Mrs. Stanton said, It had been the desire of her heart to see the Anti-Slavery and Woman's Rights organizations merged into an Equal Rights Association, as the two questions were now one. With emancipation, all that the black man asks is the right of suffrage. With the special legislation of the last twenty years, all that woman asks is the right of suffrage. Hence it seems an unnecessary expenditure of force and substance for the same men and women to meet in convention on Tuesday to discuss the right of one class to the ballot, and on Thursday to discuss the right of another class to the same. Has not the time come, Mrs. President, to bury the black man and the woman in the citizen, and our two organizations in the broader work of reconstruction? They who have been trained in the school of anti-slavery; they who, for the last thirty years, have discussed the whole question of human rights, which involves every other question of trade, commerce, finance, political economy, jurisprudence, morals and religion, are the true statesmen for the new republic—the best enunciators of our future policy of justice and equality. Any work short of this is narrow and partial and fails to meet the requirements of the hour. What is so plain to me, may, I trust, be so to all before the lapse of many months, that all who have worked together thus far, may still stand side by side in this crisis of our nation's history.
James Mott said, he rejoiced that the women had seen fit to re-organize their movement into one for equal rights to all, that he felt the time had come to broaden our work. He felt the highest good of the nation demanded the recognition of woman as a citizen. We could have no true government until all the people gave their consent to the laws that govern them.
Stephen S. Foster said, Many seemed to think that the one question for this hour was negro suffrage. The question for every man and woman, he thought, was the true basis of the reconstruction of our government, not the rights of woman, or the negro, but the rights of all men and women. Suffrage for woman was even a more vital question than for the negro; for in giving the ballot to the black man, we bring no new element into the national life—simply another class of men. And for one, he could not ask woman to go up and down the length and breadth of the land demanding the political recognition of any class of disfranchised citizens, while her own rights are ignored. Thank God, the human family are so linked together, that no one man can ever enjoy life, liberty, or happiness, so long as the humblest being is crippled in a single right. I have demanded the freedom of the slave the last thirty years, because he was a human being, and I now demand suffrage for the negro because he is a human being, and for the same reason I demand the ballot for woman. Therefore, our demand for this hour is equal suffrage to all disfranchised classes, for the one and the same reason—they are all human beings.
Martha C. Wright said: Some one had remarked that we wished to merge ourselves into an Equal Rights Association to get rid of the odious name of Woman's Rights. This she repudiated as unworthy and untrue. Every good cause had been odious some time, even the name Christian has had its odium in all nations. We desire the change, because we feel that at this hour our highest claims are as citizens, and not as women. I for one have always gloried in the name of Woman's Rights, and pitied those of my sex who ignobly declared they had all the rights they wanted. We take the new name for the broader work because we see it is no longer woman's province to be merely a humble petitioner for redress of grievances, but that she must now enter into the fullness of her mission, that of helping to make the laws, and administer justice.
Aaron M. Powell presented the following resolution:
Resolved, That in view of the Constitutional Convention to be held in the State of New York the coming year, it is the duty of this Association to demand such an amendment of the Constitution as shall secure equal rights to all citizens, without distinction of color, sex, or race.
Miss Anthony seconded the resolution, and urged the importance of making a thorough canvass of the State with lectures, tracts, and petitions.[67] Mr. Powell, Mrs. Gage, and others, advocated the concentration of all the energies of the Association for the coming year on the State of New York; after which the resolution was adopted.
