THE SECOND DECADE CELEBRATION.
At half past ten o'clock Friday morning October 19, 1870, the twentieth anniversary convention assembled in Apollo Hall, New York. A large number of the life-long friends were on the platform and a fine audience in attendance. Mrs. Stanton called the meeting to order and read the call.[133] She said, after due consultation the committee had decided that as Mrs. Davis had called the first National Convention twenty years ago, and presided over its deliberations, it was peculiarly fitting that she should preside over this also. A motion was made and seconded to that effect, and unanimously adopted. On taking the chair Mrs. Davis gave the following resumé of the Woman's Rights movement:
In assembling to review the past twenty years, it is a fitting question to ask if there has been progress; or has this universal radical reform, which was then declared, been like reformations in religion, but a substitution of a new error for an old one; or, like physical revolutions, but a rebellion? Has this work, intended from its inception to change the structure of the central organization of society, failed and become a monument of buried hopes? Have we come together after twenty years, bowed with a profound grief over the wreck and debris of the battle unwon, or to rejoice over what has been attained, and mark out work for the next decade?
We answer, in many things we have failed, for we believed and hoped beyond the possible; but reviewing the past we have only cause for rejoicing—for thanksgiving to God—and for courage in the future. We affirmed a principle, an adjustment of measures to the exigencies of the times, a profound expediency true to the highest principles of rights, and to-day we reiterate the axiom with which we started, that "They who would be free, themselves must strike the blow," believing it as imperative as when the first woman took it up, and applied it to her needs; and it must be kept as steadily before the eye, for not yet can we rest on our privileges gained.
Women are still frivolous; the slaves of prejudice, passion, folly, fashion, and petty ambitions, and so they will remain till the shackles, both social and political, are broken, and they are held responsible beings—accountable to God alone. Not till then can it be known what untold wealth lies buried in womanhood—"how many mute, inglorious Miltons." Men are still conceited, arrogant, and usurping, dwarfing their own manhood by a false position toward one half the human race.
In commencing this work we knew that we were attacking the strongholds of prejudice, but truth could no longer be suppressed, nor principles hidden. It must be ours to strike the bottom line. We believed it would take a generation to clear away the rubbish, to uproot the theories of ages, to overthrow customs, which at some period of the world's history had their significance.
We proclaimed that our work was to reform, reconstruct, and harmonize society; not to lay waste her homes and her sanctuaries. A few only have been found brave enough to do more than touch the fringe work that circles round the vortex which is heaving and surging with social pollutions, which might well make angels stand appalled; but should the occasion come in this country, the pure women of our nation will rise, as the women of England are now doing, resisting a legislation which degrades womanhood to the lowest depths. We proclaimed a peaceful revolution; for we abhorred then as now the atrocities of war, hence our demand for a participation in government, that we might bring a new element into it to restrain and purify it. Says a French lady in a private letter received a few days since, "Oh, is it not time that women come? Is it not because we have no voice in public affairs that Europe is on fire now? Men are true brutes. Pride, injustice, and cruelty are their most remarkable qualities. What can free us from their laws so unjust?" This is the sad, passionate utterance of a French woman now in the hour of her country's peril. What better proof that women love peace more than glory, than in the Empress Eugenie's course,—She would have no force used to uphold her power. "She would rather be pitied than hated."
Frances Wright, a noble Scotchwoman, early sought to make herself thoroughly acquainted with the nature of our institutions, and the genius of our government. She determined to try the experiment of organized labor with negroes. Purchasing two thousand acres of land on the Bluffs, now known as Memphis, Tenn., she took a number of families, with fifteen able-bodied men, and, giving them their freedom, organized her work. Prostrated by illness, she was compelled to yield her personal supervision, and thus her attempt to civilize those people failed, and they were finally sent to Hayti.
She then commenced lecturing on the nature and object of the "American Political Institutions." She gave also a course of Historical and Political Lectures; and another course on the Nature of Knowledge, Free Inquiry, Divisions of Knowledge, Religion, Morals, Opinions, Existing Evils and a Reply to the Traducers of the French Reformers. No other person was at that time prepared so well to defend them as she was, from her having been in part educated in General Lafayette's family. In all those lectures she showed the low estimate of woman, and her inferior education.
To this heroic woman, who left ease, elegance, a high social circle of rich culture, and with true self-abnegation gave her life, in the country of her adoption, to the teaching of her highest idea of truth, it is fitting that we pay a tribute of just, though late, respect. Her writings are of the purest and noblest character, and whatever there is of error in them is easily thrown aside. The spider sucks poison from the same flower from which the bee gathers honey; let us therefore ask if the evil be not in ourselves before we condemn others. Pharisaism, then as now, was ready to stone the prophet of freedom. She bore the calumny, reproach and persecution to which she was subjected for the truth, as calmly as Socrates. Looking down from the serene heights of her philosophy she pitied and endured the scoffs and jeers of the multitude, and fearlessly continued to utter her rebukes against oppression, ignorance and bigotry. Women joined in the hue and cry against her, little thinking that men were building the gallows and making them the executioners. Women have crucified in all ages the redeemers of their own sex, and men mock them with the fact. It is time now that we trample beneath our feet this ignoble public sentiment which men have made for us; and if others are to be crucified before we can be redeemed, let men do the cruel, cowardly work; but let us learn to hedge womanhood round with generous, protecting love and care. Then men will learn, as they should, that this system of traducing women is no longer to be used as a means for their subjugation. Let us learn to demand that all men who come into our presence be as pure as they claim that woman should be. Let the test be applied which Christ gave, that if any is without sin in word, or deed, or thought, he shall "cast the first stone." ...
When the war ended and National reconstruction commenced, women, feeling an equal interest in having the work rightly done, presented their petitions for the right of suffrage, but were coolly told by those who were most eager to enfranchise the negro, "stand aside and wait, it is the black man's hour." The sacrifice of their sons on the altar of freedom was not counted to them as anything. Their years of toil and weary watching in camp and hospital were not to be put in the scale with the black man's, who fought for his own freedom. Such wrong and injustice is bearing its fruits, in the confusion of the councils of the Republican party. Like the French of 1848, they refused to deal justly with the mothers of the nation, and are now reaping a bitter reward. They dared to suppress the petitions of thousands of women, and now disintegration has begun; the handwriting is seen on the wall. Thus injustice has done its work, and thousands of women have been roused by it to protest who had never before given any thought to public affairs.
The National Convention, held in the Church of the Puritans, after the war, was one of intense interest, and marked an era in this movement. The demand for suffrage became paramount—the only one with many. Mrs. Stanton, in 1867, went before the Judiciary Committee of the New York Legislature, asking universal suffrage to be recognized by the Constitutional Convention which was to be held. About this time a bill was before a Committee of the Legislature, the purport of which was to legalize prostitution Reading this bill in the presence of the Committee, her quick mind comprehended all its horrors at a glance, and she tried the test of asking each man if he would be willing that that law should be applied to his daughter, his sister, or any one dear to him. Self-ism answered "No." "Then, gentlemen," said she, "legislate for the poorer daughters of the State as you would for your own." All that winter she battled against that hideous system, which would legalize the foulest of sins, and to her efforts, mainly, the delay of passing that law is due. She made a clear exposition of that cruel, corrupt, one-sided legislation, which subjects woman to the grossest indignities, while men are benefited and allowed safe and unlimited license. To her lectures, also, is due a healthier tone of public sentiment on the marriage question. It is slowly beginning to be felt that in that relation there is a vast amount of legalized prostitution.
In 1867 an extensive lecturing tour through Kansas was made by Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Rev. Olympia Brown, Henry Blackwell, and Lucy Stone. The proposition of striking the words "white male" from the Constitution had been submitted to the people, and the result of the campaign was one third the vote of the State in favor of both propositions. Of Miss Brown, now preaching in New England, we can not forbear saying we have few in our ranks more earnest, honest, or devoted. A clear, incisive intellect, a true heart and firm purpose mark her every day life. She is unobtrusive and gentle, but always ready at the call of duty. On this campaign they were joined by a new worker, George Francis Train, whether for good or ill it will be for history to decide. Certain it is, that a new impulse was given to the cause, and The Revolution established, with Susan B. Anthony as proprietor, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury as editors, has done a great work. It has been hated, abused, slandered, misquoted, and garbled; nevertheless, it has been a terror to evil doers, and a help to those who would do well. Others, thinking to do better, have started monthly and weekly papers....
In May, 1869, at the annual meeting of the Equal Rights Society, which had been three years in existence, a change of name was proposed. Notice was given to that effect, and at a large meeting, in which nineteen States were represented, the National Woman Suffrage Society was formed, which has done most efficient service, holding conventions in many of our large cities, and awakening thought and action. In Saratoga and Newport a new class was reached. Wearied with the monotony of fashionable dissipation and the driveling idiocy of flirtations, women were glad to hear a few sensible, wholesome truths.
In December, 1869, an able report was received from Mrs. Kate N. Doggett, one of the six delegates to the Labor Convention, in Berlin. In the spring of 1869 a fresh impulse was given to the work in the establishment of the Woman's Bureau, by Mrs. Elizabeth B. Phelps. Its discontinuance was due to the same cause which has thwarted so many plans of women. There were not a sufficient number possessed of wealth who had the will to render this a permanent institution. Mrs. Phelps possesses in an eminent degree all the requisites for such a post—a queenly hospitality, elegant manners, fine conversational ability, with a generous catholic spirit. Delicacy forbids saying all that the heart prompts of friends.... In November, 1869, a delegate convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio, and a society organized, called the American Woman's Suffrage Society. Its work is yet to be done. The crowning act of 1869, and the one which gave an omen for the year that was approaching, was the enfranchising of the women of Wyoming and Utah. For these acts of justice we are most grateful. A correspondent says:
The cause of woman in Wyoming goes bravely on. At the last sitting of the District Court in Albany County, both the Grand and Petit Juries were equally composed of either sex; and Chief-Justice Howe, presiding, took advantage of this occasion to compliment, in the highest terms, the intelligence, discrimination, honesty, and propriety of the conduct with which the women acquitted themselves last session, saying they had gone far to vindicate the policy, justify the experiment, and realize the expectations of those who had clothed themselves with the right. The bar, the bench, and the intelligent men of the country had long felt that something was needed to improve and justify our jury system; something to lift it above prejudice and passion, and imbue it with a higher regard for law, justice, oath, and conscience. His Honor then expressed the opinion that the introduction of the new element furnished good reason to expect that to women we should ultimately be indebted for those reforms which the unaided exertions of men had been incompetent to effect.
This is certainly a most flattering presentment of the results of enfranchising the sex in Wyoming, and what is better, it seems substantially a just one. The question will therefore naturally suggest itself, if women, in their new political capacity, are thus able to "tone" the rude elements of Western civilization, what inconsistency is there in granting them like privileges in communities whose superior refinement is so much less likely to expose them to insult or mortification? In Utah it is of less account, because the women there are under a hierarchy, and as yet vote only as directed.
In January, 1870, a convention was called in Washington by the officers of the National Society. This meeting, large in attendance and deeply earnest, marked an historical era, the influence of which can not be estimated. A hearing before the joint committee of the House and Senate of the District was asked, in order to present the question of woman suffrage, and granted. Elizabeth Cady Stanton made the argument in favor of enfranchising women of the District of Columbia. It was clear, incisive, and cogent; divested of all sentiment, and condensed into a twenty-minutes' speech. It was very impressive. Susan B. Anthony, Madam Anneke, and others made a few pertinent remarks. At the close of the hearing, Hon. Charles Sumner said: "In my twenty years' experience in the Senate of the United States, I have never witnessed so fine a hearing as this one, so large an attendance, and such respectful attention." Thus begins the national history of this great reform—a fitting opening for 1870.
The work, not only in this country, but in Europe, was greatly accelerated by the publication of John Stuart Mill's inestimable book, "The Subjection of Woman," which has been extensively circulated in a cheap form in this country, and has been translated and reprinted in France, Prussia, and Russia. The first National Woman Suffrage Convention was held in London, July, 1869, at which Members of Parliament, professors of science—noble men and noble women, still more ennobled by this great work—took active part, and now women have the right of suffrage there in the municipal elections. The bill was introduced by Mr. Jacob Bright, and, says Prof. Fawcett: "In one night it passed beyond ridicule, so ably and calmly was it presented, and in less than one year it is a fixed fact." How stands the comparison, Aristocratic England and Democratic America? The Crown Princesses of Prussia and Italy are strong advocates of this movement, while women, who pay taxes in Austria and Russia, vote and have a voice in making laws. Will America hold on to her barbarism in this, as she did to chattel slavery, till all the nations of the earth cry out against her wrong to womanhood?...
A few of the earlier women who came to this work should be named here. Martha C. Wright, sister of Lucretia Mott, of Auburn, has presided in most of the New York State Conventions, and in some of the National, and her pen has always been sharpened in ready defense of the cause and its leaders. A woman of rare good sense and large sympathies, she is always to be trusted in emergencies. Sarah Helen Whitman was the first literary woman of reputation who gave her name to the cause, and her interest has never lessened, though ill health has prevented any work. Alice Cary for years gave her heartiest sympathy to the movement, and socially she and her sister Phoebe have awakened an interest in a large circle not easily penetrated by outside influences. Her story, never completed, the "Born Thrall," published in The Revolution, gave evidence of thought, experience, and deep feeling. The songs of the sisters have a new sweet sadness, now that Alice is singing hers on the other side of the river of life. Grace Greenwood has done good service with her fluent pen and voice through the press and on the platform. Mary L. Booth, with her rich culture and her unsurpassed practical ability, her skill as a translator of Martin's great History of France, and numberless other works, has given aid to the cause with her pen, one of the best in the country. As an editor she has done great service by showing that a woman can work as earnestly and persistently at a closely confining business as a man, and can hold for years a place at the head of a profession so difficult and so arduous.
As physicians, many women have won not only fame, but wealth. The names are too many for our limits. A few only who have taken an active interest in the principles which we have been urging can be given. Dr. Mercy B. Jackson, Dr. Ann Preston, and Dr. Clemence Lozier are some of the names which stand out conspicuously.
The government appointments within the last two years have been a matter of great rejoicing. Many responsible offices are held by women in different localities. There are 1,400 postmistresses, some of them of first-class offices. The one in Richmond, Va., is considered a model office, held by Miss Rachel Van Lew.
Ten years ago a young girl sprang, like Minerva from the head of Jupiter, fully armed, into the moral and political arena, and has stirred the heart of the Nation as no other speaker ever did. Anna E. Dickinson has never feared to utter the boldest truths, has never shrunk from, or withheld the most scathing rebukes of sin in high places, has never faltered or failed in principle, and yet is to-day a far more popular lecturer than those who have pandered to a corrupt, vitiated public taste. Does this not prove that the deep heart of the people is better than it has the credit of being.
About the same time Theodore Tilton threw into the scale his brilliant and varied talents, and the Independent, of which he was editor, was found on the side of freedom for all. Judge Samuel E. Sewall, always on the right side in every good work, published, in 1868, a digest of the laws of Massachusetts in relation to woman's disabilities, which has done good work. Later, Prof. Hickox prepared one of like character for Connecticut, which is enough to rouse the women of that State to white heat.
Within the last two years of the second decade many new speakers have appeared on our platform. Standing first is Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, a woman of rare powers of oratory. Possessing a magnetism which grasps and holds her audience whether they will or no, she is a special pleader, and if her logic is not always perfect it is most effective, for she has the power of unlocking the hearts of her hearers. She has made within the last two years extensive lecturing tours in the North and West, and verging toward the South. Mrs. Julia Ward Howe came in November, 1868, and laid her rich gifts on the altar of freedom, and has often been heard in conventions, and twice or thrice before the Legislature of Massachusetts. Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, from the family of ministers, also came about this time with her ready available talents. Phoebe Couzins and Lilie Peckham, alike generous, enthusiastic, cultured, and above all of high-toned principles, lead a strong band of young workers. Charlotte B. Wilbour, gifted in a high degree, calm in judgment and steady in purpose, is always a tower of strength. Celia Burleigh, graceful, poetic and earnest, is equally at home on the platform or in the drawing-room, and Lillie Devereux Blake is always ready with pen or voice. Myra Bradwell, with her legal knowledge, is another to be grateful for; and with pride the names of Elizabeth O. Willard, Catherine B. Waite, and Elizabeth Boynton are recorded as having given their rare gifts to this work. We gladly pay tribute to James W. Stillman, of Rhode Island, who has given most generously of time, money, and, above all, talents, to this cause, and that, at a time when ridicule and even the sacrifice of position followed. His logical argument on the inherent right of self-government has done great service.
Looking back over the names of our co-workers, those of Hannah Tracy Cutler, and Frances D. Gage, and Jane Elizabeth M. Jones are widely honored. Another of this class is Josephine S. Griffing, a woman of rare endowments intellectually, with a heart as true and gentle as God ever gave to woman. Modest, almost to a fault, she is the unseen power that moves the machinery in the very heart of the nation; asking no recognition, no applause, she works on with a steady, systematic, careful earnestness which commands the respect of the best and wisest.
Early among women journalists Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm stands out conspicuously. The Pittsburg Saturday Visitor, which she edited for several years with marked ability, was the paper most often quoted, and made war upon by all opposers of progress. Mrs. C. I. H. Nichols also edited the Windham Co. Democrat, in Brattleboro, Vt., with much ability, and though less radical and aggressive than Mrs. Swisshelm's paper, it is to the seed sown by her head and hands that all the spirit of progress there is in that county is due.
There is yet one other name that well deserves not one page but many, for his good deeds and unselfish work. A man with a strong, vigorous mind, a quick conception of principles and perfectly fearless in his advocacy of them, holding always his personality so in reserve as sometimes to be overlooked among the many more assuming. Parker Pillsbury was for some time editor of the National Anti-Slavery Standard, and co-editor of the Revolution. His editorials have been marked by an almost prophetic spirit; and the profoundness of their thought will be more justly appreciated as there is a larger development and a higher demand for unqualified justice. The Hutchinson family were among our earliest workers, giving of time and money liberally without regard to party or sectionalism. Mr. John Hutchinson and family went through Kansas with the lecturing tourists, in 1867, and with their inspiring songs for freedom did much toward increasing the vote for woman suffrage. They still continue their work, penetrating into the most benighted regions, for freedom, temperance, peace, and the reign of righteousness; they are doing their quota in the world's great work.
Mrs. Mary F. Davis has been from the first a most able and efficient advocate; her winning, gentle manners, her courtesy and respect for the rights of others have been unvarying. If not herself aggressive, she has never faltered in her adherence to the fullest truth; in this she is always sustained by her husband, Andrew Jackson Davis, who has never hesitated or temporized on any great question. Among business women who have gone steadily on in the path of duty, the name of Charlotte Fowler Wells stands out conspicuously. For over thirty years she has been an equal in all business relations with her husband, conducting the extensive correspondence of the house, as well as being head book-keeper. Her serene face gives evidence of a life of quiet, self-respecting independence.
Mrs. Frances V. Hallock and sister, Mrs. Robert Dale Owen, hold a place worthy of honorable mention for their good works and steady adherence to truth, and their clear, quick comprehension of its far-reaching power. Rev. Phebe Hanaford, pastor of a church in New Haven, Conn., has done a great work for woman. She is the mother of a family, and finds time not only to conduct their education, but to preach regularly every Sabbath, to write books of merit, and to superintend her domestic affairs, which are managed with skill, economy and good taste. Always cheerful and kindly, she wins many friends, not only to herself but for the cause. There is another movement that began in this decade now closed upon us, which properly belongs to its history, viz: that of the Working Women. It has been represented from Boston by Miss Jennie Collins, a slight woman, all brain and soul. She tells her stories with such a tender, natural pathos that few eyes are dry during her speeches. She makes no pretense, but gives most unmistakable evidence of a rich nature that has been repressed and tortured. She is the type of a large class that will develop into beautiful, symmetrical characters when the shackles are broken and women are free.
Conventions and organizations have so multiplied that it would require a volume to give their history. The chief of these are the great Northwestern and Pacific Slope Associations. Added to these are the State Societies in nearly all the Northern and Middle States. A State Society was organized in Richmond, Virginia, in April, 1870, by Matilda Joslyn Gage, a woman of wide historical information. Lectures have been given in several of the Southern States by individuals.
If the notices of women are by far more numerous than those of men,[134] it is not from forgetfulness of their services, for I credit them with all sincerity of motive, and nobleness in the wish for our enfranchisement. I have given, as briefly as possible, the two decades from 1850 to 1870. I have set down nothing in malice, and what is omitted must be charged to want of space and time. When the full history of this work is written, differences which have retarded its progress, and the wide range of action and reaction can be gone into if the historian so wills. I have endeavored to keep this report free from sectionalism and faction, believing that the finale would bring together all parties in one glad day of rejoicing. That there will be political parties in the future, with women, as with men, there can be no question; but that the sexes will have a purifying influence, each upon the other, is already conceded even by the opposers.
In closing this resume permit me to say that this meager outline, condensed from notes made from year to year, in no way satisfies the writer, but has been given by the earnest solicitations of friends, who wished that the steady progress of the cause might be marked in this retrospective hour. There is much that should have been embodied in this sketch of the past, especially the resolutions which have marked varying phases of the work, and which seemed like a divine inspiration in their comprehensive grasp and far-reaching thought, on this the last great question of reform.
Mrs. Mott rose at the conclusion of Mrs. Davis' history of the work for the past twenty years, and expressed herself as greatly pleased with its succinct and careful preparation. She felt that it was of great importance to the future work that this history be preserved, and hoped it would be published as part of the proceedings of this meeting. She felt that we had lost in not having kept more careful record of the progress of the work. She was sorry Mrs. Davis had not said more of herself, as she had done much toward opening the medical profession to women, and also in making lecturing a lucrative and respectable profession for them. She was, I believe, the first woman to claim the right to equal pay with men for her lectures. Mrs. Stanton expressed the same pleasure in listening to the report, and satisfaction in its historical accuracy. Resolutions[135] which had been prepared by the Committee, were offered for discussion. Mrs. Gage spoke of the advance in the cause of education for women, and reviewed the progress in each particular branch of science. Letters from various parts of the world were read by Mrs. Griffing and Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake, the latter of whom demonstrated in an amusing and forcible manner that the women of our country did not form a part of the "people," according to the various banners and posters displayed about the streets in reference to the coming election. Woman did want to vote; she did love her country; but because she was not one of the "people," that privilege was denied her. Miss Anthony made several characteristic, short speeches at intervals, in a style which is peculiarly her own. Her force and humor were fully appreciated by the audience, who applauded her repeatedly. Her appeals for money met with great favor. The Rev. Olympia Brown made a stirring speech in reference to woman's work in the cause of the "social evil," speaking at some length upon the action of the women of England on the subject. Mr. Crozier, of Brooklyn, was the only gentleman who spoke, and he acquitted himself very creditably in his confession upon joining the cause of woman's rights.
Several resolutions were offered in reference to the European war, and much sympathy was expressed with the present suffering originated by it. The improved condition of Italy was also referred to. The Convention was a highly interesting one in many particulars, and the pioneers of the cause who engaged in active service twenty years ago proved themselves as ardent as in the early days.
The following letters were read:
26 Hereford Square, London.
Dear Madam:—I received your kind letter some weeks ago, and beg to apologize for the delay of this reply. Pray accept my thanks for your kind expressions regarding my small efforts to keep alive the great cause we have all so near at heart. I regret to hear that one who, like yourself, has been a pioneer on the way when the path was the ruggedest, should for many years have been incapacitated from aiding its progress. May you now be restored fully to activity. We certainly want all true workers, albeit the progress of the cause surpasses our most sanguine expectations, on that as well as on this side of the Atlantic.
Pray accept my thanks for your kind invitation to your Convention. It will not, I think, ever be likely that I shall visit America, but I shall always read with deep interest of all that goes forward there. Accept, dear madam, my thanks for your kindness and sincere regard.
Frances Power Cobbe.
Mrs. P. W. Davis.
Morningside, Edinburgh, Sept. 24, 1870.
Madam:—I regret that I am unable to accept the invitation with which you have honored me, for I have been an invalid for some months, and am not sufficiently well to undertake any journey. I can assure you that the cause of woman is gradually but firmly gaining ground in Scotland, and that each month we are gaining in the right direction. At present there are six female medical students studying in our university. The College of Surgeons has thrown its doors open, without any restriction, to the female student.
The Merchants' Maiden Company has, within the last few months, opened large schools in connection with its hospitals, offering as its prizes Bursaries in the university to girls as well as boys, which I think is one of the strongest moves which as yet has been made in behalf of women. The petition in favor of the medical education of women was largely signed in Scotland. The Society for the higher education of Women is progressing well and the professors spoke highly of the efficiency of their working pupils. In the university classes of botany and natural history all the female students were in the honor list, and Miss Edith Pechey was the first chemistry student for the year.
With best wishes and thanks to you and your committee for your kind invitation, I am truly yours,
S. K. Kingsley, for Henry Kingsley.
Alderley Edge, near Manchester, Sept. 26, 1870.
Madam:—I beg to thank you for the circular and your accompanying note, both inviting me to attend the Twentieth Anniversary of the inauguration of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States, to be held in New York on the 20th and 21st of October. I have once traveled through your country with very much pleasure, and, I hope, with some profit, and I have a strong desire to come again; but as it is impossible for me to do so now, I can not attend your meeting. I need not say that I sympathize with your object. It seems to me to be inconsistent with the principles of your Government, and of ours, to deny to women the power to control those who legislate for them. Until they obtain this control through the suffrage, they will suffer many disadvantages and be the victims of unequal laws. How soon they will obtain it must depend mainly upon their own efforts. In the meantime the present agitation will give them an interest in many public questions, will in itself be an education in preparation for political power, and will exercise an influence in favor of more equal legislation between men and women.
Jacob Bright.
Very truly yours,
Mrs. P. W. Davis.
FROM MRS. DR. TAYLOR.
Notting Hill, August 10, 1870.
Dear Madam:—I cordially thank you for your kind request that I should attend your Convention in October. It is quite impossible for me to leave England now, but I am deputed by our London Committee for Woman's Suffrage to express their sympathy with your movement, and the hope that the efforts you are making will be crowned with success, and that Mrs. Lucretia Mott will live to see the fruit of some of her good and noble work.
M. Taylor.
Believe me yours truly,
FROM LADY AMBERLY.
Rodborough Manor, Stroud, July 14, 1870.
Dear Madam:—I thank you much for your invitation to attend your second decade meeting of the Woman's Suffrage Association. I regret that it will not be in my power to accept it. Much as I enjoyed my visit to America, it is rather too far to undertake a second journey there. You must, indeed be glad, after twenty years of work, to see the great advance in public opinion on this question. It seems now to be progressing very fast. I have just aided in establishing a committee at Stroud, and we hope soon to have one in every borough in England for female suffrage.
Kate Amberly.
Yours truly,
Mrs. P. W. Davis.
280 Park Road, South Hill, Liverpool.
Dear Madam:—Mrs. Butler regrets very much not to have been able to write to you before, and begs you will kindly accept her apologies as well as her thanks for your invitation to your Decade Meeting. I have the honor and privilege to be at present Mrs. Butler's Secretary. She is overwhelmed with work, and would be thankful for your sympathy in it. I wish I could give you a clear idea of the battle she has to fight, but it is very difficult for me, as a German, to put it in adequate words.
Mrs. Butler's introductory essay to "Woman's Work and Woman's Culture" only gives a faint idea of her character and strivings, compared to the grand reality of her life. She has devoted more than fifteen years to the rescue of "fallen women"—a work that requires more active charity and self-denial than any other. The English Parliament passed, some time ago, certain acts called the Contagious Disease Acts, as a sanitary measure, on the model of Continental legislation. To earnest, religious minds, like Mrs. Butler's, the acts appear immoral in principle, as declaring vice a necessity; unjust, as inflicting penalties on women and letting men go free; and cruel in their application, enrolling women in a degraded class, making their return to virtue almost impossible. I think if I tell you that by these acts a woman can be arrested by a policeman on suspicion of being a prostitute, and subjected to an examination which amounts to a surgical operation, always disgraceful, sometimes injurious, even dangerous, I have made quite clear to an American lady that such a state of things can not be endured.
The best English women, with Mrs. Butler and Miss Nightingale as leaders, stand up nobly for the poor, degraded women whom, with their true Christian hearts, they still recognize as sisters. Mrs. Butler, who is rather delicate, devotes all her strength to this cause at present. She travels much, has been in the garrison towns, where, for the benefit of the soldiers, these atrocious acts are in force, and in large meetings denounces the cruelties to women. By her efforts more than sixty thousand signatures have been obtained for the repeal of the acts. Many good men, I am thankful to say, are on our side, and it is a matter of congratulation that in this point many people join who widely differ in other respects. I firmly believe that this question, which can no longer be avoided, will produce a great social reform. Women who timidly keep aloof from all political movements, after this experience of male legislation, eagerly demand the suffrage.
I am sure you will forgive Mrs. Butler for not writing herself. As soon as she has a little more breathing time she is sure to write, but she fears she will never be able to cross the Atlantic.
Rosa Bruhn.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs. P. W. Davis.
Paris, Rue Nollet 92, 7th September.
Dear Madame:—I burned the answer I had written to you under the shameful government now fallen, and whose crimes and treasons extorted from me cries of despair for the ruin they have brought on our country.
I thank you for the generous sympathy you express toward us in our great woe. Your honored names have been blessed for this by our French hearts. We are now relieved, and though our actual peril is none the less, we are in possession of our own force. We are rid of the despicable robbers of our honor, our fortune and our lives; and in the most terrible energy, is a consolation and support. Better is it to die with honor than live dishonored. How happy you are to be born on a soil not infested by monarchical roots. They are like dog-grass, which springs up again and again, nurtured by the ignorance of our rural population. When the Prussians shall have been driven away, we may have civil struggles to fear from the emissaries of this detested monarchy. What avails experience to the blind.
I forwarded immediately your letter to George Sand. Accept my heartfelt thanks for your fraternal invitation to me.
Yes, you say right, our hearts are wholly absorbed, and no place is ours but Paris in this hour of supreme struggle and sacrifice. We shall be with you in thought only, dear sisters—you, the pioneers in woman's emancipation—your names are enshrined in our hearts; but this crisis here will not be useless for the cause. The women of Paris are noble and courageous; one may hear them in every group encouraging the men to desperate resistance. Everywhere they form societies for the relief of the distressed and the wounded. Many have petitioned for this revolution, and have instigated men to the accomplishment of it. Many will take arms in defense and fight; yea, fight with all the strength which desperation lends, should the struggle reach our streets.... They have already proved this sort of courage. Men feel now how very necessary their co-operation is, and after the crisis I hope they will not forget it. But it is better that woman herself should learn to have a will, an active opinion in public affairs, and this disposition will, doubtless, continue to increase, as it has done for the last two years.
