This is an application by a woman for admission to the bar of Hartford county. After having completed the prescribed term of study she has passed the examination required and has been recommended by the bar of the county to the Superior Court for admission, subject to the opinion of the court upon the question whether, as a woman, she can legally be admitted. The Superior Court has reserved the case for our advice.
The statute with regard to the admission of attorneys by the court is the 29th section of chapter 3, title 4, of the General Statutes, and is in the following words: "The Superior Court may admit and cause to be sworn as attorneys such persons as are qualified therefor agreeably to the rules established by the judges of said court; and no other person than an attorney so admitted shall plead at the bar of any court of this State, except in his own cause."
It is not contended, in opposition to the application, that the language of this statute is not comprehensive enough to include women, but the claim is that at the time it was passed its application to women was not thought of, while the fact that women have never been admitted as attorneys, either by the English courts or by any of the courts of this country, had established a common-law disability, which could be removed only by a statute intended to have that effect.
It is hardly necessary to consider how far the fact that women have never pursued a particular profession or occupied a particular official position, to the pursuit or occupancy of which some governmental license or authority was necessary, constitutes a common-law disability for receiving such license or authority, because here the statute is ample for removing that disability if we can construe it as applying to women; so that we come back to the question whether we are by construction to limit the application of the statute to men alone, by reason of the fact that in its original enactment its application to women was not intended by the legislators that enacted it. And upon this point we remark, in the first place, that an inquiry of this sort involves very serious difficulties. No one would doubt that a statute passed at this time in the same words would be sufficient to authorize the admission of women to the bar, because it is now a common fact and presumably in the minds of legislators, that women in different parts of the country are, and for some time have been, following the profession of law. But if we hold that the construction of the statute is to be determined by the admitted fact that its application to women was not in the minds of the legislators when it was passed, where shall we draw the line? All progress in social matters is gradual. We pass almost imperceptibly from a state of public opinion that utterly condemns some course of action to one that strongly approves it. At what point, in the history of this change, shall we regard a statute, the construction of which is to be affected by it, as passed in contemplation of it? When the statute we are now considering was passed, it probably never entered the mind of a single member of the legislature that black men would ever be seeking for admission under it. Shall we now hold that it cannot apply to black men? We know of no distinction in respect to this rule between the case of a statute and that of a constitutional provision. When our State constitution was adopted in 1818 it was provided in it that every elector should be "eligible to any office in the State," except where otherwise provided in the constitution. It is clear that the convention that framed, and probably all the people who voted to adopt the constitution, had no idea that black men would ever be electors, and contemplated only white men as within any possible application of the provision, for the same constitution provided that only white men should be electors. But now that black men are made electors, will it do to say that they are not entitled to the full rights of electors in respect to holding office, because an application of the provision to them was never thought of when it was adopted? Events that gave rise to enactments may always be considered in construing them. This is little more than the familiar rule that in construing a statute we always inquire what particular mischief it was designed to remedy. Thus, the Supreme Court of the United States has held that in construing the recent amendments of the federal constitution, although they are general in their terms, it is to be considered that they were passed with reference to the exigencies growing out of the emancipation of the slaves, and for the purpose of benefiting the blacks (Slaughter-house Cases, 16 Wall., 67; Strauder vs. West Virginia, 100 U. S. Reps., 306). But this statute was not passed for the purpose of benefiting men as distinguished from women. It grew out of no exigency caused by the relation of the sexes. Its object was wholly to secure the orderly trial of causes and the better administration of justice. Indeed, the preamble to the first statute providing for the admission of attorneys, states its object to be "for the well-ordering of proceedings and pleas at the bar."
