History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II - Unknown

Miss Jennie Collins, of Lowell, Mass., addressed the meeting in a speech of some length, which was broken by frequent applause. She came to plead the cause of the working women, her associates. She knew the dignity of the kitchen, many of whose occupants were the daughters of refined and wealthy parents. If these girls could tell their story to the ladies of Washington, they would not rest till Congress had conceded to them their rights. The sufferings of the factory girls could hardly be described; poor wages for hard labor, in dirty rooms, shut out from bright sunshine, with dreary homes, were but part of their misery. With a love of the ennobling and beautiful, a natural taste for reading and study, many of them were led astray from the path of virtue by the artifices of men, often the sons of their own employers, and nothing was done to prevent their fall.

The President announced that so great was the interest evinced, that a third day's session had been arranged.

Third Day—Morning.—Among the large and fashionable audience present were the Governor of Wyoming Territory, many Senators and Members of Congress, as well as other distinguished persons. Mrs. Griffing read an interesting letter from Mrs. Frances D. Gage:

More than one-half of the "people," are to-day without the right of franchise, and can exert no power in the government, and have no voice in electing its representatives. They have no voice in making the laws under which they live. If they commit offenses they are punished the same as voters. If they have property it is taxed precisely the same and for the same purposes as is the property of the voter. Government money and lands and revenues are appropriated for schools, colleges, and institutions of learning by the voters for their own use, while the non-voters are debarred all rights and privileges in the same. And it may be said that the disfranchised "have no rights that the enfranchised are bound to respect." ... A government that fails to execute its own laws and mocks at its own enactments, can not be respected by its people. We therefore demand that our representatives "shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government;" that the right of suffrage be guaranteed to all persons of sound mind and adult years, without regard to race, color, or sex.

Frances D. Gage.

Respectfully,

Rev. Samuel J. May said this movement was the most radical one ever proposed to the civilized world. America had suffered severely because it had violated the rights of 4,000,000 people. If the rights of 15,000,000 were much longer violated, severer suffering still would be induced.

Charlotte B. Wilbour said: In demanding suffrage for women we are not making any innovation on political principles, but only attempting to restore the broken connection between practice and profession. A steady, constant, palpable ignoring of the application of great truths, like the claim of woman's rights, and the equality of all before the law, begets a reckless manner of assertion, an illogical application of premises, and thence a sort of organic dishonesty of mind which is carried into practice almost unconsciously. Every subject of a government who has not a voice in its conduct is openly degraded, and must be something more or less than human not to show it in the conduct of his life. We demand the ballot for women in the name of that very domesticity which is urged against it, of that home whose peace has always been more marred by passive servility and masculine authority than by any over-assertion of individuality, on the part of the so-called partner.

Speeches were also made by Mr. Hinton of Washington, and Miss Phoebe Couzins.

Miss Anthony called upon Senator Sherman, of Ohio, to address the meeting, who expressed himself highly pleased with the convention to which he only came as a listener. The following letters were then read:

Syracuse, January 18, 1870.

Mrs. M. J. Gage—Dear Friend: I doubt not this meeting will urge emphatically upon Congress the duty of striking the word "male" from the suffrage bill for the District of Columbia. It is a gross injustice, a shame that such a term should be in any legal paper defining citizenship in any civilized State, especially a shame that it should stand in a bill touching suffrage, in what ought to be the model District, the choice sample ground of wise and just government for the model republic. Let an indignant protest and admonition go up in regard to this matter from your convention, that Congress shall not dare to disregard. I trust also that the convention will urge upon Congress the eminent fitness and duty of passing without delay the XVI. Amendment, and submitting the same to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification.

The world is moving to-day in the direction of the abolition of all monopolies of privilege and that of equal and exact justice and fair play to all classes. Woman now has the floor; the hour has struck for her. Wyoming and Colorado are already setting example for the older communities. Let the preaching of this faith in effective ways, its benign and thorough working, begin at Jerusalem, at the Capitol of the nation, and may your convention urge the work to immediate undertaking, aye, and completion then, at home.

Chas. D. B. Mills.

Yours truly,

Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., Jan. 17, 1870.

Mrs. M. Joslyn Gage—Dear Madam: I beg you to be assured that I heartily sympathize with all well directed efforts to secure to woman equality before the law. Whatever can be done to give her a fair and equal chance with man, is due to her, and no effort of mine shall be wanting to secure so desirable a consummation.

