History of Woman Suffrage, Volume II

by Unknown

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,

Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the executive and judicial officers of a 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, and citizens 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.

The Committee on the Judiciary, to whom was referred the petition of citizens of Rhode Island setting forth, by reference, the XIV. and XV. Articles of Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, and stating that, "the State of Rhode Island, notwithstanding the provisions of the above-named amendments, persists, in and by the first section of article 2 of the constitution of said State, in denying and abridging the right of about 10,000 citizens of the United States to vote at any and all elections holden in said State," and praying that Congress will "pass such appropriate legislation as may be found necessary to obtain for, and secure to, the citizens of the United States resident in Rhode Island all the rights, privileges, and immunities guaranteed to them by the Constitution of the United States," respectfully report:

That the constitution of Rhode Island, adopted in 1842, prescribes two alternative classes of qualifications for voting. The first gives to all male citizens of the United States of a certain age, etc., the right to vote, if they own real estate of the value of $134, or which shall rent for $7 per annum. The second gives to every male native citizen of the United States of a certain age, etc., the right to vote, if he pays a tax of $1 a year, etc., although he may not own real estate. No man or party has ever questioned the right of the people of Rhode Island and of every other State to establish such a constitution of government as maybe agreeable to their views of the public welfare in that State, although its provision as to suffrage may not conform to the opinions of other States. At the time when this constitution of Rhode Island was adopted the right to regulate the qualifications of voters belonged exclusively to the respective States. The petition under consideration fully recognizes this, but it raises the question (although studiously framed in such a manner as not to declare or insist upon such a conclusion) whether, by the XIV. and XV. Amendments to the Constitution of the United States, natives of foreign countries who have become citizens of the United States are not entitled to vote in Rhode Island, without regard to the qualifications imposed by her Constitution?

The committee is unanimously of the opinion that this question must be answered in the negative.

The "privileges and immunities of citizens of the United States" mentioned in the petition as secured by the XIV. Amendment do not include the right of suffrage. If they did, the right must necessarily exist in all citizens of the United States from the mere fact of citizenship, without the power in any State or in Congress to abridge the same in any degree; and in such case, therefore, no qualification of any kind could be imposed, and all persons (being citizens), males and females, infants, lunatics, and criminals, without respect to age, length of residence, or any other thing, would be entitled to participate directly in all elections. Every provision in every State which experience has proved to be essential to security and good order in society would thereby be overthrown. It is enough to say that the rights secured by this amendment to the constitution are of an altogether different character.

The XV. Amendment does apply to rights of suffrage, and to those only. By it the State of Rhode Island, in common with every other State, is forbidden to deny or abridge the right of citizens of the United States "to vote on account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." But, plainly, the constitution of Rhode Island does not preclude any citizen from voting on either or any of the grounds thus prohibited. No fact of race, or color, or previous servitude prevents any citizen from voting in Rhode Island. Neither of these qualities depends in any degree upon the place of his nativity. This seems too obvious to need discussion. It is also a fact, appearing in the public records of Congress and doubtless known to the petitioners, that when the XV. Amendment was under consideration by Congress it was proposed to embrace in it a prohibition of any denial of suffrage, on account of "nativity," and that this proposition was not agreed to, for the reason that Congress did not think it expedient to restrict the ancient powers of the States in these respects any further than appeared to be absolutely needful to secure to the whole people the great results of the overthrow of the rebellion.

The committee is therefore of opinion that there is nothing in the provisions of the constitution of Rhode Island referred to in conflict with the Constitution of the United States.

Whether these provisions are wise or right in themselves is a matter over which neither the committee nor Congress has any control. That subject belongs to the people of Rhode Island, who it must be presumed will correct any and all errors that may from time to time be found to exist in her internal affairs.

Provided, further, That the right of suffrage and of holding office shall be exercised only by citizens of the United States, and those who shall have declared on oath, before a competent court of record, their intention to become such, and shall have taken an oath to support the Constitution and Government of the United States.

Universal suffrage is affirmed by its advocates as among the absolute or natural rights of man, in the sense of mankind, extending to females as well as males, and susceptible of no limitation unless as opposed to child or infant. It is supposed to originate in rights independent of citizenship; like the absolute rights of liberty, personal security, and possession of property, it is natural to man. It exists, of course, independent of sex or condition, manhood or womanhood. To admit it in the adult and deny it to the youth would be to abridge the right and ignore the principle. Now, sir, in practice its extension to women would contravene all our notions of the family; "put asunder" husband and wife, and subvert the fundamental principles of family government, in which the husband is, by all usage and law, human and divine, the representative head. Besides, it ignores woman, womanhood, and all that is womanly; all those distinctions of sex whose objects are apparent in creation, essential in character, and vital to society, these all disappear in the manly and impressive demonstration of balloting at a popular election. Here maids, women, wives, men, and husbands promiscuously assemble to vindicate the rights of human nature.

Moreover, it associates the wife and mother with policies of State, with public affairs, with making, interpreting, and executing the laws, with police and war, and necessarily disseverates her from purely domestic affairs, peculiar care for and duties of the family; and, worst of all, assigns her duties revolting to her nature and constitution, and wholly incompatible with those which spring from womanhood.

Besides, the ballot is the inseparable concomitant of the bayonet. Those who practice the one must be prepared to exercise the other. To introduce woman at the polls is to enroll her in the militia; to transfer her from the class of non-combatants to the class of combatants.—Congressional Globe, part 1, second session Thirty-ninth Congress, 1866-'67, page 40.

The Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women or America for their noble devotion to the cause of freedom. Their admission to higher fields of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction, and the honest demand of any class of citizens for additional rights shall be treated with respectful consideration.

Mr. Merrimon: What clause of the Constitution does the Senator assert creates the right?

Mr. Sargent: The first section of the XV. Amendment declares that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged—speaking of it as an affirmative right; not speaking of it as here established but as a right which of course must have been established by the XIV. Amendment.