The statute on this subject was not originally passed in its present form. The first act with regard to the admission of attorneys was that of 1708, which was as follows: "That no person, except in his own cause, shall be admitted to make any plea at the bar without being first approved by the court before whom the plea is to be made, nor until he shall take in the said court the following oath," etc. (Col. Records, 1706 to 1716, page 48). This act seems to have contemplated an approval by the court in each particular case in which an attorney appeared before it. The first act with regard to the general admission of attorneys appears in the revision of 1750, and is as follows: "That the county courts of the respective counties in this colony shall appoint, and they are hereby empowered to approve, nominate and appoint attorneys in their respective counties, as there shall be occasion, to plead at the bar; * * and that no person, except in his own case, shall make any plea at the bar in any court but such as are allowed and qualified attorneys, as aforesaid." Thus the statute stood until the revision of 1821; when, for the first time, it took essentially its present form. Up to this time the word "person" had been used in this statute only in the clause that "no person" should be allowed to practice before the courts except where formally admitted by the court, a use of the word which, of course, could not be regarded as limited to the male sex, as women would undoubtedly have been held to be included in the term. The language of the statute as now adopted was as follows: "The county courts may make such rules and regulations as to them shall seem proper relative to the admission and practice of attorneys; and may approve of, admit and cause to be sworn as attorneys, such persons as are qualified therefor agreeably to the rules established; * * and no person not thus admitted, except in his own cause, shall be admitted or allowed to plead at the bar of any court." The statute in this form passed through the compilations of 1835 and 1838, the revision of 1849 and the compilation of 1854, and appears, with a slight modification, in the revision of 1866. The county courts had now been abolished, and the power to admit attorneys, as well as to make rules on the subject, had been given to the Superior Court; the expression, "such persons," being preserved, and the provision that "no person" not thus admitted should be allowed to plead, being omitted.
The statute finally took its present form in the revision of 1875. It retains the provision that the Superior Court may make rules for the admission of attorneys, and provides that the court "may admit and cause to be sworn as attorneys such persons as are qualified therefor agreeably to the rules established," and restores the provision, dropt in the revision of 1866, that "no person other than an attorney so admitted shall plead at the bar of any court in this State, except in his own cause."
These changes, though not such as to affect the meaning of the statute at any point of importance to the present question, are yet not wholly without importance. The adoption by the legislature of the revision of the statutes becomes, both in law and in fact, a reënactment of the whole body of statutes; and though in determining the meaning of a statute, we are not to regard it as then enacted for the first time, especially if there be no change in its phraseology, yet, where there is such a change, it follows that the attention of the revisers had been particularly directed to that statute, as of course also that of the legislature, and that with the changes made it expresses the present intent of both. Thus, in this case, it is clear that the revisers gave particular thought to the phraseology of the statute we are considering, and put it in a form that seemed to them best with reference to the present state of things, and decided to leave the words "such persons" to stand with full knowledge that they were sufficient to include women, and that women were already following the profession of law in different parts of the country. The legislators must be presumed to have acted with the same consideration and knowledge. It would have been perfectly easy, if either had thought best, to insert some words of limitation or exclusion, but it was not done. Not only so, but a clause omitted in the revision of 1866 was restored, providing that no "person" not regularly admitted should act as an attorney—a term which necessarily included women, and the insertion of which made it necessary, if the word "persons" as used in the first part of the statute should be held not to include women, to give two entirely different meanings to the same word where occurring twice in the same statute and with regard to the same subject matter.
The object of a revision of statutes is, that there may be such changes made in them as the changes in political and social matters may demand, and where no changes are made it is to be presumed that the legislature is satisfied with it in its present form. And where some changes are made in a particular statute, and other parts of it are left unchanged, there is the more reason for the inference from this evidence that the matter of changing the statute was especially considered, that the parts unchanged express the legislative will of to-day, rather than that of perhaps a hundred years ago, when it was originally enacted.