Parker Pillsbury: Perhaps we ourselves do not appreciate the magnitude of the enterprise we are here to inaugurate. If successful, we close to-day one epoch in human history, and enter on another of results more millennial than have been seen before. We give now a new definition to the word Liberty. We clothe our divinity with new honors. The ancients worshiped in her temple, but to them all, even the devoutest, she was ever an "Unknown God." In all ages, men sing her praises, but know not her law. Our revolutionary fathers were blind as others—blinder than many others. They declared all men free and equal. They fought long and valiantly for their evangel, baptizing it in the blood of many battles, came home triumphant, and then constructed a despotism which their own immortal Jefferson declared was fraught with more woes in one hour, to myriads of its citizens, than would be endured in whole ages of the worst they themselves had ever known! That government they named a Republic. Under it we held millions of slaves, and were providing to hold many millions more, when God sent a thunderbolt and dashed it in pieces before our eyes and gave our slaves their freedom. Now our wise men and counselors, our statesmen and sages, are seeking how the government and Union may be reconstructed. But they are laying again false foundations. Of three immense classes, they proscribe two and provide for one; and that one perhaps a minority of the whole. Half our people are degraded for their sex; one-sixth for the color of their skin. And this is the republican and democratic definition of freedom. The ruling class boasts two qualities, in virtue of which it claims the right to rule all others. It is male, not female—white, not colored. For neither of these surely is it responsible. For being women and colored, the proscribed classes are no more responsible. A more cruel, unrighteous, unjust distinction was never made under heaven. By it we are driven into this new revolution; a revolution which is to eclipse all that have gone before, as far as the glories of Calvary outshone the shadows and terrors of Sinai. Even the Anti-Slavery Society can only demand equality for the male half of mankind. And the Woman's Rights movement contemplated only woman in its demand. But with us liberty means freedom, equality, and fraternity, irrespective of sex or complexion. It is a gospel that was unknown to the ancients; hidden even from the wise and prudent among our revolutionary fathers. Revolutionary mothers we seem never to have had. As in Eden, "Adam was first found, then Eve," so in our revolution; but Eve has come to-day, demanding her portion of the equal inheritance, a mystery, a wonder, a "new thing under the sun," the declaration of King Solomon to the contrary notwithstanding. And here and to-day we lay new foundations. For the first time, law and liberty are to be founded in nature and the government of the moral universe. For the first time is it demanded that Justice be made our chief corner-stone. The ancient republics, not thus underpinned, fell. Our old foundations, too, are fallen. In God's wisdom, not in man's foolishness, let us henceforth build. And the work of our hands, feeble as we seem to-day, shall survive all the present kingdoms and dominions of the world.
Miss Anthony remarked that Theodore Tilton was in the house, and had not yet spoken. She would like to hear his opinion.
Mr. Tilton replied that of course Miss Anthony was speaking in pleasantry when she thus ingeniously pretended not to know his opinion. This pretense was only a piece of strategy to compel him to make a speech. Both she and he had lately been co-workers in a local association for just such a purpose as to-day's enterprise meditated—"The New York Equal Rights Association," of which he had had the honor to be president, and Miss Anthony to be secretary—an association which both its secretary and its president were only too glad to see superseded by a larger and more general movement. The apple tree bears more blossoms which fall off than come to fruit. Our local association was the necessary first blossom which had to be blown away by the wind. No—he would rather say it was a blossom which had ripened to-day into golden fruit. And now, said he, in this consecrated house, at this sunset hour, amid these falling shadows, with a president in the chair whose well-spent life has been crowned with every virtue, let us make a covenant with each other such as was made by the original members of the American Anti-Slavery Society—a mutual pledge of diligent and earnest labor, not for the abolition of chattel slavery, but for the political rights of all classes, without regard to color or sex. Are we only a handful? We are more than formed the Anti-Slavery Society—which grew into a force that shook the nation. Who knows but that to-night we are laying the corner-stone of an equally grand movement? Let us, therefore, catch at this moment the cheering pretoken of the prophecy that declares, "At evening time there shall be light!"
A motion was made to adjourn, when the President, Lucretia Mott, made a few closing remarks, showing that all great achievements in the progress of the race must be slow, and were ever wrought out by the few, in isolation and ridicule—but, said she, let us remember in our trials and discouragements, that if our lives are true, we walk with angels—the great and good who have gone before us, and God is our Father. As she uttered her few parting words of benediction, the fading sunlight through the stained windows, fell upon her pure face, a celestial glory seemed about her, and a sweet and peaceful influence pervaded every heart. And all responded to Theodore Tilton when he said, "this closing meeting of the Convention was one of the most beautiful, delightful, and memorable which any of its participants ever enjoyed."
The Convention adjourned to meet in Boston May 31, 1866, where a large, enthusiastic meeting was held, of which we find the following report by Charles K. Whipple.
From the National Anti-Slavery Standard of June 9, 1866.
The meeting next in interest as in time, among the crowded assemblies of Anniversary week, was that of the Equal Rights Association, called and managed by those intelligent and excellent women who have for years labored in behalf of Woman's Rights. A large portion of the community have been accustomed to sneer at these ladies as self-seeking and fanatical. The new position they have taken shows, on the contrary, the largeness of their views, the breadth of their sympathy, and the practical good sense which govern their operations. Their proceedings show their full appreciation of the fact that the rights of men and the rights of women must stand or fall together.
