wait to execute your will.

In behalf of the Women's National Loyal League,

Elizabeth Cady Stanton, President.

Susan B. Anthony, Secretary.

Rev. Antoinette Brown Blackwell: Possibly there maybe nations, like individuals, that are without definite ideas or purposes. They sprang into being by accident, and they continue to live by the sufferance of circumstances. Our American Republic is not of this type. We were born to the heritage of one great idea; we were created by it and for it, and it is mightier than we; it must annihilate us, or it must establish us a nation as lasting as the ages.

Our ante-revolutionary statesmen were dissatisfied with an inadequate, partial, unjust representation. The thought grew in them till it developed the broad principle of self-government by the people. They perceived and asserted that truth; they fought for it, and died or lived for it, as the case might be. So they constructed this great Republic, grounding it firmly upon a deep and wide democracy. Its frame-work was essentially democratic, but there were a few great beams and joists, and plenty of paint and mortar used, which were as purely aristocratic.

We, here at the North, have been accustomed to look at the strength of the foundations, and of the consistent massive frame-work; they, at the South, admired the incongruous ornaments and decorations, and they did not forget any of the exceptional timbers. We were shocked when the great structure seemed ready to tumble about our ears; they expected it all the time, and were working for it, ready to perish in the general downfall, if that were inevitable. I have seen a drop of water spread over a small orifice in a layer of melting ice, which was brilliant red in color to me, but it was the intensest blue to my friend, who was standing at my side. The moral vision is quite as largely dependent upon the angle at which it receives its rays of reflected light. North and South represent the extremes of the moral spectrum. The equalizing of labor and capital, which is a beautiful violet to us, is a very angry red to them; and the soft-toned hues of their system of servitude are crimson with blood-guiltiness to ourselves. If we stood where the perfect and undivided sunbeams could fall upon us, we should see all men under the common radiance of that pure white light, of which Providence has an unlimited supply.

No more unanimity of sentiment or principle existed among our own people in the war of the Revolution, than in this. Democracy, asserting its rights, brought on the conflict then, though aristocracy, goaded by the instinct of self-preservation and self-interest, joined hands and aided it to its consummation. Patriotism grew in the hearts of each, and held us together as a nation for about eighty years; but the subordinate antagonism, tortured by its unnatural alliance during all those years, now in turn strikes also for independence. Predominance, precedence, pre-eminence, might have satisfied it for a time; but, from the nature of our institutions, that was impossible. It encroached at every point, and was generally rewarded for its self-assertion; but it was inherently and constitutionally subordinate, and must have remained so forever in the federation of the United States. It struck for independence, and it did well! It did all it could do, if it would not die inanely. One must always admire that instinct of the grub which leads it to weave its own winding-sheet, and lie down fearlessly in its sepulcher, preparatory to its resurrection as a butterfly; but immeasurably more to be admired is the calculating courage of men who are ready to stake their all upon any issue—even upon one so mistaken, so false, so partial to one class and so unjust to another, as the cause of the slave-holders. Every earnest purpose must have its own baptism of blessings.

We, the inheritors of a sublime truth, have been grievously wanting in faith in our heritage!—wanting in aim and purpose to maintain its integrity! No wonder the land is still washed with tears of the widowed and fatherless, and that stricken mothers refuse to be comforted. Give us a living principle to die for. "Make this a war for emancipation!" cries anti-slavery England, "and our sympathies will be with you!" They demand much; but, that demand granted, it yet falls infinitely below the real point at issue. It is immeasurably short of the great conflict which we are actually waging. It is one phase of it,—the most acute phase, undoubtedly; but not, therefore, the broadest and most momentous one. Slavery was the peculiar institution of the South; but we, as a nation, have an incomparably greater peculiar institution of our own. The one is only peculiarly exceptional to our general policy; the other is essentially and organically at war with it. It is the only thing which pointedly distinguishes us from a dozen other nations. The consent of the governed is the sole, legitimate authority of any government! This is the essential, peculiar creed of our republic. That principle is on one side of this war; and the old doctrine of might makes right, the necessary ground-work of all monarchies, is on the other. It is a life-and-death conflict between all those grand, universal, man-respecting principles, which we call by the comprehensive term democracy, and all those partial, person-respecting, class-favoring elements which we group together under that silver-slippered word aristocracy. If this war does not mean that, it means nothing.

Slavery is malignantly aristocratic, and seems therefore to absorb all other manifestations of the principle into itself. It is Pharaoh's lean kine, which devour all the others of their species, and yet are no better favored than before. But if slavery were dead to-day, aristocracy might still grind our republic to powder. Men may cease to be slaves, and yet not be enfranchised. Although they are no longer bondmen, yet they may be governed without their own consent. But when you deny the universal enfranchisement of our people, you deny the one distinctive principle of our Government, and the only essential, fore-ordained fact in the future of our national institutions. We do not at all comprehend this.

There was one who builded wiser than he knew, Emerson says, and I think that result is not uncommon. The little Indian boy in the pleasant fable, who ran on eagerly in advance of his migrating tribe, to plant his single, three-cornered beech-nut in the center of a great prairie, scarcely foresaw the many acres of heavy timber which was to confront the white pioneer hundreds of years afterward, as the outgrowth of his childish deed. Many soldiers are fighting our battles upon a basis broader than they know. There are men who believe that they are solely engaged in putting down the rebellion; others are maintaining the disputed courage and honor of the "mudsills"; some are fighting to uphold our present Northern civilization and its institutions; and a handful have set out definitely to carry these into the South, to give them to the slave, and to the master also, in spite of himself. All love the Union, and are ready to fight, perhaps to die, for it. Aye! but what does that mean? Something as antagonistic in the interpretation thereof as the decisions touching an ancient oracle, a disputed biblical text, or a knotty passage from our own venerated Constitution.