Now, sir, to show that I do not strain the interpretation of the Constitution, I desire to refer to some few authorities even under the old Constitution which go very far to answer the authority that the Senator cited. Bushrod Washington, a member of the United States Supreme Court, and well known as a jurist of high attainments and great powers of mind, in the case of Corfield vs. Coryell declared what I shall read, which is approvingly cited by Kent, the master writer upon American law, in the second volume of his Commentaries:

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 laws of the State.

Those, according to the decision in Corfield vs. Coryell, cited approvingly by Chancellor Kent, are the rights and immunities of citizens of the United States. Then comes in the XIV. Amendment to the Constitution of the United States, 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 further, that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

Now, sir, I quote from Bouvier's Law Dictionary, under the title "citizen." He gives what the word means, first in English law, and then he comes down to American law:

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.

In the face of authorities like these, who shall deny that the right to vote is one of those privileges and immunities of citizenship, or that citizenship itself carries with it that highest right? Go into literature and you find the same definition; as, for instance, in the work which I hold in my hand entitled "Words and their Uses," by R. Grant White. He says:

A citizen is a person who has certain political rights, and the word is properly used only to imply or suggest the possession of these rights.

Is it a mere question of privilege or immunity? It is a right which exists and so it is considered in all the law; so it is treated in the well-considered decisions on the subject, and by the text writers.

By the pledge which was given by the dominant party of the country in their last National Convention, by the allegiance which Democrats themselves owe to the Constitution of the United States, by the higher benefit which will be conferred upon society, upon the women themselves who are struggling for a chance in life, and upon men themselves by the purification of society, I ask that this amendment be adopted.

Mr. Bayard: I should like to ask the honorable Senator a question before he takes his seat. I understand that he denies the power of the Congress of the United States or of a State to exclude a female from voting, to make an exclusion based upon sex, because it would be an infringement of her rights as a citizen, under the meaning of that word in the Constitution, according to the construction given it by the courts. I should like to ask him whether he considers that an exclusion by reason of age is not just as arbitrary and unauthorized as the exclusion by reason of sex, and by what right can it be that a State or the United States shall arbitrarily fix a period in a person's life at which he shall attain his civil rights? In most of the States, and by the common law of England, the age of twenty-one years was fixed as what they term the majority, when a person becomes sui juris. Under the laws of the various States of this Union, following the laws of other civilized communities of older date, a period has been fixed in the life of man at which he attains his civil rights. Ordinarily it is at the age of twenty-one years; under the civil law it is twenty-five; it is so in France; it is so in Spain; it is so in the French and Spanish Colonies. Among the English-speaking people the age of twenty-one years is the period fixed. If the rights which have been spoken of by the Senator from Indiana and the Senator from California are inalienable, natural rights, are part and parcel of those "privileges and immunities" referred to by the Constitution of the United States, how can it be that a law, a mere arbitrary enactment by a State or by Congress, shall exclude a man who is twenty years and six months old from exercising those inalienable rights, those privileges and immunities which six months after, by the mere difference of time, they permit him to enjoy? I have stated the question at length for the purpose of letting the Senator from California answer it more fully.

Mr. Sargent: Mr. President, I do not think the Constitution prevents a regulation of the power to vote. The States unquestionably have a right to fix the time when voting shall take place, to fix the places where the voting shall be done, and they have the right to fix the age at which voting shall be exercised. But under the Constitution they have no power to prescribe a test which is not equally attainable by all persons. They have no right to say that only white men shall vote, for that would exclude black men. They have no right to say that only black men shall vote, for that would exclude white men. They have no right to say that only men shall vote, for that would exclude women. The Constitution says that all shall be put on an equality in this respect, that any test which may be required shall apply to all alike, men and women, black or white.

Mr. Bayard: But the law does no such thing. There are classes, and a very large and great class in the State that the Senator represents, who can not become citizens of the United States and can not vote there.

Mr. Sargent: Why not?

Mr. Bayard: Because of their race; because they are Asiatics and not Africans.

Mr. Sargent: The Constitution of the United States does not prevent it.

Mr. Bayard: No; but the law of Congress prevents it. The Senator says these are all entitled under the law.

Mr. Sargent: I will not detain the Senate now on the point referred to by the Senator. He has shifted his ground and I will not follow him. Whenever legislation comes up on that subject I will discuss it. They are not citizens of the United States. I am dealing now with citizens whose privileges and immunities as such no one has a right to abridge.

Mr. Ferry, of Michigan: It is not my intention to speak on the merits of this proposition; but inasmuch as the Senator from Maine (Mr. Morrill) has raised the question of consistency and appealed to his record, it reminds me of the fact that the question of woman suffrage appeared as early, I think, as 1858, before the Legislature of Michigan. I had the honor of holding a seat in the Senate of the State at that time, and the question was referred to the committee of which I was a member, and it fell to my lot to report upon it. If my recollection serves me rightly the resolution favoring the right of women to vote was lost by but a majority of three in the Michigan Senate.

Mr. Edmunds: Which way was the report?

Mr. Ferry, of Michigan: I am reminded by the Senator from Vermont that perhaps I have not intimated which side the report took. The report was in favor of woman suffrage, and it may be regarded as having contributed to so large a vote. To-day, sir, is the first time since that occasion that I have been officially called upon to record my judgment upon the same question. I have had no reason since that report was drawn to shake my belief that the right of suffrage will not be jeopardized or perverted if wielded by the hand of woman. Believing that now and desiring to act in accord with my action in 1858 in the Senate of my native State. I am glad of the opportunity to prove my consistency by voting for woman suffrage to-day.

Mr. Anthony: Mr. President, I am quite content that this experiment of female suffrage should be tried in this new Territory. I believe that female suffrage is coming with the other ameliorations and changes which have been tending for so many years in the same direction. I have not taken any part in the measures which have been agitated to hasten that event. I think it will come in its own good time; but I should do very great injustice to myself if I should allow it to be supposed that my opinion is based upon some of the arguments that have been made here. I do not believe that suffrage is a natural right. I believe it is a right that grows out of society, a political right, and that it is within the body-politic to decide upon its limits, its modifications, and its conditions. The only question in my mind is whether it is proper and expedient. I think that the XIV. Amendment has nothing whatever to do with it.