Mrs. Dall called the meeting to order, and introduced as its president, Martha C. Wright, of Auburn, N. Y., in the absence of Lucretia Mott, the president of the Association. Mrs. Wright made some well-chosen introductory remarks; Miss Susan B. Anthony read letters of friendly greeting from Frederick Douglass and William Lloyd Garrison, and then a very admirable report was read by Mrs. Dall, summing up the advance made in the woman's cause the past year.... The freedom of the platform was an admirable feature of this Convention. Early in the proceedings it was announced that any member of the audience, male or female, was entitled to speak on the topics under debate, and would be made welcome. Among those who addressed the Convention were Parker Pillsbury, Henry C. Wright, Aaron M. Powell, Dr. Sarah Young, Rev. Olympia Brown (minister of a church at Weymouth), Susan B. Anthony, Stephen S. Foster, Mr. Tooker, Ira Stewart, Charles C. Burleigh, Wendell Phillips, Frances Ellen Harper, Anna E. Dickinson. The mention of these names is enough to indicate that there was abundance of good speaking. No time was lost, and the hours of three sessions were pleasantly and profitably filled.
Mr. Pillsbury said the word "male," as a restriction upon the action of women, is unknown to the Federal Constitution, as well as the word "black," and that its introduction into that document should be resisted in the most strenuous manner, since we can never have a true democracy while the work of government is monopolized by a privileged class.... Wendell Phillips, admitting that the suffrage is the great question of the hour, thought, nevertheless, that in view of the peculiar circumstances of the negro's position, his claim to this right might fairly be considered to have precedence.... This hour, then, is preëminently the property of the negro. Nevertheless, said Mr. Phillips, I willingly stand here to plead the woman's cause, because the Republican party are seeking to carry their purpose by newly introducing the word "male" into the Constitution. To prevent such a corruption of the National Constitution, as well as for the general welfare of the community, male and female, I wish to excite interest everywhere in the maintenance of woman's right to vote. This woman's meeting was well conducted, and met with success in every way.....
Frances D. Gage, in a letter to the National Anti-Slavery Standard, May 26, 1866, speaking of her attendance of the anniversary meetings in New York, said: "If the Anti-Slavery work has fallen somewhat behind our hope, that of the Woman's Rights movement has far outstripped our most sanguine expectations. When the war-cry was heard in 1861, the advance-guard of the Woman's Rights party cried 'halt!' And for five years we have stood waiting while the grand drama of the Rebellion was passing. Not as idle spectators, but as the busiest and most unwearied actors on the boards. We have, as our manly men assert, fought half the battle, and helped to win the victory.
"Wendell Phillips said, 'Women made this war!' By the same process of reasoning women may claim that 'they made the peace,' that 'they broke the chains of the slave, and redeemed the land from its most direful curse.' Be this true or otherwise, one fact is patent to every mind—woman to-day is an acknowledged power! And when we met at the Church of the Puritans last week, we found Woman's Rights filling its halls and galleries as never before; with a Beecher and a Tilton to defend our cause, but not one sneerer or opposer to open his or her lips. Who now will dare call us 'infidels,' since Bishop Simpson, Henry Ward Beecher, and Dr. Tyng champion our cause, and proclaim it 'woman's duty to vote for the good of humanity'? Who will now dare sneer while the leading minds of Europe—among them Ruskin, John Stuart Mill, Mazzini, Victor Hugo—must share the odium with those hitherto called 'strong-minded?'
"It was with pain that I heard Wendell Phillips say on our platform, 'Albany can not help you; your throne is the world of fashion!'—meaning women. If we are given over to fashion, frivolity, and vice, does it follow that rights and privileges, duties and responsibilities will not help us? If just governments derive their powers from the consent of the governed, and taxation without representation is tyranny, then Albany can help us in just so much as a good and just government will help the people who live under its rules and laws. No one would at this day, if a friend to the negro, say to him, 'A vote can not help you!' Then why say it to women?
"Our Woman's Rights Convention has now taken the broad platform of 'Equal Rights,' and upon that will work in time to come. And our meeting in New York seemed proof—if proof was wanting—that all we need now is to ask and receive. Our worst enemy, our greatest hindrance, is woman herself; and her indifference is the legitimate result of long-denied privileges and responsibilities of which she has not learned the necessity. If, as Mr. Beecher asserted, 'to vote is a duty,' then it is the duty of every man and woman to work to secure that right to every human being of adult years.