Hail, dear and valiant sisters; blessed be your work in which my heart, and many of those around me unite.
Andre Leo.
Mesdames Paulina W. Davis, Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright, Elizabeth C. Stanton, Isabella B. Hooker.
Naples, October 10, 1870.
Dear Mrs. Davis:—I have only now received your letter, or I should sooner have expressed how highly I am gratified by the honor you do me in asking my opinions with regard to woman suffrage. I can not more strongly show my sympathy with my accomplished sisters in the United States, than by saying that I signed a petition to the British Parliament, requesting permission for women to vote at the elections. It was rejected, for the opposition and prejudices in the men of Great Britain are still very strong against any change in our condition. We have, however, gained a most important privilege lately, chiefly through the liberality of the University of Cambridge, in having the opportunity of acquiring every branch of knowledge, literary and scientific.
We owe much to the society of which you are the secretary, for persevering in our behalf for twenty years under strong opposition. The progress of civilization will ultimately emancipate half the human race from the low position in which we have hitherto been kept. Accept, dear Mrs. Davis, my thanks for your letter, and believe me,
Mary Somerville.
Very sincerely yours,
Victoria Press, London, Oct. 3, 1870.
My Dear Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Stanton:—Will you kindly let me answer both your notes together, and assure you how much I value the feeling which prompted you to write them. I shall not easily part with either of those letters, although pressure of work drives me to answer them in one, and say that I am utterly unable to respond to your wish that I should attend your Decade Meeting. Few things would give me such satisfaction as to find myself in America, especially after your noble invitations and promises of a cordial reception everywhere. But—and how many buts there are in life—I dare not leave my work at present in England. There are several very important movements just now resting almost entirely upon me, and having put my hand to the plow, I dare not look back. I am at present the only regular lecturer here on this subject, and I am full of engagements up to April next—north, south, east, and west—and the discussion society I have started in London is still too young to run alone, and yet promises such good things for the future, that I feel it ought to be carefully tended.
I can only add that I shall watch with great interest for the accounts of your meeting on the 19th. I long for the day when I can see you in the flesh—those with whose spirits I now ever hold communion. Excuse haste. I have just returned from the North, and find my table overwhelmed with invitations to lecture and appeals for help. The learned meetings and social discussions of the British Associations at Liverpool, and the Social Science Congress at Newcastle, have all been crowded into the last fortnight. Wishing you and your noble workers God-speed, believe me,
Emily Faithful.
Yours, most truly,
Dear Ladies:—It would give me great pleasure to accept your kind invitation to be present at your meeting to-day, if it were possible, but it is not.
Go on with your great work; it is arduous, but it is sublime! You are doing good that you know not of in old Europe. You have taken the initiative, and she is following hard after. I wish to recommend to you the appeal of Mme. Gasparin to the American women to join in her heart-cry for peace. Coming so recently as I have, from the seat of war—from Paris and from Rome—I can testify to the earnest, the beseeching appeal of European women to their sisters in America to give them help in this their hour of calamity and need—the help of sympathy, the succor of love!
The day before I left France, one of the noblest of French women, Mademoiselle Daubie (the distinguished author of that remarkable work, "The Poor Women of the Nineteenth Century," which every woman and legislator ought to read,) said to me: "We are looking wistfully every whither for some hand stretched out through the darkness, but, alas! there is none. But you are going to America. Oh! tell the women there to help us in this struggle with ignorance, corruption, and war." Let us heed this cry.
France lies prostrate in the dust! But Rome is free! So in all human sorrow there is some hope. Let us, then, lift up the one by all possible help, remembering her greatness, and pity her misfortunes; having faith in her capabilities, and praying for her liberty—for that liberty that can only be practicable when built upon intelligence and virtue, and only real when woman is not the slave, but the helpmate of man; and let us rejoice with that other sister—Italia—who is now lifting up her face toward heaven, and after these long years of anguish and waiting the mother is restored to her children!
The rule of the Cæsars is gone, and the reign of absolutism is passing away! And while the science of men goes flashing round the earth—over sea and land—uniting the nations in treaties of commerce and compacts of liberty, the warm, generous heart of woman shall keep pace, uniting humanity in sympathy and love.
Emelia J. Meriman.[136]
I am, dear ladies, yours most respectfully,
The cause of woman in Wyoming goes bravely on. At the last sitting of the District Court in Albany County, both the Grand and Petit Juries were equally composed of either sex; and Chief-Justice Howe, presiding, took advantage of this occasion to compliment, in the highest terms, the intelligence, discrimination, honesty, and propriety of the conduct with which the women acquitted themselves last session, saying they had gone far to vindicate the policy, justify the experiment, and realize the expectations of those who had clothed themselves with the right. The bar, the bench, and the intelligent men of the country had long felt that something was needed to improve and justify our jury system; something to lift it above prejudice and passion, and imbue it with a higher regard for law, justice, oath, and conscience. His Honor then expressed the opinion that the introduction of the new element furnished good reason to expect that to women we should ultimately be indebted for those reforms which the unaided exertions of men had been incompetent to effect.
26 Hereford Square, London.
Dear Madam:—I received your kind letter some weeks ago, and beg to apologize for the delay of this reply. Pray accept my thanks for your kind expressions regarding my small efforts to keep alive the great cause we have all so near at heart. I regret to hear that one who, like yourself, has been a pioneer on the way when the path was the ruggedest, should for many years have been incapacitated from aiding its progress. May you now be restored fully to activity. We certainly want all true workers, albeit the progress of the cause surpasses our most sanguine expectations, on that as well as on this side of the Atlantic.
Pray accept my thanks for your kind invitation to your Convention. It will not, I think, ever be likely that I shall visit America, but I shall always read with deep interest of all that goes forward there. Accept, dear madam, my thanks for your kindness and sincere regard.
Frances Power Cobbe.
Mrs. P. W. Davis.
Morningside, Edinburgh, Sept. 24, 1870.
Madam:—I regret that I am unable to accept the invitation with which you have honored me, for I have been an invalid for some months, and am not sufficiently well to undertake any journey. I can assure you that the cause of woman is gradually but firmly gaining ground in Scotland, and that each month we are gaining in the right direction. At present there are six female medical students studying in our university. The College of Surgeons has thrown its doors open, without any restriction, to the female student.
The Merchants' Maiden Company has, within the last few months, opened large schools in connection with its hospitals, offering as its prizes Bursaries in the university to girls as well as boys, which I think is one of the strongest moves which as yet has been made in behalf of women. The petition in favor of the medical education of women was largely signed in Scotland. The Society for the higher education of Women is progressing well and the professors spoke highly of the efficiency of their working pupils. In the university classes of botany and natural history all the female students were in the honor list, and Miss Edith Pechey was the first chemistry student for the year.
With best wishes and thanks to you and your committee for your kind invitation, I am truly yours,
S. K. Kingsley, for Henry Kingsley.
Alderley Edge, near Manchester, Sept. 26, 1870.
Madam:—I beg to thank you for the circular and your accompanying note, both inviting me to attend the Twentieth Anniversary of the inauguration of the Woman Suffrage Movement in the United States, to be held in New York on the 20th and 21st of October. I have once traveled through your country with very much pleasure, and, I hope, with some profit, and I have a strong desire to come again; but as it is impossible for me to do so now, I can not attend your meeting. I need not say that I sympathize with your object. It seems to me to be inconsistent with the principles of your Government, and of ours, to deny to women the power to control those who legislate for them. Until they obtain this control through the suffrage, they will suffer many disadvantages and be the victims of unequal laws. How soon they will obtain it must depend mainly upon their own efforts. In the meantime the present agitation will give them an interest in many public questions, will in itself be an education in preparation for political power, and will exercise an influence in favor of more equal legislation between men and women.
Jacob Bright.
Very truly yours,
Mrs. P. W. Davis.
FROM MRS. DR. TAYLOR.
Notting Hill, August 10, 1870.
Dear Madam:—I cordially thank you for your kind request that I should attend your Convention in October. It is quite impossible for me to leave England now, but I am deputed by our London Committee for Woman's Suffrage to express their sympathy with your movement, and the hope that the efforts you are making will be crowned with success, and that Mrs. Lucretia Mott will live to see the fruit of some of her good and noble work.
M. Taylor.
Believe me yours truly,
FROM LADY AMBERLY.
Rodborough Manor, Stroud, July 14, 1870.
Dear Madam:—I thank you much for your invitation to attend your second decade meeting of the Woman's Suffrage Association. I regret that it will not be in my power to accept it. Much as I enjoyed my visit to America, it is rather too far to undertake a second journey there. You must, indeed be glad, after twenty years of work, to see the great advance in public opinion on this question. It seems now to be progressing very fast. I have just aided in establishing a committee at Stroud, and we hope soon to have one in every borough in England for female suffrage.
Kate Amberly.
Yours truly,
Mrs. P. W. Davis.
280 Park Road, South Hill, Liverpool.
Dear Madam:—Mrs. Butler regrets very much not to have been able to write to you before, and begs you will kindly accept her apologies as well as her thanks for your invitation to your Decade Meeting. I have the honor and privilege to be at present Mrs. Butler's Secretary. She is overwhelmed with work, and would be thankful for your sympathy in it. I wish I could give you a clear idea of the battle she has to fight, but it is very difficult for me, as a German, to put it in adequate words.
Mrs. Butler's introductory essay to "Woman's Work and Woman's Culture" only gives a faint idea of her character and strivings, compared to the grand reality of her life. She has devoted more than fifteen years to the rescue of "fallen women"—a work that requires more active charity and self-denial than any other. The English Parliament passed, some time ago, certain acts called the Contagious Disease Acts, as a sanitary measure, on the model of Continental legislation. To earnest, religious minds, like Mrs. Butler's, the acts appear immoral in principle, as declaring vice a necessity; unjust, as inflicting penalties on women and letting men go free; and cruel in their application, enrolling women in a degraded class, making their return to virtue almost impossible. I think if I tell you that by these acts a woman can be arrested by a policeman on suspicion of being a prostitute, and subjected to an examination which amounts to a surgical operation, always disgraceful, sometimes injurious, even dangerous, I have made quite clear to an American lady that such a state of things can not be endured.
The best English women, with Mrs. Butler and Miss Nightingale as leaders, stand up nobly for the poor, degraded women whom, with their true Christian hearts, they still recognize as sisters. Mrs. Butler, who is rather delicate, devotes all her strength to this cause at present. She travels much, has been in the garrison towns, where, for the benefit of the soldiers, these atrocious acts are in force, and in large meetings denounces the cruelties to women. By her efforts more than sixty thousand signatures have been obtained for the repeal of the acts. Many good men, I am thankful to say, are on our side, and it is a matter of congratulation that in this point many people join who widely differ in other respects. I firmly believe that this question, which can no longer be avoided, will produce a great social reform. Women who timidly keep aloof from all political movements, after this experience of male legislation, eagerly demand the suffrage.
I am sure you will forgive Mrs. Butler for not writing herself. As soon as she has a little more breathing time she is sure to write, but she fears she will never be able to cross the Atlantic.
Rosa Bruhn.
Yours sincerely,
Mrs. P. W. Davis.
Paris, Rue Nollet 92, 7th September.
Dear Madame:—I burned the answer I had written to you under the shameful government now fallen, and whose crimes and treasons extorted from me cries of despair for the ruin they have brought on our country.
I thank you for the generous sympathy you express toward us in our great woe. Your honored names have been blessed for this by our French hearts. We are now relieved, and though our actual peril is none the less, we are in possession of our own force. We are rid of the despicable robbers of our honor, our fortune and our lives; and in the most terrible energy, is a consolation and support. Better is it to die with honor than live dishonored. How happy you are to be born on a soil not infested by monarchical roots. They are like dog-grass, which springs up again and again, nurtured by the ignorance of our rural population. When the Prussians shall have been driven away, we may have civil struggles to fear from the emissaries of this detested monarchy. What avails experience to the blind.
I forwarded immediately your letter to George Sand. Accept my heartfelt thanks for your fraternal invitation to me.
Yes, you say right, our hearts are wholly absorbed, and no place is ours but Paris in this hour of supreme struggle and sacrifice. We shall be with you in thought only, dear sisters—you, the pioneers in woman's emancipation—your names are enshrined in our hearts; but this crisis here will not be useless for the cause. The women of Paris are noble and courageous; one may hear them in every group encouraging the men to desperate resistance. Everywhere they form societies for the relief of the distressed and the wounded. Many have petitioned for this revolution, and have instigated men to the accomplishment of it. Many will take arms in defense and fight; yea, fight with all the strength which desperation lends, should the struggle reach our streets.... They have already proved this sort of courage. Men feel now how very necessary their co-operation is, and after the crisis I hope they will not forget it. But it is better that woman herself should learn to have a will, an active opinion in public affairs, and this disposition will, doubtless, continue to increase, as it has done for the last two years.
Hail, dear and valiant sisters; blessed be your work in which my heart, and many of those around me unite.
Andre Leo.
Mesdames Paulina W. Davis, Lucretia Mott, Martha Wright, Elizabeth C. Stanton, Isabella B. Hooker.
Naples, October 10, 1870.
Dear Mrs. Davis:—I have only now received your letter, or I should sooner have expressed how highly I am gratified by the honor you do me in asking my opinions with regard to woman suffrage. I can not more strongly show my sympathy with my accomplished sisters in the United States, than by saying that I signed a petition to the British Parliament, requesting permission for women to vote at the elections. It was rejected, for the opposition and prejudices in the men of Great Britain are still very strong against any change in our condition. We have, however, gained a most important privilege lately, chiefly through the liberality of the University of Cambridge, in having the opportunity of acquiring every branch of knowledge, literary and scientific.
We owe much to the society of which you are the secretary, for persevering in our behalf for twenty years under strong opposition. The progress of civilization will ultimately emancipate half the human race from the low position in which we have hitherto been kept. Accept, dear Mrs. Davis, my thanks for your letter, and believe me,
Mary Somerville.
Very sincerely yours,
Victoria Press, London, Oct. 3, 1870.
My Dear Mrs. Davis and Mrs. Stanton:—Will you kindly let me answer both your notes together, and assure you how much I value the feeling which prompted you to write them. I shall not easily part with either of those letters, although pressure of work drives me to answer them in one, and say that I am utterly unable to respond to your wish that I should attend your Decade Meeting. Few things would give me such satisfaction as to find myself in America, especially after your noble invitations and promises of a cordial reception everywhere. But—and how many buts there are in life—I dare not leave my work at present in England. There are several very important movements just now resting almost entirely upon me, and having put my hand to the plow, I dare not look back. I am at present the only regular lecturer here on this subject, and I am full of engagements up to April next—north, south, east, and west—and the discussion society I have started in London is still too young to run alone, and yet promises such good things for the future, that I feel it ought to be carefully tended.
I can only add that I shall watch with great interest for the accounts of your meeting on the 19th. I long for the day when I can see you in the flesh—those with whose spirits I now ever hold communion. Excuse haste. I have just returned from the North, and find my table overwhelmed with invitations to lecture and appeals for help. The learned meetings and social discussions of the British Associations at Liverpool, and the Social Science Congress at Newcastle, have all been crowded into the last fortnight. Wishing you and your noble workers God-speed, believe me,
Emily Faithful.
Yours, most truly,
Dear Ladies:—It would give me great pleasure to accept your kind invitation to be present at your meeting to-day, if it were possible, but it is not.
Go on with your great work; it is arduous, but it is sublime! You are doing good that you know not of in old Europe. You have taken the initiative, and she is following hard after. I wish to recommend to you the appeal of Mme. Gasparin to the American women to join in her heart-cry for peace. Coming so recently as I have, from the seat of war—from Paris and from Rome—I can testify to the earnest, the beseeching appeal of European women to their sisters in America to give them help in this their hour of calamity and need—the help of sympathy, the succor of love!
The day before I left France, one of the noblest of French women, Mademoiselle Daubie (the distinguished author of that remarkable work, "The Poor Women of the Nineteenth Century," which every woman and legislator ought to read,) said to me: "We are looking wistfully every whither for some hand stretched out through the darkness, but, alas! there is none. But you are going to America. Oh! tell the women there to help us in this struggle with ignorance, corruption, and war." Let us heed this cry.
France lies prostrate in the dust! But Rome is free! So in all human sorrow there is some hope. Let us, then, lift up the one by all possible help, remembering her greatness, and pity her misfortunes; having faith in her capabilities, and praying for her liberty—for that liberty that can only be practicable when built upon intelligence and virtue, and only real when woman is not the slave, but the helpmate of man; and let us rejoice with that other sister—Italia—who is now lifting up her face toward heaven, and after these long years of anguish and waiting the mother is restored to her children!
The rule of the Cæsars is gone, and the reign of absolutism is passing away! And while the science of men goes flashing round the earth—over sea and land—uniting the nations in treaties of commerce and compacts of liberty, the warm, generous heart of woman shall keep pace, uniting humanity in sympathy and love.
Emelia J. Meriman.[136]
I am, dear ladies, yours most respectfully,
The speakers during the day gave many delightful reminiscences of the noble men and women who had given their earnest efforts to promote this great reform, and dwelt with hope on the many encouraging steps of progress that had marked the years since the initiative steps were taken. The day before the Convention an elegant reception was held at the St. James Hotel. Nearly two hundred persons called during the afternoon, and about forty sat down to a sumptuous dinner.[137]
The Washington Convention of 1871[138] was thus described by The Republican of that city:
The third Annual National Woman's Suffrage Convention, held at Lincoln Hall, was an unprecedented success. Its leading spirit was Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, who, together with Josephine S. Griffing, Paulina Wright Davis, and Susan B. Anthony, made all the preliminary arrangements, and managed the meeting. Mrs. Hooker's zeal, activity, and amiability gave her the power to make an easy conquest wherever she carries the banner of the good cause. Her generalship in Washington marshalled hosts of new and ardent friends into the movement. Five sessions were held, during each of which the Convention was presided over by some member of the Senate or House of Representatives; and it was a novel feature to see such men as Senators Nye, Warren, and Wilson sitting successively in the president's chair, apparently half unconscious that it was one of greater honor than their familiar seats in the Senate. Speeches were made by Adelle Hazlett, Olympia Brown, Lilie Peckham, Isabella B. Hooker, Lillie Devereux Blake, Cora Hatch Tappan, Susan B. Anthony, Kate Stanton, Victoria C. Woodhull, Hon. A. G. Riddle (of the Washington bar), Frederick Douglass, Senators Nye and Wilson, and Mara E. Post, who made a journey all the way from Wyoming to attend the Convention. A good deal was said by the speakers concerning the proposed interpretation of the existing constitutional amendments. It was thus a convention with a new idea. The reporters could not say that only the old, stock arguments were used. There was an air of novelty about the proceedings, indicating healthy life in the movement. The consequence was that the cause of woman's enfranchisement made a new, sudden, and profound impression at Washington.
This Convention was remarkable for the absence of the usual long series of resolutions covering every point of our demands.
Another peculiarity was the unusual amount of money that flowed into the treasury, as the following letter, among many others of the same character, shows:
Miss Anthony—I have this morning deposited $500 for the use of the N. W. S. A., and I will give a check for the amount as you desire it.
Mrs. M. M. Cartter.
Washington, D. C.
Letters were read from Mrs. Esther Morris,[139] Justice of the Peace in Wyoming Territory, and from Mrs. Jane Graham Jones, of Chicago. Senator Nye, who presided at the evening session, said, "He had not given much thought to the question of Woman Suffrage, but it was his opinion that in proportion as we elevated the mothers of voters, so were the voters themselves elevated." The audiences during this convention were large, and the press not only respectful but highly complimentary.
It was just before this enthusiastic convention that Victoria Woodhull presented her memorial to Congress and secured a hearing[140] before the Judiciary Committee of the House, which called out the able Minority Report, by William Loughridge, of Iowa, and Benjamin F. Butler, of Massachusetts. The following is from the Congressional Globe of Dec. 21, 1870.
In the Senate: Mr. Harris presented the memorial of Victoria C. Woodhull, praying for the passage of such laws as may be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the right vested by the Constitution in the citizens of the United States to vote without regard to sex; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and ordered to be printed.
In the House: Mr. Julian—I ask unanimous consent to present at this time and have printed in the Globe the memorial of Victoria C. Woodhull, claiming the right of suffrage under the XIV. and XV. Articles of Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, and asking for the enactment of the necessary and appropriate legislation to guarantee the exercise of that right to the women of the United States. I also ask that the petition be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
No objection was made, and it was ordered accordingly.
THE MEMORIAL OF VICTORIA C. WOODHULL.
To the Honorable the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled, respectfully showeth:
That she was born in the State of Ohio, and is above the age of twenty-one years; that she has resided in the State of New York during the past three years; that she is still a resident thereof, and that she is a citizen of the United States, as declared by the XIV. Article of the Amendments to the Constitution of the United States.
That since the adoption of the XV. Article of the Amendments to the Constitution, neither the State of New York nor any other State, nor any Territory, has passed any law to abridge the right of any citizen of the United States to vote, as established by said article, neither on account of sex or otherwise. That, nevertheless, the right to vote is denied to women citizens of the United States by the operation of Election Laws in the several States and Territories, which laws were enacted prior to the adoption of the said XV. Article, and which are inconsistent with the Constitution as amended, and, therefore, are void and of no effect; but which, being still enforced by the said States and Territories, render the Constitution inoperative as regards the right of women citizens to vote:
And whereas, Article VI., Section 2, declares "That this Constitution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof, and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and all judges in every State shall be bound thereby, anything in the Constitution and laws of any State to the contrary, notwithstanding."
And whereas, no distinction between citizens is made in the Constitution of the United States on account of sex; but the XV. Article of Amendments to it provides that "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States, nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws."
And whereas, Congress has power to make laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution all powers vested by the Constitution in the Government of the United States; and to make or alter all regulations in relation to holding elections for senators or representatives, and especially to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of the said XIV. Article:
And whereas, the continuance of the enforcement of said local election laws, denying and abridging the right of citizens to vote on account of sex, is a grievance to your memorialist and to various other persons, citizens of the United States,
Therefore, your memorialist would most respectfully petition your honorable bodies to make such laws as in the wisdom of Congress shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the right vested by the Constitution in the citizens of the United States to vote, without regard to sex.
Victoria C. Woodhull.
And your memorialist will ever pray.
New York City, Dec. 19, 1870.
ADDRESS OF VICTORIA C. WOODHULL JANUARY 11, 1871.
To the Honorable the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives of the Congress of the United States:
Having most respectfully memorialized Congress for the passage of such laws as in its wisdom shall seem necessary and proper to carry into effect the rights vested by the Constitution of the United States in the citizens to vote, without regard to sex, I beg leave to submit to your honorable body the following in favor of my prayer in said memorial which has been referred to your Committee.
The public law of the world is founded upon the conceded fact that sovereignty can not be forfeited or renounced. The sovereign power of this country is perpetually in the politically organized people of the United States, and can neither be relinquished nor abandoned by any portion of them. The people in this republic who confer sovereignty are its citizens: in a monarchy the people are the subjects of sovereignty. All citizens of a republic by rightful act or implication confer sovereign power. All people of a monarchy are subjects who exist under its supreme shield and enjoy its immunities. The subject of a monarch takes municipal immunities from the sovereign as a gracious favor; but the woman citizen of this country has the inalienable "sovereign" right of self-government in her own proper person. Those who look upon woman's status by the dim light of the common law, which unfolded itself under the feudal and military institutions that establish right upon physical power, can not find any analogy in the status of the woman citizen of this country, where the broad sunshine of our Constitution has enfranchised all.
As sovereignty can not be forfeited, relinquished, or abandoned, those from whom it flows—the citizens—are equal in conferring the power, and should be equal in the enjoyment of its benefits and in the exercise of its rights and privileges. One portion of citizens have no power to deprive another portion of rights and privileges such as are possessed and exercised by themselves. The male citizen has no more right to deprive the female citizen of the free, public, political, expression of opinion than the female citizen has to deprive the male citizen thereof.
The sovereign will of the people is expressed in our written Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land. The Constitution makes no distinction of sex. The Constitution defines a woman born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, to be a citizen. It recognizes the right of citizens to vote. It declares that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of "race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
Women, white and black, belong to races, although to different races. A race of people comprises all the people, male and female. The right to vote can not be denied on account of race. All people included in the term race have the right to vote, unless otherwise prohibited. Women of all races are white, black, or some intermediate color. Color comprises all people, of all races and both sexes. The right to vote can not be denied on account of color. All people included in the term color have the right to vote unless otherwise prohibited.
With the right to vote sex has nothing to do. Race and color include all people of both sexes. All people of both sexes have the right to vote, unless prohibited by special limiting terms less comprehensive than race or color. No such limiting terms exist in the Constitution. Women, white and black, have from time immemorial groaned under what is properly termed in the Constitution "previous condition of servitude." Women are the equals of men before the law, and are equal in all their rights as citizens. Women are debarred from voting in some parts of the United States, although they are allowed to exercise that right elsewhere. Women were formerly permitted to vote in places where they are now debarred therefrom. The naturalization laws of the United States expressly provide for the naturalization of women. But the right to vote has only lately been definitely declared by the Constitution to be inalienable, under three distinct conditions—in all of which woman is clearly embraced.
The citizen who is taxed should also have a voice in the subject matter of taxation. "No taxation without representation" is a right which was fundamentally established at the very birth of our country's independence; and by what ethics does any free government impose taxes on women without giving them a voice upon the subject or a participation in the public declaration as to how and by whom these taxes shall be applied for common public use? Women are free to own and to control property, separate and free from males, and they are held responsible in their own proper persons, in every particular, as well as men, in and out of court. Women have the same inalienable right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness that men have. Why have they not this right politically, as well as men?
Women constitute a majority of the people of this country—they hold vast portions of the nation's wealth and pay a proportionate share of the taxes. They are intrusted with the most vital responsibilities of society; they bear, rear, and educate men; they train and mould their characters; they inspire the noblest impulses in men; they often hold the accumulated fortunes of a man's life for the safety of the family and as guardians of the infants, and yet they are debarred from uttering any opinion by public vote, as to the management by public servants of these interests; they are the secret counselors, the best advisers, the most devoted aids in the most trying periods of men's lives, and yet men shrink from trusting them in the common questions of ordinary politics. Men trust women in the market, in the shop, on the highway and railroad, and in all other public places and assemblies, but when they propose to carry a slip of paper with a name upon it to the polls, they fear them. Nevertheless, as citizens, women have the right to vote; they are part and parcel of that great element in which the sovereign power of the land had birth; and it is by usurpation only that men debar them from this right. The American nation, in its march onward and upward, can not publicly choke the intellectual and political activity of half its citizens by narrow statutes. The will of the entire people is the true basis of republican government, and a free expression of that will by the public vote of all citizens, without distinctions of race, color, occupation, or sex, is the only means by which that will can be ascertained. As the world has advanced into civilization and culture; as mind has risen in its dominion over matter; as the principle of justice and moral right has gained sway, and merely physical organized power has yielded thereto; as the might of right has supplanted the right of might, so have the rights of women become more fully recognized, and that recognition is the result of the development of the minds of men, which through the ages she has polished, and thereby heightened the lustre of civilization.
It was reserved for our great country to recognize by constitutional enactment that political equality of all citizens which religion, affection, and common sense should have long since accorded; it was reserved for America to sweep away the mist of prejudice and ignorance, and that chivalric condescension of a darker age, for in the language of Holy Writ, "The night is far spent, the day is at hand, let us therefore cast off the work of darkness and let us put on the armor of light. Let us walk honestly as in the day." It may be argued against the proposition that there still remains upon the statute books of some States the word "male" to an exclusion; but as the Constitution, in its paramount character, can only be read by the light of the established principle, ita lex Scripta est, and as the subject of sex is not mentioned, and the Constitution is not limited either in terms or by necessary implication in the general rights of citizens to vote, this right can not be limited on account of anything in the spirit of inferior or previous enactments upon a subject which is not mentioned in the supreme law. A different construction would destroy a vested right in a portion of the citizens, and this no legislature has a right to do without compensation, and nothing can compensate a citizen for the loss of his or her suffrage—its value is equal to the value of life. Neither can it be presumed that women are to be kept from the polls as a mere police regulation: it is to be hoped, at least, that police regulations in their case need not be very active. The effect of the amendments to the Constitution must be to annul the power over this subject in the States, whether past, present, or future, which is contrary to the amendments. The amendments would even arrest the action of the Supreme Court in cases pending before it prior to their adoption, and operate as an absolute prohibition to the exercise of any other jurisdiction than merely to dismiss the suit. 3 Dall., 382; 6 Wheaton, 405; 9 ib., 868; 3d Circ. Pa., 1832.
And if the restrictions contained in the Constitution as to color, race or servitude, were designed to limit the State governments in reference to their own citizens, and were intended to operate also as restrictions on the federal power, and to prevent interference with the rights of the State and its citizens, how, then, can the State restrict citizens of the United States in the exercise of rights not mentioned in any restrictive clause in reference to actions on the part of those citizens having reference solely to the necessary functions of the General Government, such as the election of representatives and senators to Congress, whose election the Constitution expressly gives Congress the power to regulate? S. C., 1847; Fox vs. Ohio, 5 Howard, 410.
Your memorialist complains of the existence of State laws, and prays Congress, by appropriate legislation, to declare them, as they are, annulled, and to give vitality to the Constitution under its power to make and alter the regulations of the States contravening the same.
It may be urged in opposition that the courts have power, and should declare upon this subject. The Supreme Court has the power, and it would be its duty so to declare the law: but the court will not do so unless a determination of such point as shall arise make it necessary to the determination of a controversy, and hence a case must be presented in which there can be no rational doubt. All this would subject the aggrieved parties to much dilatory, expensive and needless litigation, which your memorialist prays your honorable body to dispense with by appropriate legislation, as there can be no purpose in special arguments "ad inconvenienti," enlarging or contracting the import of the language of the Constitution.
Therefore, Believing firmly in the right of citizens to freely approach those in whose hands their destiny is placed under the Providence of God, your memorialist has frankly, but humbly, appealed to you, and prays that the wisdom of Congress may be moved to action in this matter for the benefit and the increased happiness of our beloved country.