Mr. Morton: Mr. President, the Senators from Rhode Island, Maine, and North Carolina have all said that the right to vote is not a natural right, but merely a political right. Is not that a distinction without a difference? If I have a natural right, I have a right to use the necessary and proper means to enforce that right; it is a part of it. To say that I have a natural right but have not the right to use the means for its protection is illogical; it makes nonsense of it. The natural and proper means to enforce any right are a part of it. The right of self-defense is one of the natural rights; everybody concedes it, and to take from me the natural and effective means of defending myself is to take from me the right itself. Government is the means of securing natural rights, and should depend upon the consent of the governed. Therefore the right to give or to withhold my consent is a part of the natural right. Let us come down to the substance and put away these shadowy distinctions. To say that I have the right of self-defense, but that I have no right to use the knife or any instrument necessary to protect my life against the assassin, is nonsense. So far as the right of government is concerned, the right to assent, to consent, or to dissent, the natural means under our system is the right to vote. You can not conceive any other. Therefore it is a part of the right and without it the other is worth nothing.

Mr. Edmunds: I wish to ask the Senator from Indiana whether persons under the age of twenty-one and eighteen years respectively have not all the natural rights that grown-up people have?

Mr. Morton: I think I can answer that question very readily, if the Senator is through.

Mr. Edmunds: That is my only question at present.

Mr. Morton: Every right must have some sort of regulation.

Mr. Edmunds: That does not answer the question.

Mr. Morton: Wait until I get through. We have in our country, and I believe generally in Europe, certainly in England, agreed that twenty-one years is the age when men and women have come into the full possession of their understanding and are supposed to be so well informed that they can take upon themselves the government of their own fortunes and the control of their own property. The mere fact that this thing is to be regulated does not take away the right. The natural right to own and control property is regulated in that way. There must be some age fixed. We know the infant can not do it; we know the child ten years old has not the necessary knowledge of the world or strength of understanding; and we have agreed upon a certain age when men and women come to the possession of their understanding and are able to take care of their own rights, whatever they may be.

Mr. Edmunds: May I ask the Senator, after all, what his opinion is, whether a child of tender years, say ten years of age, has not every natural right that a man of seventy has?

Mr. Morton: Certainly.

Mr. Edmunds: Morally, legally, and every other way?

Mr. Morton: To my mind that furnishes no argument at all.

Mr. Edmunds: I am not arguing it.

Mr. Morton: It is merely putting an extreme case to say that a woman twenty-five years of age shall not have the right to vote because if she votes the child in her arms has the right to vote. Is there any force in that?

Mr. Edmunds: I have not put any case at all. I am asking the Senator from Indiana, which he seems to be very unwilling to answer, whether a child of tender years has or has not, in his opinion, the same natural rights that a grown-up person has. That can be answered one way or the other without saying it is an argument.

Mr. Morton: I suppose the child has the right, certainly the incipient right; but that amounts to nothing when you apply it to a child that has not the strength, the experience, the knowledge of the world, or the age to exercise it. The common sense of mankind in this and every other country fixes a certain age when men and women shall be regarded as mature and qualified to take care of themselves.

Mr. Edmunds: They do not fix the same age, let me suggest to the Senator.

Mr. Morton: Now, Mr. President, unless we are prepared to deny the very fundamental doctrine upon which our Government is based, we must admit that women have the same rights that men have. The Senator from North Carolina will not deny that women have the same natural rights that men have. The Senator nods his assent. Then if that is so, they have the same natural right to use the means necessary to protect those rights that men have. That right, so far as men are concerned, is the ballot.

Mr. Merrimon: Natural means.

Mr. Morton: Whatever means are necessary and proper to the protection of a natural right are natural means.

Mr. Bayard: Did the Senator from Indiana answer the Senator from Vermont in the affirmative or negative?

Mr. Morton: I tried to answer him.

Mr. Bayard: I merely ask the question. He says now very triumphantly to the Senator from North Carolina that the rights of men and women are the same, their natural rights are the same.

Mr. Morton: Yes.

Mr. Bayard: I ask are the rights of children different from those of men?

Mr. Morton: I think not, but I do not think there is any force in that argument, as I said before. There is a certain common sense and a certain practical regulation of natural rights all the world over.

Mr. Edmunds: But is it the common sense of men alone, let me suggest to the Senator. The children may differ with us; they generally do on such questions.

Mr. Morton: I will not spend any time on that argument.

Mr. Edmunds: I think that is wise.

Mr. Morton: To say that the mature woman has not the right to vote because the child in her arms must have the same right, comes so near making nonsense of the whole business that I dismiss it, and come back to the other statement, that women having the same natural rights that men have, have the right to the use the same means for their protection; and as the means under our form of government for the protection of the natural rights of men is the right to vote, women should have the same right and power accorded to them. The whole theory of natural rights is mere trash unless you shall give women the right and the power to protect them. The Declaration of Independence says that governments are instituted for that purpose, and that they must depend upon the consent of the governed; and as the women are one-half of the governed, they have a right to give one-half of the consent.

The Senator from North Carolina says that the women of the country have consented to our form of government, because they have not dissented. They have no power to refuse their consent. They may remonstrate and scold about it, but that amounts to nothing; their consent one way or the other means nothing except so far as their influence may be concerned. There were four and a half million of slaves who did not remonstrate against their bondage. Why? They had no means of doing it, and if they had had it would not have amounted to anything. Would the Senator argue from that, that they had no natural rights, or that they were consenting to their bondage? When you take into consideration the fact that men have all "political power and all the other sources of influence and power over women," it is not very strange perhaps that a majority of them are not asking for the right of suffrage. Some women at least are asking for it; I know that very many women all over the country believe they have the right to vote and ought to vote who never go near a political meeting and never sign petitions or anything of that kind. I would be willing to-day to submit the question to the votes of the women of the United States whether they should have that privilege or not. But suppose that a majority do not want the ballot, how does that affect the rights of the minority who do want it? One woman can not consent for another.

