Lucy Stone, in the Woman's Journal of June 14, 1871, says:
The Select Committee, Harry Bingham, chairman, to whom was referred a bill for the further protection of the rights of married men, reported the bill in a new draft as follows:
Marriages shall not hereafter render the husband liable for the debts contracted by his wife prior to their marriage: Second section—No marriage shall hereafter discharge the wife from liability to pay the debts contracted by her before such marriage, but she, and all property which she may hold in her own right, shall be held liable for the payment of all debts, whether contracted before or after marriage; in the same manner as if she continued sole and unmarried.
This report was signed by eight of the ten members of the committee. The minority, through Mr. Sprague of Swanzey, made a report recommending that the whole subject be postponed to the time when women in New Hampshire have the right to vote. Mr. Sprague moved that the minority report be substituted for the majority, but the motion was lost by an almost unanimous vote. The majority report was sustained in remarks by Messrs. Wadleigh of Milford and Cogswell of Gilman. The latter, hard pushed by an interrogatory concerning his social status, admitted that he was not married, but intended to be soon. The bill reported by the majority was then ordered to a second reading.
If this action should be sustained by the legislature, we can imagine some future suitor for a lady's hand telling her that he shall expect her duly to keep his house and his wardrobe in order, to prepare his meals, to entertain his visitors, to bear his children, and that she will be required by law to pay her own bills; that for this inestimable privilege she shall be called Mrs. John Snooks, and may, perhaps, have the honor of being written in the newspapers, and on her tombstone, as the relic of Mr. John Snooks. Could any woman withstand that?
Marriages shall not hereafter render the husband liable for the debts contracted by his wife prior to their marriage: Second section—No marriage shall hereafter discharge the wife from liability to pay the debts contracted by her before such marriage, but she, and all property which she may hold in her own right, shall be held liable for the payment of all debts, whether contracted before or after marriage; in the same manner as if she continued sole and unmarried.
The following statistics have been used by speakers in the opposition, to show that women are too ignorant to vote:
A decided sensation has been produced throughout the country by the publication in the third number of the "Transactions of the American Social Science Association" of statistics concerning the illiteracy of women in the United States. The subject has received very general discussion, and these are the conclusions reached:
1. That there is a large excess of female illiteracy. 2. That from 1850 to 1860 there was an increase of illiterate women to the extent of 53 per cent. in New Hampshire, 27 in Vermont, 24 in Massachusetts, 33 in Rhode Island, 16 in Connecticut, 37 in the District of Columbia, 33 in Wisconsin and 32 in Minnesota. 3. That this state of things is alarming, and ought to be remedied.
When the London Saturday Review raised the cry of alcoholic drunkenness among women, the conservative journals all over the world swelled the sound and confirmed the charges. Now that that story has run itself to death, a new assault is projected, and a general clamor concerning their illiteracy follows. If the charges are true, there is nothing very astonishing about them. The education of women has been considered a matter of secondary importance until very recently, and with our foreign population the education of girls has been almost wholly neglected. When the customs and usages of the world have made ignorance largely compulsory in women, it is somewhat inconsistent in men to go into spasms about the results.
1. That there is a large excess of female illiteracy. 2. That from 1850 to 1860 there was an increase of illiterate women to the extent of 53 per cent. in New Hampshire, 27 in Vermont, 24 in Massachusetts, 33 in Rhode Island, 16 in Connecticut, 37 in the District of Columbia, 33 in Wisconsin and 32 in Minnesota. 3. That this state of things is alarming, and ought to be remedied.
January 17, 1874, at the Republican State convention, Mayor Briggs of Manchester, on taking the chair, made a speech, rehearsing the history of the party and laying out its programme for the future, closing as follows:
The Republican party has future duties. Its mission cannot end and its work should not, so long as any radical reform shall yet urge its demands in behalf of humanity. The civil service reform is eminent and important. In this regard the movement of the present administration is in the right direction, and yet it is only a first step of many which must ultimately be taken. To the people, not to a part of the people, belongs the sovereignty of this nation. Let them keep it. To this end great care should be taken to guard against the caucus system. Nothing should be more scrupulously avoided in the management of political parties. Anti-republican in spirit, it is sometimes exclusive in practice. The people have the same right to nominate that they have to elect their own officers. Why not? Ultimately, too, they will take that right, and for its own sake no party can afford to make itself the nursery of caucus power. The political machinery should be simplified, that nothing which mere politicians can desire shall stand between the people and their government. In a genuine republic, every act of the government should be but a practical expression of its subjects. All the subjects, too, should share equally the power of such expression. There should be no exclusion among intelligent, qualified classes. Involved in this principle is the idea of woman suffrage, the next great moral issue, in my judgment, which this country must meet, and a reform which no party can afford to despise. Indubitably right, as I believe it to be, I regard its success as inevitable, and that whatever party opposes it is as surely destined to defeat, as was the party which arrayed itself in opposition to the anti-slavery cause.
The following letter in the Woman's Journal shows that something of the spirit of the Connecticut Smith-sisters has been found in New Hampshire:
I have long felt a deep interest in the subject of woman's rights, and some fifteen years ago I resisted taxation two successive years. The second year I worked out my highway tax, for which crime I brought down upon my guilty head a severe persecution from both men and women, from clergymen and lawyers, as well as other classes of my fellow townsmen. The tax-collectors came into my house and attached furniture and sold it at auction in order to collect my tax, one of whom made me all the cost the laws would allow. The most incensed town officers threatened that if I resisted taxation the next year, they would take my house from me and sell it at auction. One of the tax-gatherers asked me what I thought I could do alone in resisting taxation. He said he did not believe there was another woman in the State of New Hampshire who possessed the hardihood to take such a stand against the laws. The editor of one of our weekly journals, who professed to be an advocate of woman's rights, and who was a candidate for representative in the State legislature, condemned me through the columns of his paper, in order to secure the votes of his fellow townsmen who were opposed to woman's rights. He had nothing to fear from me, knowing that I was only a disfranchised slave. Such unjust treatment seemed so cruel that I sometimes felt I could willingly lay down my life, if it would deliver my sex from such degrading oppression. I have, every year since, submissively paid my taxes, humbly hoping and praying that I may live to see the day that women will not be compelled to pay taxes without representation.
Mary L. Harrington.
Claremont, N. H., January 17, 1874.