If victory should come just as she is summoned by each class of our patriotic and brave Union volunteers, would she most favor the rebels or the Government? Look at some of her conflicting purposed achievements:

1. To preserve slavery unharmed, without so much as the smell of fire upon its garments, when it shall emerge from the ordeal of war.

2. To gratuitously establish slavery forever, by solemn and unchanging guarantees.

3. To leave slavery to perish slowly and ingloriously, as it must when unprotected.

4. To cripple and destroy slavery by a long guerrilla warfare against its special manifestations.

5. To kill slavery at a blow, by right of an imperious and undoubted military necessity.

6. To exterminate slavery without compromise or weighing of consequences, because it is a gross moral wrong.

These are a few of the many platforms upon which husbands, brothers and sons are fighting to-day. No two opposing armies ever wearied heaven with asking more impossible cross-purposes than does this fraternal, Union army of ours. The bread and fish of these, are stones and scorpions to those. We are a practical people, but we are fighting for practical paradoxes. Do we expect any massive concentration of results? Our wavering, anaconda system of warfare is typical of our moral status as a people. It is the spontaneous and legitimate exponent of our aims and motives. Many or decisive victories I despair of, till we are better educated in the early lesson of the fathers. But from the President—God bless him that he seems to be more teachable than many others—down to the youngest drummer-boy of the army, the severe discipline of this war is schooling us into a better appreciation of our heritage as a peculiar people.

All governments, said the fathers, are subordinate to the people, not the people to their governments. The distinct enunciation of that principle was the net result of the war of the Revolution. Born of the long-suffering and anguish of bleeding nations, its worth is yet incomparably greater than the cost, for it is the sublimest principle which has ever entered into the governmental relations of men. It must turn and overturn till, as rightful sovereign it is placed securely upon the throne of all nations, for, from the inherent nature of things, it is destined to become the mightiest revolutionist of the ages. The reinstating of that principle in the chair of our Republic will be the net result of this war of the Rebellion!

When the statesmen of '76 sought to embody this principle in the complicated machinery of a vast government, there they partially failed—there they designedly failed. The minority seceded from it in that day as in this, and then they compromised. The antagonism which they engrafted on the young Republic assuming, as it does, that power, not humanity, is statute-maker, could not be more diametrically opposed to the axiom which asserts, that humanity, not power, is lawful arbiter of its own rights. The man, unwashed, unmended, unlearned, is yet a safer judge of his own interests, than is all the rank, the wealth, or the wisdom of men or angels. Thomas Simms is a better witness as to his own need of freedom than the combined wisdom of all the Boston lawyers, judges, and statesmen. We can keep ice and fire upon the same planet, but it never does to bring them too near together. A nation proclaiming to the astonished world that governments derive all just powers solely from the consent of the governed, yet in the very face of this assertion enslaving the black man, and disfranchising half its white citizens, besides minor things of like import and consistency—do you wonder that eighty years of such policy culminated in rebellion?

Do we expect the whole-hearted sympathy of any monarchy? Cannot they see, also, that two entire opposing civilizations are mustered into the conflict? They may hate slavery, and since we have found the courage to point our cannon more directly against the heart of that, they may rejoice so far; but do they desire to establish the subordination of any government to the rights of the very meanest of its subjects? Are they in love with our plebeian heresy, that all the magnificent civil machinery of nations is but so much base clay in the hands of the multitude of royal potters? We are now testing the practical possibilities of democratic theories; and there are those who would a thousand times rather see these shattered into hopeless fragments than any other result which could possibly transpire in the national affairs of all Christendom. Let our democracy prove shallow, weak, inefficient, unfitted for emergencies, and incapable of sustaining itself under the test of determined opposition, to them it is enough. Our great national axiom, is, per se, the eternal foe of all monarchies, aristocracies, oligarchies, of all possible despotism, because it is the fulcrum of a mighty lever which must one day overturn them all, if it be not itself jostled from its resting-place.

What are we to do with our conquered provinces of the South? Give them all the franchises which we hold ourselves, assuredly—as many personal rights and as many State rights—provided always that they cease to encroach upon our liberties, and are no longer rebels against the common Government. Now that the issue is forced upon us, let us apply our principles unsparingly to all, and conclude by making the slaves, men and women too, as free and equal in all civil and political functions as their male masters. Secretary Chase has seized the occasion of our heavy financial troubles to give us a general national banking system; so out of the nettle Danger to our liberal institutions let us pluck the flower Safety to the interest of the feeblest subject. It is thus that the darkest evil is often made nurse to the brightest good. The black mud at its roots nourishes the pure white water-lily. When the Southern people, white and black, male and female, are all voters together, by simple virtue of their human needs and rights, then, but not till then, will I consent to their freely voting themselves into an independent nation, if they are so disposed. Even then, democracy requires that the question shall be decided by the suffrage of the whole country, North as well as South. A republic can never be dismembered except by the consent of a majority of all its citizens....

Ernestine L. Rose, a native of Poland, was next introduced; she said: Louis Kossuth told us it is not well to look back for regret, but only for instruction. I therefore intend slightly to cast my mind's eye back for the purpose of enabling us, as far as possible, to contemplate the present and foresee the future. It is unnecessary to point out the cause of this war. It is written on every object we behold. It is but too well understood that the primary cause is Slavery; and it is well to keep that in mind, for the purpose of gaining the knowledge how ultimately to be able to crush that terrible rebellion which now desolates the land. Slavery being the cause of the war, we must look to its utter extinction for the remedy. (Applause).

We have listened this evening to an exceedingly instructive, kind and gentle address, particularly that part of it which tells how to deal with the South after we have brought them back. But I think it would be well, at first, to consider how to bring them back!