But this statute, in the revision of 1875, is placed immediately after another with regard to the appointment of commissioners of the Superior Court, the necessary construction of which, we think, throws light upon the construction of the statute in question. That act was passed in 1855, after women had begun, with general acceptance, to occupy a greatly enlarged field of industry and some professional and even public positions; and it has been held by the Superior Court, very properly we think, as applying to women, a woman having three years ago been appointed commissioner under it. Its language is as follows: "The Superior Court in any county may appoint any number of persons in such county to be commissioners of the Superior Court, who, when sworn, may sign writs and subpoenas, take recognizances, administer oaths and take depositions and the acknowledgement of deeds, and shall hold office for two years from their appointment." Here the very language is used which is used in the statute with regard to attorneys. In one it is, "any number of persons," in the other, "such persons as are qualified." These two statutes are placed in immediate juxtaposition in the revision of 1875 and deal with kindred subjects, and it is reasonable to presume that the revisers and legislature intended both to receive the same construction. It would seem strange to any common-sense observer that an entirely different meaning should be given to the same word in the two statutes, especially when in giving the narrower meaning to the word in the statute with regard to attorneys, we are compelled to give it a different meaning from that which the same word requires in the next line of the same statute.
We are not to forget that all statutes are to be construed, as far as possible, in favor of equality of rights. All restrictions upon human liberty, all claims for special privileges, are to be regarded as having the presumption of law against them, and as standing upon their defense, and can be sustained if at all by valid legislation, only by the clear expression or clear implication of the law.
We have some noteworthy illustrations of the recognition of women as eligible or appointable to office under statutes of which the language is merely general. Thus, women are appointed in all parts of the country as postmasters. The act of congress of 1825 was the first one conferring upon the postmaster-general the power of appointing postmasters, and it has remained essentially unchanged to the present time. The language of the act is, that "the postmaster-general shall establish post-offices and appoint postmasters." Here women are not included, except in the general term "postmasters," a term which seems to imply a male person; and no legislation from 1825 down to the present time authorizes the appointment of women, nor is there any reference in terms to women until the revision of 1874, which recognizes the fact that women had already been appointed, in providing that "the bond of any married woman who may be appointed postmaster shall be binding on her and her sureties." Some of the higher grades of postmasters are appointed by the president, subject to confirmation by the Senate, and such appointments and confirmations have repeatedly been made. The same may be said of pension agents. The acts of congress on the subject have simply authorized "the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, to appoint all pension agents, who shall hold their offices for the term of four years, and shall give bond," etc. At the last session of congress a married woman in Chicago was appointed for a third term pension agent for the State of Illinois, and the public papers stated that there was not a single vote against her confirmation in the Senate. Public opinion is everywhere approving of such appointments. They promote the public interest, which is benefitted by every legitimate use of individual ability, while mere justice, which is of interest to all, requires that all have the fullest opportunity for the exercise of their abilities. These cases are the more noteworthy as being cases of public offices, to which the incumbent is appointed for a term of years, upon a compensation provided by law, and in which he is required to give bond. If an attorney is to be regarded as an officer, it is in a lower sense.
We have had pressed upon us by the counsel opposed to the applicant, the decisions of the courts of Massachusetts, Wisconsin and Illinois, and the United States Court of Claims, adverse to such an application. While not prepared to accede to all the general views expressed in those decisions, we do not think it necessary to go into a discussion of them, as we regard our statute, in view of all the considerations affecting its construction, as too clear to admit of any reasonable question as to the interpretation and effect which we ought to give it.
In this opinion Carpenter and Loomis, Js., concurred; Pardee, J., dissented.
In 1884, the State society held a spirited and successful convention.[167] Julia Smith gave an extemporaneous talk to the great delight of the audience, who applauded continually; Mrs. Crane, a fine elocutionist, gave a reading from Carlyle; Mrs. Hooker closed with a brief résumé of the work the society had accomplished.
We are also indebted to Frances Ellen Burr for many facts, as the following letter will show:
Hartford, September 17, 1885.
