"In this crisis of our country's destiny, it is the duty of every citizen to consider the peculiar blessings of a republican form of government, and decide what sacrifices of wealth and life are demanded for its defence and preservation. The policy of the war, our whole future life, depends on a clearly-defined idea of the end proposed, and the immense advantages to be secured to ourselves and all mankind by its accomplishment. No mere party or sectional cry, no technicalities of constitution or military law, no mottoes of craft or policy, are big enough to touch the great heart of a nation in the midst of revolution. A grand idea, such as freedom or justice, is needful to kindle and sustain the fires of a high enthusiasm. At this hour the best word and work of every man and woman are imperatively demanded. To man, by common consent, is assigned the forum, camp, and field. What is woman's legitimate work, and how she may best accomplish it, is worthy of our earnest counsel with one another. We have heard many complaints of the lack of enthusiasm among Northern women; but, when a mother lays her son on the altar of her country, she asks an object equal to the sacrifice. In nursing the sick and wounded, knitting socks, scraping lint and making jellies, the bravest and best may weary if the thoughts mount not in faith to something beyond and above it all. Work is worship only when a noble purpose fills the soul. Woman is equally interested and responsible with man in the final settlement of this problem of self-government; therefore let none stand idle spectators now. When every hour is big with destiny, and each delay but complicates our difficulties, it is high time for the daughters of the Revolution, in solemn council, to unseal the last will and testament of the Fathers—lay hold of their birthright of freedom, and keep it a sacred trust for all coming generations. To this end we ask the Loyal Women of the Nation to meet in the church of the Puritans (Dr. Cheever's), New York, on Thursday, the 14th of May next." This was signed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, in behalf of the Woman's Central Committee.
Having set forth their belief that by common consent the forum, the camp, and the field were assigned to men, these women secured a forum from which to promulgate advice and direction to the men who were indeed allowed possession of the camp and the field. After a speech, in which, among other things, Miss Anthony said: "Instead of suppressing the real cause of the war, it should have been proclaimed, not only by the people, but by the President, Congress, Cabinet, and every military commander," she presented resolutions, which included this:
"Resolved: that there can never be a true peace in this Republic until all the civil and political rights of all citizens of African descent and all women are practically established."
The reading of the resolutions was followed by one of the long, acrimonious debates with which those who read the reports of their conventions are familiar. They resented it bitterly when Mrs. Hoyt, of Wisconsin, said: "The women of the North were invited here to meet in convention, not to hold a Temperance meeting, not to hold an Anti-slavery meeting, not to hold a Woman's Rights convention, but to consult as to the best practical way for the advancement of the loyal cause. We have a great many very flourishing Loyal Leagues throughout the West, and we have kept them sacred from Anti-slavery, Woman's Rights, Temperance, and everything else, good though they may be. In our League we have several objects in view. The first is, retrenchment in household expenses, to the end that the material resources of the Government may be, so far as possible, applied to the entire and thorough vindication of its authority. Second, to strengthen the loyal sentiment of the people at home, and instil a deeper love of the National flag. The third and most important object is to write to the soldiers in the field, thus reaching nearly every private in the army, to encourage and stimulate him in the way that ladies know how to do." After expressions of strong resentment, those who had called the convention returned to their generalizing in regard to the duty and influence of woman, and to denunciations of the Government for its conduct of the war. The resolutions which had called forth the strictures were accepted, and Miss Anthony announced that "The resolution recommending practical work was not yet prepared." It was written at a business meeting following, and read thus:
"Resolved, that we, loyal women of the nation, do hereby pledge ourselves one to another, in a Loyal League, to give support to the Government in so far as it makes the war a war for freedom."
If the Government of the United States had received no more practical pledges, from no more loyal hearts than these, there would have been little reward for the patriotic devotion that laid down life in defence of the Union. A sentiment that was often expressed by the Suffragist was that as woman had no vote she could not properly be called upon to be loyal. The "practical" work finally accomplished was the gathering of another monster petition, in which they told President Lincoln that "Northern power and loyalty can never be measured until the purpose of the war be liberty to man." To the close of the war they did nothing but sign such petitions.