Abraham Lincoln has issued a Proclamation. He has emancipated all the slaves of the rebel States with his pen, but that is all. To set them really and thoroughly free, we will have to use some other instrument than the pen. (Applause). The slave is not emancipated; he is not free. A gentleman once found himself of a sudden, without, so far as he knew, any cause, taken into prison. He sent for his lawyer, and told him, "They have taken me to prison." "What have you done?" said the lawyer. "I have done nothing," he replied. "Then, my friend, they can not put you in prison." "But I am in prison." "Well, that may be; but I tell you, my dear friend, they can not put you in prison." "Well," said he, "I want you to come and take me out, for I tell you, in spite of all your lawyer logic, I am in prison, and I shall be until you take me out." (Great laughter). Now the poor slave has to say, "Abraham Lincoln, you have pronounced me free; still I am a slave, bought and sold as such, and I shall remain a slave till I am taken out of this horrible condition." Then the question is, How? Have not already two long years passed over more than a quarter of a million of the graves of the noblest and bravest of the nation? Is that not enough? No; it has proved not to be enough. Let us look back for a moment. Had the Proclamation of John C. Fremont been allowed to have its effect; had the edict of Hunter been allowed to have its effect, the war would have been over. (Applause). Had the people and the Government, from the very commencement of the struggle, said to the South, "You have openly thrown down the gauntlet to fight for Slavery; we will accept it, and fight for Freedom," the rebellion would long before now have been crushed. (Applause). You may blame Europe as much as you please, but the heart of Europe beats for freedom. Had they seen us here accept the terrible alternative of war for the sake of freedom, the whole heart of Europe would have been with us. But such has not been the case. Hence the destruction of over a quarter of a million of lives and ten millions of broken hearts that have already paid the penalty; and we know not how many more it needs to wipe out the stain of that recreancy that did not at once proclaim this war a war for freedom and humanity.

And now we have got here all around us Loyal Leagues. Loyal to what? What does it mean? I have read that term in the papers. A great many times I have heard that expression to-day. I know not what others mean by it, but I will give you my interpretation of what I am loyal to. I speak for myself. I do not wish any one else to be responsible for my opinions. I am loyal only to justice and humanity. Let the Administration give evidence that they too are for justice to all, without exception, without distinction, and I, for one, had I ten thousand lives, would gladly lay them down to secure this boon of freedom to humanity. (Applause). But without this certainty, I am not unconditionally loyal to the Administration. We women need not be, for the law has never yet recognized us. (Laughter). Then I say to Abraham Lincoln, "Give us security for the future, for really when I look at the past, without a guarantee, I can hardly trust you." And then I would say to him, "Let nothing stand in your way; let no man obstruct your path."

Much is said in the papers and in political speeches about the Constitution. Now, a good constitution is a very good thing; but even the best of constitutions need sometimes to be amended and improved, for after all there is but one constitution which is infallible, but one constitution that ought to be held sacred, and that is the human constitution. (Laughter). Therefore, if written constitutions are in the way of human freedom, suspend them till they can be improved. If generals are in the way of freedom, suspend them too; and more than that, suspend their money. We have got here a whole army of generals who have been actually dismissed from the service, but not from pay. Now, I say to Abraham Lincoln, if these generals are good for anything, if they are fit to take the lead, put them at the head of armies, and let them go South and free the slaves you have announced free. If they are good for nothing, dispose of them as of anything else that is useless. At all events, cut them loose from the pay. (Applause). Why, my friends, from July, 1861, to October, 1862—for sixteen long months—we have been electrified with the name of our great little Napoleon! And what has the great little Napoleon done? (Laughter). Why, he has done just enough to prevent anybody else from doing anything. (Great applause). But I have no quarrel with him. I don't know him. I presume none of you do. But I ask Abraham Lincoln—I like to go to headquarters, for where the greatest power is assumed, there the greatest responsibility rests, and in accordance with that principle I have nothing to do with menials, even though they are styled Napoleons—but I ask the President why McClellan was kept in the army so long after it was known—for there never was a time when anything else was known—that he was both incapable and unwilling to do anything? I refer to this for the purpose of coming, by and by, to the question, "What ought to be done?" He was kept at the head of the army on the Potomac just long enough to prevent Burnside from doing anything, and not much has been done since that time. Now, McClellan may be a very nice young man—I haven't the slightest doubt of it—but I have read a little anecdote of him. Somebody asked the president of a Western railroad company, in which McClellan was an engineer, what he thought about his abilities. "Well," said the president, "he is a first-rate man to build bridges; he is very exact, very mathematical in measurement, very precise in adjusting the timber; he is the best man in the world to build a good, strong, sound bridge, but after he has finished it, he never wishes anybody to cross over it." (Great laughter). Well, we have disposed of him partially, but we pay him yet, and you and I are taxed for it. But if we are to have a new general in his place, we may ask, what has become of Sigel? Why does that disinterested, noble-minded, freedom-loving man in vain ask of the Administration to give him an army to lead into the field?

A voice: Ask Halleck.