I believe women will never have their rights in this country, will never enjoy the same means for taking care of themselves and making an honest living in the world, until they have the right to vote. As soon as they have that right you will find they will be placed upon an equality with men. The Senator from California refers to the fact, and it is a notorious fact, that in every State in this Union, women are paid only about one-half for the same quantity and the same kind of labor that men receive. Does any man say that there is any sense or any justice in that distinction? Will that ever be remedied until woman has the right to vote? It never will.

I believe, Mr. President, in every point of view the right of suffrage should be extended to woman. I maintain that it is a God-given right to take part in the administration of that government which controls their earthly destinies and interests. I believe it is for the interest of the men, for the interest of children, for the interest of our country, for the interest of the race.

Mr. Edmunds: I could name a dozen instances all of which show that in all the States of this Union, speaking as a general rule, as it is in Great Britain and in almost all other civilized countries, the law, instead of discriminating against womanhood, discriminates in its favor in every respect whatever except the political respect of voting. That is a fact that no man can truthfully deny who has studied the history of society or who knows anything about the history of legislation in civilized States. Therefore, it does not do to say that the right to vote, the privilege of voting, or the duty of voting—because I use those phrases as not having the peculiar meaning that the Senator from California imputes to them, is essential to the protection of the female sex as such, because, as I have said, the protection that the law gives them is now in all respects, where their rights or privileges come in collision with the rest of society, greater than is extended to men.

The Senator from Indiana insists—and he has a perfect right to do so, of course—that the right to vote is a natural right, and, therefore, if females are excluded from voting, as they are by the constitutions and laws of the various States, it is an infringement upon natural right, and that that infringement ought to be abolished. Of course, his conclusion is correct if his premises are true; but is the right to vote a natural right? Can the Senator refer me to the work of any writer upon natural or municipal law from the beginning of the world to the year 1860, which maintains, or asserts, or insinuates, or suggests that the right to vote in a political community is a natural right?

Mr. Morton: I do not call to mind any author.

Mr. Edmunds: No; the Senator does not. With candor he says so, because the Senator, learned in history as he is, knows, as the rest of us know, that there is no such thing. He knows that in all the discussions and all the turmoils of society where the rights of men and women in political respects, the rights of society at large, have been discussed and turned over and over and all manner of experiments in government tried and suggested, it never has been suggested that the right to participate in the government of a political community is a natural right belonging to every human being.

Mr. Morton: I ask the Senator, if there are natural rights, do not the natural and necessary means to protect those rights become a part of them? What is the right worth if that be denied?

Mr. Edmunds: I answer no, in the broad sense in which the Senator has put it. If he asks of me as to a state of nature, without being organized into any social or political community whatever, then I answer yes, and every man is what the civil writers called in old times a barbarian; and he is invested, upon his own judgment and in his own right, with the power of defending and affirming whatever natural rights he has against all comers, exactly as a nation stands in respect to another nation; no man has a right to impose upon him any restraint; no man has a right to demand from him any concession; he is absolutely independent; and when his rights or claims come in conflict with those of anybody else he "fights it out" or runs away. So far, there is natural right, no doubt, but I hope the Senator has not gone back quite so far from the present condition of the world as to wish to discuss questions of that kind. That is not what he means. What he means by natural rights no doubt is what organized communities recognize as things of natural right, and those are things which are inherent in the person but are regulated and limited and restrained according to the rights and necessities of all the other persons in the community. In an organized society the right of self-defense is not a natural right in the broad sense, so that under all circumstances A B or C D has a right to defend himself against all aggression. An officer may come to arrest me on a warrant issued by a court irregularly. I have not the right to slay the officer because he takes me on the warrant. My place to resist is not by my natural force, not by raising a mob, but by going to the court that issued the warrant and showing that it had been issued contrary to law. And yet on the Senator's notion every time a man is brought under the law, if he does not agree with the law, his business is to fight. The community can not get along in that way. There is no such right as that in society.

Mr. Stewart: I ask the Senator what right, whether it be a natural right or an acquired right, has one man to govern another, or has society to govern the individual?

Mr. Edmunds: What right?

Mr. Stewart: Is it a natural or acquired right?

Mr. Edmunds: No man has a natural right to govern another, or an acquired right, or a political right, or a civil right that I know of, unless he is appointed the guardian of somebody. Of course, of that the Senator has not any experience; certainly not on the side of being a ward.

Mr. Stewart: Then what right has society, the body of men, to govern an individual? Is it a natural right or an acquired right?

Mr. Edmunds: Suppose I should answer the Senator and say I do not know?

Mr. Stewart: What right have they to take from him his freedom in his savage state to do as he pleases? And if they have a right to take it from him, what right have they to say he shall not participate with them equally in the regulations that shall be made for his government? If they have a right to govern him, he has a right, whether it be natural or not, to have a voice in it, if the principle of equality and fair play is one of the fundamental principles that should govern mankind.

Mr. Edmunds: I see the Senator's point. The substance of it is, if I correctly understand him, that if society has a right to govern him, he has a right to govern society, and that makes equality; and if the majority has a right to control him, he has a right to control the majority, and there is equality! Very well. I leave the Senator, with his point, to enjoy it.