SPEECH OF A. G. RIDDLE,
In Support of the Woodhull Memorial, before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, as Reproduced in the Convention on the Evening of the same Day.
Mr. Riddle spoke as follows: Mr. Chairman—(Senator Nye)—I have always thought that the questions involved in this movement could be the more effectively presented by ladies; and I have never appeared in their public discussions unless by special request, and for some special purpose. I have been asked to bring to your notice as well as I may this evening the argument: That the women of these United States are full and complete citizens. Citizens as fully, broadly, and deeply as it is possible for men to be, though not permitted to exercise the elective franchise.
As I arise I find between myself and this proposition, two or three questions, about which I am disposed to tax your patience for a moment, though there is nothing new to be said. In the outset, let me say that it is conceded by all, that the right of self-government, in America at any rate, is a natural right. You may select with care or at random, any one of the forty or fifty American constitutions that have been prepared with more or less pains, and promulgated with solemnity, and you will find there is not one that has assumed to create and confer this right of self-government. But they all declare, expressly or impliedly, that the right to govern is inherent in the people. Now, if these ladies are a portion of the people, this right resides in them. There is no new right to be conferred upon them. They are simply to go into the new exercise of an old franchise; for if the right of self-government is a natural right, then does it pertain to every human being alike. Such is the recognized theory of every American constitution, and such is its practice.
Take a step further and you find that starting with a recognition of this pre-existing right of government, Constitution makers have simply provided the means and machinery by which this right of government may work itself out. The only means placed in the hands of the individual citizen by which he may accomplish his portion of this great task is the ballot, or the viva voce vote. If this right of self-government is a natural right, and if it can be exercised alone by the ballot, then is the right to the ballot a natural right, and he who stands up against this everlasting right of nature, had better look to it, and take himself out of the way. As this is a political question I may venture a single word to politicians. We of the masculine gender, are all of us, more or less politicians; and of all the timid things in the world the professed politician (a member of Congress excepted) is the most timid. [Laughter.] He is afraid of his soul, as if he had one, or one large enough to occasion apprehension. [Laughter.] I have this thing to say to them, that when any great idea or great truth finds itself at large in this lower world, and is obliged to get itself incorporated into the working processes of a government, if it does not find a political party ready, willing, and worthy to receive it, it forthwith makes for itself a new party. [Applause.] And as it does not create new human beings to form a party of, it must necessarily gather them from the old parties. Just as the distinguished Senator (Senator Nye) will recollect the present Republican party was formed, and against which the two old fossil parties united, as they always do. Now, this new great idea, if rejected, will disintegrate these old parties; take that which is fit, proper, and deserving for its own great mission, leaving the residuum to unite, and crumble and pulverize together under the feet of the new.
The right of self-government, as I have said, is a natural right pertaining to all alike, and is to be exercised by the ballot. And the right to that is therefore a natural right, as is the right to wear clothes. Decency and comfort require that clothes should be worn; but they are artificial wholly. Just so is the right to vote a natural right, though the vote, or the mode of voting at least, is an artificial means. This logic can not be caviled with or gainsaid. The young man and the young woman outside of political considerations, in every other point of view, stand before the law on an equality, and what one may do, so may the other, each may govern him or herself. But not so politically; when the youth reaches the age of twenty-one the ballot comes to his hands by due course of law, protecting his natural right, he having grown to it. Why do you give him the ballot, pray, or permit him to take it for himself? Simply because it is the means by which he governs and protects himself. Nobody would start I suppose the terribly heterodox idea that it is not necessary for the young man to govern himself with the ballot. It would be one of those unheard-of atrocities that nobody would have the hardihood to promulgate in the presence of masculine associates at all. He is entitled to the right for the purpose of governing himself. Nobody was born to govern anybody else—man or woman. It is only because in political associations people become so united, that a man in order to govern himself is obliged to govern others, that we get the right to govern others at all. It grows out of our effort to govern ourselves. As an essential necessity we are obliged to govern others and to be governed by them. This is our only warrant for the government of others.
Now, I pray to know why a young maiden, when she approaches the same age, may not have accorded to her the same protection of her natural right that is accorded to the youth, and for the same purpose. In the name of all womanhood, and of all manhood, I beg to know why this may not be so? In the name of my own daughters whose whispered words haunt the chambers of my soul, asking to know why, if it is necessary for their brother to exercise this right, it is not necessary for them? Nobody need to argue to a father that his daughters are not the equals of his sons. I will never tolerate hearing it said, that my son is born to empire and sovereignty, while his sisters are born to be hidden away and yarded up in some solitary desert place, as their proper sphere. [Applause.] I do not propose to raise and educate my daughters to keep them cooped up with their feet tied until some masculine purveyor comes along with his market basket.
Oh! ye opponents of the rights of woman, why not be consistent. If, as you say, she has not the capacity to choose or exercise the elective franchise, why not choose for her in everything, and impose upon her the husband of your choice? Don't you represent her? You concede that the young woman has abundance of capacity to choose her lord and master to whom she shall be delivered, and yet she is not fit to vote for a constable. (Laughter.)
Be consistent, you who oppose us in this movement, and say she shall not have anything to do with the selection of her husband. If she is competent at an early age, in the vortex and whirlpool of life, to select him to whom first, last, and always she shall belong, may she not once in four years have the privilege of voting for President without any great hazard? Think of it. Oh! this terrible old question! We have been mining and drilling in the earth's crust, and we have got finally to the last question, or, rather, it has made its way to the surface. This question of woman's suffrage and woman's right at last comes up for final argument, and it will work its way along until it is definitely determined. Indeed, I believe it is already settled.
To return to these constitutions, from which I mean not to wander again. I said to you that these constitutions of the various American States have recognized as older than themselves the right of government. They have furnished the means, which were also older than themselves, the exercise of the elective franchise. They have not attempted to create and confer any right to govern. They simply regulate it; and they are framed upon this idea, that all people are equally entitled to govern themselves, women and men, and would all govern themselves if some were not excluded by the terms and provisions of these, their constitutions. Take up the whole thirty-five that can be found in the edition of 1864, and every one of them says that the elective franchise shall be exercised by the male white citizens. We have got rid of the "white." We have finally given color to the Constitution. (Laughter.) And, in getting rid of that "white," we got rid of more than was probably intended at the time. Good does get itself done by accident sometimes. It has to when bad men do it. (Laughter and applause.) Why is this term "male" used in the constitutions, pray? It was not by accident. Forty or fifty of them would not use it, except by design. It was because every mortal man knew when tinkering up a constitution that if he did not put male in, females would vote. They had the right, and there had to be a constitutional barrier erected to prevent their exercise of it. Now, the thing which we have to do is either to strike out this term "male," which, I trust, ladies (turning to the ladies on the platform), is not particularly odious anywhere else, except in the constitution.
Mrs. Davis and others—Not at all.
Mr. Riddle.—I repeat, that what we have to do is either to get rid of this word "male," or to convince Congress, the courts, and the rest of the world, that it is already gotten rid of, which, I think, is easier. If it remains it can be put out in a very summary way. It makes no difference in how many constitutions it is found, nor in how many carefully considered statutes it has been incorporated, for a single provision in the Constitution of the United States is of that potency that instantaneously all constitutions and all statutes are clarified of the exclusive "male" principle, and that without other change or repeal.
And this brings me to the immediate question to be discussed, the XIV. Amendment of the Constitution, which stands as the XIV. Article. And you will understand that when the people or the legislature speak by constitution or law, and use ordinary language, that they mean what they say, and nobody can get up and say they do not mean that, or that they mean something else. There is nobody that can be heard for a moment to argue against the plain, obvious, declared, well-ascertained meaning of words. And when such words are used, it is the end of argument and of construction. The great object to be achieved, so far as women are concerned, is to bring them into the possession of the rights of citizenship. "A person" is one thing, and naturally, "a citizen" is something a little more. He or she is the creature of a political compact, having the rights, the privileges, the franchises of that particular political association, whatever they are. A very ingenious, and at the same time a very meritorious writer, recently, in overhauling these English words—and it is a pretty good thing my honorable friends from the two Houses of Congress are not to be referred to—but it is a good thing for the rest of us who use words sometimes carelessly, to see how Mr. Grant White says some of them should be used, and what they really do mean. On page 100 of his recent work on "Words and their Uses," which, so far as I know, has received the highest commendation of the critics—in speaking of this term "citizen," and how it is used, or rather how it is misused, says:
Citizen is used by some newspaper writers with what seems like an affectation of the French usage of citoyen in the First Republic. For instance, "Gen. A. is a well-known citizen." "Several citizens carried the sufferer," etc. The writer might as well have said that the sufferer was carried off by several church members or several "Freemasons." Now mark, he says, that "a citizen is a person who has certain political rights, and the word is properly used only to imply or suggest the possession of those rights."
That is what we should use the term "citizen" for—apply it to a naturalized person in possession of certain political franchises, rights, and privileges. Thanking Mr. Grant White for that, let us, in its light, read the first clause of the XIV. Amendment, and see what it does say and mean. "Sec. 1st. All persons;" not all male persons, nor all white persons, but "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the States where they reside." That is what they are. They are citizens. That is, "persons," are "citizens," which means naturalized persons, clothed and permeated with, surrounded by, and put in possession of, citizenship. The term is used in the sense in which Mr. White uses it. It is no new meaning; no new use of the word.
Now turn to Webster's Unabridged, where citizen is defined: "Citizen—a person," [in the United States,]—for he inserts in brackets the expressive "U. S." to indicate what he means,—"native or naturalized, who has the privilege of voting for public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the people."
Worcester says of "citizen":—"An inhabitant of a Republic who enjoys the rights of a citizen or freeman, and who has a right to vote for public officers, as a citizen of the United States."
Turn to Bouvier's Law Dictionary, in orthodox sheep skin, and see what he says a citizen is: "Citizen, one who, under the Constitution and laws of the United States has a right to vote for representatives in Congress and other public offices, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the people."—4th ed., vol. 1, p. 221.
All known authority concurs in establishing this as the sole, proper signification of the word citizen; and in this sense, and in no other, is it used in the XIV. Amendment. I know that the term is sometimes used—is once used, perhaps, in the Constitution—to correspond somewhat with the term "inhabitant," as thus, "citizens of different States may sue each other in the courts of the United States," etc. But it was not necessary to shake the foundations of this great Republic, to formulate and get adopted this new amendment, for the purpose of stating that the people who were born and always had lived in the United States might be inhabitants of them. But it was necessary to say so, that cavaliers might be estopped from denying that they are citizens.
But to recur to the further clause of this XIV. Amendment. Let us see, now, really what the makers and promulgators of it did mean. "No State shall make or enforce any law"—neither make any new law, nor enforce any that had already been made—"which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." Is there any doubt now as to what "citizen" means? He, or she, or both, are persons in possession, and have by express declaration all the privileges and the immunities of citizens.
When I stated this before the Judiciary Committee this morning, a distinguished Representative from Illinois, and a very able lawyer, stopped me and said, "Mr. Riddle, babies would be citizens according to that, and would have the privilege of going straight to the ballot-box, the first thing." (Laughter.) Perhaps so; but I could not see it then, and can not see it now. All power is inherent in the people, and it is perfectly competent for this "all power" to declare at what age and under what circumstances the citizen shall vote; so that the rule applies uniformly, and excludes none. One-half of the people were excluded, and this article removes that exclusion—and that is all. Apply the gentleman's idea to other provisions of the Constitution; for instance, to this: "The right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed." Would he contend that therefore every new-born baby might at once grasp a musket? This might be constitutional, but it would put the infantry on a war-footing before the commissariat could be mobilized, I fear. (Laughter and applause.)
Women are not only citizens, but the amendment further says, that no State shall pass any law or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immunities of this citizenship. The privileges—not a part of them. What do we mean when we say the privileges? For instance, when we say "the ladies," do we not mean them all? "The Senators," we mean them all. We do not merely mean the Senator from Nevada (Mr. Nye), however he may have the right to be spoken of first. (Laughter and applause.) These terms, "privileges and immunities," are not now used for the first time in the American Constitution. They are old acquaintances of ours. They have done service a great while. They occur in this same Constitution, as will be seen by referring to the second section of Article IV, on page 38 of Paschal's admirably annotated Constitution of the United States: "Citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." Precisely, as the XIV. Amendment has it, but, as Judge Bradley recently said, with a much more enlarged meaning in the latter. They were old before the Constitution, and were incorporated into it from the fourth article of the Old Confederation, which provided, "that the free inhabitants of each of the States shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of the free citizens of the several States."
If you would see a comment upon these terms, read the forty-second number of the Federalist, or a tumefied and diluted edition of it, in Story on the Constitution, which, like some other of his books, contains some remarks of his own, and are not always the best things in them. For the benefit of the Judiciary Committee, made up, as you know, of some of the ablest lawyers and best men of the country, I procured a judicial definition of these terms, "privileges, and immunities," although Mr. Attorney Bates said none exists, and my friend Judge Paschal, a more learned man, repeated it. I referred them to the case of Corfield vs. Coryell, 4th vol. of the so-called "Washington Circuit Court Reports," p. 371, where these terms came up, away back in the old time. Bushrod Washington, the favorite nephew of our Washington, made the decision, ladies. He was the Washington who got all of the brains of the family outside of its great chief; and he put them to a most admirable use. He was one of the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States, and he judicially defined the meaning of these "privileges and immunities," and said that they included such privileges as are fundamental in their nature. And among them he says, is the right to exercise the elective franchise, and to hold offices, as provided for by the laws of the various States. And the great Chancellor Kent, quoting this case, thus approvingly incorporates its very language into his text, where it stands unchallenged, unquestioned, and uncontradicted.
"It was declared in Corfield vs. Coryell, that the privileges and immunities conceded by the Constitution of the United States to citizens in the several States, were to be confined to those which were in their nature fundamental, and belonged of right to the citizens of all free governments. Such are the rights of protection of life and liberty, and to acquire and enjoy property, and to pay no higher impositions than other citizens, and to pass through or reside in the State at pleasure, and to enjoy the elective franchise according to the regulations of the law of the State" (2 Kent Com., p. 71).
Why, the gentlemen of the Upper and of the Lower House, who are familiar with that decision and with its canonization by Kent, are not obliged to resort to Webster (not Daniel) and Worcester, nor to Grant White, nor even to Bouvier's Law Dictionary. They may overrule them all if they will. But they must go back to these sometimes forgotten decisions, which rest in the leaves of these dusty volumes, to these witnesses of the law, who declare that these expressions, "privileges, and immunities" include the elective franchise. And the whole people of these United States have solemnly declared "that all persons are citizens, and no State shall make or enforce any law to abridge the privileges and immunities of the citizens." If such authority and such reasoning were presented to a court on the trial of any other case in the wide world, save that of women and their rights, an advocate would be stopped by the court before he had gone half the length I have in this argument. The court would say that they would hear from the other side. (Laughter.) But this thing of opposition to woman's rights does not rest in intelligence so that it can be grasped in argument. It has no intellectual foundation anywhere. No logic supports it. No reason or argument sustains it. It rests upon no foundation of the human understanding; hence, it can not be combated; for, as Mr. Mills says, the worse it is beaten in argument the stronger it is fortified in prejudice. Men seem to think that inasmuch as this thing has always been, somehow or other, in some way or other, there was somewhere, at some time some reason for it, which could be shown now if somebody could only think of it or find it; but, of course, nobody ever did and nobody ever will. There never was any. (Laughter.)
One consideration alone is absolutely conclusive of this argument, and from it escape is impossible. "Persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof," were already in the full and complete enjoyment of every privilege and immunity known to our political system, except the elective franchise and its correlative, the right to hold office. The only difference between the naturalized and unnaturalized individual is this right of voting. I pray our opponents to tell us then what is conferred by this first section of this wonderful article, if it be not these rights? Nothing else remained that it could confer; and this view alone silences cavil, even. If this section does not confer or guarantee the exercise of the elective franchise, then at infinite pains have we mined among the foundations of our marvelous structure, and have deposited there as one of them an utter sham, full of the emptiness of nothing. Let him escape this who may.
If there can still remain a question of doubt about this, I beg the attention of the doubters to the further words of the Constitution, to be found in the XV. Amendment. And here I am met with the apt inquiry, "Why, Mr. Riddle, if women are a part of 'all persons,' colored men are also a part of the same 'all persons,' and if women are made citizens and clothed with the immunities and privileges of citizenship by the XIV. Amendment, so were colored men; why, then, was it necessary to enact the XV. Amendment? This fact is fatal to your argument." Well, there was no necessity for it. It was a stupid piece of business, very stupid, and when we recover the lost art of blushing, some faces will color when that XV. Amendment is recalled. But it does us this good service; it settles the construction of this XIV. Amendment, as we contend for it, beyond all cavil. The general impression is, that the XV. Amendment confers the elective franchise upon the colored man. If it does not, then our opposers must give it up, for colored men rightfully vote. What does this article say? That the elective franchise is conferred upon persons of African descent, or those who have suffered from a previous condition of servitude? Not a word of it. It does say: "The right of citizens"—not the right of persons of African descent—"the right of citizens of the United States to vote, shall not be denied." That is what it says—"Shall not be denied or abridged, by the United States or by the several States." That does not confer suffrage; it recognizes a right already conferred, and says that it shall not be denied or abridged. A gentleman of the committee this morning took the ground that this amendment granted the franchise because it declares that the right to it shall not be denied! This is in effect that when a thing can not be denied, the lack of power to deny it creates it. (Laughter.) I confess I could not see it. (Laughter.) I have thought of it since, and I do not see it now. "Shall not be denied or abridged." How can you abridge a thing that does not exist? And would the gentleman also contend that a lack of power to cut off a thing not in existence also creates the thing? This XV. Article then treats the right of the citizen to vote as already existing, and it specifies classes, as persons of color, of certain race, and of previous servitude, as especially having the right to vote.
Where, when, and how did they get it? Was it by virtue of the XIV. Amendment? If so, it was because they were a part of the "all persons" named in it, of whom women are also a much larger and much more important part. So, past cavil, if the African received this franchise by the XIV. Article, then did women also receive it, and more abundantly! If you go back to the starting point of American politics, and say that the right is inherent in the colored man, then by the law of nature it is inherent in woman. I do not care which of these formulas you adopt. Not at all. In either event it is recognized as existing in a citizen of the United States. But my learned and subtle friend from Illinois said to me to-day, "Why, don't you see, Mr. Riddle, that they have limited the franchise in this XV. Amendment, so that it shall not be denied in the case of persons of color, and of a certain race, and previous condition of servitude, and does that not permit the States to deny it in other cases?" Well, the XV. Amendment alone would, perhaps, under the artificial rules of law, but I referred the gentleman immediately, as I refer you now, back to the XIV. Amendment where the right is conferred, and where in its great, broad, sweeping language it is declared that no State shall either enact or enforce any law that abridges the privileges and immunities of any citizen.
The XV. Amendment in no way changes the XIV., nor does it add an iota to the privileges and immunities of the citizen. It could not. It reiterates for the benefit of these classes the declaration of the XIV.; and as that declares that no State shall deny the rights of the citizen, this adds to the list the United States, and its real force is spent in conferring upon Congress power to legislate in favor of the classes named in it, a power not granted by the XIV. Well, really, this must be the end of the argument. And I repeat, you find the XIV. Amendment declares that all persons are citizens; that they have the privilege and immunities of citizens, and the XV. declares that among the privileges and immunities of citizens is the right to suffrage, because it says in words that that shall not be denied, though men do deny it. How is the XV. Amendment declaring that it shall not be denied on account of either race, color, or previous condition of servitude, to be regarded? It spends its force in these two things. The XIV. Amendment only denied the power to the several States to abridge the privileges of citizenship. The XV. Amendment goes further, and says that neither any State nor the United States shall do it, using the term "deny" with the term "abrogate" of the other. It goes further; for the purposes of these three conditions it confers express power upon Congress to legislate, while the XIV. Amendment does not. But there is just one little thing further that I drop for the henpecked to pick at. There are three classes whose right to vote shall not be denied according to the XV. Amendment—persons of color, persons on account of race, and persons who have suffered from previous condition of servitude. Now, ladies, what is really the legal status of marriage, so far as the condition of the wife is concerned?
Susan B. Anthony.—One of servitude, and of the hardest kind, and just for board and clothes, at that, too. (Laughter and applause.)
Mr. Riddle.—And they frequently have to make and pay for their clothes, and board themselves—(renewed laughter)—and not only themselves, but board also the lord and master, who calls himself the head of the family. But that is not all of it. It is not cant; it is not popular phraseology, but it is the language of the law. The condition of the married woman is that of servitude. The law calls her husband "baron," and she is simply a woman—"feme." The law gives her to the man, not the man to her, nor the two mutually to each other. They become one, and that one is the husband—such as he is. Her name is blotted out from the living, or at best it is appended to that of the husband. She belongs to her master; all that she has belongs to him. All that she earns is his, because she is his. If she does anything that binds him, it is simply as his servant. If she makes a contract that is binding even upon herself, it is because he consents to it. She does not own anything; she does not own the children that are born of her. The husband exclusively controls them while living, and by his will he may, and often does, bequeath to somebody else the custody and care of them after his death. And the law which we men make enforces all this to-day. I trust that most of us are a great deal better than the law. If the wife of a man should suffer by an accident on a railroad, and suit should be brought to recover against the company for injury to her person, the suit brought by the husband would be upon the ground that his wife was his servant, and he had lost her service. If he did not, he could not recover.
Mrs. Stanton.—Is such the law in case of a daughter?
Mr. Riddle.—So far as that is concerned, where the daughter is a minor, it is the same as the case of a son a minor; but the wife is always the servant of the husband; she never graduates from him; she never becomes of age or arrives at the years of discretion. (Sotto voce.) If she had, she never would have entered into that condition. Miss Anthony would say the law pronounces the state of matrimony to be a condition of servitude for the wife in express terms. How does the XV. Amendment apply to her? Here is the previous condition of servitude provided for; and this XV. Amendment in its effect was but to enforce the XIV. in favor of persons held in a previous and, of course, a continuing condition of servitude. Does this really abrogate the servitude of the wife, and invoke in her favor the action of Congress? My distinguished brother, Butler, said this morning, that the clause relative to the previous condition of servitude applied only to widows. (Laughter.)
But, ladies and gentlemen, aside from badinage, for the subject is too grave and too solemn, it comes back to this thing. The Constitution of the United States solemnly declares that every person born and naturalized in the United States, and within its jurisdiction, are citizens; and that no State shall pass, or enforce a law to abrogate the privileges and immunities of citizenship. We do not need any XVI. Amendment. We need only intelligent, firm decisive, and deciding—reasonably brave courts, and to have a question made and brought to their adjudication. I propose to offer Mrs. Griffing and two or three other ladies for registration, two or three months hence, when the time comes, here. (Applause.) If they are not registered, I propose to try the strength of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, composed of five intelligent gentlemen, and known not to be conservatives on some questions, whatever they will prove to be on this, and see whether they will issue a mandamus. If they won't, I will take the case to the Supreme Court of the United States, and one of the present judges of that Court, who is not pre-eminently in favor of what is called woman's rights, recently passed upon this XIV. Amendment. In the case of the "Live Stock Dealers" et al. vs. "The Crescent City Live Stock Company," in the circuit court of the United States, at New Orleans, Judge Bradley, of the Supreme Court of the United States, said of the XIV. Amendment:
"It is possible that those who framed the article were not themselves aware of the far-reaching character of its terms. They may have had in mind but one particular phase of social and political wrong, which they desired to redress. Yet, if the amendment, as framed and expressed, does, in fact, bear a broader meaning, and does extend its protecting shield over those who were never thought of when it was conceived and put in form, and does reach such social evils which were never before prohibited by Constitutional Amendment, it is to be presumed that the American people, in giving it their imprimatur, understood what they were doing, and meant to decree what has, in fact, been done.
"It embraces much more. The 'privileges and immunities' secured by the original Constitution were only such as each State gave to its own citizens. Each was prohibited from discriminating in favor of its own citizens, and against the citizens of other States.
"But the XIV. Amendment prohibits any State from abridging the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States, whether its own citizens or any others. It not merely requires equality of privileges, but it demands that the privileges and immunities of all citizens shall be absolutely unabridged, unimpaired."—Mrs. Bradwell's Legal News.
What "particular phase of social and political wrong" could have been in the mind of the clear-seeing judge when he gave forth these utterances?
Gentlemen and ladies, when I stand in the presence of and contemplate for a moment this great XIV. Article, the crown of the now perfected Constitution, I bow with amazed reverence to it. It shines upon me with the light of a new revelation. And this argument is great from no effort of mine, but great in its power of self-enunciation. This article is one of those great principles that come, Messiah like, to announce themselves. It needed no forerunner, and it works its own miracles in its own good time, and will convert all to its own sway, and to its own purposes. And, I trust that ere long we shall hear from the committee of the House upon this question, and that we shall get enlightened and intelligent discussion of it in the House of the American Representatives.
Here the argument closes, but suffer a word further. It is said that woman does not want the suffrage. Who says that she does not want it? Man says so and nobody else. Man asks the question, and answers it himself. I know it often comes from female lips, but it is man's answer.
I deny that women have declared that they don't want the ballot. They have never been asked whether they want it. When we want a response from men how do we propound the question? We submit it formally to be voted upon by the ballot. That is the way we propound a political question to men. How do they answer it? They answer it by their solemn votes at the ballot box. Propound this question, and in this solemn way to the women of the United States. Pass a law to that effect and take a vote, or else forever stop—close up all gabble on this subject, that women do not want it. Offer her the chance by which she can speak and see whether she wants it or not, and let her vote "yes" or "no." Then from that we will take another start. But don't refuse to let her answer, and assume to answer for her, and say you represent her. You barely succeed in misrepresenting men at your best, let alone this atrocious twaddle about representing women. Let her vote, and then we can tell whether you have a right to represent her or not.
We men have made the institutions for men, and for men alone; never consulted woman. We have said she was nobody, and nowhere, or, if she was found anywhere she was out of her sphere, (laughter) and must go back to nowhere immediately, and to nobody. We have gravely assumed that we understood her nature and character better than she did herself. It is one of the wondrous elements of the sexes that they shall perpetually reveal themselves to each other, and neither shall ever fully comprehend the other. Let woman speak for herself. Give her a chance to speak as man speaks, by precisely the same language, and in the same manner, and then reverently incline your heads, and listen to what she says.
I have said this great question is up for final argument. My mission was simply to present to you this dry, but very interesting question of woman's rights, under the XIV. Amendment. To my mind, the argument is perfectly invincible. It never can be met, and never will be, and it will, ultimately work out its own end.
Thanking you for the kindness with which you have listened to me, I leave this matter with you.
ADDRESS OF MRS. ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER.
Mrs. Hooker said: We are told by men themselves that there are too many voters already; restriction is what we want, not enlargement of the suffrage. Let us see how this is, my friends—let us reason together on this point for a few moments. The one great propelling power of this Government that moves the great political engine, and that keeps us alive as a Nation on the face of the earth, is God's own doctrine of personal liberty and personal responsibility. That is all we have to go upon. It is, in fact, fuel and steam. Liberty is the steam, responsibility puts on the brakes, and then what is the safety-valve, I ask you? Is it not our election day? Look at it in this way. Every honest lawyer will tell you that the next best thing to settling a quarrel between two belligerents is to bring the parties into court. Because the court-room is a great cooling off place, a perfect refrigerator. A man who has quarreled with his neighbor comes into court, and, before the lawyers get through with him, he wishes he hadn't quarreled. How is it that our courts act in this way? What do we gain in this? Everything. In old times a dispute between man and man was settled by blows—fisticuffs—gradually superseded by the sword, at last by the pistol; and now we have thrown that out, and established a system of jurisprudence. Now all these petty grievances must be settled in court. Private violence must no longer be permitted, and that is a great march in civilization.
The parallel case is this: We in this country—we men, I mean, for women are nobodies and nowhere when you come to the discussion of great questions like these, but I use the conventional we—we in this country are attempting to carry our ideas of liberty and responsibility into legislation, and we don't agree—we quarrel bitterly and almost come to blows again—but election days cool us off, acting like a court-room itself. We accept their judgment, and go about our business quietly till next time. Now if we were all Americans, acting under an intelligent sense of responsibility, everything might be expected to run smoothly under this regime; but the trouble is when the foreigner comes in who does not understand our institutions, who is, perhaps, ignorant, debased, and superstitious. But the foreigner is, it seems to me, the very man who needs this safety-valve of the election day more than any other on the face of the globe. We ourselves could run our own nationality; but here comes this man from the principalities of the old world—from Europe we will say, to begin with—and he has an idea that he is going to be richer, smarter, happier, more on an equality with every other man than ever he was before. He comes here, and what does he find? He finds a ladder, reaching higher into the clouds, perhaps, but the lower rounds are just as near the earth as over there, and he is on the lowest round still. He sees his next-door neighbor has more money than he has, is better educated, and commands the respect of the community, as he does not, and he is filled with disappointment, and sometimes with rage. What would he naturally do, with his old world antecedents and training, when he is thus aggrieved as he conceives himself to be? Why, burn your barn, break into your house, steal all he could from you. But what does election day do for him? On that day he is as good as anybody. He goes to the polls side by side with the first man in the land, and he rides in a carriage there, if he is too drunk to walk, and he can vote the first man in the line, if he chooses. The richest man in the country must walk behind him and wait for his turn. He drops his ballot and he is cooled off. He soon begins to get hold a little of this idea of responsibility that I am speaking of, and after a while it will come into his head—very slowly, perhaps, for we are all slow to learn these things—that he has got to work himself up and get on a par with those intelligent and influential people who are so powerful in making laws and customs.
Now, gentlemen, it seems to me if you could disfranchise every foreigner to-day who was not intelligent, or if you could make intelligence the test of voting, you would have ten barns burned where you have one now. I believe it firmly. Being naturally conservative, as I think all women are, a few years ago I really thought that ten, even twenty years' residence might be required of foreigners before they should be allowed to vote. I said they did not know enough, and so ought to be kept out as long as that. To-day I am inclined not to limit the time a moment longer than it is necessary for men to get their naturalization papers out, and go through the required legal formalities. If disfranchisement meant annihilation, selfishly, I might be glad to get rid of this troublesome question in that way, the task of ruling this country would then be a far easier one than it is; but it does not mean annihilation. So when gentlemen talk with me, and say we have too many voters already, I reply, do not disfranchise these men, enlighten them, for God has sent them here for a purpose of His own. And I say to you gentlemen the ballot in the hands of every man is the only thing that saves us from anarchy to-day, that keeps us alive as a republic—the ballot in the hands of these ignorant men, and the more ignorant they are the more they need it, and the more we need they should have it. And let me say, in passing, that reconstruction at the South is hindered to-day for the same reason, responsibility is taken away from a large class of citizens. A disfranchised class is always a restless class; a class that, if it be not as a whole given up to deeds of violence, will at least wink at them, when committed by men either in or out of its own ranks. What the South needs to-day is ballots, not bullets.