My Dear Miss Anthony: I have received your letter of inquiry. As to that petition in 1867, I was one of the signers, and, probably had something to do with getting the other signatures, though I have nothing but my memory to depend on as to that; but I was pretty much alone here in those days, on the woman suffrage question. Who the other signers were I made an attempt to find out in the secretary of state's office the other day, but found that it would take days, instead of the few hours I had at my command. I find in my journal a reference to Lucy Stone and Mr. Blackwell addressing the committee in the House of Representatives, and that was the committee that made the report afterwards published in The Revolution. Mr. Croffut made the opening address on the day of the hearing. He was always ready to aid us in whatever way he could, and I felt grateful to him, for a helping hand was doubly appreciated in those days. I find by the journal of the House for that year that the vote on the question was 93 yeas to 111 nays. The name of Miss Susie Hutchinson heads one petition, with 70 others. How many other petitions there were that year I do not know, but I believe there have been several every year since, besides a number of individual petitions. Since that time the House has voted favorably on the question twice, at least, but I believe we have never had a majority in the Senate.
You ask when I first wrote or spoke for the ballot. My first venture in that line was in 1853. I was then at the age of twenty-two, living with my sister in Cleveland, O., and had never given any attention to the subject of woman suffrage, and cared nothing about it any further than the spirit of rebellion—born with me—against everything unjust, might be said to have made me a radical by nature. In the fall of that year a woman's rights convention met in Cleveland, and I attended it alone, none of the rest of the family caring to go. In my old journal I find this entry:
October 7, 1853. Attended a woman's rights convention which has met here. Never saw anything of the kind before. A Mr. Barker spent most of the morning trying to prove that woman's rights and the Bible cannot agree. The Rev. Antoinette L. Brown replied in the afternoon in defense of the Bible. She says the Bible favors woman's rights. Miss Brown is the best-looking woman in the convention. They appear to have a number of original and pleasing characters upon their platform, among them Miss Lucy Stone—hair short and rolled under like a man's; a tight-fitting velvet waist and linen collar at the throat; bombazine skirt just reaching the knees, and trousers of the same. She is independent in manner and advocates woman's rights in the strongest terms:—scorns the idea of woman asking rights of man, but says she must boldly assert her own rights, and take them in her own strength. Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, a Polish lady with black eyes and curls, and rosy cheeks, manifests the independent spirit also. She is graceful and witty, and is ready with sharp replies on all occasions. Mrs. Lucretia Mott, a Philadelphia Quaker, is meek in dress but not in spirit. She gets up and hammers away at woman's rights, politics and the Bible, with much vigor, then quietly resumes her knitting, to which she industriously applies herself when not speaking to the audience. She wears the plain Quaker dress and close-fitting white cap. Mrs. Frances D. Gage, the president, is a woman of sound sense and a good writer of prose and poetry. Mrs. Caroline Severance has an easy, pleasing way of speaking. Mr. Charles Burleigh, a Quaker, appears to be an original character. He has long hair, parted in the middle like a woman's, and hanging down his back. He and Miss Stone seem to reverse the usual order of things.
My first speech in public, I find by my old journal—which serves me better than I thought it would—was given in Music Hall in this city in November, 1870. This meeting was held under the auspices of the State association, and was presided over by the Rev. Olympia Brown. I find that in the winter of 1871 I made addresses in various parts of the State. The journal also tells of a good deal of trotting about to get signatures to petitions, for I had more time to do that thing then than I have now.
The first woman suffrage meeting ever held in Hartford, and the first, probably, in Connecticut, was the one you and Mrs. Stanton held in Allyn Hall in December, 1867. Our State Suffrage Association was organized in October, 1869. The signers[168] to the call for that convention were quite influential persons.