Now, let us return to the subject. It is perfectly plain that the right to vote is one which society, as it is organized, is to determine by its fundamental laws. Society does determine, in the State of Vermont, if you please, that voting must only be exercised by males above the age of twenty-one years, those who are not in the penitentiary, those who are not in the lunatic asylums, those who are not idiots, and so on. The laws of Indiana may provide the same thing, or may declare that the age shall be twenty, or may declare as the Roman law used to do, that it shall be twenty-five, and so on; or it may declare as the Constitution of the United States does as to the age of Senators and as to the age of the President of the United States. On the argument of Senators in favor of this amendment to this bill, there would exist no right whatever in constituted society to make any limitation upon the free exercise of political rights to vote and hold office in respect to age. Why say a man can not be a member of the Senate until he is thirty years of age? Who can say he is not just as good at twenty-nine?

The Senator from Indiana says that common sense teaches that we must put some limitation on this. So it does; and common sense has taught that it is left to each political community to determine what are the qualifications and limitations upon the privilege of exercising political rights; and it has always been so, and it always will be so, because when the Senator proposes to say that the other sex may vote—which I admit he has a perfect right to say, and society may so say—he does not undertake to say that ladies of seventeen, instead of eighteen, shall vote, because they come of age in my State at eighteen, and do in many of the States—the Senator does not propose to say that all ladies of seventeen shall vote; and yet it is impossible to say that there is any distinction in respect to intelligence as a matter of right, any philosophical distinction between one year and another. True, as the Senator says, you may run it down so far that at last you have reached a condition of infancy, and there everybody says the child is not wise enough to vote, is not wise enough to do anything without having guardianship and tutelage. But if you put it upon the ground of natural right, the child has just as good a right to say to you that he shall be the judge of it, as you have to say to him that you must be; and this shows that the notion of any natural right of anybody of any age to participate in the government of society is an absolute absurdity. It is one of those figments of the imagination that have crawled into some people's brains within a very few years, and will go out again as other delusions do.

Then when you come to the XIV. Amendment it is equally obvious that that has nothing to do with the subject. If anybody had thought it related to suffrage when the XV. Amendment was passed, nobody would have voted for it, because on that theory the right to vote did exist in all colored persons, females as well as males; and yet nobody of any party or any creed pretended at that time when we proposed the XV. Amendment that we had guaranteed the right to vote by the XIV. Nobody suspected it; nobody suggested it; and nobody believed in it, and very few people do now, for the simple reason that the XIV. Amendment was directed, as everybody knows, by its language, by its history, by its relation to other laws, to what are called civil rights; but I am not going to define what they are, because to do so takes time. So, Mr. President, the XV. Amendment was passed in order to secure a right to vote without regard to race, color, or previous condition of servitude.

Then you come to the real question which is involved here; and that is the propriety of providing that females, twenty-one years of age, not idiots, not lunatics, not in the penitentiary—standing upon the same limitations that men do in these respects—are to vote. That presents a fair question, one that we have a perfect right to pass upon; and I have only said what I have in order to show that we had not better run crazy over the idea that we were dealing with natural and inalienable rights, and that we were violating human rights if we happened to say no, or that we were vindicating human rights in the sense now spoken of if we should say yes. We are merely considering a question of political expediency, as confessedly we have the power in governing the Territories to let anybody vote we choose. We can put the whole concern in Pembina, if we think it wise, into the hands of the madmen up there, and I do not know but that they are in the majority, for I certainly know nothing about it.... If no other Senator wishes to make any remarks, I move to lay the bill upon the table.

Mr. Sargent: I ask for the yeas and nays on that motion.

Mr. Hager: I hope the Senator from Vermont will withdraw his motion. I desire to make a few remarks.

The Presiding Officer (Mr. Clayton in the chair). The motion is not debatable.

Mr. Hager: I ask the Senator to withdraw the motion for a few minutes.

Mr. Edmunds: If the Senator will renew it when he finishes his remarks, I will do so.

Mr. Hager: Very well.

Mr. Edmunds: I withdraw the motion.

Mr. Hager: Mr. President, it seems to me strange that a question of so much importance as that raised by this amendment appears to be, from the positions taken by Senators on the floor, should be presented upon this bill, which, if amended as proposed, will not confer the right of suffrage upon females throughout the country; and for us to undertake to legislate upon this question in regard to a distant Territory where perhaps there are few or no women, unless they be of the Indian race, is to me a very astonishing thing.... If suffrage should be extended to females let it come up as a distinct, independent proposition by itself, and then every Senator can take his position in regard to a question which affects the whole country, and not a distant Territory merely. That is the way, in my opinion, to get at it.... Inasmuch as in the wisdom of the Government and people of the United States the right to the elective franchise has been conferred upon the black race in this country, I see no reason on the ground of qualification why it should not be conferred upon females.... But I am unwilling to legislate by piecemeal in this manner. If there is any good in it; if, as the Senator from Indiana says, as a matter of right women should be entitled to the franchise, that right should be co-extensive with the whole country, and not be limited to the little Territory of Pembina, which is not yet organized.

Mr. Edmunds.—I renew the motion to lay the bill on the table.

Mr. Sargent.—On that motion I ask for the yeas and nays. The yeas and nays were ordered.

Mr. Ramsey.—I should like to appeal to the Senator from Vermont to withdraw the motion for five minutes.

Mr. Stewart.—We will not lay it on the table.

Mr. Ramsey.—Very well; let the vote be taken. The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted—yeas, 24; nays, 24; as follows:

Yeas—Messrs. Bayard, Buckingham, Conkling, Conover, Cooper, Davis, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, Hager, Hamilton of Maryland, Howe, Ingalls, Johnston, Jones, MeCreery, Merrimon, Morrill of Maine, Norwood, Ransom, Scott, Sherman, Wadleigh, Washburn, and Wright—24.

Nays—Messrs. Bogy, Boreman, Boutwell, Carpenter, Chandler, Clayton, Ferry of Michigan, Flanagan, Gilbert, Harvey, Hitchcock, Logan, Mitchell, Morton, Patterson, Pratt, Ramsey, Sargent, Spencer, Sprague, Stewart, Tipton, West, and Windom—24.