I leave out of the question the ultimate educating power of the ballot, though I would like to make you an argument upon that alone. But I say give the poor men, ignorant men the ballot for purposes of self-defense, and because we could not live in safety in our homes otherwise. New York is poorly governed, we say, to-day, and getting to be a pretty dangerous place to live in. But what would it be if every foreigner and every ignorant man could not go out on election day, and prove that he was as good as anybody? That is human nature, and it is human nature, and plenty of it too, that we have to deal with. And now, let me ask you, what are these men sent here for and who sent them? We have got all Europe, and all Asia is coming, and who sends them? When God put into that good ship Mayflower those two great ribs of oak, personal liberty and personal responsibility, He knew the precious freight she was to bear, and all the hopes bound up in her, and He pledged Himself by both the great eternities, the past and the future, that that ship should weather all storms and come safe to port with all she had on board. And what God has promised He will perform. So I beg of you not to think for a moment of limiting manhood suffrage.
And if men can not live in this country in safe homes, except their neighbor men are enfranchised, can they live without enfranchised women any more? If you can not live in safety with irresponsible men in your midst, how can you live with irresponsible women? Much more, how can you grow into the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus our Lord; how can you become perfect legislators, except your mothers are instructed on these great subjects you are called to legislate upon, that they may instruct you in their turn? You do not know anything so well as what your mothers have taught you; but they have not taught you political economy. It is not their fault that they have not, nor yours, perhaps. No man nor woman studies a subject profoundly except he or she is called upon to act upon it. What business man studies a business foreign to his own? What woman studies a business foreign to her own? In past ages this woman, in the providence of God, we will say, has been shut out from political action, for, so long as the sword ruled and man had to get his liberty by the sword, so long woman had all she could do to guard the home, for that was her part of the work; and she did it bravely and well, you will say. But now men are not fighting for their liberty with the gun by the door and the Indians outside. You are fighting for it in halls of legislation, with the spirit of truth—with spiritual weapons—and woman would be disloyal to her womanhood if she did not ask to share these heavy responsibilities with you. And she has really been training herself all these years she has seemed so indifferent; she has neglected her duty in part—I confess it freely—it is not your fault alone, gentlemen, that we are not with you to-day. If we had been as conscious of our duty and privilege years ago as we are to-day, if we had known our birthright, we should have stood by your side, welcome coadjutors, long since. So we will take the blame of the past alike—we have all been walking very slowly this path of Christian civilization. But in the greatest conflict of modern times, you announced great principles and fought for them on the field, and we stood by them in the home, and we stand by them still there. And when we come to deliberate with you in solemn council as to how these principles shall be carried into legislation, your task will be easier, our opportunities will be larger, and still our hearts will be where they have ever been—in our homes.
Forty-first Congress, 3d Session, House of Representatives, Report, No. 22, Jan. 30, 1871, recommitted to the Committee on Judiciary and ordered to be printed. Mr. Bingham, from the Committee on the Judiciary, made the following report.
The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the Memorial of Victoria C. Woodhull, having considered the same, make the following report:
The Memorialist asks the enactment of a law by Congress which shall secure to citizens of the United States in the several States the right to vote "without regard to sex." Since the adoption of the XIV. Amendment of the Constitution, there is no longer any reason to doubt that all persons, born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside, for that is the express declaration of the amendment.
The clause of the XIV. Amendment, "No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States," does not, in the opinion of the Committee, refer to privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States other than those privileges and immunities embraced in the original text of the Constitution, article IV., section 2. The XIV. Amendment, it is believed, did not add to the privileges or immunities before mentioned, but was deemed necessary for their enforcement, as an express limitation upon the powers of the States. It has been judicially determined that the first eight articles of amendment of the Constitution were not limitations on the power of the States, and it was apprehended that the same might be held of the provision of section 2, article iv.
To remedy this defect of the Constitution, the express limitations upon the States contained in the first section of the XIV. Amendment, together with the grant of power in Congress to enforce them by legislation, were incorporated in the Constitution. The words "citizens of the United States," and "citizens of the States," as employed in the XIV. Amendment, did not change or modify the relations of citizens of the State and Nation as they existed under the original Constitution.
Attorney-General Bates gave the opinion that the Constitution uses the the word "citizen," only to express the political quality of the individual in his relation to the Nation; to declare that he is a member of the body politic, and bound to it by the reciprocal obligation of allegiance on the one side and protection on the other. The phrase "a citizen of the United States," without addition or qualification, means neither more nor less than a member of the Nation. (Opinion of Attorney-General Bates on citizenship.)
The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that, according to the express words and clear meaning of the section 2, article iv. of the Constitution, no privileges are secured by it except those which belong to citizenship. (Connor et al. vs. Elliott et al., 18 Howard, 593). In Corfield vs. Coryell, 4 Washington Circuit Court Reports, 380, the Court say:
The inquiry is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are in their nature fundamental; which belong of right to the citizens of all free governments; and which have at all times been enjoyed by the citizens of the several States which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign. What these fundamental principles are would, perhaps, be more tedious than difficult to enumerate. They may, however, be all comprehended under the following general heads: Protection by the Government; the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety, subject, nevertheless, to such restraints as the Government may justly prescribe for the general good of the whole; the right of a citizen of one State to pass through or to reside in any other State, for the purpose of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; to claim the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the State; to take, hold, and dispose of property, either real or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by the other citizens of the State, may be mentioned as some of the particular privileges and immunities of citizens which are clearly embraced by the general description of privileges deemed to be fundamental; to which may be added the elective franchise, as regulated and established by the laws or Constitution of the State in which it is to be exercised.... But we can not accede to the proposition which was insisted on by the counsel, that under this provision of the Constitution, sec. 2, art. 4, the citizens of the several States are permitted to participate in all the rights which belong exclusively to the citizens of any other particular State.
The learned Justice Story declared that the intention of the clause—"the citizens of each State shall be entitled, to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States"—was to confer on the citizens of each State a general citizenship, and communicated all the privileges and immunities which a citizen of the same State would be entitled to under the circumstances. (Story on the Constitution, vol. 2, p. 605).
In the case of the Bank of the United States vs. Primrose, in the Supreme Court of the United States, Mr. Webster said:
That this article in the Constitution (art. 4, sec. 2) does not confer on the citizens of each State political rights in every other State, is admitted. A citizen of Pennsylvania can not go into Virginia and vote at any election in that State, though when he has acquired a residence in Virginia, and is otherwise qualified, is required by the Constitution (of Virginia), he becomes, without formal adoption as a citizen of Virginia, a citizen of that State politically. (Webster's Works, vol. 6, p. 112).
It must be obvious that Mr. Webster was of opinion that the privileges and immunities of citizens, guaranteed to them in the several States, did not include the privilege of the elective franchise otherwise than as secured by the State Constitution. For, after making the statement above quoted, that a citizen of Pennsylvania can not go into Virginia and vote, Mr. Webster adds, "but for the purposes of trade, commerce, buying and selling, it is evidently not in the power of any State to impose any hindrance or embarrassment, etc. upon citizens of other States, or to place them, going there, upon a different footing from her own citizens." (Ib.) The proposition is clear that no citizen of the United States can rightfully vote in any State of this Union who has not the qualifications required by the Constitution of the State in which the right is claimed to be exercised, except as to such conditions in the constitutions of such States as deny the right to vote to citizens resident therein "on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude."
The adoption of the XV. Amendment to the Constitution imposing these three limitations upon the power of the several States, was by necessary implication, a declaration that the States had the power to regulate by a uniform rule the conditions upon which the elective franchise should be exercised by citizens of the United States resident therein. The limitations specified in the XV. Amendment exclude the conclusion that a State of this Union, having a government republican in form, may not prescribe conditions upon which alone citizens may vote other than those prohibited. It can hardly be said that a State law which excludes from voting women citizens, minor citizens, and non-resident citizens of the United States, on account of sex, minority, or domicil, is a denial of the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
It may be further added that the 2d section of the XIV. Amendment, by the provision that "when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors of President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, or executive and judicial officers of the State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, a citizen of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State," implies that the several States may restrict the elective franchise as to other than male citizens. In disposing of this question effect must be given, if possible, to every provision of the Constitution. Article 1, section 2, of the Constitution provides:
That the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.
This provision has always been construed to vest in the several States the exclusive right to prescribe the qualifications of electors for the most numerous branch of the State Legislature, and therefore for Members of Congress. And this interpretation is supported by section 4, article 1, of the Constitution, which provides:
That the time, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations except as to the place of choosing Senators.
Now it is submitted, if it had been intended that Congress should prescribe the qualifications of electors, that the grant would have read: The Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, and also prescribe the qualifications of electors, etc. The power, on the contrary, is limited exclusively to the time, place, and manner, and does not extend to the qualification of the electors. This power to prescribe the qualification of electors in the several States has always been exercised, and is, to-day, by the several States of the Union; and we apprehend, until the Constitution shall be changed, will continue to be so exercised, subject only to express limitations imposed by the Constitution upon the several States, before noticed. We are of opinion, therefore, that it is not competent for the Congress of the United States to establish by law the right to vote without regard to sex in the several States of this Union, without the consent of the people of such States, and against their constitutions and laws; and that such legislation would be, in our judgment, a violation of the Constitution of the United States, and of the rights reserved to the States respectively by the Constitution. It is undoubtedly the right of the people of the several States so to reform their constitutions and laws as to secure the equal exercise of the right of suffrage at all elections held therein under the Constitution of the United States, to all citizens, without regard to sex; and as public opinion creates constitutions and governments in the several States, it is not to be doubted that whenever, in any State, the people are of opinion that such a reform is advisable, it will be made.
If however, as is claimed in the memorial referred to, the right to vote "is vested by the Constitution in the citizens of the United States without regard to sex," that right can be established in the courts without further legislation.
The suggestion is made that Congress, by a mere declaratory act, shall say that the construction claimed in the memorial is the true construction of the Constitution, or in other words, that by the Constitution of the United States the right to vote is vested in citizens of the United States "without regard to sex," anything in the constitution and laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding. In the opinion of the Committee, such declaratory act is not authorized by the Constitution nor within the legislative power of Congress. We therefore recommend the adoption of the following resolution:
Resolved, That the prayer of the petitioner be not granted, that the memorial be laid on the table, and that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from the further consideration of the subject.
Citizen is used by some newspaper writers with what seems like an affectation of the French usage of citoyen in the First Republic. For instance, "Gen. A. is a well-known citizen." "Several citizens carried the sufferer," etc. The writer might as well have said that the sufferer was carried off by several church members or several "Freemasons." Now mark, he says, that "a citizen is a person who has certain political rights, and the word is properly used only to imply or suggest the possession of those rights."
"It was declared in Corfield vs. Coryell, that the privileges and immunities conceded by the Constitution of the United States to citizens in the several States, were to be confined to those which were in their nature fundamental, and belonged of right to the citizens of all free governments. Such are the rights of protection of life and liberty, and to acquire and enjoy property, and to pay no higher impositions than other citizens, and to pass through or reside in the State at pleasure, and to enjoy the elective franchise according to the regulations of the law of the State" (2 Kent Com., p. 71).
"It is possible that those who framed the article were not themselves aware of the far-reaching character of its terms. They may have had in mind but one particular phase of social and political wrong, which they desired to redress. Yet, if the amendment, as framed and expressed, does, in fact, bear a broader meaning, and does extend its protecting shield over those who were never thought of when it was conceived and put in form, and does reach such social evils which were never before prohibited by Constitutional Amendment, it is to be presumed that the American people, in giving it their imprimatur, understood what they were doing, and meant to decree what has, in fact, been done.
"It embraces much more. The 'privileges and immunities' secured by the original Constitution were only such as each State gave to its own citizens. Each was prohibited from discriminating in favor of its own citizens, and against the citizens of other States.
"But the XIV. Amendment prohibits any State from abridging the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States, whether its own citizens or any others. It not merely requires equality of privileges, but it demands that the privileges and immunities of all citizens shall be absolutely unabridged, unimpaired."—Mrs. Bradwell's Legal News.
The inquiry is, what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States? We feel no hesitation in confining these expressions to those privileges and immunities which are in their nature fundamental; which belong of right to the citizens of all free governments; and which have at all times been enjoyed by the citizens of the several States which compose this Union, from the time of their becoming free, independent, and sovereign. What these fundamental principles are would, perhaps, be more tedious than difficult to enumerate. They may, however, be all comprehended under the following general heads: Protection by the Government; the enjoyment of life and liberty, with the right to acquire and possess property of every kind, and to pursue and obtain happiness and safety, subject, nevertheless, to such restraints as the Government may justly prescribe for the general good of the whole; the right of a citizen of one State to pass through or to reside in any other State, for the purpose of trade, agriculture, professional pursuits, or otherwise; to claim the benefit of the writ of habeas corpus; to institute and maintain actions of any kind in the courts of the State; to take, hold, and dispose of property, either real or personal; and an exemption from higher taxes or impositions than are paid by the other citizens of the State, may be mentioned as some of the particular privileges and immunities of citizens which are clearly embraced by the general description of privileges deemed to be fundamental; to which may be added the elective franchise, as regulated and established by the laws or Constitution of the State in which it is to be exercised.... But we can not accede to the proposition which was insisted on by the counsel, that under this provision of the Constitution, sec. 2, art. 4, the citizens of the several States are permitted to participate in all the rights which belong exclusively to the citizens of any other particular State.
That this article in the Constitution (art. 4, sec. 2) does not confer on the citizens of each State political rights in every other State, is admitted. A citizen of Pennsylvania can not go into Virginia and vote at any election in that State, though when he has acquired a residence in Virginia, and is otherwise qualified, is required by the Constitution (of Virginia), he becomes, without formal adoption as a citizen of Virginia, a citizen of that State politically. (Webster's Works, vol. 6, p. 112).
That the House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.
That the time, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof; but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations except as to the place of choosing Senators.
Resolved, That the prayer of the petitioner be not granted, that the memorial be laid on the table, and that the Committee on the Judiciary be discharged from the further consideration of the subject.
Forty-first Congress, 3d Session, House of Representatives, Report No. V., Part 2, Feb. 1, 1871, ordered to be printed.
Mr. Loughridge, from the Committee on the Judiciary, submitted the following as the view of the minority:
In the matter of the Memorial of Victoria C. Woodhull, referred by the House to the Committee on the Judiciary, the undersigned, members of the Committee, being unable to agree to the report of the Committee, present the following as their views upon the subject of the Memorial:
The memorialist sets forth that she is a native born citizen of the United States, and a resident thereof; that she is of adult age, and has resided in the State of New York for three years past; that by the Constitution of the United States she is guaranteed the right of suffrage; but that she is, by the laws of the State of New York, denied the exercise of that right; and that by the laws of different States and Territories the privilege of voting is denied to all the female citizens of the United States; and petitions for relief by the enactment of some law to enforce the provisions of the Constitution, by which such right is guaranteed.
The question presented is one of exceeding interest and importance, involving as it does the constitutional rights not only of the memorialist but of more than one-half of the citizens of the United States—a question of constitutional law in which the civil and natural rights of the citizen are involved. Questions of property or of expediency have nothing to do with it. The question is not "Would it be expedient to extend the right of suffrage to women," but, "Have women citizens that right by the Constitution as it is." A question of this kind should be met fairly and investigated in that generous and liberal spirit characteristic of the age, and decided upon principles of justice, of right, and of law.
It is claimed by many that to concede to woman the right of suffrage would be an innovation upon the laws of nature, and upon the theory and practice of the world for ages in the past, and especially an innovation upon the common law of England, which was originally the law of this country, and which is the foundation of our legal fabric. If we were to admit the truth of this, it is yet no argument against the proposition, if the right claimed exists, and is established by the Constitution of the United States. The question is to be decided by the Constitution and the fundamental principles of our Government, and not by the usage and dogmas of the past. It is a gratifying fact that the world is advancing in political science, and gradually adopting more liberal and rational theories of government. The establishment of this Government upon the principles of the Declaration of Independence was in itself a great innovation upon the theories and practice of the world, and opened a new chapter in the history of the human race, and its progress toward perfect civil and political liberty.
But it is not admitted that the universal usage of the past has been in opposition to the exercise of political power by women. The highest positions of civil power have from time to time been filled by women in all ages of the world, and the question of the right of woman to a voice in government is not a new one by any means, but has been agitated, and the right acknowledged and exercised, in governments far less free and liberal than ours. In the Roman Republic, during its long and glorious career, women occupied a higher position, as to political rights and privileges, than in any other contemporaneous government. In England unmarried women have, by the laws of that country, always been competent to vote and to hold civil offices, if qualified in other respects; at least such is the weight of authority. In "Callis upon Sewers," an old English work, will be found a discussion of the question as to the right of women to hold office in England. The learned and distinguished author uses the following language:
And for temporal governments I have observed women to have from time to time been admitted to the highest places; for in ancient Roman histories I find Eudocia and Theodora admitted at several times into the sole government of the empire; and here in England our late famous Queen Elizabeth, whose government was most renowned; and Semiramis governed Syria; and the Queen of the South, who came to visit Solomon, for anything that appears to the contrary, was a sole queen; and to fall a degree lower, we have precedents that King Richard the First and King Henry the Fifth appointed by commissions their mothers to be regents of this realm in their absence in France.
But yet I will descend a step lower; and doth not our law, temporal and spiritual, admit of women to be executrixes and administratrixes? And thereby they have the rule or ordering of great estates, and many times they are guardianesses in chivalry, and have hereby also the government of many great heirs in the kingdom and of their own estates.
So by these cases it appeareth that the common law of this kingdom submitted many things to their government; yet the statute of justices of the peace is like to Jethro's counsel to Moses, for there they speak of men to be justices, and thereby seemeth to exclude women; but our statute of sewers is, "Commission of sewers shall be granted by the King to such person and persons as the lords should appoint." So the word persons stands indifferently for either sex. I am of the opinion, for the authorities, reasons and causes aforesaid, that this honorable countess being put into the commission of the sewers, the same is warrantable by the law; and the ordinances and decrees made by her and the other commissions of sewers are not to be impeached for that cause of her sex.
And it is said by a recent writer:
Even at present in England the idea of women holding official station is not so strange as in the United States. The Countess of Pembroke had the office of sheriff of Westmoreland and exercised it in person. At the assizes she sat with the judges on the bench. In a reported case it is stated by counsel and assented to by the court that a woman is capable of serving in almost all the offices of the kingdom.
As to the right of women to vote by the common law of England, the authorities are clear. In the English Law Magazine for 1868-'69, vol. 26, page 120, will be found reported the case of the application of Jane Allen, who claimed to be entered upon the list of voters of the Parish of St. Giles, under the reform act of 1867, which act provides as follows: Every man shall, in and after the year 1868, be entitled to be registered as a voter, and when registered to vote for a member or members to serve in Parliament, who is qualified as follows: 1st. Is of full age and not subject to any legal incapacity, etc., etc. It was decided by the court that the claimant had the right to be registered and to vote; that by the English law, the term man, as used in that statute, included woman. In that case the common law of England upon that question was fully and ably reviewed, and we may be excused for quoting at some length:
And as to what has been said of there being no such adjudged cases, I must say that it is perfectly clear that not perhaps in either of three cases reported by Mr. Shaen, but in those of Catharine vs. Surry, Coates vs. Lyle, and Holt vs. Lyle, three cases of somewhat greater antiquity, the right of women freeholders was allowed by the courts. These three cases were decided by the judges in the reign of James I. (A. D. 1612). Although no printed report of them exists, I find that in the case of Olive vs. Ingraham, they were repeatedly cited by the lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench in the course of four great arguments in that case, the case being reargued three times (7 Mod., 264), and the greatest respect was manifested by the whole court for those precedents. Their importance is all the greater when we consider what the matter was upon which King James' judges sitting in Westminster Hall had to decide. It was not simply the case of a mere occupier, inhabitant, or scot or lot voter. Therefore the question did not turn upon the purport of a special custom, or a charter, or a local act of Parliament, or even of the common right in this or that borough. But it was that very matter and question which has been mooted in the dictum of Lord Coke, the freeholder's franchise in the shire, and upon that the decision in each case expressly was, that a feme sole shall vote if she hath a freehold, and that if she be not a feme sole, but a feme covert having freehold, then her husband during her coverture shall vote in her right. These, then, are so many express decisions which at once displace Lord Coke's unsupported assertion and declare the law so as to constrain my judgment. It is sometimes said, when reference is made to precedents of this kind, that they have never been approved by the bar. But that can not be said of these. Hakewell, the contemporary of Lord Coke and one of the greatest of all parliamentary lawyers then living—for even Selden and Granvil were not greater than Hakewell—left behind him the manuscript to which I have referred, with his comments on those cases.
Sir William Lee, Chief Justice, in his judgment in the case of Olive vs. Ingraham, expressly says that he had perused them, and that they contained the expression of Hakewell's entire approval of the principles upon which they were decided, and of the results deduced; and we have the statement of Lord Chief Justice Lee, who had carefully examined those cases, that in the case of Holt vs. Lyle, it was determined that a feme sole freeholder may claim a vote for Parliament men; but if married, her husband must vote for her. In the case of Olive vs. Ingraham, Justice Probyn says:
The case of Holt vs. Lyle, lately mentioned by our Lord Chief Justice, is a very strong case; "They who pay ought to choose whom they shall pay." And the Lord Chief Justice seemed to have assented to that general proposition, as authority for the correlative proposition, that "women, when sole, had a right to vote." At all events, there is here the strongest possible evidence that in the reign of James I., the feme sole, being a freeholder of a country, or what is the same thing, of a county, of a city, or town, or borough, where, of custom, freeholders had the right to vote, not only had, but exercised the parliamentary franchise. If married, she could not vote in respect merely of her freehold, not because of the incapacities of coverture, but for this simple reason, that, by the act of marriage, which is an act of law, the title of the feme sole freeholder becomes vested for life in the husband. The qualification to vote was not personal, but real; consequently, her right to vote became suspended as soon and for as long as she was married. I am bound to consider that the question as to what weight is due to the dictum of my Lord Coke is entirely disposed of by those cases from the reign of James I. and George II., and that the authority of the latter is unimpeached by any later authority, as the cases of Rex. vs. Stubles, and Regina vs. Aberavon, abundantly show.
In Anstey's Notes on the New Reform Act of 1867, the authorities and precedents upon the right of women to vote in England are examined and summed up, and the author concludes:
It is submitted that the weight of authority is very greatly in favor of the female right of suffrage. Indeed, the authority against it is contained in the short and hasty dictum of Lord Coke, referred to above. It was set down by him in his last and least authoritative institute, and it is certain that he has been followed neither by the great lawyers of his time nor by the judicature. The principles of the law in relation to the suffrage of females will be found in Coates vs. Lyle, Holt vs. Ingraham, and The King vs. Stubles, cases decided under the strict rules for the construction of statutes.
It can not be questioned that from time whereof the memory of man runneth not to the contrary, unmarried women have been by the laws of England competent voters, subject to the freehold qualification which applied alike to men and women. Married women could not vote because they were not freeholders; by the common law their property upon marriage became vested in the husband. So that it appears that the admission of woman to participation in the affairs of government would not be so much of an innovation upon the theories and usage of the past as is by some supposed.
In England the theory was that in property representation, all property should be represented. Here the theory is that of personal representation, which of course, if carried out fully, includes the representation of all property. In England, as we have seen, the owner of the property, whether male or female was entitled to representation, no distinction being made on account of sex. If the doctrine contended for by the majority of the committee be correct, then this Government is less liberal upon this question than the government of England has been for hundreds of years, for there is in this country a large class of citizens of adult age, and owners in their own right of large amounts of property, and who pay a large proportion of the taxes to support the Government, who are denied any representation whatever, either for themselves or their property—unmarried women, of whom it can not be said that their interests are represented by their husbands. In their case, neither the English nor the American theory of representation is carried out, and this utter denial of representation is justified upon the ground alone that this class of citizens are women. Surely we can not be so much less liberal than our English ancestors! Surely the Constitution of this Republic does not sanction an injustice so indefensible as that!
By the XIV. Amendment of the Constitution of the United States, what constitutes citizenship of the United States, is for the first time declared, and who are included by the term citizen. Upon this question, before that time, there had been much discussion judicial, political, and general, and no distinct and definite definition of qualification had been settled. The people of the United States determined this question by the XIV. Amendment to the Constitution, which declares that—
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.
This amendment, after declaring who are citizens of the United States, and thus fixing but one grade of citizenship, which insures to all citizens alike all the privileges, immunities and rights which accrue to that condition, goes on in the same section and prohibits these privileges and immunities from abridgment by the States. Whatever these "privileges and immunities" are, they attach to the female citizen equally with the male. It is implied by this amendment that they are inherent, that they belong to citizenship as such, for they are not therein specified or enumerated.
The majority of the committee hold that the privileges guaranteed by the XIV. Amendment do not refer to any other than the privilege embraced in section 2, of article 4, of the original text. The committee certainly did not duly consider this unjustified statement. Section 2, of article 4, provides for the privileges of "citizens of the States," while the first section of the XIV. Amendment protects the privileges of "citizens of the United States." The term citizens of the States and citizens of the United States are by no means convertible.
A circuit court of the United States seems to hold a different view of this question from that stated by the committee. In the case of The Live Stock Association vs. Crescent City (1st Abbott, 396), Justice Bradley, of the Supreme Court of the United States, delivering the opinion, uses the following language in relation to the first clause of the XIV. Amendment:
The new prohibition that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" is not identical with the clause in the Constitution which declared that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." It embraces much more. It is possible that those who framed the article were not themselves aware of the far-reaching character of its terms, yet if the amendment does in fact bear a broader meaning, and does extend its protecting shield over those who were never thought of when it was conceived and put in form, and does reach social evils which were never before prohibited by constitutional enactment, it is to be presumed that the American people, in giving it their imprimatur, understood what they were doing and meant to decree what in fact they have decreed. The "privileges and immunities" secured by the original Constitution were only such as each State gave to its own citizens, ... but the XIV. Amendment prohibits any State from abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, whether its own citizens or any others. It not merely requires equality of privileges, but it demands that the privileges and immunities of all citizens shall be absolutely unabridged and unimpaired.
In the same opinion, after enumerating some "privileges" of the citizens, such as were pertinent to the case on trial, but declining to enumerate all, the Court further says:
These privileges can not be invaded without sapping the foundation of Republican government. A Republican government is not merely a government of the people, but it is a free government.... It was very ably contended on the part of the defendants that the XIV. Amendment was intended only to secure to all citizens equal capacities before the law. That was at first our view of it. But it does not so read. The language is, "No State shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." What are the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the United States? Are they capacities merely? Are they not also rights?
The Court in this seems to intimate very strongly that the amendment was intended to secure the natural rights of citizens, as well as their equal capacities before the law.
In a case in the Supreme Court of Georgia, in 1869, the question was before the court whether a negro was competent to hold office in the State of Georgia. The case was ably argued on both sides, Mr. Akerman, the present Attorney General of the United States, being of counsel for the petitioner. Although the point was made and argued fully, that the right to vote and hold office were both included in the privileges and immunities of citizens, and were thus guaranteed by the XIV. Amendment, yet that point was not directly passed upon by the court, the court holding that under the laws and constitution of Georgia, the negro citizen had the right claimed. In delivering the opinion, Chief Justice Brown said:
It is necessary to the decision of this case to inquire what are the "privileges and immunities" of a citizen, which are guaranteed by the XIV. Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Whatever they may be, they are protected against all abridgment by legislation.... Whether the "privileges and immunities" of the citizens embrace political rights, including the right to hold office, I need not now inquire. If they do, that right is guaranteed alike by the Constitution of the United States and of Georgia, and is beyond the control of the legislature.
In the opinion of Justice McKay, among other propositions, he lays down the following:
2d. The rights of the people of this State, white and black, are not granted to them by the constitution thereof; the object and effect of that instrument is not to give, but to restrain, deny, regulate and guarantee rights, and all persons recognized by that constitution as citizens of the State have equal, legal and political rights except as otherwise expressly declared.
3d. It is the settled and uniform sense of the word "citizen," when used in reference to the citizens of the separate States of the United States, and to their rights as such citizens, that it describes a person entitled to every right, legal and political, enjoyed by any person in that State, unless there he some express exceptions made by positive law covering the particular persons, whose rights are in question.
In the course of the argument of this case, Mr. Akerman used the following language upon the point, as to whether citizenship carried with it the right to hold office:
It may be profitable to inquire how the term (citizen) has been understood in Georgia.... It will be seen that men whom Georgians have been accustomed to revere believed that citizenship in Georgia carried with it the right to hold office in the absence of positive restrictions.
The majority of the committee having started out with the erroneous hypothesis that the term "privileges of citizens of the United States," as used in the XIV. Amendment, means no more than the term "privileges of citizens," as used in section 2 of article 4, discuss the question thus:
The right of suffrage was not included in the privileges of citizens as used in section 2, article 4, therefore that right is not included in the privileges of citizens of the United States, as used in the XIV. Amendment.
Their premise being erroneous their whole argument fails. But if they were correct in their premise, we yet claim that their second position is not sustained by the authorities, and is shown to be fallacious by a consideration of the principles of free government. We claim that from the very nature of our Government, the right of suffrage is a fundamental right of citizenship, not only included in the term "privileges of citizens of the United States," as used in the XIV. Amendment, but also included in the term as used in section 2, of article 4, and in this we claim we are sustained both by the authorities and by reason. In Abbott vs. Bayley, (6 Pick., 92,) the Supreme Court of Massachusetts says:
"The privileges and immunities" secured to the people of each State, in every other State, can be applied only to the case of a removal from one State into another. By such removal they become citizens of the adopted State without naturalization, and have a right to sue and be sued as citizens; and yet this privilege is qualified and not absolute, for they can not enjoy the right of suffrage or eligibility to office without such term of residence as shall be prescribed by the constitution and laws of the State into which they shall remove.