Halleck! If Halleck is in the way, dispose of him. (Applause). Do you point me to the Cabinet? If the Cabinet is in the way of freedom, dispose of the Cabinet—(applause) some of them, at least. The magnitude of this war has never yet been fully felt or acknowledged by the Cabinet. The man at its head—I mean Seward—has hardly yet woke up to the reality that we have a war. He was going to crush the rebellion in sixty days. It was a mere bagatelle! Why, he could do it after dinner, any day, as easy as taking a bottle of wine! If Seward is in the way of crushing the rebellion and establishing freedom, dispose of him. From the cause of the war, learn the remedy, decide the policy, and place it in the hands of men capable and willing to carry it out. I am not unconditionally loyal, until we know to what principle we are to be loyal. Promise justice and freedom, and all the rest will follow. Do you know, my friends, what will take place if something decisive is not soon done? It is high time to consider it. I am not one of those who look on the darkest side of things, but yet my reason and reflection forbid me to hope against hope. It is only eighteen months more before another Presidential election—only one year before another President will be nominated. Let the present administration remain as indolent, as inactive, and, apparently, as indifferent as they have done; let them keep generals that are inferior to many of their private soldiers; let them keep the best generals there are in the country—Sigel and Fremont—unoccupied—(applause); let them keep the country in the same condition in which it has been the last two years, and is now, and what would be the result, if, at the next election, the Democrats succeed—I mean the sham Democrats? I am a democrat, and it is because I am a democrat that I go for human freedom. Human freedom and true democracy are identical. Let the Democrats, as they are now called, get into office, and what would be the consequence? Why, under this hue-and-cry for Union, Union, Union, which is like a bait held out to the mass of the people to lure them on, they will grant to the South the meanest and the most contemptible compromises that the worst slaveholders in the South can require. And if they really accept them and come back—my only hope is that they will not—but if the South should accept these compromises, and come back, slavery will be fastened, not only in the South, but it will be nationally fastened on the North. Now, a good Union, like a good Constitution, is a most invaluable thing; but a false Union is infinitely more despicable than no Union at all; and for myself, I would vastly prefer to have the South remain independent, than to bring them back with that eternal curse nationalized in the country. It is not enough for Abraham Lincoln to proclaim the slaves in the South free, nor even to continue the war until they shall be really free. There is something to be done at home; for justice, like charity, must begin at home. It is a mockery to say that we emancipate the slaves we can not reach and pass by those we can reach. First, free the slaves that are under the flag of the Union. If that flag is the symbol of freedom, let it wave over free men only. The slaves must be freed in the Border States. Consistency is a great power. What are you afraid of? That the Border States will join with the now crippled rebel States? We have our army there, and the North can swell its armies. But we can not afford to fight without an object. We can not afford to bring the South back with slavery. We can not compromise with principle. What has brought on this war? Slavery, undoubtedly. Slavery was the primary cause of it. But the great secondary cause was the fact that the North, for the sake of the Union, has constantly compromised. Every demand that the South made of the North was acceded to, until the South came really to believe that they were the natural and legitimate masters, not only of the slaves, but of the North too.

Now, it is time to reverse all these things. This rebellion and this war have cost too dear. The money spent, the vast stores destroyed, the tears shed, the lives sacrificed the hearts broken are too high a price to be paid for the mere name of Union. I never believed we had a Union. A true Union is based upon principles of mutual interest, of mutual respect and reciprocity, none of which ever existed between the North and South. They based their institutions on slavery; the North on freedom.

I care not by what measure you end the war, if you allow one single germ, one single seed of slavery to remain in the soil of America, whatever may be your object, depend upon it, as true as effect follows cause, that germ will spring up, that noxious weed will thrive, and again stifle the growth, wither the leaves, blast the flowers, and poison the fair fruits of freedom. Slavery and freedom can not exist together. Seward proclaimed a truism, but he did not appreciate its import. There is an irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery. You might as well say that light and darkness can exist together as freedom and slavery. We, therefore, must urge the Government to do something, and that speedily, to secure the boon of freedom, while they yet can, not only in the rebel States, but in our own States too, and in the Border States. It is just as wrong for us to keep slaves in the Union States as it ever was in the South. Slavery is as great a curse to the slaveholder as it is a wrong to the slaves; and yet while we free the rebel slaveholder from the curse, we allow it to continue with our Union-loving men in the Border States. Free the slaves in the Border States, in Western Virginia, in Maryland, and wherever the Union flag floats, and then there will be a consistency in our actions that will enable us to go to work earnestly with heart and hand united, as we move forward to free all others and crush the rebellion. We have had no energy yet in the war, for we have fought only for the purpose of reuniting, what has never been united, restoring the old Union—or rather the shadow as it was. A small republic, a small nation, based upon the eternal principle of freedom, is great and powerful. A large empire based upon slavery, is weak and without foundation. The moment the light of freedom shines upon it, it discloses its defects, and unmasks its hideous deformities. As I said before, I would rather have a small republic without the taint and without the stain of slavery in it, than to have the South brought back by compromise. To avert such calamity, we must work. And our work must mainly be to watch and criticise and urge the Administration to do its whole duty to freedom and humanity. (Applause).

The President then said: I suppose all the loyal women will agree with me that we owe to the President and the Government in these hours of trial, whether they make mistakes or whether they do not, words of cheer and encouragement; and, as events occur one after another, our criticisms should not be harshly made. When we find willful departure from what is just and true, when we find treason, we should not hesitate to speak the word of strongest denunciation against both the treason and the traitor. But where there is evident intention to be and to do right, where there is loyalty, there all good men and all good women should give a word of cheer and encouragement.

Women have their share in the responsibilities of this hour; in the reconstruction of the Government. The battles now being fought on Southern soil, will be fought again in the Capitol at Washington, when we shall need far-seeing statesmen to base the new Union on justice, liberty, and equality. Ours is the work of educating the people to make this demand.

The entire year was spent in rolling up the mammoth petition. Many hands were busy sending out letters and petitions, counting and assorting the names returned. Each State was rolled up separately in yellow paper, and tied with the regulation red tape, with the number of men and women who had signed, endorsed on the outside. Nearly four hundred thousand were thus sent, and may now be found in the archives at Washington. The passage of the Thirteenth Amendment made the continuance of the work unnecessary. The first installment of 100,000 was presented by Charles Sumner, in an appropriate speech, Feb. 9th, 1864.

THE PRAYER OF ONE HUNDRED THOUSAND.

Speech of Hon. Chas. Sumner on the Presentation of the First Installment of the Emancipation Petition of the Woman's National League.

In the Senate of the United States, Tuesday, February 9, 1864.

Mr. Sumner.—Mr. President: I offer a petition which is now lying on the desk before me. It is too bulky for me to take up. I need not add that it is too bulky for any of the pages of this body to carry.

