Robert Dale Owen, being at Washington and behind the scenes at the time, sent copies of the various bills to the officers of the Loyal League in New York, and related to them some of the amusing discussions. One of the Committee proposed "persons" instead of "males." "That will never do," said another, "it would enfranchise all the Southern wenches." "Suffrage for black men will be all the strain the Republican party can stand," said another. Charles Sumner said, years afterward, that he wrote over nineteen pages of foolscap to get rid of the word "male" and yet keep "negro suffrage" as a party measure intact; but it could not be done.
Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, ever on the watch-tower for legislation affecting women, were the first to see the full significance of the word "male" in the 14th Amendment, and at once sounded the alarm, and sent out petitions[48] for a constitutional amendment to "prohibit the States from disfranchising any of their citizens on the ground of sex."[49]
Miss Anthony, who had spent the year in Kansas, started for New York the moment she saw the propositions before Congress to put the word "male" into the National Constitution, and made haste to rouse the women in the East to the fact that the time had come to begin vigorous work again for woman's enfranchisement.[50] Mr. Tilton (December 27, 1865) proposed the formation of a National Equal Rights Society, demanding suffrage for black men and women alike, of which Wendell Phillips should be President, and the National Anti-Slavery Standard its organ. Mr. Beecher promised to give a lecture (January 30th) for the benefit of this universal suffrage movement. The New York Independent (Theodore Tilton, editor) gave the following timely and just rebuke of the proposed retrogressive legislation:
A LAW AGAINST WOMEN.
The spider-crab walks backward. Borrowing this creature's mossy legs, two or three gentlemen in Washington are seeking to fix these upon the Federal Constitution, to make that instrument walk backward in like style. For instance, the Constitution has never laid any legal disabilities upon woman. Whatever denials of rights it formerly made to our slaves, it denied nothing to our wives and daughters. The legal rights of an American woman—for instance, her right to her own property, as against a squandering husband; or her right to her own children, as against a malicious father—have grown, year by year, into a more generous and just statement in American laws. This beautiful result is owing in great measure to the persistent efforts of many noble women who, for years past, both publicly and privately, both by pen and speech, have appealed to legislative committees, and to the whole community, for an enlargement of the legal and civil status of their fellow-country women. Signal, honorable, and beneficent have been the works and words of Lucretia Mott, Lydia Maria Child, Paulina W. Davis, Abby Kelly Foster, Frances D. Gage, Lucy Stone, Caroline H. Dall, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Susan B. Anthony, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and many others. Not in all the land lives a poor woman, or a widow, who does not owe some portion of her present safety under the law to the brave exertions of these faithful laborers in a good cause.
Now, all forward-looking minds know that, sooner or later, the chief public question in this country will be woman's claim to the ballot. The Federal Constitution, as it now stands, leaves this question an open one for the several States to settle as they choose. Two bills, however, now lie before Congress proposing to array the fundamental law of the land against the multitude of American women by ordaining a denial of the political rights of a whole sex. To this injustice we object totally! Such an amendment is a snap judgment before discussion; it is an obstacle to future progress; it is a gratuitous bruise inflicted upon the most tender and humane sentiment that has ever entered into American politics. If the present Congress is not called to legislate for the rights of women, let it not legislate against them.
But Americans now live who shall not go down into the grave till they have left behind them a Republican Government; and no republic is Republican which denies to half its citizens those rights which the Declaration of Independence, and which a true Christian Democracy make equal to all. Meanwhile, let us break the legs of the spider-crab!
While the 13th Amendment was pending, Senator Sumner wrote many letters to the officers of the Loyal League, saying, "Send on the petitions; they give me opportunity for speech." "You are doing a noble work." "I am grateful to your Association for what you have done to arouse the country to insist on the extinction of slavery." And our petitions were sent again and again, 300,000 strong, and months after the measure was carried, they still rolled in from every quarter where the tracts and appeals had been scattered. But when the proposition for the 14th Amendment was pending, and the same women petitioned for their own civil and political rights, they received no letters of encouragement from Republicans nor Abolitionists; and now came some of the severest trials the women demanding the right of suffrage were ever called on to endure. Though loyal to the Government and the rights of the colored race, they found themselves in antagonism with all with whom they had heretofore sympathized. Though Unionists, Republicans, and Abolitionists, they could not without protest see themselves robbed of their birth-right as citizens of the republic by the proposed amendment. Republicans presented their petitions in a way to destroy their significance, as petitions for "universal suffrage," which to the public meant "manhood suffrage." Abolitionists refused to sign them, saying, "This is the negro's hour."[51] Colored men themselves opposed us, saying, do not block our chance by lumbering the Republican party with Woman Suffrage.