This case fully recognizes the right of suffrage as one of the "privileges of the citizen," subject to the right of the State to regulate as to the term of residence—the same principle was laid down in the case of Corfield vs. Coryell in the Supreme Court of the United States. Justice Washington, in delivering the opinion of the court, used the following language:
"The privileges and immunities conceded by the Constitution of the United States to citizens in the several States," are to be confined to those which are in their nature fundamental, and belong of right to the citizens of all free governments. Such are the rights of protection of life and liberty, and to acquire and enjoy property, and to pay no higher impositions than other citizens, and to pass through or reside in the State at pleasure, and to enjoy the elective franchise as regulated and established by the laws or constitution of the State in which it is to be exercised.
And this is cited approvingly by Chancellor Kent. (2 Kent, sec. 72).
This case is cited by the majority of the Committee, as sustaining their view of the law, but we are unable so to understand it. It is for them an exceedingly unfortunate citation.
In that case the court enumerated some of the "privileges of citizens," such as are "in their nature fundamental and belong of right to the citizens of all free governments" (mark the language), and among those rights, place the "right of the elective franchise" in the same category with those great rights of life, liberty, and property. And yet the Committee cite this case to show that this right is not a fundamental right of the citizen! But it is added by the Court that the right of the elective franchise "is to be enjoyed as regulated and established by the State in which it is to be exercised." These words are supposed to qualify the right, or rather take it out of the list of fundamental rights, where the Court had just placed it. The Court is made to say by this attempt in the same sentence, "the elective franchise is a fundamental right of the citizen, and it is not a fundamental right." It is a "fundamental right," provided the State sees fit to grant the right. It is a "fundamental right of the citizen," but it does not exist, unless the laws of the State give it. A singular species of "fundamental rights!" Is there not a clear distinction between the regulation of a right and its destruction? The State may regulate the right, but it may not destroy it.
What is the meaning of "regulate" and "establish?" Webster says: Regulate—to put in good order. Establish—to make stable or firm. This decision then is, that "the elective franchise is a fundamental right of the citizen of all free governments, to be enjoyed by the citizen, under such laws as the State may enact to regulate the right and make it stable or firm." Chancellor Kent, in the section referred to, in giving the substance of this opinion, leaves out the word establish, regarding the word regulate as sufficiently giving the meaning of the Court. This case is, in our opinion, a very strong one against the theory of the majority of the Committee.
The Committee cite the language of Mr. Webster, as counsel in United States vs. Primrose. We indorse every word in that extract. We do not claim that a citizen of Pennsylvania can go into Virginia and vote in Virginia, being a citizen of Pennsylvania. No person has ever contended for such an absurdity. We claim that when the citizen of the United States becomes a citizen of Virginia, the State of Virginia has neither right nor power to abridge the privileges of such citizen by denying him entirely the right of suffrage, and thus all political rights. The authorities cited by the majority of the Committee do not seem to meet the case—certainly do not sustain their theory.
The case of Cooper vs. The Mayor of Savannah (4 Geo., 72), involved the question whether a free negro was a citizen of the United States? The Court, in the opinion, says:
Free persons of color have never been recognized as citizens of Georgia; they are not entitled to bear arms, vote for members of the legislature, or hold any civil office; they have no political rights, but have personal rights, one of which is personal liberty.
That they could not vote, hold office, etc., was held evidence that they were not regarded as citizens.
In the Supreme Court of the United States, in the case of Scott vs. Sanford (19 Howard, p. 476), Mr. Justice Daniel, in delivering his opinion, used the following language as to the rights and qualities of citizenship:
For who it may be asked is a citizen? What do the character and status of citizens import? Without fear of contradiction, it does not import the condition of being private property, the subject of individual power and ownership. Upon a principle of etymology alone, the term citizen, as derived from civitas, conveys the idea of connection or identification with the State or government, and a participation in its functions. But beyond this there is not, it is believed, to be found, in the theories of writers on government, or in any actual experiment heretofore tried, an exposition of the term citizen which has not been understood as conferring the actual possession and enjoyment, or the perfect right of acquisition and enjoyment, of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political.
And in the same case Chief Justice Taney said: "The words 'people of the United States' and 'citizens' are synonymous terms, and mean the same thing; they both describe the political body, who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are what we familiarly call the sovereign people, and every citizen is one of this people, and a constituent member of this sovereignty." (19 Howard, 404).
In an important case in the Supreme Court of the United States, Chief Justice Jay, in delivering the opinion of the Court, said: "At the Revolution the sovereignty devolved on the people, and they are truly the sovereigns of the country, but they are sovereigns without subjects (unless the African slaves may be so called), and have none to govern but themselves. The citizens of America are equal as fellow-citizens, and joint tenants of the sovereignty." (Chishol vs. Georgia, 2 Dallas, 470).
In Conner vs. Elliott (18 Howard), Justice Curtis, in declining to give an enumeration of all the "privileges" of the citizen, said, "According to the express words and clear meaning of the clause, no privileges are secured except those that belong to citizenship."
The Supreme Court said, in Corfield vs. Coryell, that the elective franchise is such privilege; therefore, according to Justice Curtis, it belongs to citizenship. In a case in the Supreme Court of Kentucky (1 Littell's Ky. Reports, p. 333), the Court say:
No one can, therefore, in the correct sense of the term, be a citizen of a State who is not entitled upon the terms prescribed by the institutions of the State to all the rights and privileges conferred by these institutions upon the highest class of society.
Mr. Wirt, when Attorney-General of the United States, in an official opinion to be found on p. 508, 1st volume Opinions of Attorney-Generals, came to the conclusion that the negroes were not citizens of the United States, for the reason that they had very few of the "privileges" of citizens, and among the "privileges of citizens" of which they were deprived, that they could not vote at any election.
Webster defines a citizen to be "a person, native or naturalized, who has the privilege of voting for public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the people." Worcester defines the word thus: "An inhabitant of a republic who enjoys the rights of a citizen or freeman, and who has a right to vote for public officers as a citizen of the United States." Bouvier, in his Law Dictionary, defines the term citizen: "One who, under the Constitution and laws of the United States, has a right to vote for Representatives in Congress and other public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the people." Aristotle defines a citizen to be "one who is a partner in the legislative and judicial power, and who shares in the honors of the State." (Aristotle de Repub., lib. 3, cap. 5, D.) The essential properties of Athenian citizenship consisted in the share possessed by every citizen in the legislature, in the election of magistrates, and in the courts of justice. (See Smith's Dictionary of Greek Antiquities, p. 289). The possession of the jus suffragii, at least, if not also of the jus honorum, is the principle which governs at this day in defining citizenship in the countries deriving their jurisprudence from the civil law. (Wheaton's International Law, p. 892).
The Dutch publicist, Thorbecke, says:
What constitutes the distinctive character of our epoch is the development of the right of citizenship. In its most extended, as well as its most restricted sense, it includes a great many properties. The right of citizenship is the right of voting in the government of the local, provincial, or national community of which one is a member. In this last sense, the right of citizenship signifies a participation in the right of voting, in the general government, as member of the State. (Rev. & Fr. Etr., tom. v, p. 383).
In a recent work of some research, written in opposition to female suffrage, the author takes the ground that women are not citizens, and urges that as a reason why they can properly be denied the elective franchise, his theory being that if full citizens they would be entitled to the ballot. He uses the following language:
It is a question about which there may be some diversity of opinion, what constitutes citizenship or who are citizens. In a loose and improper sense the word citizen is sometimes used to denote any inhabitant of the country, but this is not a correct use of the word. Those, and no others, are properly citizens who were parties to the original compact by which the government was formed, or their successors who are qualified to take part in the affairs of government by their votes in the election of public officers. Women and children are represented by their domestic directors or heads in whose wills theirs is supposed to be included. They, as well as others not entitled to vote, are not properly citizens, but are members of the State, fully entitled to the protection of its laws. A citizen, then, is a person entitled to vote in the elections. He is one of those in whom the sovereign power of the State resides. (Jones on Suffrage, p. 48.)
But all such fallacious theories as this are swept away by the XIV. Amendment, which abolishes the theory of different grades of citizenship, or different grades of rights and privileges, and declares all persons born in the country or naturalized in it to be citizens, in the broadest and fullest sense of the term, leaving no room for cavil, and guaranteeing to all citizens the rights and privileges of citizens of the republic. We think we are justified in saying that the weight of authority sustains us in the view we take of this question. But considering the nature of it, it is a question depending much for its solution upon a consideration of the government under which citizenship is claimed. Citizenship in Turkey or Russia is essentially different in its rights and privileges from citizenship in the United States. In the former, citizenship means no more than the right to the protection of his absolute rights, and the "citizen" is a subject; nothing more. Here, in the language of Chief Justice Jay, there are no subjects. All, native-born and naturalized, are citizens of the highest class; here all citizens are sovereigns, each citizen bearing a portion of the supreme sovereignty, and therefore it must necessarily be that the right to a voice in the Government is the right and privilege of a citizen as such, and that which is undefined in the Constitution is undefined because it is self-evident.
Could a State disfranchise and deprive of the right to a vote all citizens who have red hair; or all citizens under six feet in height? All will consent that the States could not make such arbitrary distinctions the ground for denial of political privileges; that it would be a violation of the first article of the XIV. Amendment; that it would be abridging the privileges of citizens. And yet the denial of the elective franchise to citizens on account of sex is equally as arbitrary as the distinction on account of stature, or color of hair, or any other physical distinction. These privileges of the citizen exist independent of the Constitution. They are not derived from the Constitution or the laws, but are the means of asserting and protecting rights that existed before any civil governments were formed—the right of life, liberty and property. Says Paine, in his Dissertation upon the Principles of Government:
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right, by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce man to a state of slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another; and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is, in this case. The proposal, therefore, to disfranchise any class of men is as criminal as the proposal to take away property.
In a state of nature, before governments were formed, each person possessed a natural right to defend his liberty, his life and his property from the aggressions of his fellow men. When he enters into the free government he does not surrender that right, but agrees to exercise it, not by brute force, but by the ballot, by his individual voice in making the laws that dispose of, control and regulate those rights. The right to a voice in the government is but the natural right of protection of one's life, liberty and property, by personal strength and brute force, so modified as to be exercised in the form of a vote, through the machinery of a free government. The right of self-protection, it will not be denied, exists in all equally in a state of nature, and the substitute for it exists equally in all the citizens after a free government is formed, for the free government is by all and for all.
The people "ordained and established" the Constitution. Such is the preamble. "We, the people." Can it be said that the people acquire their privileges from the instrument that they themselves establish? Does the creature extend rights, privileges and immunities to the creator? No; the people retain all the rights which they have not surrendered; and if the people have not given to the Government the power to deprive them of their elective franchise, they possess it by virtue of citizenship. The true theory of this Government, and of all free governments, was laid down by our fathers in the Declaration of Independence, and declared to be "self-evident." "All men are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. That to secure these rights governments are instituted among men, deriving all their just powers from the consent of the governed." Here is the great truth, the vital principle, upon which our Government is founded, and which demonstrates that the right of a voice in the conduct of the government, and the selection of the rulers, is a right and privilege of all citizens. Another of the self-evident truths laid down in that instrument is:
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
How can the people carry out this right without the exercise of the ballot; and is not the ballot then a fundamental right and privilege of the citizen, not given to him by the Constitution, but inherent, as a necessity, from the very nature of the government?
Benjamin Franklin wrote:
That every man of the commonalty, except infants, insane persons, and criminals, is, of common right, and by the laws of God, a freeman, and entitled to the free enjoyment of liberty. That liberty or freedom consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who frame the laws, and who are to be the guardians of every man; life, property, and peace; for the all of one man is as dear to him as the all of another, and the poor man has an equal right but more need to have representatives in the legislature than the rich one. That they who have no voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes and to their representatives; for, to be enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and be subject to laws made by the representatives of others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf. (Franklin's Works, vol. 2. p. 372.)
James Madison said:
Under every view of the subject it seems indispensable that the mass of the citizens should not be without a voice in making the laws which they are to obey, and in choosing the magistrates who are to administer them. (Madison Papers, vol. 3, p. 14.)
Taxation without representation is abhorrent to every principle of natural or civil liberty. It was this injustice that drove our fathers into revolution against the mother country.
The very act of taxing exercised over those who are not represented appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights as freemen, and if continued, seems to be, in effect, an entire disfranchisement of every civil right. For what one civil right is worth a rush after a man's property is subject to be taken from him at pleasure without his consent? If a man is not his own assessor, in person or by deputy, his liberty is gone, or he is entirely at the mercy of others. (Otis's Rights of the Colonies, p. 58.)
Nor are these principles original with the people of this country. Long before they were ever uttered on this continent they were declared by Englishmen. Said Lord Summers, a truly great lawyer of England:
Amongst all the rights and privileges appertaining unto us, that of having a share in the legislation, and being governed by such laws as we ourselves shall cause, is the most fundamental and essential, as well as the most advantageous and beneficial.
Said the learned and profound Hooker:
By the natural law whereunto Almighty God hath made all subject, the lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men, belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same of himself (or themselves), and not either by express commission immediately received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny! Agreeable to the same just privileges of natural equity, is that maxim for the English constitution, that "Law to bind all must be assented to by all"; and there can be no legal appearance of assent without some degree of representation.
The great champion of liberty, Granville Sharpe, declared that—
All British subjects, whether in Great Britain, Ireland, or the colonies, are equally free by the laws of nature; they certainly are equally entitled to the same natural rights that are essential for their own preservation, because this privilege of "having a share in the legislation" is not merely a British right, peculiar to this island, but it is also a natural right, which can not without the most flagrant and stimulating injustice be withdrawn from any part of the British empire by any worldly authority whatsoever. No tax can be levied without manifest robbery and injustice where this legal and constitutional representation is wanting, because the English law abhors the idea of taking the least property from freemen without their consent. It is iniquitous (iniquum est, says the maxim) that freemen should not have the free disposal of their own effects, and whatever is iniquitous can never be made lawful by any authority on earth, not even by the united authority of king, lords, and commons, for that would be contrary to the eternal laws of God, which are supreme.
In an essay upon the "first principles of government," by Priestly, an English writer of great ability, written over a century since, is the following definition of political liberty:
Political liberty I would say, consists in power, which the members of the State reserve to themselves, of arriving at the public offices, or at least of having votes in the nomination of those who fill them. In countries where every member of the society enjoys an equal power of arriving at the supreme offices, and consequently of directing the strength and sentiments of the whole community, there is a state of the most perfect political liberty.
On the other hand, in countries where a man is excluded from these offices, or from the power of voting for the proper persons to fill them, that man, whatever be the form of the government, has no share in the government and therefore has no political liberty at all. And since every man retains and can never be deprived of his natural right of relieving himself from all oppression, that is, from everything that has been imposed upon him without his own consent, this must be the only true and proper foundation of all governments subsisting in the world, and that to which the people who compose them have an inalienable right to bring them back.
It was from these great champions of liberty in England that our forefathers received their inspiration and the principles which they adopted, incorporated into the Declaration of Independence, and made the foundation and framework of our Government. And yet it is claimed that we have a Government which tramples upon these elementary principles of political liberty, in denying to one-half its adult citizens all political liberty, and subjecting them to the tyranny of taxation without representation. It can not be.
When we desire to construe the Constitution, or to ascertain the powers of the Government and the rights of the citizens, it is legitimate and necessary to recur to those principles and make them the guide in such investigation. It is an oft-repeated maxim set forth in the bills of rights of many of the State constitutions that "the frequent recurrence to fundamental principles is necessary for the preservation of liberty and good government." Recurring to these principles, so plain, so natural, so like political axioms, it would seem that to say that one-half the citizens of this republican government, simply and only on account of their sex, can legally be denied the right to a voice in the government, the laws of which they are held to obey, and which takes from them their property by taxation, is so flagrantly in opposition to the principles of free government, and the theory of political liberty, that no man could seriously advocate it.
But it is said in opposition to the "citizen's right" of suffrage that at the time of the establishment of the Constitution, women were in all the States denied the right of voting, and that no one claimed at the time that the Constitution of the United States would change their status; that if such a change was intended it would have been explicitly declared in the Constitution or at least carried into practice by those who framed the Constitution, and, therefore, such a construction of it is against what must have been the intention of the framers. This is a very unsafe rule of construction. As has been said, the Constitution necessarily deals in general principles; these principles are to be carried out to their legitimate conclusion and result by legislation, and we are to judge of the intention of those who established the Constitution by what they say, guided by what they declare on the face of the instrument to be their object.
It is said by Judge Story, in Story on the Constitution:
Contemporary construction is properly resorted to to illustrate and confirm the text.... It can never abrogate the text; it can never fritter away its obvious sense; it can never narrow down its true limitations.
It is a well-settled rule that in the construction of the Constitution, the objects for which it was established, being expressed in the instrument, should have great influence; and when words and phrases are used which are capable of different constructions, that construction should be given which is the most consonant with the declared objects of the instrument. We go to the preamble to ascertain the objects and purpose of the instrument. Webster defines preamble thus: "The introductory part of a statute, which states the reason and intent of the law." In the preamble, then, more certainly than in any other way, aside from the language of the instrument, we find the intent. Judge Story says:
The importance of examining the preamble for the purpose of expounding the language of a statute has been long felt and universally conceded in all juridical discussion. It is an admitted maxim ... that the preamble is a key to open the mind of the matters as to the mischiefs to be remedied and the objects to be accomplished by the statute.... It is properly resorted to where doubts or ambiguities arise upon the words of the enacting part, for if they are clear and unambiguous, there seems little room for interpretation, except in cases leading to an obvious absurdity or a direct overthrow of the intention expressed in the preamble. [Story on the Constitution, sec. 457.]
Try this question by a consideration of the objects for which the Constitution was established, as set forth in the preamble, "to establish justice." Does it establish justice to deprive of all representation or voice in the Government one-half of its adult citizens, and compel them to pay taxes to and support a government in which they have no representation? Is "taxation without representation" justice established? "To insure domestic tranquillity." Does it insure domestic tranquillity to give all the political power to one class of citizens, and deprive another class of any participation in the government? No. The sure means of tranquillity is to give "equal political rights to all," that all may stand "equal before the law."
"To provide for the common defense." We have seen that the only defense the citizen has against oppression and wrong is by his voice and vote in the selection of rulers and law makers. Does it, then, "provide for the common defense," to deny to one half the adult citizens of the republic that voice and vote?
"To secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity." As has been already said, there can be no political liberty to any citizen deprived of a voice in the government. This is self-evident; it needs no demonstration. Does it, then, "secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," to deprive one half the citizens of adult age of this right and privilege?
Tried by the expressed objects for which the Constitution was established, as declared by the people themselves, this denial to the women citizens of the country of the right and privilege of voting is directly in contravention of these objects, and must, therefore, be contrary to the spirit and letter of the entire instrument. And according to the rule of construction referred to, no "contemporaneous construction, however universal it may be, can be allowed to set aside the expressed objects of the makers, as declared in the instrument." The construction which we claim for the 1st section of the XIV. Amendment, is in perfect accord with those expressed objects; and even if there were anything in the original text of the Constitution at variance with the true construction of that section, the amendment must control. Yet we believe that there is nothing in the original text at variance with what we claim to be the true construction of the amendment.
It is claimed by the majority of the committee that the adoption of the XV. Amendment was by necessary implication a declaration that the States had the power to deny the right of suffrage to citizens for any other reasons than those of race, color, or previous condition of servitude. We deny that the fundamental rights of the American citizen can be taken away by "implication." There is no such law for the construction of the Constitution of our country. The law is the reverse—that the fundamental rights of citizens are not to be taken away by implication, and a constitutional provision for the protection of one class can certainly not be used to destroy or impair the same rights in another class. It is too violent a construction of an amendment, which prohibits States from, or the United States from, abridging the right of a citizen to vote by reason of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, to say that by implication it conceded to the States the power to deny that right for any other reason. On that theory the States could confine the right of suffrage to a small minority, and make the State governments aristocratic, overthrowing their republican form. The XV. Article of Amendment to the Constitution clearly recognizes the right to vote, as one of the rights of a citizen of the United States. This is the language:
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
Here is stated, first, the existence of a right. Second, its nature. Whose right is it? The right of citizens of the United States. What is the right? The right to vote. And this right of citizens of the United States, States are forbidden to abridge. Can there be a more direct recognition of a right? Can that be abridged which does not exist? The denial of the power to abridge the right, recognizes the existence of the right. Is it said that this right exists by virtue of State citizenship, and State laws and Constitutions? Mark the language: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote;" not citizens of States. The right is recognized as existing independent of State citizenship.
But it may be said, if the States had no power to abridge the right of suffrage, why the necessity of prohibiting them? There may not have been a necessity; it may have been done through caution, and because the peculiar condition of the colored citizens at that time rendered it necessary to place their rights beyond doubt or cavil.
It is laid down as a rule of construction by Judge Story that the natural import of a single clause is not to be narrowed so as to exclude implied powers resulting from its character simply because there is another clause which enumerates certain powers which might otherwise be deemed implied powers within its scope, for in such cases we are not to assume that the affirmative specification excludes all other implications. (2 Story on Constitution, sec. 449.)
There are numerous instances in the Constitution where a general power is given to Congress, and afterward a particular power given, which was included in the former; yet the general power is not to be narrowed, because the particular power is given. On this same principle the fact that by the XV. Amendment the States are specifically forbidden to deny the right of suffrage on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, does not narrow the general provision in the XIV. Amendment which guarantees the privileges of all the citizens against abridgment by the States on any account.
The rule of interpretation relied upon by the committee in their construction of the XV. Amendment is, "that the expression of one thing is the exclusion of another," or the specification of particulars is the exclusion of generals. Of these maxims, Judge Story says:
They are susceptible of being applied, and often are ingeniously applied, to the subversion of the text and the objects of the instrument. The truth is, in order to ascertain how far an affirmative or negative provision excludes or implies others, we must look to the nature of the provision, the subject-matter, the objects, and the scope of the instrument; these and these only can properly determine the rule of construction (2 Story, 448).
It is claimed by the committee that the second section of the XIV. Amendment implies that the several States may restrict the right of suffrage as to other than male citizens. We may say of this as we have said of the theory of the committee upon the effect of the XV. Amendment. It is a proposal to take away from the citizens guarantees of fundamental rights, by implication, which have been previously given in absolute terms. The first section includes "all citizens" in its guarantees, and includes all the "privileges and immunities" of citizenship and guards them against abridgment, and under no recognized or reasonable rule of construction can it be claimed that by implication from the provisions of the second section the States may not only abridge but entirely destroy one of the highest privileges of the citizen to one-half the citizens of the country. What we have said in relation to the committee's construction of the effect of the XV. Amendment applies equally to this. The object of the first section of this amendment was to secure all the rights, privileges, and immunities of all the citizens against invasion by the States. The object of the second section was to fix a rule or system of apportionment for Representatives and taxation; and the provision referred to, in relation to the exclusion of males from the right of suffrage, might be regarded as in the nature of a penalty in case of denial of that right to that class. While it, to a certain extent, protected that class of citizens, it left the others where the previous provisions of the Constitution placed them. To protect the colored man more fully than was done by that penalty was the object of the XV. Amendment. In no event can it be said to be more than the recognition of an existing fact, that only the male citizens were, by the State laws, allowed to vote, and that existing order of things was recognized in the rule of representation, just as the institution of slavery was recognized in the original Constitution, in the article fixing the basis of representation, by the provision that only three-fifths of all the slaves ("other persons") should be counted. There slavery was recognized as an existing fact, and yet the Constitution never sanctioned slavery, but, on the contrary, had it been carried out according to its true construction, slavery could not have existed under it; so that the recognition of facts in the Constitution must not be held to be a sanction of what is so recognized.
The majority of the committee say that this section implies that the States may deny suffrage to others than male citizens. If it implies anything it implies that the States may deny the franchise to all the citizens. It does not provide that they shall not deny the right to male citizens, but only provides that if they do so deny they shall not have representation for them. So, according to that argument, by the second section of the XIV. Amendment the power of the States is conceded to entirely take away the right of suffrage, even from that privileged class, the male citizens. And thus this rule of "implication" goes too far, and fritters away all the guarantees of the Constitution of the right of suffrage, the highest of the privileges of the citizen; and herein is demonstrated the reason and safety of the rule that fundamental rights are not to be taken away by implication, but only by express provision. When the advocates of a privileged class of citizens under the Constitution are driven to implication to sustain the theory of taxation without representation, and American citizenship without political liberty, the cause must be weak indeed.
It is claimed by the majority that by section 2, article 1, the Constitution recognizes the power in States to declare who shall and who shall not exercise the elective franchise. That section reads as follows:
The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.
The first clause of this section declares who shall choose the Representatives—mark the language—"Representatives shall be chosen by the people of the States," not by the male people; not by certain classes of the people, but by the people; so that the construction sought to be given this section, by which it would recognize the power of the State to disfranchise one half the citizens, is in direct contravention of the first clause of the section, and of its whole spirit, as well as of the objects of the instrument. The States clearly have no power to nullify the express provisions that the election shall be by the people, by any laws limiting the election to a moiety of the people. It is true the section recognizes the power in the State to regulate the qualifications of the electors; but as we have already said, the power to regulate is a very different thing from the power to destroy. The two clauses must be taken together, and both considered in connection with the declared purpose and objects of the Constitution.
The constitution is necessarily confined to the statement of general principles. There are regulations necessary to be made as to the qualifications of voters, as to their proper age, their domicil, the length of residence necessary to entitle the citizen to vote in a given State or place. These particulars could not be provided in the Constitution but are necessarily left to the States, and this section is thus construed as to be in harmony with itself, and with the expressed objects of the framers of the Constitution and the principles of free government. When the majority of the committee can demonstrate that "the people of the States," and one-half the people of the States, are equivalent terms, or that when the Constitution provides that the Representatives shall be elected by the people, its requirements are met by an election in which less than one-half the adult people are allowed to vote, then it will be admitted that this section to some extent sustains them.
The committee say, that if it had been intended that Congress should prescribe the qualifications of electors, the grant would have given Congress that power specifically. We do not claim that Congress has that power; on the contrary, admit that the States have it; but the section of the Constitution does prescribe who the electors shall be. That is what we claim—nothing more. They shall be "the people;" their qualifications may be regulated by the States; but to the claim of the majority of the committee that they may be "qualified" out of existence, we can not assent.
We are told that the acquiescence by the people, since the adoption of the Constitution, in the denial of political rights to women citizens, and the general understanding that such denial was in conformity with the Constitution, should be taken to settle the construction of that instrument. Any force this argument may have it can only apply to the original text, and not to the XIV. Amendment, which is of but recent date. But, as a general principle, this theory is fallacious. It would stop all political progress; it would put an end to all original thought, and put the people under that tyranny with which the friends of liberty have always had to contend—the tyranny of precedent.
From the beginning, our Government has been right in theory, but wrong in practice. The Constitution, had it been carried out in its true spirit, and its principles enforced, would have stricken the chains from every slave in the republic long since. Yet, for all this, it was but a few years since declared, by the highest judicial tribunal of the republic, that, according to the "general understanding," the black man in this country had no rights the white man was bound to respect. General understanding and acquiescence is a very unsafe rule by which to try questions of constitutional law, and precedents are not infallible guides toward liberty and the rights of man.
Without any law to authorize it, slavery existed in England, and was sustained and perpetuated by popular opinion, universal custom, and the acquiescence of all departments of the government as well as by the subjects of its oppression. A few fearless champions of liberty struggled against the universal sentiment, and contended that, by the laws of England, slavery could not exist in the kingdom; and though for years unable to obtain a hearing in any British court, the Somerset case was finally tried in the Court of King's Bench in 1771, Lord Mansfield presiding, wherein that great and good man, after a long and patient hearing, declared that no law of England allowed or approved of slavery, and discharged the negro. And it was then judicially declared that no slave could breathe upon the soil of England, although slavery had up to that time existed for centuries, under the then existing laws. The laws were right, but the practice and public opinion were wrong.
It is said by the majority of the committee that "if the right of female citizens to suffrage is vested by the Constitution, that right can be established in the courts." We respectfully submit that, with regard to the competency and qualification of electors for members of this House, the courts have no jurisdiction. This House is the sole judge of the election return and qualification of its own members (article 1, section 5, of Constitution); and it is for the House alone to decide upon a contest, who are, and who are not, competent and qualified to vote. The judicial department can not thus invade the prerogatives of the political department. And it is therefore perfectly proper, in our opinion, for the House to pass a declaratory resolution, which would be an index to the action of the House, should the question be brought before it by a contest for a seat. We, therefore, recommend to the House the adoption of the following resolution:
Resolved, by the House of Representatives, That the right of suffrage is one of the inalienable rights of citizens of the United States, subject to regulation by the States, through equal and just laws.
That this right is included in the "privileges of citizens of the United States," which are guaranteed by section 1 of article XIV. of Amendments to the Constitution of the United States; and that women citizens, who are otherwise qualified by the laws of the State where they reside, are competent voters for Representatives in Congress.
Wm. Loughridge.
Benj. F. Butler.H. Rep. 22, pt. 2——2.
And for temporal governments I have observed women to have from time to time been admitted to the highest places; for in ancient Roman histories I find Eudocia and Theodora admitted at several times into the sole government of the empire; and here in England our late famous Queen Elizabeth, whose government was most renowned; and Semiramis governed Syria; and the Queen of the South, who came to visit Solomon, for anything that appears to the contrary, was a sole queen; and to fall a degree lower, we have precedents that King Richard the First and King Henry the Fifth appointed by commissions their mothers to be regents of this realm in their absence in France.
But yet I will descend a step lower; and doth not our law, temporal and spiritual, admit of women to be executrixes and administratrixes? And thereby they have the rule or ordering of great estates, and many times they are guardianesses in chivalry, and have hereby also the government of many great heirs in the kingdom and of their own estates.
So by these cases it appeareth that the common law of this kingdom submitted many things to their government; yet the statute of justices of the peace is like to Jethro's counsel to Moses, for there they speak of men to be justices, and thereby seemeth to exclude women; but our statute of sewers is, "Commission of sewers shall be granted by the King to such person and persons as the lords should appoint." So the word persons stands indifferently for either sex. I am of the opinion, for the authorities, reasons and causes aforesaid, that this honorable countess being put into the commission of the sewers, the same is warrantable by the law; and the ordinances and decrees made by her and the other commissions of sewers are not to be impeached for that cause of her sex.