This petition marks a stage of public opinion in the history of slavery, and also in the suppression of the rebellion. As it is short I will read it:

"To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States:

"The undersigned, women of the United States above the age of eighteen years, earnestly pray that your honorable body will pass at the earliest practicable day an act emancipating all persons of African descent held to involuntary service or labor in the United States."

There is also a duplicate of this petition signed by "men above the age of eighteen years."

It will be perceived that the petition is in rolls. Each roll represents a State.[44] For instance, here is New York with a list of seventeen thousand seven hundred and six names; Illinois with fifteen thousand three hundred and eighty; and Massachusetts with eleven thousand six hundred and forty-one. These several petitions are consolidated into one petition, being another illustration of the motto on our coin—E pluribus unum.

This petition is signed by one hundred thousand men and women, who unite in this unparalleled number to support its prayer. They are from all parts of the country and from every condition of life. They are from the sea-board, fanned by the free airs of the ocean, and from the Mississippi and the prairies of the West, fanned by the free airs which fertilize that extensive region. They are from the families of the educated and uneducated, rich and poor, of every profession, business, and calling in life, representing every sentiment, thought, hope, passion, activity, intelligence which inspires, strengthens, and adorns our social system. Here they are, a mighty army, one hundred thousand strong, without arms or banners; the advance-guard of a yet larger army.

But though memorable for their numbers, these petitioners are more memorable still for the prayer in which they unite. They ask nothing less than universal emancipation; and this they ask directly at the hands of Congress. No reason is assigned. The prayer speaks for itself. It is simple, positive. So far as it proceeds from the women of the country, it is naturally a petition, and not an argument. But I need not remind the Senate that there is no reason so strong as the reason of the heart. Do not all great thoughts come from the heart?

It is not for me, on presenting this petition, to assign reasons which the army of petitioners has forborne to assign. But I may not improperly add that, naturally and obviously, they all feel in their hearts, what reason and knowledge confirm: not only that slavery as a unit, one and indivisible, is the guilty origin of the rebellion, but that its influence everywhere, even outside the rebel States, has been hostile to the Union, always impairing loyalty, and sometimes openly menacing the national government. It requires no difficult logic to conclude that such a monster, wherever it shows its head, is a national enemy, to be pursued and destroyed as such, or at least a nuisance to the national cause to be abated as such. The petitioners know well that Congress is the depository of those supreme powers by which the rebellion, alike in its root and in its distant offshoots, may be surely crushed, and by which unity and peace may be permanently secured. They know well that the action of Congress may be with the co-operation of the slave-masters, or even without the co-operation, under the overruling law of military necessity, or the commanding precept of the Constitution "to guarantee to every State a Republican form of government." Above all, they know well that to save the country from peril, especially to save the national life, there is no power, in the ample arsenal of self-defense, which Congress may not grasp; for to Congress, under the Constitution, belongs the prerogative of the Roman Dictator to see that the Republic receives no detriment. Therefore to Congress these petitioners now appeal. I ask the reference of the petition to the Select Committee on Slavery and Freedmen.

It was referred, after earnest discussion, as Mr. Sumner proposed.

ANNIVERSARY OF THE
LOYAL WOMEN'S NATIONAL LEAGUE.

The Anniversary of the Women's National League was held at the Church of the Puritans, Thursday morning, May 12, 1864. The President, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, called the meeting to order, and requested the audience to observe a few moments of silence, that each soul might seek for itself Divine guidance through the deliberations of the meeting. The Corresponding Secretary, Charlotte B. Wilbour, read the call for the meeting. The Recording Secretary read the following report of the Executive Committee:

One year ago we formed ourselves into a League, with the declared object of educating thirty millions of people into the true idea of a Christian Republic, by means of tracts, speeches, appeals, and petitions for emancipation. Whilst as women, we might not presume to teach men statesmanship and diplomacy, we felt it our duty to call the nation back to the a, b, c of human rights. In looking over the history of the Republic we clearly saw in slavery the cause not only of all our political and financial convulsions, but of the terrible rebellion desolating our country and our homes. To do this was a work of time and money; and we were compelled to assume a debt of five thousand dollars in starting—the item of postage alone amounting to one thousand—all of which we are happy to say has been duly paid.

Our thanks are due to Robert Dale Owen, Gerrit Smith, Bradhurst Schieffelin, Wendell Phillips, Jessie Benton Fremont, Frederick Douglass, Henry Ward Beecher, and the Hovey Trust Fund Committee of Boston, for their timely contributions and liberal words of cheer. But still more are we indebted to the numberless, nameless thousands of the honest, earnest children of toil, throughout the country, for their responses to our call, their words of hearty God-speed, and their "mite" offerings, ranging from five cents to five dollars; amounting in all to $5,000. From these petitions, thus widely scattered, we have already sent to Congress the names of over two hundred thousand men and women, demanding an amendment of the Constitution and an act of emancipation. And thousands are still returning to us daily, and we hope to roll up another hundred thousand before the close of the present session.

Leaving, then, all minor questions of banks and mints and public improvements for Congressmen to discuss at the rate of $3,000 a year, we decided the first work to be done was to end slavery, and ring the death knell of caste and class throughout the land. To this end, as a means of educating the people, we sent out twenty thousand emancipation petitions, with tracts and appeals, into different districts of the free States, and into the slave States wherever our armies had opened the way.

The Woman's National League now numbers five thousand members. And in the west, where we have employed two lecturing agents—Josephine S. Griffing, and Hannah Tracy Cutler—a large number of auxiliary Leagues have been formed.

We have registered on our books the names of two thousand men and women, boys and girls, who have circulated these petitions. We have on file all the letters received from the thousands with whom we have been in correspondence, feeling that this canvass of the nation for freedom will be an important and most interesting chapter in our future history. These letters, coming from all classes and all latitudes, breathe one prayer for the downfall of slavery.