In my hunt through the journals of the two legislative houses I found in the House journal for 1878 that Mr. Pratt of Meriden had presented the petition of Mr. and Mrs. Isaac C. Lewis. Mr. Clark of Enfield, presented the petition of Lucy A. Allen; Mr. Gallagher of New Haven presented several petitions that year, one of them being headed by Mr. Henry A. Stillman of Wethersfield, followed by 532 names, and another by Mrs. D. F. Connor, M. D. Mr. Broadhead of Glastonbury presented the petition of the Smith sisters. This unique petition Miss Mary Hall, who was with me in the secretary's office, chanced to light upon, and she copied it. It is a document well worth handing down on the page of history, and runs as follows:
The Petition of Julia E. Smith and Abby H. Smith, of Glastonbury, to the Senate of the State of Connecticut:
This is the first time we have petitioned your honorable body, having twice come before the House of Assembly, which the last time gave a majority that we should vote in town affairs; but it was negatived in the Senate.
We now pray the highest court in our native State that we may be relieved from the stigma of birth. For forty years since the death of our father have we suffered intensely for being born women. We cannot even stand up for the principles of our forefathers (who fought and bled for them) without having our property seized and sold at the sign-post, which we have suffered four times; and have also seen eleven acres of our meadow-land sold to an ugly neighbor for a tax of fifty dollars—land worth more than $2,000. And a threat is given out that our house shall be ransacked and despoiled of articles most dear to us, the work of lamented members of our family who have gone before us, and all this is done without the least excuse of right or justice. We are told that it is the law of the land made by the legislature and done to us, two defenceless women, who have never broken these laws, made by not half the citizens of this State. And it was said in our Declaration of Independence that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."
For being born women we are obliged to help support those who have earned nothing, and who, by gambling, drinking, and the like, have come to poverty, and these same can vote away what we have earned with our own hands. And when men meet to take off the dollar poll-tax, the bill for the dinner comes in for the women to pay. Neither have we husband, or brother, or son, or even nephew, or cousin, to help us. All men will acknowledge that it is as wrong to take a woman's property without her consent as to take a man's without his consent; and such wrong we suffer wholly for being born women, which we are in no wise to blame for. To be sure, for our consolation, we are upheld by the learned, the wise and the good, from all parts of the country, having received communications from thirty-two of our States, as well as from over the seas, that we are in the right, and from many of the best men in our own State. But they have no power to help us. We therefore now pray your honorable body, who have power, with the House of Assembly, to relieve us of this stigma of birth, and grant that we may have the same privileges before the law as though we were born men. And this, as in duty bound, we will ever pray.
Julia and Abby Smith.
Glastonbury, Conn., January 29, 1878.
The story of the Smith sisters, from 1873 and on, will be handed down as one of the most original and unique chapters in the history of woman suffrage. Abby Smith, with my friend Mrs. Buckingham, attended with me the first meeting of the Woman's Congress, in New York, in October, 1873. While there, she said she should, on her return, address her town's people on woman suffrage and taxation, as they had not been treated fairly in the matter of their taxes. She did so on the fifth of November, addressing the Glastonbury town meeting in the little red-brick town-house of that place—a building that will always hereafter be connected with the names of Abby and Julia Smith. Several years after, wishing to address them again, she was refused entrance there, so she and Julia addressed the people from an ox-cart that stood in front. This was after their continued warfare against "taxation without representation" had aroused the opposition of their townsmen, but that first speech in 1873 was the beginning of their fame. Abby sent it to me for publication in the Times of this city, but the editor not having room for it sent it to the Courant, which gave it a place in its columns, thus (unwittingly) setting a ball in motion that ran all round the country, and even over the ocean. The simplicity and uniqueness of the story of "Abby Smith and her cows," gave a boom to the cause of woman suffrage as welcome as it was unexpected. The Glastonbury mails were more heavily laden than ever before in the history of this hitherto unknown town, for letters came pouring in from all quarters to the sisters. The fame did not rest entirely on Abby and her cows; Julia and her Bible came in for an important share, and the newspaper articles in regard to them were a remarkable blending of cows and Biblical lore, dairy products and Greek and Hebrew. Many of the articles were wide of the facts, being written with a view to make a bright and readable column. For instance, a Chicago paper got up a highly colored article in which it said that Abby Smith's mother—Hannah Hickok—was such an intense student that her father had a glass cage made for her to study in. The only vestage of truth in this story was that, lacking our modern facilities for heating, Mr. Hickok had an extra amount of glass put into the south side of his daughter's room that the sun might give it a little more heat in cold weather. Hannah Hickok seems to have had a mental equipment much above that of the average woman of that day; she had a taste for literature, and was something of a linguist, and wrote, moreover, at different times, quite an amount of readable verse. She had a taste for mathematics, and also for astronomy, and made for her own use an almanac, for these were not so plenty then as now; she could, on awakening, tell any hour of the night by the position of the stars. Evidently Hannah Hickok Smith was not an ordinary woman; and it is quite as evident that her daughters were equally original, though in a different direction. Women who have translated the Bible are not to be met with every day—nor men either, for that matter, but Julia Smith not only did this, but translated it five times,—twice from the Hebrew, twice from the Greek, and once from the Latin; and thirty years later, or after the age of eighty, published the translation; and then, to crown the list of marvels, married at the age of eighty-five.