Absent—Messrs. Alcorn, Allison, Anthony, Brownlow, Cameron, Cragin, Dennis, Dorsey, Fenton, Ferry of Connecticut, Goldthwaite, Gordon, Hamilton of Texas, Hamlin, Kelly, Lewis, Morrill of Vermont, Oglesby, Pease, Robertson, Saulsbury, Schurz, Stevenson, Stockton, and Thurman—25.

So the motion was not agreed to.

The Presiding Officer (Mr. Clayton in the chair.)—The question is on the amendment of the Senator from California [Mr. Sargent], upon which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

Mr. Bayard.—Mr. President, it would seem scarcely credible that in the Senate of the United States an abrupt and sudden change in so fundamental a relation as that borne by the two sexes to our system of Government should be proposed as an "experiment," and that it should be gravely recommended that a newly organized Territory under act of Congress should be set aside for this "experiment," which is in direct, grossly irreverent disregard of all that we have known as a rule, our great fundamental rule, in organizing a government of laws, whether colonial, State, or Federal, in this country.

I frankly say, Mr. President, that which strikes me most forcibly is the gross irreverence of this proposition, its utter disregard of that Divine will by which man and woman were created different, physically, intellectually, and morally, and in defiance of which we are now to have this poor, weak, futile attempt of man to set up his schemes of amelioration in defiance of every tradition, of every revelation, of all human experience, enlightened as it has been by Divine permission. It seems to me that to introduce so grave a subject as this, to spring it here upon the Senate without notice in the shape of an amendment to a pending measure, to propose thus to experiment with the great laws that lie at the very foundation of human society, and to do it for the most part in the trivial tone which we have witnessed during this debate, is not only mortifying, but it renders one almost hopeless of the permanence of our Government if this is to be the example set by one of the Houses of Congress, that which claims to be more sedate and deliberate, if it proposes in this light and perfunctory way to deal with questions of this grave nature and import. Sir, there is no time at present for that preparation which such a subject demands at the hands of any sensible man, mindful of his responsibilities, who seeks to deal with it.

This is an attempt to disregard laws promulgated by the Almighty Himself. It is irreverent legislation in the simplest and strongest sense of the word. Nay, sir, not only so, but it is a step in defiance of the laws of revealed religion as given to men. If there be one institution which it seems to me has affected the character of this country, which has affected the whole character of modern civilization, the results of which we can but imperfectly trace and but partly recognize, it is the effect of the institution of Christian marriage, the mysterious tie uniting the one man and the one woman until they shall become one and not two persons. It is an institution which is mysterious, which is beyond the reach and the understanding of man, but he certainly can best exhibit his sense of duty and proper obligation when he reverently shall submit to and recognize its wisdom. All such laws as proposed by this amendment are stumbling-blocks, and are meant to be stumbling-blocks in the way of that perfect union of the sexes which was intended by the law of Christian marriage.

Suffrage is a political franchise; it is not a right; because the word "right" is used in reference to voting in the XIV. Amendment to the Constitution, that does not make it a right. It is in the very nature of government a political privilege confided, according to the exigency, the expediency, by the wisdom of those who control the government, to a certain class. If this right to vote be what the Senator from Indiana declares it to be, a natural and inalienable right, then you have no more right to deny it to a person who is under the age of twenty-one than you have to deny it to a person who is over the age of twenty-one years. Sir, the difference is radical. Voting is no right; it is a privilege granted, a franchise which is granted to certain classes, more or less extended according to the supposed expediency which shall control the minds of those who frame the constitution of government for a people. There is no wrong done, so far as the abnegation of a right is involved, by denying this to certain classes of a community, whether on account of age or sex or any other supposed causes of disqualification. In this country the whole foundation of our institutions has been that the male sex when arrived at years of supposed discretion alone should take part in the political control of the country.

It is not necessary for me to speak now of other influences than those that come from politics; it is not necessary for me to dwell upon the actual and potential influences that control the fate of men and of nations. We all know they are not those most apparent. We all know it is the passions, the affections, the sympathies, and desires of the human heart and human ambition that control the vote, and not the vote that controls them. And now you propose to try an "experiment" upon a community composed of your own fellow-citizens, which is in defiance of all human experience, all suggestions of philosophy, of your own laws, and of every lesson you should have drawn from every civilized nation that has preceded you.

Under the operation of this Amendment, what will become of the family hearthstone around which cluster the very best influences of human education? You will have a family with two heads—a "house divided against itself." You will no longer have that healthful and necessary subordination of wife to husband, and that unity of relationship which is required by a true and a real Christian marriage. You will have substituted a system of contention and difference warring against the laws of nature herself, and attempting by these new fangled, petty, puny, and most contemptible contrivances, organized in defiance of the best lessons of human experience, to confuse, impede, and disarrange the palpable will of the Creator of the world. I can see in this proposition for female suffrage the end of all that home life and education which are the best nursery for a nation's virtue. I can see in all these attempts to invade the relations between man and wife, to establish differences, to declare those to be two whom God hath declared to be one, elements of chaotic disorder, elements of destruction to all those things which are, after all, our best reliance for a good and a pure and an honest government.

As I said, Mr. President, I rose simply to express my astonishment that a measure of this kind could have received the assent which it apparently has received from the Senate of the United States in the vote just recorded. The subject is too broad, it is too deep, it is too serious to attempt to discuss it unprepared and within the time which is allotted to me. I sincerely hope that if this subject is to be acted upon, it will be after long, serious, severe, close consideration. Let all sides of the subject be viewed in all its vastness and far-reaching consequences. Let Senators consider the results, and let at least their aims in this matter be something higher than mere political and partisan considerations, which I fear have animated much of the discussion to which we have listened. Mr. President, I trust sincerely that the vote just taken, indicating the refusal of the Senate to lay this bill upon the table, may not indicate the will of the Senate in respect of this Amendment. We have no right to subject this or any other portion of our fellow-citizens to so sad, so untoward, so unhappy an experiment as is here proposed. I have sat in this Chamber, and seen laws leveled with the most serious and cruel penalties against a class of people practicing polygamy in our Territories. What will this law do? Will it not in fact sever those relations to which I have referred as being essential for the virtue and safety of a State? What is your State unless it is founded upon virtuous and happy homes? And where can there be a virtuous and happy home unless a Christian marriage shall have consecrated it?