I turn to Dr. Brockett's great book, "Woman in the Civil War," and I find recorded the names and the work of four hundred and eighty-four women who gave invaluable and honorable special service, some of them even to the sacrifice of life itself; and of all this number, only a half dozen are known in Suffrage annals.
Cure by ballot has been the one and only remedy suggested by Suffrage conventions for all the ills, real or imaginary, that are endured by women. As long ago as 1854, in a convention in Philadelphia, they uttered the same sentiment. In commenting upon Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm's book, "Half a Century," they say: "While ever and anon during the last forty years Mrs. Swisshelm has seized some of these dilettante literary women with her metaphysical tweezers, and held them up to scorn for their ridicule of the Woman Suffrage conventions, yet in her own recently published work, in her mature years, she vouchsafes no words of approval for those who have inaugurated the greatest movement of the centuries. … It is quite evident from her last pronunciamento that she has no just appreciation of the importance and dignity of our demand for justice and equality. A soldier without a leg is a fact so much more readily understood than all women without ballots, and his loss so much more readily comprehended and supplied, that we can hardly blame any one for doing the work of the hour, rather than struggling a lifetime for an idea. Hence it is not a matter of surprise that most women are more readily enlisted in the suppression of evils in the concrete, than in advocating the principles that underlie them in the abstract, and thus ultimately choosing the broader and more lasting work."
In her "Reminiscences," contributed to the "History," Mrs. Emily Collins says: "From 1858 to 1869 my home was in Rochester, N.Y. There, by brief newspaper articles and in other ways, I sought to influence public sentiment in favor of this fundamental reform. In 1868 a society was organized there for the reformation of abandoned women. At one of its meetings I endeavored to show how futile all their efforts would be while women, by the laws of the land, were made a subject class."
This was typical action. Thus it was in Anti-slavery, thus in Temperance, thus in the Civil War, and thus it has been with general reforms. What Suffragists have deemed to be an abstract "right" has prevented them from taking active part in any efforts put forth to end a concrete wrong. As time goes on, this spirit becomes more injurious, because progress is carrying philanthropy into higher fields of moral action, and in so doing is carrying it away from and above the plane where rests the ballot-box. While Suffrage effort is directed toward keeping all issues in the political arena, the trend of legislation is to take them out of politics. By the public votes of men and the private votes and public appeals of women, philanthropic and educational matters are being removed from the uncertainties and fluctuations of party action. As they are thus brought out of the sphere where woman is powerless and into that in which it is natural for her to act, the whole force of sympathy, and her ability to picture and to pursue an ideal, are finding exercise and are hastening the day when there will be no slavery, no drunkenness, no war, and no violation of woman's chastity. Dr. Jacobi, in her volume, says: "Why should we wonder at the low tone which habitually prevails in relation to public affairs, when the women who stand as guardians at the fountain sources and household shrines of thought are trained to believe that there are no Rights, but only Privileges, Expediencies, Immunities? Can those who cower before the public ridicule which greets the enunciation of the Rights of Women; who are habituated to stifle generous impulses for their own larger freedom at the authoritative dictation of the men they see in power,—can such women be relied upon to nerve the Nation's heart for generous deeds?" Who were trained by women at the fountain sources and household shrines? The very men whom they now see in "authoritative dictation." And so well did they train them that when both are called upon to nerve the nation's heart for generous deeds, they act together—the trainer and the trained—moved by the same magnetic impulse of a noble devotion. It is purely gratuitous to assume, because women generally have discredited the dogma of Woman Suffrage, that they have therefore no just conception of rights. Women are as ambitious, as self-assertive, as are men. They deal more naturally with abstractions, and are more tenacious of purpose. They are impatient of hindrance, and it is inconsistent with facts to infer that they have been "stifling generous impulses for their own larger freedom," at the dictation of their own sons. The executive power and wisdom of these sons they feel to be the very thing they most desire for them, a reward for their own abounding faith and love. Privileges, Expediencies, and Immunities are their Rights. How well fitted such rights are to enable them to nerve the Nation's heart was seen in the great crisis we have been considering, when the ignoble dogma of Suffrage caused its believers to fail in generous impulse and to stand aloof in the time of a supreme need.