Even at present in England the idea of women holding official station is not so strange as in the United States. The Countess of Pembroke had the office of sheriff of Westmoreland and exercised it in person. At the assizes she sat with the judges on the bench. In a reported case it is stated by counsel and assented to by the court that a woman is capable of serving in almost all the offices of the kingdom.
And as to what has been said of there being no such adjudged cases, I must say that it is perfectly clear that not perhaps in either of three cases reported by Mr. Shaen, but in those of Catharine vs. Surry, Coates vs. Lyle, and Holt vs. Lyle, three cases of somewhat greater antiquity, the right of women freeholders was allowed by the courts. These three cases were decided by the judges in the reign of James I. (A. D. 1612). Although no printed report of them exists, I find that in the case of Olive vs. Ingraham, they were repeatedly cited by the lord Chief Justice of the King's Bench in the course of four great arguments in that case, the case being reargued three times (7 Mod., 264), and the greatest respect was manifested by the whole court for those precedents. Their importance is all the greater when we consider what the matter was upon which King James' judges sitting in Westminster Hall had to decide. It was not simply the case of a mere occupier, inhabitant, or scot or lot voter. Therefore the question did not turn upon the purport of a special custom, or a charter, or a local act of Parliament, or even of the common right in this or that borough. But it was that very matter and question which has been mooted in the dictum of Lord Coke, the freeholder's franchise in the shire, and upon that the decision in each case expressly was, that a feme sole shall vote if she hath a freehold, and that if she be not a feme sole, but a feme covert having freehold, then her husband during her coverture shall vote in her right. These, then, are so many express decisions which at once displace Lord Coke's unsupported assertion and declare the law so as to constrain my judgment. It is sometimes said, when reference is made to precedents of this kind, that they have never been approved by the bar. But that can not be said of these. Hakewell, the contemporary of Lord Coke and one of the greatest of all parliamentary lawyers then living—for even Selden and Granvil were not greater than Hakewell—left behind him the manuscript to which I have referred, with his comments on those cases.
The case of Holt vs. Lyle, lately mentioned by our Lord Chief Justice, is a very strong case; "They who pay ought to choose whom they shall pay." And the Lord Chief Justice seemed to have assented to that general proposition, as authority for the correlative proposition, that "women, when sole, had a right to vote." At all events, there is here the strongest possible evidence that in the reign of James I., the feme sole, being a freeholder of a country, or what is the same thing, of a county, of a city, or town, or borough, where, of custom, freeholders had the right to vote, not only had, but exercised the parliamentary franchise. If married, she could not vote in respect merely of her freehold, not because of the incapacities of coverture, but for this simple reason, that, by the act of marriage, which is an act of law, the title of the feme sole freeholder becomes vested for life in the husband. The qualification to vote was not personal, but real; consequently, her right to vote became suspended as soon and for as long as she was married. I am bound to consider that the question as to what weight is due to the dictum of my Lord Coke is entirely disposed of by those cases from the reign of James I. and George II., and that the authority of the latter is unimpeached by any later authority, as the cases of Rex. vs. Stubles, and Regina vs. Aberavon, abundantly show.
It is submitted that the weight of authority is very greatly in favor of the female right of suffrage. Indeed, the authority against it is contained in the short and hasty dictum of Lord Coke, referred to above. It was set down by him in his last and least authoritative institute, and it is certain that he has been followed neither by the great lawyers of his time nor by the judicature. The principles of the law in relation to the suffrage of females will be found in Coates vs. Lyle, Holt vs. Ingraham, and The King vs. Stubles, cases decided under the strict rules for the construction of statutes.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law.
The new prohibition that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States" is not identical with the clause in the Constitution which declared that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." It embraces much more. It is possible that those who framed the article were not themselves aware of the far-reaching character of its terms, yet if the amendment does in fact bear a broader meaning, and does extend its protecting shield over those who were never thought of when it was conceived and put in form, and does reach social evils which were never before prohibited by constitutional enactment, it is to be presumed that the American people, in giving it their imprimatur, understood what they were doing and meant to decree what in fact they have decreed. The "privileges and immunities" secured by the original Constitution were only such as each State gave to its own citizens, ... but the XIV. Amendment prohibits any State from abridging the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, whether its own citizens or any others. It not merely requires equality of privileges, but it demands that the privileges and immunities of all citizens shall be absolutely unabridged and unimpaired.
These privileges can not be invaded without sapping the foundation of Republican government. A Republican government is not merely a government of the people, but it is a free government.... It was very ably contended on the part of the defendants that the XIV. Amendment was intended only to secure to all citizens equal capacities before the law. That was at first our view of it. But it does not so read. The language is, "No State shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States." What are the privileges and immunities of the citizens of the United States? Are they capacities merely? Are they not also rights?
It is necessary to the decision of this case to inquire what are the "privileges and immunities" of a citizen, which are guaranteed by the XIV. Amendment to the Constitution of the United States. Whatever they may be, they are protected against all abridgment by legislation.... Whether the "privileges and immunities" of the citizens embrace political rights, including the right to hold office, I need not now inquire. If they do, that right is guaranteed alike by the Constitution of the United States and of Georgia, and is beyond the control of the legislature.
2d. The rights of the people of this State, white and black, are not granted to them by the constitution thereof; the object and effect of that instrument is not to give, but to restrain, deny, regulate and guarantee rights, and all persons recognized by that constitution as citizens of the State have equal, legal and political rights except as otherwise expressly declared.
3d. It is the settled and uniform sense of the word "citizen," when used in reference to the citizens of the separate States of the United States, and to their rights as such citizens, that it describes a person entitled to every right, legal and political, enjoyed by any person in that State, unless there he some express exceptions made by positive law covering the particular persons, whose rights are in question.
It may be profitable to inquire how the term (citizen) has been understood in Georgia.... It will be seen that men whom Georgians have been accustomed to revere believed that citizenship in Georgia carried with it the right to hold office in the absence of positive restrictions.
The right of suffrage was not included in the privileges of citizens as used in section 2, article 4, therefore that right is not included in the privileges of citizens of the United States, as used in the XIV. Amendment.
"The privileges and immunities" secured to the people of each State, in every other State, can be applied only to the case of a removal from one State into another. By such removal they become citizens of the adopted State without naturalization, and have a right to sue and be sued as citizens; and yet this privilege is qualified and not absolute, for they can not enjoy the right of suffrage or eligibility to office without such term of residence as shall be prescribed by the constitution and laws of the State into which they shall remove.
"The privileges and immunities conceded by the Constitution of the United States to citizens in the several States," are to be confined to those which are in their nature fundamental, and belong of right to the citizens of all free governments. Such are the rights of protection of life and liberty, and to acquire and enjoy property, and to pay no higher impositions than other citizens, and to pass through or reside in the State at pleasure, and to enjoy the elective franchise as regulated and established by the laws or constitution of the State in which it is to be exercised.
Free persons of color have never been recognized as citizens of Georgia; they are not entitled to bear arms, vote for members of the legislature, or hold any civil office; they have no political rights, but have personal rights, one of which is personal liberty.
For who it may be asked is a citizen? What do the character and status of citizens import? Without fear of contradiction, it does not import the condition of being private property, the subject of individual power and ownership. Upon a principle of etymology alone, the term citizen, as derived from civitas, conveys the idea of connection or identification with the State or government, and a participation in its functions. But beyond this there is not, it is believed, to be found, in the theories of writers on government, or in any actual experiment heretofore tried, an exposition of the term citizen which has not been understood as conferring the actual possession and enjoyment, or the perfect right of acquisition and enjoyment, of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political.
No one can, therefore, in the correct sense of the term, be a citizen of a State who is not entitled upon the terms prescribed by the institutions of the State to all the rights and privileges conferred by these institutions upon the highest class of society.
What constitutes the distinctive character of our epoch is the development of the right of citizenship. In its most extended, as well as its most restricted sense, it includes a great many properties. The right of citizenship is the right of voting in the government of the local, provincial, or national community of which one is a member. In this last sense, the right of citizenship signifies a participation in the right of voting, in the general government, as member of the State. (Rev. & Fr. Etr., tom. v, p. 383).
It is a question about which there may be some diversity of opinion, what constitutes citizenship or who are citizens. In a loose and improper sense the word citizen is sometimes used to denote any inhabitant of the country, but this is not a correct use of the word. Those, and no others, are properly citizens who were parties to the original compact by which the government was formed, or their successors who are qualified to take part in the affairs of government by their votes in the election of public officers. Women and children are represented by their domestic directors or heads in whose wills theirs is supposed to be included. They, as well as others not entitled to vote, are not properly citizens, but are members of the State, fully entitled to the protection of its laws. A citizen, then, is a person entitled to vote in the elections. He is one of those in whom the sovereign power of the State resides. (Jones on Suffrage, p. 48.)
The right of voting for representatives is the primary right, by which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce man to a state of slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another; and he that has not a vote in the election of representatives is, in this case. The proposal, therefore, to disfranchise any class of men is as criminal as the proposal to take away property.
That whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the right of the people to alter or abolish it, and to institute a new government, laying its foundations on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
That every man of the commonalty, except infants, insane persons, and criminals, is, of common right, and by the laws of God, a freeman, and entitled to the free enjoyment of liberty. That liberty or freedom consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who frame the laws, and who are to be the guardians of every man; life, property, and peace; for the all of one man is as dear to him as the all of another, and the poor man has an equal right but more need to have representatives in the legislature than the rich one. That they who have no voice nor vote in the electing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes and to their representatives; for, to be enslaved is to have governors whom other men have set over us, and be subject to laws made by the representatives of others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent in our behalf. (Franklin's Works, vol. 2. p. 372.)
Under every view of the subject it seems indispensable that the mass of the citizens should not be without a voice in making the laws which they are to obey, and in choosing the magistrates who are to administer them. (Madison Papers, vol. 3, p. 14.)
The very act of taxing exercised over those who are not represented appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential rights as freemen, and if continued, seems to be, in effect, an entire disfranchisement of every civil right. For what one civil right is worth a rush after a man's property is subject to be taken from him at pleasure without his consent? If a man is not his own assessor, in person or by deputy, his liberty is gone, or he is entirely at the mercy of others. (Otis's Rights of the Colonies, p. 58.)
Amongst all the rights and privileges appertaining unto us, that of having a share in the legislation, and being governed by such laws as we ourselves shall cause, is the most fundamental and essential, as well as the most advantageous and beneficial.
By the natural law whereunto Almighty God hath made all subject, the lawful power of making laws to command whole politic societies of men, belongeth so properly unto the same entire societies, that for any prince or potentate of what kind soever upon earth to exercise the same of himself (or themselves), and not either by express commission immediately received from God, or else by authority derived at the first from their consent upon whose persons they impose laws, it is no better than mere tyranny! Agreeable to the same just privileges of natural equity, is that maxim for the English constitution, that "Law to bind all must be assented to by all"; and there can be no legal appearance of assent without some degree of representation.
All British subjects, whether in Great Britain, Ireland, or the colonies, are equally free by the laws of nature; they certainly are equally entitled to the same natural rights that are essential for their own preservation, because this privilege of "having a share in the legislation" is not merely a British right, peculiar to this island, but it is also a natural right, which can not without the most flagrant and stimulating injustice be withdrawn from any part of the British empire by any worldly authority whatsoever. No tax can be levied without manifest robbery and injustice where this legal and constitutional representation is wanting, because the English law abhors the idea of taking the least property from freemen without their consent. It is iniquitous (iniquum est, says the maxim) that freemen should not have the free disposal of their own effects, and whatever is iniquitous can never be made lawful by any authority on earth, not even by the united authority of king, lords, and commons, for that would be contrary to the eternal laws of God, which are supreme.
Political liberty I would say, consists in power, which the members of the State reserve to themselves, of arriving at the public offices, or at least of having votes in the nomination of those who fill them. In countries where every member of the society enjoys an equal power of arriving at the supreme offices, and consequently of directing the strength and sentiments of the whole community, there is a state of the most perfect political liberty.
On the other hand, in countries where a man is excluded from these offices, or from the power of voting for the proper persons to fill them, that man, whatever be the form of the government, has no share in the government and therefore has no political liberty at all. And since every man retains and can never be deprived of his natural right of relieving himself from all oppression, that is, from everything that has been imposed upon him without his own consent, this must be the only true and proper foundation of all governments subsisting in the world, and that to which the people who compose them have an inalienable right to bring them back.
Contemporary construction is properly resorted to to illustrate and confirm the text.... It can never abrogate the text; it can never fritter away its obvious sense; it can never narrow down its true limitations.
The importance of examining the preamble for the purpose of expounding the language of a statute has been long felt and universally conceded in all juridical discussion. It is an admitted maxim ... that the preamble is a key to open the mind of the matters as to the mischiefs to be remedied and the objects to be accomplished by the statute.... It is properly resorted to where doubts or ambiguities arise upon the words of the enacting part, for if they are clear and unambiguous, there seems little room for interpretation, except in cases leading to an obvious absurdity or a direct overthrow of the intention expressed in the preamble. [Story on the Constitution, sec. 457.]
The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude.
They are susceptible of being applied, and often are ingeniously applied, to the subversion of the text and the objects of the instrument. The truth is, in order to ascertain how far an affirmative or negative provision excludes or implies others, we must look to the nature of the provision, the subject-matter, the objects, and the scope of the instrument; these and these only can properly determine the rule of construction (2 Story, 448).
The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.
Resolved, by the House of Representatives, That the right of suffrage is one of the inalienable rights of citizens of the United States, subject to regulation by the States, through equal and just laws.
On January 20, 1871, in the House of Representatives, a bill for the better government of the District of Columbia came up. The Hon. George W. Julian, of Indiana, moved to strike out the word "male" in the section providing who shall vote, and supported his amendment as follows:
The establishment of universal male suffrage throughout the United States was preceded by its establishment in the District of Columbia and in the Territories. Following the same order, I desire that the District of Columbia shall first enjoy the further and full extension of the Democratic principle, by giving the ballot to all the people here, irrespective of sex. I know of no reason why this should not be done. I believe the question of woman's rights necessarily involves the question of human rights. The famous maxim of our fathers that "taxation without representation is tyranny" applies not to one-half only, but to the whole people. I am a Democrat in full of all demands, and I can not, therefore, accept as a real democracy, or even a republic, a government "half slave and half free."
Mr. Cook, of Illinois, who had charge of the bill, objected to "cumbering it with such an amendment," and called the previous question, which being sustained, cut off all debate. Mr. Julian then called for the ayes and noes, thus making every man put himself square on the record. The vote stood 55 ayes[141], 117 noes, 65 not voting. The next day the House met for general debate, and Hon. Aaron A. Sargent, of California, had an opportunity to express his views of the Amendment, which he had not been able to do the previous day.
Mr. Sargent: Mr. Speaker, if no other gentleman desires to address the House, I will briefly remark that I was glad on yesterday to have an opportunity to cast my vote in favor of the proposition admitting the women of this District to the right of suffrage. I believe the time is rapidly coming when all men will conclude that it is no longer wise or judicious to exclude one-half of the intelligence, and more than one-half of the virtue of the people from the ballot-box. It is a matter of congratulation that one-third of the members who were present yesterday and voting, recorded their votes for that proposition. It was a glorious commencement. I will not take up the time of the House with any elaborate discussion of that proposition, but content myself with the remark that I was very glad of the opportunity to cast my vote for it. I trust the work thus commenced will go on until fully successful. But I would like to say further that I do not agree with those gentlemen who allege that the women who advocate this movement are universally, or to any considerable extent, desirous to unsettle family relations, or that they would change the present honored form of union of the sexes. I believe they embrace among their number, and largely embrace, the best and purest women of the land, who will have an influence growing year by year in favor of the recognition of the rights of their sex. So may it be.
During Mr. Sargent's candidacy for the Senate the following autumn, a California newspaper objected that he was in favor of woman's suffrage, and called for a denial of the truth of the damning charge. Mr. Sargent took no notice of it until a week or two later, when a suffrage convention met in San Francisco; he then went before that body and delivered a radical speech in favor of woman's rights, taking the most advanced grounds. When he was through he remarked to a friend, "They have my views now, and can make the most of them. I would not conceal them to be Senator." This bold stand ended the objection to him on the ground of his favor to woman's rights. He opened the political campaign in 1874 before an immense audience in Platt's Hall, San Francisco, by saying, as reported in the papers of the day:
Ladies and Gentlemen, Fellow-Citizens: I trust the time is near at hand when the phrase "fellow-citizens" will not need the explanatory remark, "Ladies and gentlemen." I trust we are nearing the day when our wives and daughters will share with us in the duties and privileges of citizenship, and give expression to their principles and views, not only indirectly by personal influence, but at the ballot-box. I am in favor of this great reform, and hail the day when it shall purify politics by the influence of women exerted directly and legitimately at elections.
The National Woman's Suffrage Association met in Apollo Hall, New York, Anniversary Week, May 11, 1871. The audiences were large and the speakers earnest.[142] Mrs. Griffing, the Corresponding Secretary of the Association, thus summed up the closing events of the past year:
It now appears that under the Federal Constitution and its Amendments, woman is entitled to equal rights of citizenship with man; and as voting is a fundamental right of the citizen in a free government, woman not only may, but should vote. The last Woman Suffrage Convention, held in Washington, January, 1871, called by Paulina W. Davis, J. S. Griffing, and I. B. Hooker, in behalf of the women of the country, contemplated no new issue, proposed only to discuss the XVI. Amendment, and a more thorough system of education for the women of the country, through the issue of a monthly series of tracts. With slight exception, this programme would have been the order of the Convention, as it was the indication of the call, had not the time arrived for the bugle-note, calling all "to the front." Events of the hour at once changed the direction of thought, and inaugurated a line of movement for the practical enfranchisement of, and restoration to woman, of her equal rights as an American citizen. A few days previous to the time of holding this Convention, Mrs. Victoria C. Woodhull, of the City of New York, memorialized Congress for the exercise of the elective franchise, which memorial was read in the House of Representatives by Hon. George W. Julian, early friend of the cause, referred to the Judiciary Committee and ordered to be printed.
This action on the part of Mrs. Woodhull was taken without consultation with, or even knowledge of the movers of the Convention, and by unprecedented energy and great intelligence, pressed upon the attention of both branches of Congress, upon the plea that she was "born upon the soil and was subject to the jurisdiction of the United States," and that as a citizen, she desired a voice in legislation, through the only means in a free government, that of a vote; and on this pivot she based her demand. With some difficulty she obtained permission for a hearing before the Judiciary Committee. Learning this important step taken by Mrs. Woodhull, a stranger to the Convention, a conference was held between the parties, resulting in a friendly agreement, that with consent of the chairman of the Committee, Mrs. I. B. Hooker, on the part of the Convention, should at the same time, through a constitutional lawyer, Hon. A. G. Riddle, ex-member of Congress, defend the memorialists (30,000 women) whose names were already before Congress, asking to exercise the right of the ballot.
Mrs. Woodhull spoke with power and marvelous effect, as though conscious of a right unjustly withheld, and feeling a duty, she was forbidden to do. Under the supreme law of the land, the Constitution, and the XIV. and XV. Amendments thereto, she asked equal protection to person, property, and full citizenship; in response to this, the key-note, Mr. Riddle followed with an unanswerable legal argument, sweeping away all laws of the United States, and of any State, restricting woman in the right to vote, as directly opposed to the supreme law of the land, as pointed out in the XIV. and XV. Amendments to the Federal Constitution, which he showed to be consonant with both the letter and spirit of that instrument. He also suggested that the immediate action of woman, as a citizen, might be found the most speedy method of triumph. The result of this hearing, in the printed reports of Judge Bingham and the majority, and of Judge Loughridge and Hon. B. F. Butler, the minority of the Judiciary Committee, is already before the country, and marks well the beginning of the end.
It was now clearly seen by the leaders of the movement that the agitation of woman's wrongs and oppressions was no longer a necessary part of the discussion. That in the statute books, and above all, in the heart of God, a record of this was made, and that henceforth woman's citizenship and full enfranchisement must be declared. That under the supreme law of the land her right to person, property, children, and full and equal citizenship must be pronounced and admitted; and, finally, her duty to vote, and through her highest capabilities, to assume a share of the responsibility of the State, as she has already of the home, are hereafter to be the legitimate theme of discussion till woman is emancipated. These events and this decision indicated an immediate want of a National Woman Suffrage and Educational Committee, to carry forward measures for the speedy execution of the work, and upon consultation with the experienced and wise men and women of the Convention, and with the approval of all well-wishers who were present, a committee, consisting of Mrs. I. B. Hooker (Chairwoman), J. S. Griffing (Secretary), Mrs. M. B. Bowen (Treasurer), Susan B. Anthony, Paulina Wright Davis, and Ruth Carr Dennison, was organized in the City of Washington, D. C., and the machinery set in operation to accomplish what is now known as the work of that committee. For the temporary use of this committee a part of the House of Education and Labor Committee-room, through the marked kindness of Hon. Mr. Arnell, Chairman of the Committee, was granted; afterward, the beautiful, artistic House Agriculture Committee-room, also used for the Committee on Manufactures, was generously proffered by the chairmen of both, Hon. Mr. Morrell and Gen. Smith, and is still retained.
Books are now opened for signatures to the new Declaration and Pledge,[143] and the autographs of all women ready to exercise the elective franchise. Thousands of tracts, constitutional arguments of Mr. Riddle and Mrs. Woodhull, report of the minority Judiciary Committee, and an address to the women of the United States, are being sent to the whole country, carrying conviction to the weak, force to the active, and hastening the consummation of a triumph worthy of the struggle and undying faith of all who have nobly borne their part in this history. The names of the earnest women who took part in this Convention, and who participated in the inauguration of the new issue, are recorded in the books of the Committee; and now, only the funds—generous and prompt contributions—are needed to respond to the call from all the States and Territories for knowledge—either by voice or pen—to complete a reconstruction of the government "of the people, for the people and by the people," without arms, court-martial, or bloodshed.
In this connection Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood's very able memorial to Congress asking suffrage for the women of the District should be mentioned. It was a well-sustained argument, showing the writer to be mistress of her subject. Mrs. Lockwood is an efficient, earnest, honest worker. She presented to Congress a large petition, fully equal in numbers to the one presented by Mrs. Dahlgren and Sherman, whose anti-suffrage petition and memorial against it formed one of the peculiar features of the work of last winter. Mrs. H. C. Spencer, of Washington, answered Mrs. Dahlgren's pamphlet with a most admirable one entitled "Problems," which has already had an extensive circulation, and is more earnestly called for than any other, with the exception of Mrs. Woodhull's constitutional argument, and Mr. Riddle's on the same question. The meetings were held daily in the committee-room during the entire session, and the interchange of thought was often very interesting and encouraging.
On the day of the adjournment of Congress Mrs. Hooker presented thanks, in the name of the Committee, to such members of the House as had been most active in serving our cause. She said:
Gentlemen: The National Woman Suffrage and Educational Committee desire me to express to you their heartfelt thanks for the good service you have rendered the whole woman movement by your willingness to entertain, examine, and, in some instances, advocate our new claim that we are already enfranchised under the original Constitution and the XIV. and XV. Amendments.
To you, Mr. Julian, we are especially indebted, in that while you were the first member of the House who introduced our claim to the suffrage under the form of a XVI. Amendment, you were in the front once more when a new issue was presented in the shape of the "Woodhull Memorial." Your resolution asking the House "to participate in the proceedings," by which two women citizens of the United States "might present the moral and constitutional argument in favor of the enfranchisement of the women citizens of the United States, and in support of a memorial lately reported upon by a majority and minority of the Judiciary Committee," was in keeping with every other act of your public life, a protest against injustice, a proposition looking toward perfect equality; and we thank you for it in the name of the disfranchised millions who will one day realize, as they now do not, the significance of that act.
To you, Mr. Arnell, we owe not only the passage of "A bill to do justice to the female employes of the Government," but the first admission of women to this Capitol as citizens having common rights with the ruling class in the use of buildings devoted to the public service. In your committee-room we found not only a home, but such courtesy, such opportunity for friendly consultation with members of Congress upon subjects of deepest political importance, as must forever silence the absurd charge that men and women will cease to regard the decorums of life, to interchange its happy civilities when they become equally responsible for the welfare of the State.
To other gentlemen of the House we owe thanks also for their co-operation with you in this manly service, especially to General Wilson, of Ohio, to Mr. Morrill, of Pennsylvania, and General Butler, of Massachusetts, who have, as chairmen of their respective committees, offered us the use of their several rooms, in case the threats of a certain gentleman in the House should so terrify you, sir, that you should feel compelled to withdraw your most friendly offer. We have accepted the use of the Committee-room on Agriculture, leaving you, sir, with reluctance, simply because it is larger and more accessible than your room, and one so beautifully adorned by art, that our womanly tastes are daily gratified in its use.
To you, Mr. Loughridge, as the author of the minority report of the Judiciary Committee on the Woodhull Memorial, and to General Butler, your faithful colleague, we owe that most luminous statement of the historic position of woman, her natural, civil, and constitutional rights, and the best method of enforcing these in the interest of the women citizens of the United States. For that report, sir, we thank you from the depth of our hearts. We claim it as our bill of rights. On that line we also fight, not with weapons of steel, but with pen and voice and silent prayer; and when at last the solemn responsibilities of citizenship shall have been laid upon us by the men of this great nation, and together we shall strive to bring justice and equality into legislation and administration, we shall not forget to whom we owe this first judicial protest in these halls against traditional misrepresentations of the constitutional rights of women citizens of the Republic.
And, gentlemen, permit us to congratulate you all, that having secured equal rights to all men in these United States by your vote, and having welcomed the proscribed black man to a seat by your side in halls of legislation, you are now turning your attention to the women of the United States, with a firm resolution that they shall no longer be denied the rights nor excused from the responsibilities of a full citizenship.
Permit us to express the hope that in coming years you may be returned to this Capitol by the votes of grateful women citizens, enfranchised through your instrumentality; and should you be called to take upper seats here in remembrance of faithful service during this session, we shall congratulate not only ourselves but our common and well-beloved country; and if, gentlemen, you should find here as colleagues some of the matrons of this Republic whose names are now being daily signed to this new declaration of fealty to human rights, we have confident assurance that you will cheerfully work hand in hand with them, according to the tenor of their pledge to work with you for the maintenance of those equal rights on which our Republic was originally founded, to the end that it may have what is declared to be the first condition of just government—the consent of the governed.
Mr. Julian responded:—I thank you, Mrs. Hooker, and the committee you represent, for your words of cordial approbation. Such a testimony will go far to redeem the ordinary drudgery and dreariness of public life, and I shall ever cherish it with real satisfaction and pride. I ought to say, however, that in performing the acts so handsomely commended by you I did nothing but my simple duty. Indeed, constituted as I am, and believing as I do, it was morally impossible for me to do otherwise. Having espoused the cause of woman's enfranchisement more than twenty years ago, when it was first launched in the United States, and having labored so long and so earnestly for the enfranchisement of the male citizens of our country, irrespective of color or race, it would have been grossly inconsistent in me, not to say recreant and mean, to shrink from the duties for which you compliment me when invited to their performance.
You are pleased to express the hope that some of the retiring members of the XLI. Congress may hereafter be returned to the places they have filled. For myself, I am weary of the service in which I have toiled for so many years, and I welcome a season of rest, or at least a change of labor. But when your hope goes farther, and points to our return here by the votes of enfranchised women, and our welcome from a sisterhood of co-representatives in the halls of Congress, I confess the prophecy is so pleasing and the picture seems so tempting that its realization would completely reconcile me to my restored place in the House of Representatives, or even to a seat in that smaller body at the other end of the Capitol. And I am not lacking in the spirit of good courage and hope which animates you. These are revolutionary times. Whole years of progress are now crowded into days. Who will venture to judge the future by any political almanac of by-gone times? I can say with old Thomas Carlyle, "One strong thing I find here below, the just thing, the true thing." And no man or party is strong enough, no earthly power is strong enough to stay the grand march of events through which the hand of God is visibly guiding the Republic to universal liberty, and through that to enduring prosperity and peace.
Mr. Arnell, of Tennessee, said—Mrs. Hooker and Ladies: You have been kind enough to refer to me by name. I think you have been over-generous in your estimation of my poor services. If I have accomplished anything, no matter how inconsiderable, for your cause, I greatly rejoice. Yet, in reality, it is my cause as much as yours—a man's cause as much as a woman's; for the inquiry you have raised is a great fundamental question, broad as humanity itself. I thank you for your wide interpretation of the invitation I gave you to occupy the Committee-room of Education and Labor. You have rightly touched its true meaning. The doors were opened hopefully, invitingly to you as the advance-guard of American women, who are soon, I trust, to take equal part with their brothers, husbands and fathers in the government of this great and free Republic.
There is a bit of history connected with this room of Education and Labor. A hard-working woman was once driven from it by vote of the House of Representatives. She carried her work across the ocean, rested it under the Italian skies, until it blossomed into everlasting stone. Then she brought it back. A great admiring city and the self-same men who had voted her out, marveled and said, "Well done, woman." Her success is a triumph for woman. Meantime you, representing, arguing a higher cause than Art, had found a footing in this very apartment from which she had been turned out. This was a higher triumph. The amiable New York Tribune, chuckling over a false rumor that you were denied its further use, has misstated the facts. The Tribune only advertised its own narrow, pretentious wishes.
In bringing the proposition before Congress to pay women the same price as men for the same work performed, I desired not only to help those spirited, deserving women in the Departments, but also to aid two and a half millions of my working sisters in this country. It seemed to me that just here was room for practical legislation. Here was an angle to be carried in this great contest for justice and freedom, and I drew my best inspiration from a bright, sunny-faced wife, who to-day is far away among the hills of Tennessee. I greatly admire and respect either a working man or woman, for I devoutly believe in this latest evangel, that "to work is to pray." Allow me to say, as a parting word, "Courage." The world may sneer at you, for it does not believe that a man is moved save by some selfish ambition. Trojan's noble fraction of a line, "indocillis privata loqui," is not generally considered as adapted to, or to be applied to, the domain of every-day life. Yet, ladies, far above all ridicule, misjudgment, slander, and abuse even, is the holy consciousness you have of the nobility of your work, which is, as I have said, the emancipation and elevation of both man and woman. The great Republic, of which you are citizens, by express provision of its fundamental law, can exist only as it is free, as it is just; two ideas that lie, as I understand it, at the bottom of your movement. The country must continue one-sided, ill-balanced, imperfect in its civilization, until woman, with her peculiar nature, is admitted to that individuality which of right belongs to every human being. Therefore I bid you God-speed in your work.
