"When the Legislature assembled, they set aside the election as fraudulent; yet Newark retained the buildings. Then they passed an act (Nov. 15, 1807), restricting the suffrage to white male adult citizens twenty-one years of age, residents in the county for the twelve months preceding, and worth fifty pounds proclamation-money. But they went on, and provided that all such whose names appeared on the last duplicate of State or county taxes should be considered worth fifty pounds; thus virtually abolishing the property qualification.
"In 1820, the same provisions were repeated, and maintained until 1844, when the present State Constitution was substituted.
"Thus it appears, that, from 1776 to 1807,—a period of thirty-one years,—the right of women and negroes to vote was admitted and exercised; then from 1807 to 1844—by an arbitrary act of the Legislature, which does not seem to have been ever contested—the constitutional right was suspended, and both women and negroes excluded from the polls for thirty-seven years more. The extension of suffrage, in the State Constitution of 1776, to 'all inhabitants' possessing the prescribed qualifications, was doubtless due to the Quaker influence, then strong in West Jersey, and then, as now, in favor of the equal rights of women.
"Since 1844, under the present Constitution, suffrage is conferred upon 'every white male citizen of the United States, of the age of twenty-one years, who shall have been a resident of this State one year, and of the county in which he claims a vote five months next before the election,' excepting paupers, idiots, insane persons, and criminals.
"This Constitution is subject to amendment by a majority of both Houses of two successive Legislatures, when such amendment is afterward ratified by the people at a special election.
"Lucy Stone,
H.B. Blackwell."
In a recent visit to Perth Amboy, a friend directed my attention to a figure in a broad-brimmed hat, very much like that which used to adorn the cover of Poor Richard's Almanac. "That man is ninety-five years old," said he. "He spent his youth in preventing the New-Jersey people from running their slaves off South. A prospective emancipation act had been passed, which made the young negroes a poor investment; but our friend Parker, there, looked after them without any fee. We think he looks like Benjamin Franklin." The next day, I took a drive with Mr. Parker himself, and I found he possessed another claim on my interest. The original Constitution of New Jersey, adopted in 1776, left women free to vote, by leaving out the word "male." In 1790, when the Constitution was revised, a Quaker member, "Friend Hooper," rose to say that among his people the women were allowed their natural share of influence. At his instance, the matter was made clearer by the insertion of the words "he or she." In 1807, after an election contested with singular virulence, these words were expunged, and the word "male" inserted. I had never expected to see a member of the Legislature who repealed this phrase; but Friend Parker was there, and helped do it. He assured me that the women were not at that time anxious to retain the privilege; but that, if they had been, the Legislature was so irate, that the change would have taken place. Lads, both white and colored, and under age, had dressed in women's clothes, to swell the ballot, which was more than double what it should have been; the irritating question being the possible removal of the county buildings.
A few days since, I cut from the paper the following paragraph:—
"In the Kentucky House of Representatives, on Friday last, an address was received by the Speaker, from Mrs. ——, of New York, and read by the Clerk, asking the Legislature of the Southern States to grant suffrage to white women in the South, so as to give the Democratic party the advantage over the negro votes, if Congress passes a general negro-suffrage law. By following out this plan, Mrs. —— thinks the South can govern the country, as in the days of Jefferson."
I suppress the name, which was printed in full, in this paragraph, because it is the name of a woman I respect; and I earnestly hope the whole charge is false. If women seek to advance their own cause by mean and meretricious tricks,—such as those which have dishonored the policy of men,—may God for ever disappoint their hope! I would rather be defeated with the friends of liberty than crowned with its foes. It is because I believe woman strong enough to withstand the low and loose and degrading temptations of public life that I would lead her towards it. If she cannot enter it as an inspiration, may she be for ever shut out!
Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony, assisted by Lucy Stone and Antoinette Blackwell, have been busy in agitating all legal questions, and especially the right of suffrage, ever since the formation of the Equal-Rights Association, in New York, in May, 1866. Wherever there is any prospect of a convention to change a State Constitution, it would seem wise to agitate the matter; but here, in Massachusetts, almost every thing has been done that should be to protect women, except to give them the right of suffrage. That question we are too wise to agitate, until the country recovers somewhat from the anxieties and perplexities of the war. We have no desire to win from an unjust judge, for our importunity's sake, a right which could never be useful, unless it were accorded with the hearty sympathy of the best part of the community. On March 16, 1867, a motion was made in the Massachusetts House to instruct the Judiciary Committee to report an amendment to the State Constitution, granting the right of suffrage to women. The yeas and nays were taken, and the motion was lost: yeas 44, nays 97.
In New York, Illinois, and Michigan, the question is to be brought before the Constitutional Convention. Wisconsin is our banner State, both branches of her government having concurred, April 4, 1867, in a resolution to submit it to the people. In New York, last year, Mrs. Stanton proposed herself as a candidate for Congress, and received, I think, thirty votes. It was so well understood that her election was impossible, that her card excited neither ridicule nor discussion. No one cared to turn aside from more pressing interests to consider it. It was therefore a waste of strength. I saw, with pain, that some women did not shrink from employing last year a politician's trick, and sent to Democratic members of the Senate and House the petitions for the right of suffrage for women, with which they knew them to possess no sympathy. Had these petitions been sent to Republican members of either House, they might have been overlooked in the press of graver anxieties. Mischievously sent to men like Cowan, women must have known that the petition would be produced, if it was only to annoy and perplex our honest friends of the Republican party. In what would our influence upon politics be better than that of men, if we resort to such measures? During the past year, I drew up, and forwarded to the Hon. Charles Sumner, a petition for the right of suffrage, and afterwards sustained it by two or three letters. I think Mr. Sumner never brought it forward; but I gladly defer to his judgment as to that. It was my duty to keep the subject in mind, and see that we did not appear, even in the tumult left by civil war, to lose sight of our claim. I am glad to offer public thanks to the Hon. George Thompson, who, in the meeting of the Equal-Rights Association, held in Philadelphia on Jan. 17, 1867, defeated a resolution of thanks to Mr. Cowan, and condemnation to Mr. Sumner, on precisely these grounds. "To thank men like Cowan, who did not desire to enfranchise woman any more than the negro, was to stultify ourselves," he said. "To condemn Sumner, because he did not think this the time to push the claims of woman, was not honorable to the long-tried friend of human progress."
Abroad, such things look better. The clean hands of John Stuart Mill—which no noble woman need fear to touch—have presented to Parliament the petition of fifteen hundred women for the right of franchise. This petition is so moderate and sensible, that it deserves to be preserved.
"The humble petition of the undersigned showeth,—
"That it having been expressly laid down by high authorities, that the possession of property, in this country, carries with it the right to vote in the election of representatives in Parliament, it is an evident anomaly, that some holders of property are allowed to use this right, while others, forming no less a constituent part of the nation, and equally qualified by law to hold property, are not able to exercise this privilege; that the participation of women in the government is consistent with the principles of the British Constitution, inasmuch as women in these islands have always been held capable of sovereignty, and women are eligible for various public offices.
"Your petitioners, therefore, humbly pray your honorable House to consider the expediency of providing for the representation of all householders, without distinction of sex, who possess such property or rental qualification as your honorable House may determine. And your petitioners will ever pray.