The Democrats readily saw how completely the Republicans were stultifying themselves and violating every principle urged in the debates on the 13th Amendment, and volunteered to help the women fight their battle. The Republicans had declared again and again that suffrage was a natural right that belonged to every citizen that paid taxes and helped to support the State. They had declared that the ballot was the only weapon by which one class could protect itself against the aggressions of another. Charles Sumner had rounded out one of his eloquent periods, by saying, "The ballot is the Columbiad of our political life, and every citizen who holds it is a full-armed monitor."
The Democrats had listened to all the glowing debates on these great principles of freedom until the argument was as familiar as a, b, c, and continually pressed the Republicans with their own weapons. Then those loyal women were taunted with having gone over to the Democrats and the Disunionists. But neither taunts nor persuasions moved them from their purpose to prevent, if possible, the introduction of the word "male" into the Federal Constitution, where it never had been before. They could not see the progress—in purging the Constitution of all invidious distinctions on the ground of color—while creating such distinctions for the first time in regard to sex.
In the face of all opposition they scattered their petitions broadcast, and in one session of Congress they rolled in upwards of ten thousand. The Democrats treated the petitioners with respect, and called attention in every way to the question.[52] But even such Republicans as Charles Sumner presented them, if at all, under protest. A petition from Massachusetts, with the name of Lydia Maria Child at the head, was presented by the great Senator under protest as "most inopportune!" As if there could be a more fitting time for action than when the bills were pending.
During the morning hour of February 21st, Senator Henderson, of Missouri, presented a petition from New York.
SUFFRAGE FOR WOMEN.
Mr. Henderson: I present the petition of Mrs. Gerrit Smith and twenty-seven other ladies of the United States, the most of them from the State of New York, praying that the right of suffrage be granted to women. Along with the petition I received a note, stating as follows:
I notice in the debates of to-day that Mr. Yates promises, at the "proper time" to tell you why the women of Illinois are not permitted to vote. To give you an opportunity to press him on this point I send you a petition, signed by twenty-eight intelligent women of this State, who are native-born Americans—read, write, and pay taxes, and now claim representation! I was surprised to-day to find Mr. Sumner presenting a petition, with an apology, from the women of the republic. After his definition of a true republic, and his lofty peans to "equal rights" and the ballot, one would hardly expect him to ignore the claims of fifteen million educated tax-payers, now taking their places by the side of man in art, science, literature, and government. I trust, sir, you will present this petition in a manner more creditable to yourself and respectful to those who desire to speak through you. Remember, the right of petition is our only right in the Government; and when three joint resolutions are before the House to introduce the word "male" into the Federal Constitution, "it is the proper time" for the women of the nation to be heard, Mr. Sumner to the contrary notwithstanding.
The right of petition is a sacred right, and whatever may be thought of giving the ballot to women, the right to ask it of the Government can not be denied them. I present this petition without any apology. Indeed, I present it with pleasure. It is respectful in its terms, and is signed by ladies occupying so high a place in the moral, social, and intellectual world, that it challenges at our hands, at least a respectful consideration. The distinguished Senators from Massachusetts and from Illinois must make their own defense against the assumed inconsistency of their position. They are abundantly able to give reasons for their faith in all things; whether they can give reasons satisfactory to the ladies in this case, I do not know. The Senators may possibly argue that if women vote at all, the right should not be exercised before the age of twenty-one; that they are generally married at or before that age, and that when married, they become, or ought to become, merged in their husbands; that the act of one must be regarded as the act of the other; that the good of society demands this unity for purposes of social order; that political differences should not be permitted to disturb the peace of a relation so sacred. The honorable Senators will be able to find authority for this position, not only in the common law, approved as it is by the wisdom and experience of ages, but in the declaration of the first man, on the occasion of the first marriage, when he said, "This is now bone of my bone and flesh of my flesh." It may be answered, however, that the wife, though one with her husband, at least constitutes his better half, and if the married man be entitled to but one vote, the unmarried man should be satisfied with less than half a vote. [Laughter]. Having some doubts, myself, whether beyond a certain age, to which I have not yet arrived, such a man should be entitled to a vote or even half a vote, I leave the difficulty to be settled by my friend from Massachusetts and the fair petitioners. The petitioners claim, that as we are proposing to enfranchise four million emancipated slaves, equal and impartial justice alike demands the suffrage for fifteen million women. At first view the proposition can scarcely be met with denial, yet reasons "thick as blackberries" and strong as truth itself may be urged in favor of the ballot in the one case, which can not be urged in the other.
Mr. Saulsbury: I rise to a point of order. My point of order is, that a man who has lived an old bachelor as long as the Senator from Missouri has, has no right to talk about women's rights. [Laughter].