"Since our meeting, the House of Representatives at Washington has passed, by more than three to one, the amendment of the Reconstruction Committee. If the Senate concurs, then, to save the four million negroes of the South, or rather to save the Republican party (the people agreeing), seventeen millions of women, governed without their own consent, are proclaimed a disfranchised class by the Constitution of the United States, hitherto unpolluted by any such legislation. Let us, then, work for this, too, that seventeen million women shall not be left without the power considered so necessary to the negro for his preservation and protection; the power to help govern himself. Let us never forget his claim, but strengthen it, by not neglecting our own."
At the November election of this year, Mrs. Stanton offered herself as a candidate for Congress; in order to test the constitutional right of a woman to run for office. This aroused some discussion on this phase of the question, and many were surprised to learn that while women could not vote, they could hold any office in which their constituents might see fit to place them. Theodore Tilton gives the following graphic description of this event in "The Eminent Women":
In a cabinet of curiosities I have laid away as an interesting relic, a little white ballot, two inches square, and inscribed:
For Representative to Congress,
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON.Mrs. Stanton is the only woman in the United States who, as yet, has been a candidate for Congress. In conformity with a practice prevalent in some parts of this country, and very prevalent in England, she nominated herself. The public letter in which she proclaimed herself a candidate was as follows:
To the Electors of the Eighth Congressional District:
Although, by the Constitution of the State of New York woman is denied the elective franchise, yet she is eligible to office; therefore, I present myself to you as a candidate for Representative to Congress. Belonging to a disfranchised class, I have no political antecedents to recommend me to your support,—but my creed is free speech, free press, free men, and free trade,—the cardinal points of democracy. Viewing all questions from the stand-point of principle rather than expediency, there is a fixed uniform law, as yet unrecognized by either of the leading parties, governing alike the social and political life of men and nations. The Republican party has occasionally a clear vision of personal rights, though in its protective policy it seems wholly blind to the rights of property and interests of commerce; while it recognizes the duty of benevolence between man and man, it teaches the narrowest selfishness in trade between nations. The Democrats, on the contrary, while holding sound and liberal principles on trade and commerce, have ever in their political affiliations maintained the idea of class and caste among men—an idea wholly at variance with the genius of our free institutions and fatal to high civilization. One party fails at one point and one at another.
In asking your suffrages—believing alike in free men and free trade—I could not represent either party as now constituted. Nevertheless, as an Independent Candidate, I desire an election at this time, as a rebuke to the dominant party for its retrogressive legislation in so amending the National Constitution as to make invidious distinctions on the ground of sex. That instrument recognizes as persons all citizens who obey the laws and support the State, and if the Constitutions of the several States were brought into harmony with the broad principles of the Federal Constitution, the women of the Nation would no longer be taxed without representation, or governed without their consent. Not one word should be added to that great charter of rights to the insult or injury of the humblest of our citizens. I would gladly have a voice and vote in the Fortieth Congress to demand universal suffrage, that thus a republican form of government might be secured to every State in the Union.
If the party now in the ascendency makes its demand for "Negro Suffrage" in good faith, on the ground of natural right, and because the highest good of the State demands that the republican idea be vindicated, on no principle of justice or safety can the women of the nation be ignored. In view of the fact that the Freedmen of the South and the millions of foreigners now crowding our shores, most of whom represent neither property, education, nor civilization, are all in the progress of events to be enfranchised, the best interests of the nation demand that we outweigh this incoming pauperism, ignorance, and degradation, with the wealth, education, and refinement of the women of the republic. On the high ground of safety to the Nation, and justice to citizens, I ask your support in the coming election.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton.
New York, Oct. 10, 1866.
The New York Herald, though, of course, with no sincerity, since that journal is never sincere in anything—warmly advocated Mrs. Stanton's election. "A lady of fine presence and accomplishments in the House of Representatives," it said (and said truly), "would wield a wholesome influence over the rough and disorderly elements of that body." The Anti-Slavery Standard, with genuine commendation, said: "The electors of the Eighth District would honor themselves and do well by the country in giving her a triumphant election." The other candidates in the same district were Mr. James Brooks, Democrat, and Mr. Le Grand B. Cannon, Republican. The result of the election was as follows: Mr. Brooks received 13,816 votes, Mr. Cannon 8,210, and Mrs. Stanton 24. It will be seen that the number of sensible people in the district was limited! The excellent lady, in looking back upon her successful defeat, regrets only that she did not, before it became too late, procure the photographs of her two dozen unknown friends.[68]