One point more, and the one nearest my heart. You ask me about my "dear friend Mrs. Buckingham." I can give no details of her suffrage work, but her heart was in it, and her name should be handed down in your History. She was at one time chairman of the executive committee of our State association, and she would, if she had thought it necessary, have spent of her little income to the last cent to help along the cause. She made public addresses and wrote many suffrage articles and letters that were published in different papers, but she made no noise about it; her work was all done with her own characteristic gentleness. Generous to a fault, winning and beautiful as the flowers she scattered on the pathway of her friends, she passed on her way; and one memorable Easter morning she left us so gently that none knew when the sleep of life passed into the sleep of death; we only knew that the glorious light of her eyes—a light like that which "never shone on sea or land"—had gone out forever.
"She died in beauty like the dew
Of flowers dissolved away;
She died in beauty like a star
Lost on the brow of day."The Hartford Equal Rights Club[169] was organized in March, 1885, and holds semi-monthly meetings. Its membership is not large, but what it lacks in numbers it makes up in earnestness. Its proceedings are reported pretty fully and published in the Hartford Times, which has a large circulation, thus gaining an audience of many thousands and making its proceedings much more important than they would otherwise be. It is managed as simply as possible, and is not encumbered with a long list of officers. There are simply a president, Mrs. Emily P. Collins;[170] a vice-president, Miss Mary Hall; and a secretary, Frances Ellen Burr, who is also the treasurer. Debate is free to all, the platform being perfectly independent, as far as a platform can be independent within the limits of reason. Essays are read and debated, and many interesting off-hand speeches are made. It is an entirely separate organization from the Connecticut State Suffrage Association, founded in 1869. But its membership is not confined to the city; it invites people throughout the State, or in other States, to become members—people of all classes and of all beliefs. Opponents of woman suffrage are always welcome, for these furnish the spice of debate. Among the topics discussed has been that of woman and the church, and upon this subject Mrs. Stanton has written the club several letters.
Last spring (1885) a number of the members of the club were given hearings before the Committee on Woman Suffrage in the legislature in reference to a bill then under consideration, which was exceedingly limited in its provisions. The House of Representatives improved it and then passed it, but it was afterwards defeated in the Senate. Some of the meetings of the club have been held in Hartford's handsome capitol, a room having been allowed for its use, and a number of members of the House of Representatives have taken part in the discussions. Mrs. Collins, president of the club, is always to be depended upon for good work, and Miss Hall, its vice-president, is active and efficient. She is in herself an illustration of what women can become if they only have sufficient confidence and force of will. She is a practicing lawyer, and a successful one.