Massachusetts' noble Senator, Charles Sumner, who has so reverently received, presented, and urged these petitions, has cheered us with kind messages, magnifying the importance of our labors. His eloquent speech, made in the Senate on presenting our first installment—the prayer of one hundred thousand—we have printed in tract form and scattered throughout the country. We have flooded the nation with letters and appeals, public and private, and put forth every energy to rouse the people to earnest, persistent action against slavery, the deadly foe of all our cherished institutions.

We proposed to ourselves in the first moments of enthusiasm to secure, at least, a million signatures—one thirtieth part of our entire population. We thought the troubled warnings of a century—the insidious aggressions of slavery, with its violations of the sacred rights of habeas corpus, free speech, and free press, with its riots in our cities, and in the councils of the nation striking down, alike, black men and brave Senators, all culminating, at last, in the horrid tragedies of war—must have roused the dullest moral sense, and prepared the nation's heart to do justice and love mercy. But we were mistaken. Sunk in luxury, corruption, and crime—born and bred into the "guilty phantasy that man could hold property in man," we needed the clash of arms, the cannon's roar, the shrieks and groans of fallen heroes, the lamentations of mothers for their first-born, the angel's trump, the voices of the mighty dead, to wake this stolid nation from its sleep of death.

In circulating our petition many refused to sign because they believed slavery a divine institution, and therefore did not wish to change the status of the slave. Others, who professed to hate slavery, denied the right of Congress to interfere with it in the States; and yet others condemned all dictation, or even suggestion to Congress or the President. They said, "Let the people be still and trust the affairs of State to the management of the rulers they, themselves, have chosen." And many of our "old Abolitionists," believing their work done, that the war had killed slavery, knocked the bottom out of the tub, not only declared our work one of supererogation, but told us that petitioning, as a means of educating the people or influencing Congress, had become obsolete.

Under all these discouragements, with neither press nor pulpit to magnify our work, without money or the enthusiasm of numbers, in simple faith, into the highways and hedges we sent the Gospel of Freedom, and as of old, the people heard with gladness. A very large majority of our petitioners are from the unlettered masses. They who, knowing naught of the machinery of government or the trickery of politics, believe that, as God reigns, there is justice on the earth. As yet, none of our large cities have been thoroughly canvassed; but from the savannahs of the South and the prairies of the West—from the hills of New England and the shores of our lakes and gulfs, have we enrolled the soldiers of freedom; they who, when the rebels shall lay down their arms, with higher, holier weapons must end the war. Through us, two hundred thousand[45] people—the labor and virtue of the Republic—have spoken in our national Capitol, where their voices were never heard before.

Those unaccustomed to balance influences, who judge of the importance of movements by their apparent results, may deem our efforts lost, because the Amendment and Emancipation bills have not yet passed the House; but we feel that our labors for the past year, in the circulation of tracts and petitions and appeals—in our lectures and letters, public and private, have done as much to kill the rebellion, by educating the people for the final blow, as any other organization, civil, political, military, or religious, in the land. Could you but read the many earnest, thrilling letters we have received from simple men and women, in their rural homes, you would have fresh hope for the stability of our Republic; remembering that the life of a nation depends on the virtue of its people, and not on the dignity of its rulers.

One poor, infirm woman in Wisconsin, who had lost her husband and all her sons in the war, traveled on foot over one hundred miles in gathering two thousand names. Her letter was filled with joy that she, too, had been able to do something for the cause of liberty. Follow her, in imagination, through sleet and snow, from house to house; listen to her words—mark the pathos of her voice, as she debates the question of freedom, or tells some tale of horror in the land of slavery, or asks her neighbors one by one, to give their names to end such wrongs. Aside from all she says, the fact that she comes in storm, on foot, is to all an argument, that there is something wrong in the republic, demanding haste and action from every citizen. You who, in crowded towns, move masses by your eloquence, scorn not the slower modes. Remember the seeds of enthusiasm you call forth have been planted by humbler hands—by the fireside, the old arm-chair in the workshop, at the plow—wherever man communes alone with God.

Our work for the past year—and what must still be our work—involves the vital question of the nation's life. For, until the old Union with slavery be broken, and our Constitution so amended as to secure the elective franchise to all its citizens who are taxed, or who bear arms to support the Government, we have no foundations on which to build a true Republic. We urge our countrywomen who have shown so much enthusiasm in the war—in Sanitary and Freedmen's Associations—now to give themselves to the broader, deeper, higher work of reconstruction. The new nation demands the highest type of womanhood. It is a holy mission to minister to suffering soldiers in camp and hospital, and on the battle-field; to hold the heads and stanch the wounds of dying heroes; but holier still, by the magic word of freedom, to speak a dying nation into life.

Four years ago the many thought all was well in the land of the free and the home of the brave; but we knew the war was raging then through all the Southern States. We knew the secrets of that bastile of horrors; we heard, afar off, the shrieks and groans of the dying, the lamentations of husbands and wives, parents and children, sundered forever from each other. Then we fed, and clothed, and sheltered the fugitives in their weary marches where the North Star led, and crowned with immortal wreaths the panting heroes, pursued by the bloodhounds from the everglades of Florida, who asked but to die in freedom under the shadow of a monarch's throne.

Yes, the rebellion has been raging near a century on every cotton field and rice plantation. Every vice, hardship, and abomination, suffered by our soldiers in the war, has been the daily life in slavery. Yet no Northern volunteers marched to the black man's help, though he stood alone against such fearful odds, until John Brown and his twenty-three men threw themselves into the deadly breach. What a sublime spectacle! Behold! the black man, forgetting all our crimes, all his wrongs for generations, now nobly takes up arms in our defence. Look not to Greece or Rome for heroes—to Jerusalem or Mecca for saints—but for the highest virtues of heroism, let us worship the black man at our feet. Mothers, redeem the past by teaching your children the limits of human rights, with the same exactness that you now teach the multiplication table. That "all men are created equal" is a far more important fact for a child to understand, than that twice two makes four.

