During the winter of 1882 agitation for the higher education of women was renewed, and a society organized by some of the most influential ladies in the city. They rolled up a petition of 1,200, asking that Columbia College be opened to women. President Barnard had recommended this in his reports for three years. The agitation culminated in a grand meeting[245] in the new Union League Theater. Parke Godwin of the Evening Post presided. The audience was chiefly composed of fashionable ladies, whose equipages filled Thirty-eighth street blocks away, yet not a woman sat on the platform; not a woman's voice was heard; even the report of the society was read by a man, and every inspiration of the occasion was filtered through the brain of some man. Among other things, Mr. Godwin, son-in-law of the poet Bryant, said:
We speak of the higher education of women. Why not also of men? Because they already have the opportunity for obtaining it. The idea upon which our government is built is the idea of equal rights for all; and that means equal opportunities. Every society needs all the best intellect that it can get. We have many evil influences acting upon our society here, and we need the all-controlling influence of woman. We cannot fix a standard for her. History shows what she has done, in a Vespasia, Vittoria Colonna, De Staël, Bremer, Evans, Somerville and Maria Mitchell. She does not go out of her sphere when she is so highly educated. She can darn her stockings just as well if she does know the word in half-a-dozen languages. There is no longer novelty in this movement; it has been tried successfully here and abroad in the universities, and always with success.
Addresses were also made by Rev. Dr. Stowe, Dr. William Draper, Joseph Choate, and others eminent in one way or another. The meeting closed by circulating a petition for presentation to the trustees of Columbia College, asking that properly qualified women be admitted to lectures and examinations.
The bill to prohibit disfranchisement on account of sex was again introduced in the Assembly by Hon. J. Hampden Robb, and referred to the Committee on Grievances, of which Major James Haggerty was chairman, who gave to it his hearty approval and granted two hearings to the officers of the State society, on behalf of the large number of memorialists who had sent in their petitions from all parts of the State. The women of Albany were indefatigable in their personal appeals to the different members of the Assembly, urging them to vote for the bill, while Major Haggerty was untiring in his advocacy of the measure. On May 3 there was an animated discussion:[246] the bill passed to its third reading by an overwhelming vote, which alarmed the opponents into making a thorough canvass, that proved to them the necessity of some decisive action for the defeat of the bill. The Hon. Erastas Brooks presented a resolution, calling on the attorney-general for his opinion on the constitutionality of the proposed law, which was passed in a moment of confusion, and when many of our friends were absent. Following is the opinion elicited:
State of New York. Office of the Attorney-General, }
Albany, May 10, 1882. }To the Assembly:
I have the honor to acknowledge the receipt of the resolution of the Assembly requesting the attorney-general to report his opinion as to the constitutionality of Assembly bill No. 637, which provides that "every woman shall be free to vote under the qualifications required of men, or to refrain from voting, as she may choose; and no person shall be debarred by reason of sex from voting at any election, or at any town meeting, school meeting, or other choice of government functionaries whatsoever," and whether, without an amendment to the constitution, suffrage can be granted to any class of persons not named in the constitution. I reply:
First—It has been decided so often by the judicial tribunals of the various States of the Union, and by the Supreme Court of the United States, that suffrage is not a natural inherent right, but one governed by the law-making power and regulated by questions of availability and expediency, instead of absolute, inalienable right (1, 3), that the question is no longer open for discussion, either by the judicial forum or legislative assemblies (Burnham vs. Laning, 1 Legal Gazette Rep., 411, Supreme Court Penn.; Minor vs. Happersett, 21 Wallace, 162; Day vs. Jones, 31 California, 261; Anderson vs. Baker, 23 Maryland, 531; Abbott vs. Bayley, 6 Pickering, 92; 2 Dallas, 471-2; In re Susan B. Anthony, 11 Blatchford, 200). At the common law women had no right to vote and no political status (2, 4) (Maine's Ancient Law, 140; Cooley's Const. Lim., 599; Blackstone's Comm., 171).
Second—Therefore the constitution of the State of New York, providing that every male citizen of the age of 21 years who shall have certain other qualifications, may vote, the determination of the organic law specifying who shall have the privilege of voting, excludes all other classes (5), such as women, persons under 21 years of age and aliens. The argument that, because women are not expressly prohibited, they may vote, fails to give the slightest force to the term "male" in the constitution; and by the same force of reasoning, the expression of the term "citizen" and the statement of the age of 21 years would not necessarily exclude aliens and those under 21 years of age from voting (6). Therefore, assuming that our organic law was properly adopted without the participation of women either in making or adopting it (7), that organic law controls.
Third—It follows, therefore, as a logical consequence that the proposed reform cannot be accomplished except by an amendment of the constitution ratified by two successive legislatures and the people, or by a constitutional convention, whose work shall be sanctioned by a vote of the people.
Leslie W. Russell, Attorney-General.[247]
Weak as was this document, and untenable as were its assertions, it had great weight with many of the members of the legislature coming as the opinion did from the attorney-general of the State. The friends of the bill resolved to call for the vote when the bill should be reached, and on May 16, the women were present in large numbers, listening with intense interest to the brief speeches of the members for and against, and watching and counting the vote as the roll-call proceeded, which resulted in 54 ayes and 59 noes, lacking three votes of a majority of those present and only eleven of the requisite number, sixty-five. In view of the official opinion against its constitutionality amounting to a legal decision, this was a most gratifying vote.[248]]
The presence of Leslie W. Russell in Albany, as attorney-general, rendered it useless to reïntroduce the bill to prohibit disfranchisement on account of sex in the legislature of 1883, but in its stead, Dr. John G. Boyd of New York introduced a proposition to strike "male" from the suffrage clause of the constitution, which, however, received only fifteen votes.
To pass from the State to the Church, the winter of 1883 was notable for the delivery of a series of Lenten lectures on woman by the Rev. Morgan Dix, D. D., rector of Trinity Church, New York, afterwards published in book form under the title, "The Calling of a Christian Woman and her Training to Fulfill it." The lectures were delivered each Friday evening during Lent, in Trinity Chapel, and at once attracted attention from their conservative, reäctionary, almost monastic views of woman's position and duties.
After reading a report of one of these remarkable essays in which women were gravely told their highest happiness should be found in singing hymns, Mrs. Blake decided to reply to them. She secured a hall on Fourteenth street, and on successive Sunday evenings gave addresses in reply. Both courses of lectures were well attended. The moderate audiences of Trinity Chapel soon became a throng that more than filled the large building, while the hall in which Mrs. Blake spoke was packed to suffocation, hundreds going away unable to gain admittance. The press everywhere favored the broad and liberal views presented by Mrs. Blake, and denounced the old-time narrow theories of Dr. Dix. Mrs. Blake's lectures were also published in book form with the title of "Woman's Place To-day" and had a large circulation.
The Republicans again nominating Mr. Russell for attorney-general, an active campaign was organized against him and in favor of the Democratic nominee, Mr. Dennis O'Brien. Protests[249]] against Russell were circulated throughout the State; Republican tickets were printed with the name of Denis O'Brien for attorney-general, and on election day women distributed these tickets, and made every possible effort to ensure the defeat of Russell; and he was defeated by 13,000 votes.