October 7, 1853. Attended a woman's rights convention which has met here. Never saw anything of the kind before. A Mr. Barker spent most of the morning trying to prove that woman's rights and the Bible cannot agree. The Rev. Antoinette L. Brown replied in the afternoon in defense of the Bible. She says the Bible favors woman's rights. Miss Brown is the best-looking woman in the convention. They appear to have a number of original and pleasing characters upon their platform, among them Miss Lucy Stone—hair short and rolled under like a man's; a tight-fitting velvet waist and linen collar at the throat; bombazine skirt just reaching the knees, and trousers of the same. She is independent in manner and advocates woman's rights in the strongest terms:—scorns the idea of woman asking rights of man, but says she must boldly assert her own rights, and take them in her own strength. Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, a Polish lady with black eyes and curls, and rosy cheeks, manifests the independent spirit also. She is graceful and witty, and is ready with sharp replies on all occasions. Mrs. Lucretia Mott, a Philadelphia Quaker, is meek in dress but not in spirit. She gets up and hammers away at woman's rights, politics and the Bible, with much vigor, then quietly resumes her knitting, to which she industriously applies herself when not speaking to the audience. She wears the plain Quaker dress and close-fitting white cap. Mrs. Frances D. Gage, the president, is a woman of sound sense and a good writer of prose and poetry. Mrs. Caroline Severance has an easy, pleasing way of speaking. Mr. Charles Burleigh, a Quaker, appears to be an original character. He has long hair, parted in the middle like a woman's, and hanging down his back. He and Miss Stone seem to reverse the usual order of things.
The Petition of Julia E. Smith and Abby H. Smith, of Glastonbury, to the Senate of the State of Connecticut:
This is the first time we have petitioned your honorable body, having twice come before the House of Assembly, which the last time gave a majority that we should vote in town affairs; but it was negatived in the Senate.
We now pray the highest court in our native State that we may be relieved from the stigma of birth. For forty years since the death of our father have we suffered intensely for being born women. We cannot even stand up for the principles of our forefathers (who fought and bled for them) without having our property seized and sold at the sign-post, which we have suffered four times; and have also seen eleven acres of our meadow-land sold to an ugly neighbor for a tax of fifty dollars—land worth more than $2,000. And a threat is given out that our house shall be ransacked and despoiled of articles most dear to us, the work of lamented members of our family who have gone before us, and all this is done without the least excuse of right or justice. We are told that it is the law of the land made by the legislature and done to us, two defenceless women, who have never broken these laws, made by not half the citizens of this State. And it was said in our Declaration of Independence that "Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed."
For being born women we are obliged to help support those who have earned nothing, and who, by gambling, drinking, and the like, have come to poverty, and these same can vote away what we have earned with our own hands. And when men meet to take off the dollar poll-tax, the bill for the dinner comes in for the women to pay. Neither have we husband, or brother, or son, or even nephew, or cousin, to help us. All men will acknowledge that it is as wrong to take a woman's property without her consent as to take a man's without his consent; and such wrong we suffer wholly for being born women, which we are in no wise to blame for. To be sure, for our consolation, we are upheld by the learned, the wise and the good, from all parts of the country, having received communications from thirty-two of our States, as well as from over the seas, that we are in the right, and from many of the best men in our own State. But they have no power to help us. We therefore now pray your honorable body, who have power, with the House of Assembly, to relieve us of this stigma of birth, and grant that we may have the same privileges before the law as though we were born men. And this, as in duty bound, we will ever pray.
Julia and Abby Smith.
Glastonbury, Conn., January 29, 1878.
FOOTNOTES:
[158] The life of William Lloyd Garrison, Vol. 1.: The Century Company, New York.
[159] She was soon followed by Mrs. Middlebrook and Mrs. Lucy R. Elms, with warm benedictions. The latter called some meetings in her neighborhood in the autumn of 1868, and entertained us most hospitably at her beautiful home.
[160] Those who leave the tangled problem of life to God for solution find, sooner or later, that God leaves it to them to settle in their own way.—[E. C. S.