No, Mr. President, I trust that this Amendment will not be adopted, that we shall not trifle in this way with the happiness of a large portion of our fellow-citizens, that we shall not set what I must consider this indecorous example of government; and I trust that the vote of the Senate most emphatically will stop here, and I trust stop permanently even the suggestion of granting the political franchise of voting to the women of America. They do not need it, sir. I can not, of course, speak for all, but I know that I can speak the sentiment of many when I say that to them the proposition is abhorrent to take them from the retirement where their sway is so admitted, so beneficent, so elevating, and to throw them into another sphere for which they are totally unfitted and where all that at present adorns and protects them must be taken away by the rough and vulgar contact with those struggles which men are much better fitted to meet. No, sir; the relations of the sexes as they exist to-day under the laws of this country have produced happy and stable government, or at least are not responsible for the evil features which we witness. The best protection for the women of America is in the respect and the love which the men of America bear to them. Every man conversant with the practical affairs of life knows that the fact, that the mere fact that it is a woman who seeks her rights in a court of justice alone gives her an advantage over her contestant which few men are able to resist, I would put it to any who has practiced law in the courts of this country; let him stand before a jury composed only of men, let the case be tried only by men; let all the witnesses be men; and the plaintiff or the defendant be a woman, and if you choose to add to that, even more unprotected than women generally are, a widow or an orphan, and does not every one recognize the difficulty, not to find protection for her rights, but the difficulty to induce the men who compose the juries of America to hold the balance of justice steadily enough to insure that the rights of others are not invaded by the force of sympathy for her sex? These are common every-day illustrations. They could be multiplied ad infinitum.

Mr. President, there never was a greater mistake, there never was a falser fact stated than that the women of America need any protection further than the love borne to them by their fellow-countrymen. Every right, every privilege, many that men do not attempt, many that men can not hope for, are theirs most freely. Do not imperil the advantages which they have, do not attempt in this hasty, ill-considered, shallow way to interfere with the relations which are founded upon the laws of nature herself. Depend upon it, Mr. President, man's wisdom is best shown by humble attention, by humble obedience to the great laws of nature; and those discoveries which have led men to their chiefest enjoyment and greatest advantages have been from the great minds of those who did lay their ears near the heart of nature, listened to its beatings, and did not attempt to correct God's handiwork by their own futile attempts at improvement.

Mr. Stewart.—Mr. President, I listened to the speech of the Senator from Delaware with great attention; I appreciate his feelings on the subject; and it has occasioned me to have some reflection upon this subject during the time he was speaking. I want to call the attention of the Senator from Delaware and of the Senate and of the country to a few facts in regard to this matter of woman's rights, and to see whether it has not been well to change some of the ancient order of things. There was a time among our Anglo-Saxon fathers when it was seriously discussed in the law-books what size the whip should be with which a husband could properly chastise his wife. If it was no larger than the thumb, I believe no action would lie. Those were the good old times, and those times you can see illustrated to-day all over the world where savages——

Mr. Sargent.—That was when we were near to nature.

Mr. Stewart.—Yes; that was when man held sway, and when God's law of man's supremacy was omnipotent! Then harmony was preserved. If you will go out into my State and see the Indian women carrying the loads on their backs and the men riding on horses, and the women doing the work, you will see the harmony of the supremacy of man! Now, I undertake to say that there is no surer criterion of the civilization of any nation than the position which woman occupies; and the less dependent she is, the more she has to do with the management of society, the more she is regarded as an individual, the higher that society stands; but where she depends exclusively on man and man's justice, there you have absolute barbarism. Do you think that women have been less loyal to their husbands, do you think that virtue has been less protected in this country since the rights of women were vindicated by the law, since they were entitled to hold property? Have they not been as good wives as they were formerly? Has society been injured thereby? Show me the nation that elevates its women and acknowledges their rights and protects them by the law and severs them in point of protection from the caprice or the sympathy of men—show me that nation, and that nation shall be first. It is one of the evidences of the advance of civilization in America that woman does occupy the position she does here; and it is idle to say that society will be destroyed by recognizing her as having rights to protect.

It is very well for women who chance to have kind husbands and luxurious homes, under the flattery of their husbands, to sneer at their less fortunate sisters who are debarred every right. It is very well for those who have luxury and power and wealth to trample upon the unfortunate that cry for bread and for help. It is very easy to philosophize about laws and say that women are not fit for this place and not fit for that; that it is indelicate, and all that kind of thing, to allow her to earn an honest living or to have a place in a Department where she can do work; it is very well for us to say, "Here, we will give her only half pay for the same labor;" but they who serve and they who suffer feel it differently. How is the voice of women on this subject to be heard? Shall it be heard from that class only who are satisfied with their protection, or shall the voice of the weak and the starving be heard? There is no way for it to be heard. We see it daily. You talk about degradation. One of the great sources of the degradation of this country, one of the great sources of the breaking up of families and destroying society is your low groggeries and your gambling-houses and your places of resort for bad men, that are tolerated in spite of your laws and will be so long as men only vote. The women suffer by these things; and that consideration alone has often made me hesitate upon this question. I do believe that if the good women of America could speak to-day they would reform many evils that we wink at or allow to exist because we want the votes of the parties who are committing these sins against society. I say let the women have a voice; and when it is said that this is ill-considered, that this is not the proper time, and that this is too serious a business to be considered by the Senate of the United States on this bill, I tell you society is marching on to it, and as I remarked before, it will not be ten years before there will be no voice in this Senate against female suffrage. It is necessary for women, if they are to be protected in society and not to be the prey of man, that they shall have the ballot to protect themselves. It is the only thing in a free government that can protect any one; and whether it is a natural right or an artificial right it is nonsense to discuss. It is a necessary right; it is necessary to freedom; it is necessary to equal rights; it is necessary to protection; it is necessary for every class to have the ballot if we are to have a square deal.