Judge Loughridge, of Iowa, spoke as follows—Ladies: I take pleasure in appearing here in response to your kind invitation. I understand fully your desire to express in this way your appreciation of the aid given by a portion of the Representatives to the XLI. Congress to the cause you have so much at heart—the cause of universal suffrage and political liberty.
In reference to the report of the minority of the Judiciary Committee, to which Mrs. Hooker has referred in such complimentary terms and in which I had the honor to join with the distinguished gentleman from Massachusetts, Mr. Butler, I am glad to know that you are satisfied with it, and that you think it does justice to your cause. What is written there is the honest conviction of my judgment, and in my opinion the principles contended for therein will, before many years, be accepted as the law of the land.
I desire to say one word, suggested by the remark which I have heard made frequently of late, that the only resort now for the advocates of woman suffrage is to the courts of the country. I think it is a mistake. In this country, on questions involving political rights, the courts are generally in the rear rank; the people are mostly in advance of the courts. In my opinion the most speedy and certain victory will be acquired through the political departments of the government, which are moulded and controlled by the people, and which will always in the end reflect the will of the people. You applied to Congress; although not successful, yet the support you did receive was greater than the most sanguine expected. Continue your efforts, persevere in your determination, and in the end you will win, for you are right, and the right always triumphs.
The ladies then shook hands with each of these gentlemen, and added a few words of personal thanks, after which the committee adjourned.
That the position in regard to the rights of women under the XIV. and XV. Amendments was still maintained is shown in the call[144] and resolutions[145] as well as the speeches in the three days' convention held in Lincoln Hall, Washington, in January, 1872.
One of the interesting episodes of this convention was the invitation extended by the Association to certain non-believers to appear in open session, and meet the champions of the cause in argument. Mrs. Gage wrote an invitation[146] to Mrs. Dahlgren, which she most courteously declined.[147] The idea was suggested to Mrs. Gage by the memorial which Mrs. General Sherman and Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren had presented to the Senate of the United States. Their petition was as follows:
TO THE U. S. SENATE AGAINST WOMAN SUFFRAGE.
We, the undersigned, do hereby appeal to your honorable body, and desire respectfully to enter our protest against an extension of suffrage to women; and in the firm belief that our petition represents the sober convictions of the majority of the women of the country. Although we shrink from the notoriety of the public eye, yet we are too deeply and painfully impressed by the grave perils which threaten our peace and happiness in these proposed changes in our civil and political rights, longer to remain silent.
Because, Holy Scripture inculcates a different, and for us higher, sphere apart from public life.
Because, as women, we find a full measure of duties, cares, and responsibilities devolving upon us, and we are therefore unwilling to bear other and heavier burdens, and those unsuited to our physical organization.
Because, we hold that an extension of suffrage would be adverse to the interests of the workingwomen of the country, with whom we heartily sympathize.
Because, these changes must introduce a fruitful element of discord in the existing marriage relation, which would tend to the infinite detriment of children, and increase the already alarming prevalence of divorce throughout the land.
Because, no general law, affecting the condition of all women, should be framed to meet exceptional discontent.
For these, and many more reasons, do we beg of your wisdom that no law extending suffrage to women may be passed, as the passage of such a law would be fraught with danger so grave to the general order of the country.
[Signed by Mrs. General Sherman, Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren, and other ladies to the number of 1,000.]
Mrs. Dahlgren presented a form of XVI. Amendment as follows:
SHERMAN-DAHLGREN XVI. AMENDMENT.
Congress shall have power to, and shall pass laws which shall be uniform throughout the United States.
To regulate the transfer and descent of all kinds of property.
To regulate marriages and the registration of the same, and the registration of births.
To regulate the right of dower and all rights and obligations of married persons.
To regulate divorces and to grant alimony, but no divorces a vinculo matrimonii shall be granted, except for the cause of adultery, and in such case the offending party shall not have the privilege of marrying during the lifetime of the offended party.
In her opening remarks Mrs Stanton said:
This is the fourth convention we have held in Washington, and the effect can hardly be estimated in the education of the American people toward woman suffrage. I feel more anxious about how women will vote than in their speedy enfranchisement. So many important political questions are seen in the horizon that woman's influence is needed to guide safely through all storms the ship of state. We propose to change our tactics. Instead of petitioning Congress for our rights we propose to settle the question before the courts, unless Congress gives us the declaratory act this winter, which I think they will. We have reasoned for twenty-five years, and we now propose to take our rights under the Constitution as it is. The people are beginning already to discuss the fitting celebration for our centennial anniversary. No grander step could mark that great national event than to extend the right of suffrage to one half the citizens of our republic.
The following letter was read at the morning session:
Brooklyn, January 1, 1872.
My Dear Madam: Your letter of December 30th, in which you invite me to take part in the Washington convention in behalf of woman's suffrage, is duly received.
I am engaged during the whole week with lectures in Massachusetts and Maine. I can not say that I am so sanguine of the immediate or new admission of women to the right of suffrage. But of its ultimate accomplishment I have not a doubt, since justice and expediency combine in requiring it. That manhood is, on the whole, made better and stronger by a direct participation in the duties, and responsibilities of active citizenship, notwithstanding incidental evils, is becoming the sentiment of the civilized world; nor is there any reason to doubt that, in spite of temporary and incidental evils, the same advantages would accrue to womanhood. In every wise and Christian movement for the education and enfranchisement of woman I hope always to be in sympathy. I am, respectfully, yours,
Henry Ward Beecher.
Mr. Burlingame, of R. I., remarked:—I sympathize with this movement. It commands my respect and admiration. I have come here unexpected and unsolicited, because I think my wife and other women should have the same rights as the colored man and Irishman. I believe in this movement, because I believe it to be right; it is the most important question of the times. The speaker then reviewed the objections against female suffrage, and pronounced them all weak, and closed with allusions to the many heroic deeds of illustrious women now a part of history.
Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker then presented the following report, in relation to the work of the Association for the past year:
REPORT.
The work to be done in the future is precisely what has been recommended during the past year by every member of the committee in public and in private.
1. Women should attempt to qualify and attempt to vote in every State election or otherwise, according to opportunity. This action not only serves the purpose of agitation of the whole question of suffrage, but it puts upon men, our brothers, the onus of refusing the votes of their fellow citizens, and compels them to show just cause for such proceeding. If it could be well understood that every woman who believes that she has a right to vote, would actually test her right by an appearance at the polls before and at the next Presidential election, the question as to nominees for that office would contain a new element, and the views and preferences of this large constituency would receive serious consideration at the hands of president-makers in both the great parties of the country.
2. Women should study the question of their present rights and duties, and make their views known in public and in private to the utmost extent of their ability. In a time like this, when the interests of our whole beloved country are at stake; when political corruption is appalling, and men are paralyzed with fear because of the threatened failure of republican institutions, ignorance and indifference on the part of women, who are the natural protectors of purity and honor, whether in the family or the State, are sins against God, their country, and their own souls.
3. Men and women should pour out money like water for the propagation of these views. A copy of the Declaration of Independence and of the Constitution of the United States, together with an argument on the fair interpretation of these documents, should be put into every family in the United States which has a reading member in it. Your committee are able and willing to send these documents directly into these homes—one at a time, carefully directed and franked by members of Congress, who believe they are making a patriotic and legitimate use of the franking privilege by thus educating their constituents in the first principles of a constitutional government—a government founded upon personal liberty and personal responsibility. Half a million dollars appropriated by Congress itself for this simple purpose would inaugurate a reign of patriotism and purity scarcely dreamed of as yet by the most powerful lovers of their country. But Congress has not yet even printed the able reports from the Judiciary Committee of the House, and the few copies we have been able to send out have been the gift of a private individual. Women must educate themselves—men must help them. The latter hold the purse-strings; and so surely as they desire peace, plenty, and the perpetuity of republican institutions, they must see to it that women are supplied with the sinews of war. Moral warfare costs not only heart's blood, but treasure. Women are offering their very souls in behalf of mankind. Can men do less than empty their pockets for the good of the race?
And there is one thing more that men can and must do before the reign of justice and equality can be inaugurated. They, being voters, must pledge themselves in their own breasts, and to one another, that they will vote for such candidates in either party as are in favor of woman suffrage, and for no others. Such proceedings would settle the question in less than a year, and the peaceful working of a new regime would prove the wisdom and patriotism of these faithful souls before the whole world. We confidently believe that there are at least 300,000 voters to-day who desire to share the burdens and responsibilities of government with their mothers, wives, and sisters. Let them combine and speak the sovereign words, "Principle before party," and the day is won.
Mrs. Hooker and other ladies united in a memorial, which was presented in the Senate and referred to the Judiciary Committee, asking for a recognition of the rights of women under the XIV. Amendment, and asking further that the advocates of the cause be heard at the bar of the Senate. Mr. Trumbull, the chairman of the committee, was not willing for this; but, at Mrs. Hooker's solicitation, he agreed to lay the subject before the committee, and it was finally agreed that a hearing should be given on Friday morning, January 10th, at 11 o'clock.
To the Honorable Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled:
The undersigned, citizens of the United States, believing that under the present Federal Constitution all women who are citizens of the United States have the right to vote, pray your honorable body to enact a law during the present session that shall assist and protect them in the exercise of that right.
And they pray further that they may be permitted, in person, and in behalf of the thousands of other women who are petitioning Congress to the same effect, to be heard upon this memorial before the Senate and House at an early day in the present session. We ask your honorable body to bear in mind that while men are represented on the floor of Congress, and so may be said to be heard there, women who are allowed no vote, and therefore no representation, can not truly be heard except as Congress shall open its doors to us in person.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton. Olympia Brown. Isabella Beecher Hooker. Susan B. Anthony. Elizabeth L. Bladen. Josephine S. Griffing. Hartford, Conn., December 12, 1871.
| Elizabeth Cady Stanton. | Olympia Brown. |
| Isabella Beecher Hooker. | Susan B. Anthony. |
| Elizabeth L. Bladen. | Josephine S. Griffing. |
Senate of the United States, Committee on the Judiciary,}
Washington, January 10, 1872 }Madam: The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the memorial of yourself and others, asking to be heard before the Senate in behalf of the constitutional right of women to vote, and modified by your letter of this morning, so as to ask that the committee hold a public meeting in the Senate Chamber for that purpose, have concluded that it would not be consistent with the usage and rules of the Senate to admit memorialists to appear and advocate their claims before the Senate, nor for the committee to ask the use of the Senate Chamber for public discussion before them.
The committee would, however, be happy to receive any communication you and the other memorialists may think proper to make, or, if the memorialists prefer to present their views in person, the committee will hear them in its committee-room at 11 o'clock a.m., next Friday morning.
Very respectfully,
Lyman Trumbull,
Chairman of the Committee on the Judiciary.
Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker.
Accordingly the hearing being granted, at the appointed hour the whole convention adjourned to the Capitol, crowding not only the committee room but the corridors, thousands of eager, expectant women struggling to gain admission. The committee,[148] seated round a large table, manifested a respectful attention to each speaker in turn, complimenting them warmly at the close.
Mrs. Hooker said: Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee—In accordance with your courteous invitation of the 10th, I have the honor to present to you an argument upon the question: Are women entitled to vote under the United States Constitution, as amended? It is not important to inquire what was the status of woman before the adoption of the XIV. Amendment. By that amendment they are clearly made citizens. No one denies this. The first section of the amendment is as follows:
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.
The whole question is, what is the meaning of the term "citizen" as here used. The term is familiar to law and politics, and the authorities are very numerous and uncontradicted which make citizenship include the right to vote. These authorities consist of lexicographers, English and American, and legal and political writers. It is said, however, that to give the term a meaning by which women become voters under it is contrary to the actual intent of Congress and the State Legislatures in passing the amendment, as, unquestionably, the legislators who voted for it had personally (with, perhaps, a few exceptions) no thought of enfranchising women.
To this it is replied: 1. That the question is not whether they thought of enfranchising women, but whether they used the term as a term of enfranchisement at all; for if it would have enfranchised black men, it would have equally enfranchised women, and unquestionably the predominant idea in these legislators was a political benefit, not very precisely measured, to black men. 2. An inquiry as to actual intent in such a case is never admissible. A rule that allowed it would make every law uncertain. An enactment can be construed only by the language in fact used, and where that language is doubtful, by other parts of the same enactment, and by a consideration of the public evil which the law was intended to remedy. The evil to be remedied in this case was the political disadvantage under which black men, made free by the XIII. Amendment, still labored. The object was to give them a positive political benefit. The terms used are such that, necessarily and confessedly, whatever benefit accrues to black men under it accrues equally to women.
It is said, in the next place, that the term "citizen" has acquired a meaning in American usage, legal and political, that does not carry with it the idea of suffrage; and the report of the majority of the Judiciary Committee on the Woodhull memorial places its adverse construction of this amendment entirely on the ground of an American use of the term in its restricted sense. Such a use of the term undoubtedly exists. Webster recognizes it, and so do some of our political writers. But this meaning is a secondary and lower one, and has not attained such dignity of use as to encroach at all upon the well-established general meaning, and would not be presumed in a law, much less in a constitution. The American authorities are strongly in favor of the larger meaning.
The term is used in the second section of the original Constitution, article four, which provides that "the citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States." In Corfield vs. Coryell, 4 Wash. C. C. R., 380, the court say: "The inquiry is what are the privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States? They may be all comprehended under the following general heads: (Here follows a statement of numerous rights, civil and political, closing as follows:) "To which may be added the elective franchise as regulated and established by the laws or constitution of the State in which it is to be exercised." And in the Dred Scott case, 19 Howard, 476, Mr. Justice Daniel says:
There is not, it is believed, to be found in the theories of writers on government, or in any actual experiment heretofore tried, an exposition of the term 'citizen' which has not been understood as conferring the actual possession and enjoyment, or the perfect right of acquisition and enjoyment, of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political.
And the supreme court of Kentucky, 1 Little R., 333, says:
No one can, in the correct sense of the term, be a citizen of a State who is not entitled, upon the terms prescribed by the institutions of the State, to all the rights and privileges conferred by those institutions upon the highest class of society.
These are American authorities, and would seem to settle the question that the term has not acquired a distinctive American meaning variant from the well-established general meaning.
It is said, in the next place, and finally, that the second section of the XIV. Amendment shows clearly that the term "citizen" could not have been used in the sense of full citizenship. This objection is the most serious one that the argument encounters. That section, so far as relates to this subject, is as follows:
When the right to vote is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
The consideration of this section is perfectly legitimate in the inquiry as to the meaning of the first section. It is said, with great force, that here is an implied admission that the States retained the power to exclude black men from the right to vote, and it will be asked why, if that right is absolutely conferred by the first section, and is one of the privileges and immunities of citizens which no State may abridge, the amendment does not boldly forbid any such State legislation, instead of merely imposing certain limitations upon the State that should assume to exercise such right of exclusion.
Two answers have been made by public writers on the subject which are merely specious. One is, that if the second section be construed as admitting the right of a State to exclude certain classes of men from the franchise, yet it could not operate as an admission of the right to exclude women. The fallacy here is, that if the citizenship conferred by the first section does not secure against all legislation the right of suffrage to men, it does not secure it to women; the question being merely as to the meaning of the term "citizen" as used, and not as to its application to either sex, as such. The other answer that has been made is, that this second section is repealed by the XV. Amendment, which forbids the denial of suffrage in the cases where this section seems to allow it; and it is asked, with apparent confidence, whether a law that is repealed can have any further operation whatever. The fallacy here is, that the operation of this second section, so far as it relates to the present question, is wholly in throwing light upon the meaning of the term "citizen," as used in the first section, and this operation is just as perfect after its repeal as before; precisely as a part of a will that has been revoked by a codicil, may yet be read with the rest of the will if it will throw light upon the meaning of the whole.
It is believed, however, that a valid answer can be made to the objection which is founded upon the second section, and that the view here presented will be ultimately sustained by the legal opinion of the country.
1. It is not a necessary inference that the right to exclude from suffrage is admitted by the second section, for this section will bear a construction that is consistent with the enlarged construction which we give to the first section; and it is a well-settled principle that a construction that favors the extension of liberty is itself to be favored, and one which restricts liberty is not to be adopted, except under a necessity. This second section provides for a penalty, in the reduction of its basis of representation, in every case where a State should deny to any class of citizens the right of suffrage. Now, this is not necessarily a concession of the right, but may be regarded as a punishment of the attempt to exercise the so-called right. The matter was practically so much within the power of the States (and the States in view were the disorganized Southern States), that it would be far easier for Congress to enforce the penalty for denying the right of suffrage than for the President to protect that right. It may be regarded as a case, well known to the law, of cumulative remedies. It is precisely as if, in addition to the express prohibition by the Constitution of the making of war by any State, there had been a provision that if any State should make war upon a foreign State, such State should pay the entire expense in which the General Government should become involved by the war. This clearly would be only a penalty and not a concession of the right, the object being to increase and not to diminish the security of the General Government against any attempt of a State to do the act prohibited.
2. The first section of the XIV. Amendment is entirely senseless and idle, except upon the construction which we claim. The term "citizen" means either "voter" or merely "member of the nation," as distinguished from an alien. Judge Cartter, in his late opinion in the case of Spencer vs. The Board of Registration, in the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, sees this necessity, and that there is no intermediate status, and holds that the term means merely a person clothed with the civil rights of an inhabitant, as distinguished from an alien. Let it be borne in mind, then, that those who deny the construction which we claim, must make the word citizen mean merely "not an alien." Let it also be borne in mind that by the XIII. Amendment, which abolished slavery, every inhabitant of the land became a free inhabitant, so that nothing is now added to the force of the term "inhabitant" by prefixing to it the term "free." It follows, therefore, that the XIV. Amendment, under the adverse construction claimed, means only that the persons referred to in it are inhabitants of the land. Let us see, then, how it will read: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States are inhabitants of the United States and the State wherein they reside." This is sheer nonsense. In the construction of an ordinary law, passed by a Legislature in the crowded moments of its last hour, every Court would say that it must, if possible, give the law a construction that will make it have a sensible meaning and effect, and that of two constructions, one of which gives it sense and purpose and the other none, the former is without a question to be preferred. How much more should such a rule be applied to an amendment of a national constitution, deliberately adopted first by Congress and then by three-quarters of the Legislatures of the States?
3. It is a universal rule in the construction of statutes that the construction of an enabling or enlarging statute must be liberal and in the direction of enlargement. This rule is applicable with much greater force to the construction of this amendment, because, in the first place, it is dealing with the most fundamental of all political rights—that of free citizenship in a democracy—and is besides an amendment of a constitution, which is itself the charter of freedom, and the amendment is made for the very purpose of giving larger freedom than that free constitution originally gave. This rule alone is enough to settle the question of the construction of this amendment, especially as the question is between a construction that shall make it an enlargement of liberty and a construction that shall make it confer nothing that was not before possessed.
The whole question thus far has been considered with reference to the XIV. Amendment alone. The XV. Amendment, though, as we think, conferring no new rights, yet should be briefly noticed. That amendment is as follows: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." Here it will be seen that the language, in its natural meaning, implies a pre-existing right to vote. It is not pertinent to the creation of a new right, but only to the protection of a right already existing. It is like the case occurring in some of the State constitutions, where it is provided that the right of trial by jury shall not be denied or impaired, in which case it has been held not to confer a new right, but merely to protect, in its then existing form, a right that was enjoyed when the constitution was adopted. This construction of the XV. Amendment, however, though the natural and obvious one, is not a necessary one, since, if there had been no XIV. Amendment, the XV. would undoubtedly be held to create a new right of suffrage. The argument, from the language used, though not without very positive weight, can not be regarded as decisive of the question, and the claim that women are entitled to vote must rest essentially upon the construction of the XIV. Amendment.
There is, however, an adverse claim that is made under the XV. Amendment, which ought to be briefly considered. That claim is that even if the XIV. Amendment gives the right to vote, yet the XV., in prohibiting the denial of the right to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, impliedly confers the right to prohibit it on all other grounds. Now, if it has this effect, it does so merely by impliedly repealing that clause of the XIV. Amendment which provides that the rights of citizens shall not be abridged. But it is a well-established rule of law that a repeal by implication is never favored, and will not be sustained unless the implication is a clear and necessary one. Much more would not such a repeal be sustained where the clause claimed to be repealed was a part of a constitution, and was intended as a security for human rights and liberty. The rule that would favor a construction toward liberty of the XIV. Amendment, would equally forbid a construction toward curtailment of liberty of the XV.
But it will be said that the XV. Amendment becomes without purpose and effect, and really as senseless as we claim the XIV. Amendment to be under the construction which we oppose, if it is to be regarded as operating only in the way claimed, and not as conferring rights not previously existing. This is a point of some force, and which can be replied to only by the fact that there was an impression upon the minds of the legislators and of the people, that the XIV. Amendment did not confer the right of suffrage. That impression weighs nothing in now determining the meaning of the XIV. Amendment; but it furnishes the explanation that seems to be needed of the passage of the XV. Amendment. It was in our view wholly unnecessary, but was generally thought to be necessary. The difference in the two cases is that the XV. Amendment was passed under a supposed necessity, and with, therefore, a complete object; while the XIV. Amendment, under the construction which our opponents give to it, not only conferred nothing, but was believed at the time to confer nothing, and had therefore no purpose whatever. Our view that the XV. Amendment was unnecessary was held by some leading statesmen at the time. Mr. Sumner in the Senate declared it to be so before its passage, and proposed instead of it a mere law of Congress recognizing the right of suffrage and regulating its exercise.
It is at any rate very clear that the construction of the XV. Amendment, which makes it impliedly allow the denial of suffrage on all other grounds than the three stated, can not be sustained. Such rights as those with which it deals will never be allowed in a free constitution like ours to be curtailed or restricted by mere implication. If that construction is adopted—and a State may deny the right to vote on all other grounds but race and color and previous servitude—then, of course, a State may deny the right to all naturalized foreigners, although they have already acquired and enjoyed the right, and may also deny the right to vote to persons of a particular height or color of hair or profession. Indeed, to reduce the case to an absurdity, suppose the women are allowed to vote in Massachusetts, and, being a great majority over the men, turn around and exclude the men. This would be precisely the ground on which women are now excluded—that of sex; and yet can any one doubt that the constitutional right to vote of men would be sustained?
It is worth noticing that the Act of Congress of May 31, 1870, to carry into effect the provisions of the XIV. and XV. Amendments, is entitled, "An Act to enforce the right of citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of this Union."
Our conclusion, stated in a few words, is this: All women are citizens. Every citizen, in the language of Judge Daniel in the Dred Scott case, has "the actual possession and enjoyment or the perfect right of acquisition and enjoyment of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political." The right to prescribe qualifications rests with the States, in the absence of any law of Congress prescribing them. These qualifications involve time of residence, age, and other matters that are entirely within the reach of the citizen by acquisition or lapse of time. Mr. Sumner has demonstrated in a manner that can not be answered that the qualifications thus left for the States to prescribe must be those under which the citizen can become a voter, and can not be such as would permanently exclude him from the right of suffrage.
It has been said that it is not fair for women to take advantage of a right to vote, no matter how clearly given them, which there was no actual intention to give. This objection does not touch the argument we have been making, but it may be well to say a word upon it. The law has so far dealt so unfairly with women that it would seem as if they should not be severely criticised for taking advantage of the law, when, though by mere accident, it happens to favor them. But it is especially to be considered that their claim is in accordance with the whole spirit of the Constitution and in harmony with all the fundamental principles of our Government, while the denial of suffrage to them is in opposition to those principles. If anything is settled in this country as an abstract general principle, it is the right of tax-payers to have a voice in the legislation that is to determine their taxes and in the appointment of the officers who are to levy and expend them, and that the members of the nation should elect its rulers. Our error (and the day is not far distant when we shall all see its absurdity) is in making these fundamental rights the rights of men alone and in denying them to women. The latter have equal intelligence, patriotism, and virtue, and their fidelity to their country has been as well proved as that of men, and it is difficult to see any good reason why they should have no voice in deciding who shall be the rulers of the nation, what its laws, what its taxes and how appropriated, what the policy that is to affect, for good or evil, the business interests that they are becoming more and more largely engaged in. With all this equity in their favor, may they not be allowed, without censure, to avail themselves of a legal right? If the freedom of the slave could have been declared by our judicial tribunals under some guarantee of freedom in the National Constitution, originally intended only for white men, all lovers of freedom would have rejoiced. When Alvan Stewart, thirty years ago, attempted to get such a decision from the supreme court of New Jersey, there was not a cavil heard among the opponents of slavery. So when, in the face of the whole legal opinion of England, Granville Sharpe got a decision in favor of the slave Somerset, forever overthrowing slavery in England, by an application of latent principles of the English constitution, the whole world applauded, and does to this day. It was thus, as we understand it, that slavery was overthrown in Massachusetts, a lawyer claiming before its courts the application to a slave of a clause in its bill of rights supposed to have been intended only for white men. We would add that it would not accord at all with the good sense and directness of method that specially characterize the American people, for the friends of woman suffrage to labor years for the passage of a further constitutional amendment when they already have all that such an amendment could give.
Having attempted a strictly legal view of this question, permit me, gentlemen, to say that in my heart my claim to vote is based upon the original Constitution, interpreted by the Declaration of Independence. I believe that Constitution comprehensive enough to include all men and all women. I believe that black men needed no other charter than white men. I recognize the stress laid upon Congress, by reason of the infancy of that race, their past bondage, and the duty of protection toward them. But the great principles of liberty and responsibility contained in the Declaration and the Constitution should have afforded protection to every human being living under the flag, and properly applied they would have been found sufficient. For my own part, I will never willingly consent to vote under any special enactment conferring rights of citizenship upon me as upon an alien. Like Paul, I was free-born. "With a great sum obtained I this freedom," said the Roman centurion to this old patriot apostle, but he replied, "I am free-born." There is music in those words to my ear. They are the deep vibrations of a soul that loves its country as itself.
You sit here, gentlemen, in judgment on my rights as an American citizen, as though they were something different from your own! By whatsoever title you sit in these seats and make laws, wise or unwise, just or unjust, for this great people, by that same title do I claim my share in this great responsibility, owing allegiance to God and my own conscience alone. I may have been born with less capacity than the least among you, with small chance of growing to your mental stature, or reaching your standard of moral elevation; but I have a perfect right to sit in your midst, pigmy that I may be, since I am one of "the people" who did ordain this glorious old Constitution, and one of "the governed," whose consent is made the basis of a government that can be called just.
It is for this reason that I and my fellow memorialists have asked to be protected in the use of our present rights, rather than endowed with any new ones; and we do pray you, gentlemen of the committee, to give immediate attention to our claim, and to report to the Senate within a short time, favorably if you can, adversely if you must, because we not only wish, in common with thousands of other women-citizens, to vote for the next President, but to have a potent voice in his nomination, and we wish to know, therefore, how far Congress will aid us, and how far we must work out our own salvation. For we can wait no longer. We feel that we have neglected our duty already, else what means this appalling official corruption that is bringing dismay to the stoutest hearts among men, and leading them to doubt the wisdom of republican institutions, the strength of the great doctrines of liberty and responsibility on which our Government is founded? We do not doubt these great doctrines, we know what they mean and whereto they tend. Our Ship of State carries two engines, gentlemen, and was built for them, but heretofore you have used only one, and now you have reached the place where not only two seas meet, but all ocean currents are struggling together for the mastery. The man power alone will not save you, but put on the woman power, and our gallant ship will steady itself for a moment, and then ride the waves triumphantly forevermore.
Gentlemen, we come to you with petitions no longer. Here is our declaration and pledge, issued a year ago this day, signed already by thousands of women, and eager names are coming every day. (Mrs. H. read the pledge and exhibited the great autograph book.)
We did hope to present this to Congress itself in the Senate Chamber to-day. We believe that women, being unrepresented in that body, are entitled to appear there by their memorialists in person, and we have so asked. But Congress has referred us to you, and you have declined even to submit our proposition officially to that body. You find no precedent for this, you say—forgetting, gentlemen, that history makes its own precedents. The men of America made theirs in 1776; the women of America are making theirs to-day, and may God prosper the right.
Mrs. Stanton said: Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee: We appear before you at this time to call your attention to our memorial asking for a "declaratory act" that shall protect women in the exercise of the right of suffrage. Benjamin F. Butler, early in the session, presented a bill in the House to this effect that may soon, in the order of legislation, come before you for consideration in the Senate of the United States. As you well know, women are demanding their rights as citizens to-day under the original Constitution, believing that its letter and spirit, fairly interpreted, guarantee the blessings of liberty to every citizen under our flag. But more especially do we claim that our title deed to the elective franchise is clearly given in the XIV. and XV. Amendments. Therein for the first time, the Constitution defines the term citizen, and, in harmony with our best lexicographers, declares a citizen to be a person possessed of the right to vote. In the last year the question of woman's political status has been raised from one of vague generalities to one of constitutional law.
The Woodhull memorial, and the able arguments sustaining it made by Mr. Riddle and Mrs. Woodhull herself, and the exhaustive minority report of Messrs. Butler and Loughridge, have been before the nation for one year, and yet remain unanswered; in fact, the opinions of many of our most learned judges and lawyers multiplying on all sides, sustain the positions taken in the "Woodhull Memorial." As our demands are based on the same principles of constitutional interpretation, I will not detain you with the re-statement of arguments already furnished, but will present a few facts and general principals showing the need of some speedy action on this whole question.
Gentlemen hold seats in Congress to-day by the votes of women. The legality of the election of Mr. Garfield, of Washington Territory, and Mr. Jones, of Wyoming, involves the question whether or not their constituents are legal voters. Ultimately, this question, involving the fundamental rights of citizens, must be considered in the Senate as well as the House. Women have voted in the general elections in several of the States, and if legislators chosen by women choose Senators, their right to their seats can not be decided until it is first decided whether women are legal voters. Some speedy action on this question is inevitable, to preserve law and order.
In some States women have already voted; in others they are contesting their rights in the courts, and the decisions of judges differ as widely as the capacities of men to see first principles.
Judge Howe, Judge Cartter, and Judge Underwood have given their written opinions in favor of woman's citizenship under the XIV. and XV. Amendments. Even the majority report of the Judiciary Committee, presented by John A. Bingham, though adverse to the prayer of Victoria Woodhull, admits the citizenship of woman. In the late cases of Sarah Spencer against the Board of Registration, and Sarah E. Webster against the superintendent of election, the judge decided that under the XIV. Amendment women are citizens.