Had we during the past century as fondly guarded the tree of liberty, with its blessed fruits of equality, as have Southern mothers the deadly upas of slavery, the blood of our sires and sons, mingled with the sweat and tears of slaves, would not now enrich the tyrant's soil, our hearthstones would not all be desolate, nor we, with shame, behold our Northern statesmen in the nation's councils overwhelmed with doubt and perplexity on the simplest question of human rights. A mariner without chart or compass, ignorant of the starry world above his head, drifting on a troubled sea, is not more hopeless than a nation, in the throes of revolution, without faith in the immutability and safety of truth and justice.

Behold in the long past the endless wreck of nations—Despotisms, Monarchies, Republics—alike, they all sprang up and bloomed—then drooped and died, because not planted with the seeds of life; and on their crumbling ruins the black man now plants his feet, and as he proudly breaks his chains declares, "man above all human government."

Wendell Phillips was introduced and made an eloquent appeal in behalf of the object of the League. He congratulated the Society on the progress it had made, contrasted the past with the present, referred to his experience at former meetings, and argued that woman should have a voice and a vote in the affairs of the nation. He showed the importance of woman's moral power infused into the politics of the country, and of the independence of those outside of party lines, who neither vote or hold office, to criticise the shortcomings of our rulers. He eulogized the manner in which Anna Dickinson had arraigned both men and measures before the judgment-seat of the people; deplored the slavery of party, that puts padlocks on the lips of leading politicians. While the sons of the Puritans, with bated breath, see in the violation of the most sacred rights of citizens the swift-coming destruction of the Republic, and in silence wait the shock, an inspired girl comes forward, sounds the alarm, raises the signal of distress, and fearlessly calls the captain, pilot, crew, and all to duty, for the Ship of State is drifting on a rock-bound coast. Again and again is this young girl put forward to tell the people what men in high places dare not say themselves.

The following resolutions were then read and submitted for discussion:

1. Whereas, The testimony of all history, the teachings of all sound philosophy, and our national experience for almost a hundred years, have demonstrated that in the Divine economy there is an "irrepressible conflict" between slavery and freedom; and

Whereas, The present war is but the legitimate fruit of this unnatural union; therefore

Resolved, That any attempt to reconstruct the Government with any root or branch of the slave system remaining, will surely prove disastrous, and therefore should be met at the outset with the stern rebuke of every true patriot and friend of humanity.

2. Resolved, That this Government still upholds slavery by military as well as civil power, and is, therefore, itself, still in daring rebellion against the God of Justice, before whom Jefferson "trembled" and whose "exterminating thunders" he warned us would be our destruction, unless, by "the diffusion of light and liberality," we were led to exterminate it forever from the land.

3. Resolved, That until the old union with slavery be broken, and the Constitution so amended as to secure the elective franchise to all citizens who bear arms, or are taxed to support the Government, we have no foundations on which to build a true Republic.

4. Whereas, The Anti or Pro-slavery character of the Constitution has long been a question of dispute among statesmen and judges, as well as reformers, therefore

Resolved, That we demand for the new nation a new Constitution, in which the guarantee of liberty and equality to every human being shall be so plainly and clearly written as never again to be called in question.

5. Resolved, That we demand for black men not only the right to be sailors, soldiers, and laborers under equal pay and protection with white men, but the right of suffrage, that only safeguard of civil liberty, without which emancipation is but mockery.

6. Resolved, That women now acting as nurses in our hospitals, who are regular graduates of medicine, should be recognized as physicians and surgeons, and receive the same remuneration for their services as men.

7. Resolved, That the failure of the Administration to protect our black troops against such outrages as were long ago officially threatened, and fearfully perpetrated at Port Hudson, Milliken's Bend, Olustee, and Fort Pillow, is but added proof of its heartless character or utter incapacity to conduct the war.

8. Resolved, That when the men of a nation, in a political party, consecrate themselves to "Freedom and Peace" and declare their high resolve to found a Republic on the principles of justice, they have lifted politics into the sphere of morals and religion, where it is the duty of women to be co-workers with them in giving immortal life to the new nation.

9. Resolved, That our special thanks are due to Robert Dale Owen, who aided us in the inauguration of our work; and to Charles Sumner, who so earnestly and eloquently presented our petitions in the Senate of the United States.

10. Whereas, From official statistics, it appears that our annual national expenditures for imported broadcloths, silks, laces, embroideries, wines, spirits, and cigars, are more than one hundred million dollars; therefore

Resolved, that we recommend the formation of leagues of patriotic men and women throughout the country, whose object shall be to discountenance and prevent the indulgence of all these, and similar useless luxuries during the war; thereby encouraging habits of economy, stimulating American industry, diminishing the foreign debt, and increasing our ability to meet the vast expenditures of the present crisis.

The following letters were read by Miss Anthony:

LETTER FROM EMILE PRETORIUS.

St. Louis, Mo., April 29, 1864.

Madam:—Your favor of 23d inst. has come to hand with your call, which was published and endorsed by our paper, as you will see by the enclosed slip. Your sentiments are so high and noble that to doubt a favorable result and response from the West would be like doubting whether our women had courage enough to follow the truest instincts, the best impulses of their own pure nature. I, for one, have no such idea, no such fears; and if I should ever believe that the Cornelias and Thuseneldas were only to be found by going back thousands of years in history, and would not and could not be rivalled by patriotic mothers and heroic wives in this present crises of ours, I then would renounce at once all hopes of a national resurrection. Liberty, it is true, is immortal; but we would be bound to look for her in some other part of our globe, if we fail on American soil to enlist in our struggle the full heart of our women.