Homer B. Sprague.

Very respectfully yours,

Mrs. Helen Taylor, of London, after expressing the wish that she might be with us, says:

It is a great delight to hear of the numerous societies, in various countries, working well and vigorously for that justice which for so long has been denied to women. The time can not be far distant now, when we shall attain the right of expressing our opinion by giving a vote.

Letters joining in the demand for a XVI. Amendment were received from E. H. G. Clarke, of Troy, N. Y.; S. D. Dillaye, of Syracuse; Martha B. Dickinson, Sarah Pugh, Mrs. E. K. Pugh, Abby Kimber, of Philadelphia; Mrs. Mary J. O'Donovan-Rossa, and Hon. Jacob H. Ela. The following extracts from private letters of Mrs. Hooker show somewhat the spirit of the occasion.

Washington, January 19, 1870.

I have just come from a good meeting; just such a house as we had at Hartford the mornings of our Convention. Senator Pomeroy spoke admirably, and carried every one with him. Then came Olympia Brown, and nothing could have been better than her speech and the effect of it on the audience, which, by the way, was earnest and intelligent. But Madam Anneke, the German patriot who fought with her husband and slept beside her horse in the field, carried the day over everyone else. It was fairly overwhelming to hear her English, so surcharged with feeling, yet so exact in the choice of words, and the burden of it all was that the trials of the battle-field were as naught compared to this inward struggle of her soul toward liberty for woman. Her presence, gestures, oratory, were simply magnificent.

Mrs. F., of Cincinnati, who lives here now, came to me this morning with great warmth, saying she had brought two Senators' wives who were opposed, and they said a few more such women as Olympia Brown would convert them. She has promised to bring them to our reception at the Arlington this evening.

Jan. 20.—We have had to hold a three days' meeting, interest grew so fast. Yesterday morning Lincoln Hall jammed, even aisles full. I never heard better speaking in my life, not a disturbance in the audience, not a jar on the platform, all loving, tender, earnest. Olympia Brown is wonderful; she talked Christ and His Gospel just I should have done with her voice and practice; can't enlarge, but she surely is a remarkable woman. We are to have a hearing by a committee from both Houses on Saturday, and Senator Pomeroy will present a bill for suffrage in the District of Columbia next week, and would not be much surprised if it were carried at once—does not really expect that—but Senator Trumbull, Chairman of Judiciary, says he shall vote for it, and so do many others in both Houses. Mrs. Pomeroy received yesterday afternoon, and to my surprise, nearly all her callers had been at the Convention—at least three hundred young ladies were in the hall, they said, and all spoke with perfect respect of the movement—many seemed in sympathy with it.

Jan. 21, two o'clock.—Just from the Committee Room, and too full to write. Mrs. Stanton standing at the head of the long table (Committee all round the table, Sumner so attentive as to fix my eyes upon him with intense interest, watching changes of expression) read a magnificent argument. Mrs. Davis and Miss Anthony followed, and then sitting in my chair, I made a five minutes' talk on my favorite point—personal responsibility God's only method in human affairs. Then questions from various gentlemen and conversation all round the room for two hours. The large room was full of gentlemen and ladies, and there were congratulations without stint, but Sumner, grandest of all, approaching Mrs. Stanton and myself, said in a deep voice, really full of emotion, "I have been in this place, ladies, for twenty years; I have followed or led in every movement toward liberty and enfranchisement; but I have it to say to you now, that I never attended such a committee meeting as this in my life, it exceeds all that I have ever witnessed."

Mrs. Howland was there, and excited to her highest eloquence in speech; with flushed cheeks she said to me, "If only that scene could have been photographed—it was the grandest one of history—the first time that woman has ever appeared in halls of legislation—women often, but woman never before." I have sent her home to write a letter for the Courant, and I hope she will make it out; she has promised to try. Senator Pomeroy counts thirteen Senators ready to vote for us now, but I can not attempt to do justice to the situation.

Syracuse, January 18, 1870.

Mrs. M. J. Gage—Dear Friend: I doubt not this meeting will urge emphatically upon Congress the duty of striking the word "male" from the suffrage bill for the District of Columbia. It is a gross injustice, a shame that such a term should be in any legal paper defining citizenship in any civilized State, especially a shame that it should stand in a bill touching suffrage, in what ought to be the model District, the choice sample ground of wise and just government for the model republic. Let an indignant protest and admonition go up in regard to this matter from your convention, that Congress shall not dare to disregard. I trust also that the convention will urge upon Congress the eminent fitness and duty of passing without delay the XVI. Amendment, and submitting the same to the Legislatures of the several States for ratification.