The President pro tem.: The chair moves that is not a point of order; and the Senator from Missouri will proceed.
Mr. Henderson: I had no idea that that was a point of order, sir. Whatever may be said theoretically about the elective franchise as a natural right, in practice at least, it has always been denied in the most liberal States to more than half the population. It is withheld from those whose crimes prove them devoid of respect for social order, and generally from those whose ignorance or imbecility unfits them for an intelligent appreciation of the duties of citizens and the blessings of good government. To women the suffrage has been denied in almost all Governments, not for the reasons just stated, but because it is wholly unnecessary as a means of their protection. In the government of nature the weaker animals and insects, dependent on themselves for safety and life, are provided with means of defense. The bee has its sting and the despised serpent its deadly poison. So, in the Governments of men, the weak must be provided with power to inspire fear at least in the strong, if not to command their respect. Political power was claimed originally by the people as a means of protecting themselves against the usurpations of those in power, whose interests or caprices might lead to their oppression. Hence came the republican system. But it was never thought the interests or caprices of men could lead to a denial of the civil rights or social supremacy of woman. People of one race have always been unjust to those of another. The ignorant and sordid Jew despised the Samaritan and scoffed at the idea of his equality. To him the learned and accomplished Greek was a barbarian, and all rights were denied him except those simple rights accorded to the most degraded Gentile. Chinamen, to-day, believe as firmly in the superiority of the celestial race as Americans do in the superiority of the Anglo-Saxon. All races of men are unjust to other races. They are unjust because of pride. That very pride makes them just to the women of their own race. There may be men who have prejudice against race; they are less than men who have prejudice against sex. The social position of woman in the United States is such that no civil right can be denied her. The women here have entire charge of the social and moral world. Hence she must be educated. First impressions are those which bend the mind to noble or ignoble action, and these impressions are made by mothers. To have intelligent voters we must have intelligent mothers. To have free men we must have free women. The voter from this source receives his moral and intellectual training. Woman makes the voter, and should not descend from her lofty sphere to engage in the angry contests of her creatures. She makes statesmen, and her gentle influence, like the finger of the angel pointing to the path of duty, would be lost in the controversies of political strife. She makes the soldier, infuses courage and patriotism in his youthful heart, and hovers like an invisible spirit over the field of battle, urging him on to victory or death in defense of the right. Hence woman takes no musket to the battle-field. Here, as in politics, her personal presence would detract from her power. Galileo, Newton, and La Place could not fitly discuss the laws of planetary motion with ignorant rustics at a country inn. The learned divine who descends from the theological seminary to wrangle upon doctrinal points with the illiterate, stubborn teacher of a small country flock must lose half his influence for good. Our Government is built as our Capitol is built. The strong and brawny arms of men, like granite blocks, support its arches; but woman, lovely woman, the true goddess of Liberty, crowns its dome.
Mr. Yates: I wish to ask the Senator from Missouri a question. I understand that he has introduced a resolution to amend the Constitution of the United States so that there shall be no distinction on account of color. Will the gentleman accept an amendment to that resolution that there shall be no distinction in regard to sex?
Mr. Henderson: I have given my views, I think, very distinctly, as the Senator would have found if he had listened, in the latter part of what I have just stated in reference to the question of voting. In reply to what he has said, I will say that I do not think that on the mere presentation of a petition it is in order to discuss the merits of the petition. I hope, therefore, that the Senator will not insist upon entering into a question of that sort now.
Mr. Yates: I shall not do so. I only wish to say that I am not proposing to amend the Constitution. I simply desire to give rights to those who have rights under the Constitution as it has been amended. When I propose to amend the Constitution then the question will come up whether I will allow women to vote or not.
Mr. Sumner: Before this petition passes out of sight I wish to make one observation, and only one. The Senator from Missouri began by an allusion to myself and to a remark which fell from me when I presented the other day a petition from women of the United States praying for the ballot. I took occasion then to remark that in my opinion the petition at that time was not judicious. That was all that I said. I did not undertake to express my opinion on the great question whether women should vote or should not vote. I did venture to say that in my opinion it was not judicious for them at this moment to bring forward their claims so as to compromise in any way the great question of equal rights for an enfranchised race now before Congress. The Senator has quoted a letter suggesting that I did not present the petition in a creditable way. I have now to felicitate my excellent friend on the creditable way in which he has performed his duty. [Laughter].
Mr. Yates: Allow me to say that I think the two gentlemen, one of whom has arrived at the age of forty-nine and the other sixty-three, have no right to discuss the question of women's rights in the Senate. [Laughter].
The President pro tem.: Will the Senator from Missouri suggest the disposition he wishes made of this petition?
Mr. Henderson: Let it lie on the table.
The President pro tem.: That order will be made.