But there is no such thing as failure in battling for all that is high and good and sacred, and there is no such thing as failure in appealing for so good a cause to woman's noble mind and true heart. They will be with us, every one of them will, and whether a majority of our people be up to our standard this time or not, still, in the eyes of our women we would be what our German poet calls, "the conquering defeated."

Emile Pretorius.

Yours for Fremont and Freedom,

LETTER FROM CHARLES SUMNER.

Senate Chamber, May 6, 1864.

Madam:—I can not be with you in New York, according to the invitation with which you have honored me; for my post of duty is here. I am grateful to your Association for what you have done to arouse the country to insist on the extinction of slavery. Now is the time to strike, and no effort should be spared. And yet there are many who lap themselves in the luxury of present success, and hold back. This is a mistake. The good work must be finished; and to my mind nothing seems to be done while anything remains to be done. There is one point to which attention must be directed. No effort should be spared to castigate and blast the whole idea of property in man, which is the corner-stone of the rebel pretension, and the constant assumption of the partisans of slavery, or of its lukewarm opponents. Let this idea be trampled out, and there will be no sympathy with the rebellion; and there will be no such abomination as slave-hunting, which is beyond question the most execrable feature of slavery itself. Accept my thanks, and believe me,

Charles Sumner.

Madam, faithfully yours,

Miss Susan B. Anthony.

Speeches were then made by George Thompson, Lucretia Mott, and Ernestine L. Rose; after which, in adjourning the Convention, the President said:

This is the only organization of women that will have a legitimate cause for existence beyond the present hour. The Sanitary, Soldiers' Aid, Hospital, and Freedmen's Societies all end with the war; but the soldier and negro in peace have yet to be educated into the duties of citizens in a republic, and our legislators to be stimulated by a higher law than temporary policy. This is the only organization formed during the war based specifically on universal emancipation and enfranchisement. Knowing that in this great national upheaval women would exert an influence for good or evil, we felt the importance of concentrating all their power on the side of liberty. To this end we have urged them to use with zeal and earnestness their only political right under the Constitution: the right of petition. During the past year the petitions for freedom have been quietly circulating in the most remote school districts of all the free States and Territories, in the Army, the Navy, and some have found their way to the far South. And now they are coming back by the thousands, with the signatures of men and women, black and white, soldiers and civilians, from every point of the compass, to be presented in mammoth rolls again in the coming Congress. I urge every one present to help spread the glad tidings of liberty to all, by signing and circulating these petitions, remembering that while man may use the bullet and the ballot to enforce his will, this is woman's only weapon of defence to-day in this Republic. The Convention is now adjourned.

The debates throughout these Conventions show how well the leaders of the Loyal League understood the principles of republican government, and the fatal policy of some of those in power. They understood the situation, and clearly made known their sentiments. The character of the discussions and resolutions in their Conventions was entirely changed during the war; broader ideas of constitutional law; the limits of national power and State rights formed the basis of the new arguments. They viewed the questions involved in the great conflict from the point of view of statesmen, rather than that of an ostracised class. Reviewing the varied efforts of the representative women[46] referred to in this chapter in the political, military, philanthropic, and sanitary departments of the Government, and the army of faithful assistants, behind them, all alike self-sacrificing and patriotic; with a keen insight into the policy of the Government and the legitimate results of the war; the question naturally suggests itself, how was it possible that when peace was restored they received no individual rewards nor general recognition for their services, which, though acknowledged in private, have been concealed from the people and ignored by the Government.[47]

Gen. Grant has the credit for the success of plans which were the outgrowth of the military genius of a woman; Gen. Howard received a liberal salary as the head of the Freedman's Bureau, while the woman who inspired and organized that department and carried its burdens on her shoulders to the day of her death, raised most of the funds by personal appeal for that herculean work.

Dr. Bellows enjoyed the distinction as President of the Sanitary Bureau, which originated in the mind of a woman, who, when the machinery was perfected and in good working order, was forced to resign her position as official head through the bigotry of the medical profession.

Though to Anna Dickinson was due the triumph of the Republican party in several of the doubtful States at a most critical period of the war, yet that party, twenty years in power, has refused to secure her in the same civil and political rights enjoyed by the most ignorant foreigner or slave from the plantations of the South.

The lessons of the war were not lost on the women of this nation; through varied forms of suffering and humiliation, they learned that they had an equal interest with man in the administration of the Government, enjoying or suffering alike its blessings or its miseries. When in the enfranchisement of the black man they saw another ignorant class of voters placed above their heads, and with anointed eyes beheld the danger of a distinctively "male" government, forever involving the nations of the earth in war and violence; a lesson taught on every page of history, alike in every century of human experience; and demanded for the protection of themselves and children, that woman's voice should be heard, and her opinions in public affairs be expressed by the ballot, they were coolly told that the black man had earned the right to vote, that he had fought and bled and died for his country!

Did the negro's rough services in camp and battle outweigh the humanitarian labors of woman in all departments of government? Did his loyalty in the army count for more than her educational work in teaching the people sound principles of government? Can it be that statesmen in the nineteenth century believe that they who sacrifice human lives in bloody wars do more for the sum of human happiness and development than they who try to save the multitude and teach them how to live? But if on the battle-field woman must prove her right to justice and equality, history abundantly sets forth her claims; the records of her brave deeds mark every page of fact and fiction, of poetry and prose.

In all the great battles of the past woman as warrior in disguise has verified her right to fight and die for her country by the side of man. In camp and hospital as surgeon, physician, nurse, ministering to the sick and dying, she has shown equal skill and capacity with him. There is no position woman has not filled, no danger she has not encountered, no emergency in all life's tangled trials and temptations she has not shared with man, and with him conquered. If moral power has any value in the balance with physical force, surely the women of this republic, by their self-sacrifice and patriotism, their courage 'mid danger, their endurance 'mid suffering, have rightly earned a voice in the laws they are compelled to obey, in the Government they are taxed to support; some personal consideration as citizens as well as the black man in the "Union blue."