We do not ask to vote outside of law, or in open violation of it, nor to avail ourselves of any strained interpretations of constitutional provisions, but in harmony with the Federal Constitution, the Declaration of Independence, and our American theory of just government. The women of this country and a handful of foreign citizens in Rhode Island, the only disfranchised classes, ask you to-day to secure to them a republican form of government to protect them against the oppression of State authorities, who, in violation of your amendments, assume the right not merely to regulate the suffrage, but to abridge and deny it to these two classes of citizens. The Federal Constitution, in its Amendment, clearly defines, for the first time, who are citizens: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the States wherein they reside."
No one denies that "all persons," in the XIV. Amendment, is used without limitation of sex, or in other words, that not men only, but women also are citizens. Whether in theory the citizenship of women is generally admitted or not, it certainly is in practice. Women pre-empt land; women register ships; women obtain passports; women pay the penalty of their own crimes; women pay taxes, sometimes work out the road tax. In some States, even married women can make contracts, sue and be sued, and do business in their own names; in fact, the old Blackstone idea that husband and wife are one, and that one the husband, received its death blow twenty years ago, when the States of New York and Massachusetts passed their first laws securing to married women the property they inherited in their own right.
You may consider me presumptuous, gentlemen, but I claim to be a citizen of the United States, with all the qualifications of a voter. I can read the Constitution, I am possessed of two hundred and fifty dollars, and the last time I looked in the old family Bible I found I was over twenty-one years of age.
"Individual rights," "Individual conscience and judgment," are great American ideas, underlying our whole political and religious life. We are here to-day to ask a Congress of Republicans for that crowning act that shall secure to 15,000,000 women the right to protect their persons, property, and opinions by law. The XIV. Amendment, having told us who are citizens of the republic, further declares that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the 'privileges or immunities' of 'citizens' of the United States." Some say that "privileges and immunities" do not include the right of suffrage. We answer that any person under Government who has no voice in the laws or the rulers has his privileges and immunities abridged at every turn, and when a State denies the right of suffrage, it robs the citizen of his citizenship and of all power to protect his person or property by law.
Disfranchised classes are ever helpless and degraded classes. One can readily judge of the political status of a citizen by the tone of the press. Go back a few years, and you find the Irishman the target for all the gibes and jeers of the nation. You could scarce take up a paper without finding some joke about "Pat" and his last bull. But in process of time "Pat" became a political power in the land, and editors and politicians could not afford to make fun of him. Then "Sambo" took his turn. They ridiculed his thick skull, woolly head, shin-bone, long heel, etc., but he, too, has become a political power; he sits in the Congress of the United States and in the Legislature of Massachusetts, and now politicians and editors can not afford to make fun of him.
Now, who is their target? Woman. They ridicule all alike—the strong-minded for their principles, the weak minded for their panniers. How long think you the New York Tribune would maintain its present scurrilous tone if the votes of women could make Horace Greeley Governor of New York? The editor of the Tribune knows the value of votes, and if, honorable gentlemen, you will give us a "Declaratory law," forbidding the States to deny or abridge our rights, there will be no need of arguments to change the tone of his journal; its columns will speedily glow with demands for the protection of woman as well as broadcloth and pig-iron. Then we might find out what he knows and cares for our real and relative value in the Government.
Without some act of Congress regulating suffrage for women as well as black men, women citizens of the United States who, in Washington, Utah, and Wyoming Territories, are voters and jurors, and who, in the State of Kansas, vote on school and license questions, would be denied the exercise of their right to vote in all the States of the Union, and no naturalization papers, education, property, residence, or age could help them. What an anomaly is this in a republic! A woman who in Wyoming enjoys all the rights, privileges, and immunities of a sovereign, by crossing the line into Nebraska, sinks at once to the political degradation of a slave. Humiliated with such injustice, one set of statesmen answer her appeals by sending her for redress to the courts; another advises her to submit her qualifications to the States; but we, with a clearer intuition of the rightful power, come to you who thoughtfully, conscientiously, and understandingly passed that Amendment defining the word "citizen," declaring suffrage a foundation right. How are women "citizens" from Utah, Wyoming, Kansas, moving in other States, to be protected in the rights they have heretofore enjoyed, unless Congress shall pass the bill presented by Mr. Butler, and thus give us a homogeneous law on suffrage from Maine to Louisiana? Remember, these are citizens of the United States as well as of the Territories and States wherein they may reside, and their rights as such are of primal consideration. One of your own amendments to the Federal Constitution, honorable gentlemen, says "that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." We have women of different races and colors, as well as men. It takes more than men to compose peoples and races, and no one denies that all women suffer the disabilities of a present or previous condition of servitude. Clearly the State may regulate, but can not deny the exercise of this right to any citizen.
You did not leave the negroes to the tender mercies of the courts and States. Why send your mothers, wives, and daughters suppliants at the feet of the unwashed, unlettered, unthinking masses that carry our elections in the States? Would you compel the women of New York to sue the Tweeds, the Sweeneys, the Connollys, for their inalienable rights, or to have the scales of justice balanced for them in the unsteady hand of a Cardozo, a Barnard, or a McCunn? Nay, nay; the proper tribunal to decide nice questions of human rights and constitutional interpretations, the political status of every citizen under our national flag, is the Congress of the United States. This is your right and duty, clearly set forth in article 1, section 5, of the Constitution, for how can you decide the competency and qualifications of electors for members of either House without settling the fundamental question on what the right of suffrage is based? All power centers in the people. Our Federal Constitution, as well as that of every State, opens with the words, "We, the people." However this phrase may have been understood and acted on in the past, women to-day are awake to the fact that they constitute one half the American people; that they have the right to demand that the constitution shall secure to them "justice," "domestic tranquillity," and the "blessings of liberty." So long as women are not represented in the government they are in a condition of tutelage, perpetual minority, slavery.
You smile at the idea of women being slaves in this country. Benjamin Franklin said long ago, "that they who have no voice in making the laws, or in the election of those who administer them, do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes and to their representatives." I might occupy hours in quoting grand liberal sentiments from the fathers—Madison, Jefferson, Otis, and Adams—in favor of individual representation. I might quote equally noble words from the statesmen of our day—Seward, Sumner, Wade, Trumbull, Schurz, Thurman, Groesbeck, and Julian—to prove "that no just government can be formed without the consent of the governed"; that "the ballot is the columbiad of our political life, and every man who holds it is a full-armed Monitor." But what do lofty utterances and logical arguments avail so long as men, blinded by old prejudices and customs, fail to see their application to the women by their side? Alas! gentlemen, women are your subjects. Your own selfish interests are too closely interwoven for you to feel their degradation, and they are too dependent to reveal themselves to you in their nobler aspirations, their native dignity. Did Southern slaveholders ever understand the humiliations of slavery to a proud man like Frederick Douglass? Did the coarse, low-bred master ever doubt his capacity to govern the negro better than he could govern himself? Do cow-boys, hostlers, pot-house politicians ever doubt their capacity to prescribe woman's sphere better than she could herself? We have yet to learn that, with the wonderful progress in art, science, education, morals, religion, and government we have witnessed in the last century, woman has not been standing still, but has been gradually advancing to an equal place with the man by her side, and stands to-day his peer in the world of thought.
American womanhood has never worn iron shoes, burned on the funeral pile, or skulked behind a mask in a harem, yet, though cradled in liberty, with the same keen sense of justice and equality that man has, she is still bound by law in the swaddling bands of an old barbarism. Though the world has been steadily advancing in political science, and step by step recognizing the rights of new classes, yet we stand to-day talking of precedents, authorities, laws, and constitutions, as if each generation were not better able to judge of its wants than the one that preceded it. If we are to be governed in all things by the men of the eighteenth century, and the twentieth by the nineteenth, and so on, the world will be always governed by dead men. The exercise of political power by woman is by no means a new idea. It has already been exercised in many countries, and under governments far less liberal in theory than our own. As to this being an innovation on the laws of nature, we may safely trust nature at all times to vindicate herself. In England, where the right to vote is based on property and not person, the feme sole freeholder has exercised her right all along. In her earliest history we find records of decisions in courts of her right to do so, and discussions on that point by able lawyers and judges. The feme sole voted in person; when married, her husband represented her property, and voted in her stead; and the moment the breath went out of his body, she assumed again the burden of disposing of her own income and the onerous duty of representing herself in the Government. Thus England is always consistent; property being the basis of suffrage, is always represented. Here suffrage is based on "persons," and yet one-half our people are wholly unrepresented.
We have declared in favor of a government of the people, for the people, by the people, the whole people. Why not begin the experiment? If suffrage is a natural right, we claim it in common with all citizens; if it is a political right, that the few in power may give or take away, then it is clearly the duty of the ruling powers to extend it in all cases as the best interests of the State require. No thinking man would admit that educated, refined womanhood would not constitute a most desirable element and better represent the whole humanitarian idea than a government of men alone.
The objections to Mr. Butler's bill, extending the provisions of the enforcement act to women, all summed up, are these:
1st. This is too short a cut to liberty. It is taking the nation by storm. The people are not ready for it. The slower process of a XVI. Amendment would be safer, surer, and do more toward educating the people for the final result. To all of which I answer, the women at least are ready and as well prepared for enfranchisement as were the slaves of the Southern plantation. There could have been no plan devised to educate the people so rapidly as the startling announcement in the Woodhull Memorial that women already had the right to vote. It has roused wise men to thought on the question, stirred the bar and bench of the nation, with the prospect of a new and fruitful source of litigation; it has inspired woman with fresh hope that the day of her enfranchisement is at hand, given the press of the country solid arguments for their consideration, and changed the tone of the speeches in our conventions from whinings about brutal husbands, stolen babies, and special laws, to fundamental principles of human rights.
This question has been up for discussion in this country over thirty years; it split the first anti-slavery society in two, was a firebrand in the world's convention, and has been a disturbing element in temperance, educational and constitutional conventions ever since, and it is high time it took a short cut to its final consummation. There have been many shorter cuts to liberty than this is likely to be, even with a declaratory act at this session. Why multiply amendments when we have liberty and justice enough in the spirit and letter of the Constitution as it now is to protect every citizen under this Government?
The simple opinion of a Chief Justice, a century ago, without any change in legislation, settled in one hour as great a question of human rights as we now submit to your consideration. Lord Mansfield, presiding in the Court of Queen's Bench, listening to the arguments in the fatuous Somerset case, with higher light and knowledge, suddenly awoke to the truth that by the laws of England, a slave could not breathe on that soil, and he so decided, and the negro was discharged. Slavery was abolished in Massachusetts in the same way, without any amendment of her constitution or new legislation, simply by the decision of her Chief Justice. So you perceive, honorable gentlemen, we have two precedents for the "short cut" we propose to liberty.
2d. Some object that it was not the "intention" of the framers of the original Constitution, nor of the amendments, to enfranchise woman. When ordinary men, in their ordinary condition, talk of the "intentions" of great men specially inspired to utter great political truths, they talk of what they can not know or understand. When by some moral revolution men are cut loose from all their old moorings and get beyond the public sentiment that once bound them, with no immediate selfish interest to subserve—as, for instance, our fathers in leaving England, or the French Communes in the late war—in hardship and suffering they dig down to the hard-pan of universal principles, and in their highest inspirational moments proclaim justice, liberty, equality for all.
Visiting Chicago not long since, I saw great pieces of rock of the most wonderful mineral combination—gold, silver, glass, iron, layer after layer, all welded beautifully together, and that done in the conflagration of a single night which would have taken ages of growth to accomplish in the ordinary rocky formations. Just so revolutions in the moral world suddenly mould ideas, clear, strong, grand, that centuries might have slumbered over in silence; ideas that strike minds ready for them with the quickness and vividness of the lightning's flash. It is in such ways and under such conditions that constitutions and great principles of jurisprudence are written; the letter and spirit are ever on the side of liberty; and highly organized minds, governed by principle, invariably give true interpretations; while others, whose law is expediency, coarse and material in all their conceptions, will interpret law, Bible, constitution, everything, in harmony with the public sentiment of their class and condition. And here is the reason why men differ in their interpretations of law. They differ in their organizations; they see everything from a different standpoint. Could ideas of justice, and liberty, and equality be more grandly and beautifully expressed than in the preamble to our Federal Constitution?
It is an insult to those Revolutionary heroes to say that, after seven years' struggle with the despotic ideas of the old world, in the first hour of victory, with their souls all on fire with new-found freedom, they sat down like so many pettifogging lawyers, and drew up a little instrument for the express purpose of robbing women and negroes of their inalienable rights. Does the preamble look like it? Women did vote in America, at the time the Constitution was adopted. If the framers of the Constitution meant they should not, why did they not distinctly say so? The women of the country, having at last roused up to their rights and duties as citizens, have a word to say as to the "intentions" of the fathers. It is not safe to leave the "intentions" of the Pilgrim fathers, or the Heavenly Father, wholly to masculine interpretation, for by Bible and Constitution alike, women have thus far been declared the subjects, the slaves of men.
But able jurists tell us that the "intention" of the framers of a document must be judged by the letter of the law. Following this rule the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia has decided that the XIV. Amendment does affect the status of women; that it advances them to full citizenship, and clothes them with the capacity to become voters. The exact language of Judge Cartter, who spoke for the court, is as follows:
All that has been accomplished by this amendment to the Constitution, or its previous provisions, is to distinguish them (women) from aliens, and make them capable of becoming voters. In giving expression to my judgment, this clause does advance them to full citizenship, and clothes them with the capacity to become voters.
If so much has been done, we have already gone beyond the "intention" of the framers of the amendments, if, as some say, they did not intend to touch the status of woman at all. But with or without intent, a law stands as it is written—"Lex ita scripta est." The true rule of interpretation, says Charles Sumner, under the National Constitution, especially since its additional amendments, is that anything for human rights is constitutional. "No learning in the books, no skill in the courts, no sharpness of forensic dialectics, no cunning in splitting hairs, can impair the vigor of the constitutional principle which I announce. Whatever you enact for human rights is constitutional, and this is the supreme law of the land, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the contrary notwithstanding."
Susan B. Anthony said—Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee: It is not argument nor Constitution that you need; you have already had those. I shall therefore refer to existing facts. Prior to the war the plan of extending suffrage was by State action, and it was our boast that the National Constitution did not contain a word that could be construed into a barrier against woman's right to vote. But at the close of the war Congress lifted the question of suffrage for men above State power, and by the amendments prohibited the deprivation of suffrage to any citizen by any State. When the XIV. Amendment was first proposed in Congress, we rushed to you with petitions, praying you not to insert the word "male" in the second clause. Our best woman-suffrage men, on the floor of Congress, said to us the insertion of the word there puts up no new barrier against woman; therefore do not embarrass us, but wait until the negro question is settled. So the XIV. Amendment, with the word "male," was adopted. Then, when the XV. Amendment was presented without the word "sex," we again petitioned and protested, and again our friends declared to us that the absence of that word was no hindrance to us, and again they begged us to wait until they had finished the work of the war. "After we have freed the negro, and given him a vote, we will take up your case." But have they done as they promised? When we come before you, asking protection under the new guarantees of the Constitution, the same men say to us our only plan is to wait the action of Congress and State Legislatures in the adoption of a XVI. Amendment that shall make null and void the insertion of the word "male" in the XIV., and supply the want of the word "sex" in the XV. Such tantalization endured by yourselves, or by any class of men, would have wrought rebellion, and in the end a bloody revolution. It is only the friendly relations that exist between the sexes that has prevented any such result from this injustice to women.
Gentlemen, I should be sure of your decision could you but realize the fact that we, who have been battling for our rights, now more than twenty years, have felt, and now feel, precisely as you would under such circumstances. Men never do realize this. One of the most ardent lovers of freedom (Senator Sumner), said to me, two winters ago, after our hearing before the Committee of the District, "Miss Anthony, I never realized before that you, or any woman, could feel the disgrace, the degradation, of disfranchisement precisely as I should if my fellow-citizens had conspired to take from me my right to vote." We have petitioned for our rights year after year. Although I am a Quaker and take no oath, yet I have made a most solemn "affirmation" that I would never again beg my rights, but that I would come up to Congress each year, and demand the recognition of them under the guarantees of the National Constitution.
What we ask of the Republican party, is simply to take down its own bars. The facts in Wyoming show how a Republican party can exist in that Territory. Before women voted, there was never a Republican elected to office; after their enfranchisement, the first election sent a Republican to Congress, and seven Republicans to their Territorial Legislature. Thus the nucleus of a Republican party there was formed by the enfranchisement of women. The Democrats seeing this, are now determined to again disfranchise the women. Can you Republicans so utterly stultify yourselves, can you so entirely work against yourselves, as to refuse us a Declaratory Law? Can you longer deny us the protection we ask? We pray you to report immediately, as Mrs. Hooker has said, "favorably, if you can, adversely, if you must." We can wait no longer.
All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States.
There is not, it is believed, to be found in the theories of writers on government, or in any actual experiment heretofore tried, an exposition of the term 'citizen' which has not been understood as conferring the actual possession and enjoyment, or the perfect right of acquisition and enjoyment, of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political.
No one can, in the correct sense of the term, be a citizen of a State who is not entitled, upon the terms prescribed by the institutions of the State, to all the rights and privileges conferred by those institutions upon the highest class of society.
When the right to vote is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State being twenty-one years of age and citizens of the United States, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.
All that has been accomplished by this amendment to the Constitution, or its previous provisions, is to distinguish them (women) from aliens, and make them capable of becoming voters. In giving expression to my judgment, this clause does advance them to full citizenship, and clothes them with the capacity to become voters.
In the House, on January 24, 1872, the following discussion took place:
Mr. Butler, of Massachusetts.—I ask unanimous consent, out of the usual course of the rules, to present a petition.
The Speaker.—Is there objection? The Chair hears none.
Mr. Butler, of Massachusetts.—I am honored with the duty of presenting a petition for a declaratory law to assure the right of suffrage to the women citizens of the United States. They believe their absolute constitutional right is to vote. They here and now desire to bring to the attention of Congress the necessity of passing a new law declaring and executing that right. They claim such a law in two views: first, as of right, and secondly, as of expediency to the nation. They insist that this their right ought to be secured to them by law, and they insist also that it is expedient for the Republic that this right should be accorded to them.
The mothers of the land, who shall form the characters of all its citizens through their teaching in childhood, giving direction to the thoughts which shall hereafter govern the land, may well claim that it is expedient that they shall have a voice in making the laws which govern them, which will give them greater freedom of action than they now have, which will afford them higher opportunities for noble culture than they now have, and raise their thoughts to a plane worthy of the generation that shall come after us, which must in all its social and moral qualities take its impress from their teachings, so that the men of the land shall then be as the women of the land now are; and as you elevate and ennoble woman, in so much, in a greater ratio, will our sons be better fitted for the great duties and responsibilities of the future. No stream shall rise higher than its fountain.
Sir, I recognize the fact that I have no right at this time to trespass on the business and indulgence of the House to argue the momentous question involved in this memorial, but I present this petition of 35,000 women of America, from almost every State in the Union. From every class and condition of life, from the highest and most refined, and from the humblest and most lowly, all are represented here, all asking that their claim to what they conceive to be their greatest right, and which we claim to be the inalienable right of every male citizen shall be granted to them.
The unanimity with which they come here; the fact that without organization, almost as a matter of spontaneity, 35,000 names should have been gathered and sent to this Capitol to a committee, whose voluntary duty it was made to receive them; the fact that other names are now coming in at the rate of some 500 a day; that from California 10,000 more are on the way, all speak to the Representatives of the people in accents that can not be misunderstood, that here is a great and necessary reform which calls for the fullest consideration and the promptest action of the Congress of the United States.
They are not to be told that this is an innovation, that this is a new thing. Division of property between the husband and the wife was a greater innovation upon the feudal law, which is the foundation of our law as regards women, and a very much greater innovation than this will be. That in the parent State from which we come women have had the right to act in public affairs; from the fact that in that parent State a woman is at the head of public affairs, seems to point to us that women may safely be trusted with the right to vote.
I have desired to say this much, in presenting this petition, in order that it may be brought to the notice of the House and the country; that it may take the same place in the consideration of the people that in a not very far day in the past anti-slavery petitions took, which founded the great party which now has control of the Government of this country. There was a great reform, beginning in the little, urged on by petitions, not so numerous in its early days, and hardly so numerous in its later days, as this, scarcely arriving to the dignity of numbers of applicants which characterizes the petition which I now present; and although, when a great moneyed interest was at stake, it took years to bring that freedom which those petitions asked for, yet let me assure the House of Representatives that in my judgment, much sooner, and as certainly as the sun rolls around in its course a few more times, just so sure will the right asked for in this petition be accorded to the women citizens of the United States.
I ask that this petition, which I propose simply to show to the House in its large volume (unrolling the petition), may be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, to whom this subject has already been referred.
Mr. Eldridge.—I ask that the petition be read.
The Speaker.—With the names?
Mr. Eldridge.—Certainly.
The Speaker.—That would require unanimous consent.
Mr. Butler, of Massachusetts.—I pray that may not be done, because I promised the Committee on Appropriations not to take much time. I ask that the petition simply be read.
The Clerk read as follows:
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled:
The undersigned, citizens of the United States, pray your honorable bodies that in any proposed amendment to the Constitution which may come before you in regard to suffrage in the District of Columbia or any Territory, the right of voting may be given to women on the same terms as to men.
The petition was then referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
In the House, January 29, 1872.—Mr. Parker, of Missouri, introduced a bill (H. R. No. 1277) to allow women to vote and hold office in the Territories of the United States; which was read a first and second time, referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and ordered to be printed.
In United States Senate on January 29, 1872.—The Vice-President said:—The Chair has been requested to present the protest of ladies of the county of Munroe, Indiana, signed by Mrs. Morton C. Hunter, Mrs. A. Y. Moore, and several hundred other ladies, remonstrating against an extension of the right of suffrage to women, "because the Holy Scripture inculcates a different and for us a higher sphere, apart from public life; because as women we find a full measure of duties, cares, and responsibilities devolving upon us, and we are therefore unwilling to bear other and heavier burdens, and those unsuited to our physical organization; because we hold that an extension of suffrage would be adverse to the interests of the working women of the country, with whom we heartily sympathize: because these changes must introduce a fruitful element of discord in the existing marriage relation, which would tend to the infinite detriment of children, and increase the already alarming prevalence of divorce through the land; because no general law affecting the condition of all women should be framed to meet exceptional discontent." This memorial will be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States in Congress assembled:
The undersigned, citizens of the United States, pray your honorable bodies that in any proposed amendment to the Constitution which may come before you in regard to suffrage in the District of Columbia or any Territory, the right of voting may be given to women on the same terms as to men.
The National Woman Suffrage Association held its May Anniversary of 1872 in New York, at Steinway Hall. As can be seen by the call,[149] the intention was to form a political party, but the delegates, after some discussion, decided that nominees without electors were incongruous. As usual a large number of States were represented by delegates, California sending Laura de Force Gordon, and Oregon, Abigail Scott Duniway. This convention was chiefly remarkable as being the first at which the presidency changed hands—Miss Anthony, instead of Mrs. Stanton, being elected to fill the position of chief officer.
A delegation, consisting of Mrs. Hooker, Mrs. De Force Gordon, and Miss Anthony, was sent by the National Woman Suffrage Association to the Presidential Conventions held by the Liberal Republicans at Cincinnati, the Democrats at Baltimore, and the Republicans at Philadelphia. The fruit of all the earnest labor of this delegation was a splinter in the Republican platform. This, however, was something to be grateful for, as it was the first mention of woman in the platform of either of the great political parties during our National existence. On the strength of this plank the following address was issued:
GRANT AND WILSON—APPEAL TO THE WOMEN OF AMERICA FROM THE NATIONAL WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION.
Women of the United States, the hour for political action has come. For the first time in the history of our country woman has been recognized in the platform of a large and dominant party. Philadelphia has spoken and woman is no longer ignored. She is now officially recognized as a part of the body politic. The fourteenth plank of its platform declares:
The Republican party mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America expresses gratification that wider avenues of employment have been open to women, and it farther declares that her demands for additional rights should be treated with respectful consideration.
We are told that this plank does not say much, that in fact it is only a "splinter;" and our "liberal" friends warn us not to rely upon it as a promise of the ballot to woman. What it is, we know full better than others. We recognize its meagerness; we see in it the timidity of politicians; but beyond and through it all, we farther see its promise of the future. We see in it the thin edge of the entering wedge which shall break woman's slavery in pieces and make us at last a nation truly free—a nation in which the caste of sex shall fall down by the caste of color, and humanity alone shall be the criterion of all human rights. The Republican party has been the party of ideas, of progress. Under its leadership, the nation came safely through the fiery ordeal of the rebellion; under it slavery was destroyed; under it manhood suffrage was established. The women of the country have long looked to it in hope, and not in vain; for to-day we are launched by it into the political arena, and the Republican party must hereafter fight our battles for us. This great party, this progressive party, having taken the initiative step, will never go back on its record. It needed this new and vital issue to keep it in life, for Cincinnati indorsed its work up to this hour; the constitutional amendments, the payment of the bonds in gold, the civil service reform, the restoration of the States. It thanked the soldiers and sailors of the Republic, it proposed lands to actual settlers. The Republican party went up higher; it remembered all citizens. The widows and orphans of the soldiers and sailors were not forgotten; it acknowledged its obligation to the loyal women of the Republic, and to the demands for additional rights, of all women, whatever their class, color, or birth, it promised "respectful consideration." Its second plank declared that "complete liberty and exact equality in the enjoyment of all civil, political, and public rights should be established and maintained throughout the Union by efficient and appropriate State and Federal legislation." These two planks are the complement of each other, and are the promise of exact and equal justice to woman. They were the work of radical woman suffrage Republicans—of Wilson, Sargent, Loring, Claflin, Hoar, Fairchild, and others. They were accepted by the candidates. General Grant, in his letter, expresses his desire to see "the time when the title of 'citizen' shall carry with it all the protection and privilege to the humblest, that it does to the most exalted." His course since his elevation to the Presidency has always been favorable to increased rights for women. He has officially recognized their competency, and has given them many government positions. Senator Wilson is an old and staunch advocate of woman suffrage, and his letter in pointed terms refers to the recognition given woman by his party, and says, "to her new demands it extends the hand of grateful recognition, and it commends her demands for additional rights to the calm and careful consideration of the nation." And, too, thus early in the campaign, the strongest men of the party, among whom are Forney, of the Philadelphia Press, Gerrit Smith, Bowen, of the New York Independent, and President White, of Cornell University, speak of this recognition as introducing a new era into politics.
While the old and tried Republican party in its platform and candidates thus gives woman assurance that her claim to equal political rights is to be respected, the other party in the field gives her no promise either in its platform or the letters of its nominees. The Liberal Republican party is a new party; it has no record; it has done no work; it is wholly untried; it ignores women; and by its silence in regard to the equal rights of one-half of the people—the most important question now in the political horizon—it proves itself unworthy of its name, unworthy of woman's confidence, and unworthy of the votes of truly liberal men. In regard to its candidates, Gratz Brown, once our friend, has practically denied his record. Horace Greeley, its chief nominee, has for years been our most bitter opponent. Both by tongue and pen he has heaped abuse, ridicule, and misrepresentation upon our leading women, while the whole power of the Tribune has been used to crush out our great reform. And now that he is a candidate for election to the highest office in the country, he still continues his bitter and hostile course toward one half of its citizens. He presses the iron-heel of his despotism upon their liberties; and, in answer to our appeals, he says he "neither desires our help nor believes us capable of giving any."
What can liberty expect from such a man? What can woman hope from such a party? Women of the Republic, you can not in self-respect give your aid to such nominees; you can not in self-respect work for such a party. It has repulsed you, pushed you back, said to you "go hence."
The Republican party, with Grant and Wilson as its standard-bearers, opens its doors to you. By its fourteenth plank it invites your aid and co-operation.
Shall it not have it? Women of the South, will you not work for your own freedom? Women of the North, will you not strive for your own enfranchisement?
There is a tide in the affairs of men
Which taken at the flood leads on to fortune.
But we must take the current when it serves our turn,
Or lose our ventures.For us to-day this tide has risen; for us to-day the current serves our turn. Let us lay aside our party preferences. Let us one and all forget our many grievances of the past; let us forget the many times we have been ignored, buffeted, and spurned by politicians. Let us throw our whole influence of voice and pen into this campaign, and in making it a success for the Republican party, make it a success for ourselves.
And now an especial word to the Women Suffrage organizations of the country. Prepare to hold mass meetings in all the large cities of your States; be ready to co-operate with Republican committees; send into the election districts your best women speakers, circulate addresses and documents throughout every school district; persuade fathers, brothers, husbands, and sons to work and vote for Grant and Wilson; offer your own votes, as in many election districts women's votes have already been received and counted; in every possible way throw the whole weight of your influence on the side of the Republican party. By persistent, united action for one party during this Presidential canvass, the women suffragists of the nation will make themselves felt as a power by both.
Women speakers, do not hesitate, do not vacillate; let no party or personal consideration bias you to act against the Republican party at this momentous crisis. Remember we owe to it a debt of gratitude that it has made for us this opportunity, that it has thus launched our cause into the political arena, where it must go on and on till justice and equality to woman shall at last triumph in a true Republic; "a government of the people, for the people, and by the people."
On behalf of the National Woman Suffrage Association.
Susan B. Anthony, President,
Matilda Joslyn Gage, Chair. Ex. Com.Rochester, July 19, 1872.
The Republican party mindful of its obligations to the loyal women of America expresses gratification that wider avenues of employment have been open to women, and it farther declares that her demands for additional rights should be treated with respectful consideration.
The Congressional Republican Committee published thousands of this appeal, and scattered them over the country. It also telegraphed to the President of the National Woman Suffrage Association, to go to Washington in order to consult with the committee as to what women could do to aid in the coming campaign. Miss Anthony's plan was cordially accepted, and liberal appropriations placed at her disposal by both the National and New York Republican Committees for carrying on a series of meetings.[150] The first of this series was at Rochester, and was presided over by Hon. Carter Wilder, Mayor of the city, the last in Cooper Institute, New York, at which meeting Luther R. Marsh occupied the chair.
Mrs. Livermore and Mrs. Stanton, by special invitation of Republican State Committees, also took part in the canvass in Connecticut and Pennsylvania.