The world is moving to-day in the direction of the abolition of all monopolies of privilege and that of equal and exact justice and fair play to all classes. Woman now has the floor; the hour has struck for her. Wyoming and Colorado are already setting example for the older communities. Let the preaching of this faith in effective ways, its benign and thorough working, begin at Jerusalem, at the Capitol of the nation, and may your convention urge the work to immediate undertaking, aye, and completion then, at home.

Chas. D. B. Mills.

Yours truly,

Cornell University, Ithaca, N. Y., Jan. 17, 1870.

Mrs. M. Joslyn Gage—Dear Madam: I beg you to be assured that I heartily sympathize with all well directed efforts to secure to woman equality before the law. Whatever can be done to give her a fair and equal chance with man, is due to her, and no effort of mine shall be wanting to secure so desirable a consummation.

Homer B. Sprague.

Very respectfully yours,

It is a great delight to hear of the numerous societies, in various countries, working well and vigorously for that justice which for so long has been denied to women. The time can not be far distant now, when we shall attain the right of expressing our opinion by giving a vote.

Washington, January 19, 1870.

I have just come from a good meeting; just such a house as we had at Hartford the mornings of our Convention. Senator Pomeroy spoke admirably, and carried every one with him. Then came Olympia Brown, and nothing could have been better than her speech and the effect of it on the audience, which, by the way, was earnest and intelligent. But Madam Anneke, the German patriot who fought with her husband and slept beside her horse in the field, carried the day over everyone else. It was fairly overwhelming to hear her English, so surcharged with feeling, yet so exact in the choice of words, and the burden of it all was that the trials of the battle-field were as naught compared to this inward struggle of her soul toward liberty for woman. Her presence, gestures, oratory, were simply magnificent.

Mrs. F., of Cincinnati, who lives here now, came to me this morning with great warmth, saying she had brought two Senators' wives who were opposed, and they said a few more such women as Olympia Brown would convert them. She has promised to bring them to our reception at the Arlington this evening.

Jan. 20.—We have had to hold a three days' meeting, interest grew so fast. Yesterday morning Lincoln Hall jammed, even aisles full. I never heard better speaking in my life, not a disturbance in the audience, not a jar on the platform, all loving, tender, earnest. Olympia Brown is wonderful; she talked Christ and His Gospel just I should have done with her voice and practice; can't enlarge, but she surely is a remarkable woman. We are to have a hearing by a committee from both Houses on Saturday, and Senator Pomeroy will present a bill for suffrage in the District of Columbia next week, and would not be much surprised if it were carried at once—does not really expect that—but Senator Trumbull, Chairman of Judiciary, says he shall vote for it, and so do many others in both Houses. Mrs. Pomeroy received yesterday afternoon, and to my surprise, nearly all her callers had been at the Convention—at least three hundred young ladies were in the hall, they said, and all spoke with perfect respect of the movement—many seemed in sympathy with it.

Jan. 21, two o'clock.—Just from the Committee Room, and too full to write. Mrs. Stanton standing at the head of the long table (Committee all round the table, Sumner so attentive as to fix my eyes upon him with intense interest, watching changes of expression) read a magnificent argument. Mrs. Davis and Miss Anthony followed, and then sitting in my chair, I made a five minutes' talk on my favorite point—personal responsibility God's only method in human affairs. Then questions from various gentlemen and conversation all round the room for two hours. The large room was full of gentlemen and ladies, and there were congratulations without stint, but Sumner, grandest of all, approaching Mrs. Stanton and myself, said in a deep voice, really full of emotion, "I have been in this place, ladies, for twenty years; I have followed or led in every movement toward liberty and enfranchisement; but I have it to say to you now, that I never attended such a committee meeting as this in my life, it exceeds all that I have ever witnessed."

Mrs. Howland was there, and excited to her highest eloquence in speech; with flushed cheeks she said to me, "If only that scene could have been photographed—it was the grandest one of history—the first time that woman has ever appeared in halls of legislation—women often, but woman never before." I have sent her home to write a letter for the Courant, and I hope she will make it out; she has promised to try. Senator Pomeroy counts thirteen Senators ready to vote for us now, but I can not attempt to do justice to the situation.