Mr. Boreman.—I had not intended to utter a word. I supposed the bill would pass upon the report which was made by the committee. I am inclined now to think that if it had not been for the unfortunate, if I may say so, amendment offered by my friend from California [Mr. Sargent] it would have passed long since. But this question of woman suffrage is one upon which all our friends probably do not desire to vote either one way or the other, and it is a very convenient way to get rid of voting on the question directly to lay this bill on the table. Fortunately that question has been settled for the present, and I am glad the Senate has seen fit not to lay the bill on the table.

Mr. Edmunds.—The Senator speaks about people not wishing to vote on the amendment directly; and as I made the motion to lay on the table I assume that he refers to me. I beg to disabuse his mind on that subject, inasmuch as I am opposed to the amendment and am perfectly free to vote against it, and in doing so I suppose I represent, according to the latest advices I have, a very large majority of the people of Vermont.

Mr. Boreman.—I agree with the Senator from Vermont on the subject of woman suffrage myself.

Mr. Edmunds.—Then I hope the Senator will not suggest that I am trying to dodge the question by moving to lay the bill on the table.

Mr. Boreman.—Not at all. I did not allude to the Senator who made the motion; and the remark I made was more intended to be playful than serious. I simply thought that probably the bill had enough friends to pass it if that subject was not mooted. I may be mistaken. However, I shall be glad to have a vote on the bill either with or without woman suffrage incorporated in it. I shall vote against incorporating it, but if it is put there I shall nevertheless be gratified to have the bill passed. I feel no interest in it except as representing what I believe to be the interests and wishes of those to be affected by it. I think the circumstances are such as to justify Congress in organizing the Territory, else as representing the committee I should not have reported the bill. That is all I desire to say.

The Presiding Officer (Mr. Anthony in the chair).—The question is on the amendment of the Senator from California [Mr. Sargent], upon which the yeas and nays have been ordered.

The Secretary proceeded to call the roll.

Mr. Johnson (when his name was called).—On this question I am paired with the Senator from Alabama [Mr. Spencer]. If he were here he would vote "yea" and I should vote "nay."

Mr. Bogy (after having first voted in the negative).—I rise to withdraw my vote. At the time I voted I forgot that I was paired with the Senator from Arkansas [Mr. Dorsey]. I should have voted "nay" and he would have voted "yea."

The Presiding Officer.—The vote will be withdrawn if there be no objection.

Mr. Morrill, of Maine (after having first voted in the negative).—It occurs to me that I am paired with the Senator from Illinois (Mr. Oglesby). If he were here he would vote "yea" and I should vote "nay." I ask leave to withdraw my vote.

The Presiding Officer.—Leave will be granted if there is no objection.

The roll-call having been concluded, the result was announced—yeas 19, nays 27; as follows:

Yeas—Messrs. Anthony, Carpenter, Chandler, Conover, Ferry of Michigan, Flanagan, Gilbert, Harvey, Mitchell, Morton, Patterson, Pratt, Sargent, Sprague, Stewart, Tipton, Washburn, West, and Windom—19.

Nays—Messrs. Allison, Bayard, Boreman, Boutwell, Buckingham, Clayton, Conkling, Cooper, Davis, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, Hager, Hamilton of Maryland, Hitchcock, Jones, Kelly, McCreery, Merrimon, Morrill of Vermont, Norwood, Ramsey, Ransom, Saulsbury, Scott, Sherman, Wadleigh, and Wright—27.

Absent—Messrs. Alcorn, Bogy, Brownlow, Cameron, Cragin, Dennis, Dorsey, Fenton, Ferry of Connecticut, Goldthwaite, Gordon, Hamilton of Texas, Hamlin, Howe, Ingalls, Johnson, Lewis, Logan, Morrill of Maine, Oglesby, Pease, Robertson, Schurz, Spencer, Stevenson, Stockton, and Thurman—27.

So the amendment was rejected.

The Presiding Officer.—The question now is on ordering the bill to be engrossed for a third reading.

Mr. Morton called for the yeas and nays; and they were ordered.

Mr. Edmunds.—I ask the chairman of the committee if the clause still stands in the bill which authorizes all the male inhabitants of that Territory to vote at the first election?

Mr. Boreman.—I think the Senator is mistaken about that.

Mr. Edmunds.—I am not asking whether I am mistaken or not; I am asking if the clause remains as it stood reported by the committee?

Mr. Boreman.—Yes, sir.

Mr. Edmunds.—That is enough for me.

Mr. Ramsey.—There is nothing new in that.

The question being taken by yeas and nays, resulted—yeas 19, nays 29; as follows:

Yeas—Messrs. Bogy, Boreman, Chandler, Clayton, Ferry of Michigan, Flanagan, Harvey, Hitchcock, Jones, Kelly, Logan, Mitchell, Patterson, Pratt, Ramsey, Sherman, Tipton, Wadleigh, and Windom—19.

Nays—Messrs. Anthony, Bayard, Boutwell, Buckingham, Carpenter, Conkling, Conover, Davis, Edmunds, Frelinghuysen, Gilbert, Hager, Hamilton of Maryland, Ingalls, Johnson, McCreery, Merrimon, Morrill of Maine, Morrill of Vermont, Norwood, Ransom, Sargent, Saulsbury, Scott, Sprague, Stewart, Washburn, West, and Wright—29.

Absent—Messrs. Alcorn, Allison, Brownlow, Cameron, Cooper, Cragin, Dennis, Dorsey, Fenton, Ferry of Connecticut, Golthwaite, Gordon, Hamilton of Texas, Hamlin, Howe, Lewis, Morton, Oglesby, Pease, Robertson, Schurz, Spencer, Stevenson, Stockton, and Thurman—25.

So the bill was rejected.

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 laws of the State.

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.