Among the many letters to the convention we give the following:
Boston, 16th January, 1877.
Dear Friend: These lines will not reach you in time to be of use. I am sorry. But absence and cares must apologize for me. I think you are on the right track—the best method to agitate the question; and I am with you. I mean always to help everywhere and every one.
Wendell Phillips.
Miss Anthony.
Manchester, Eng., January 3, 1877.
My Dear Miss Anthony: It is with great pleasure that I write a word of sympathy and encouragement, on the occasion of your Ninth Annual Convention of the National Woman Suffrage Association.
Beyond wishing you a successful gathering, I will say nothing about the movement in the United States. Women of either country can do nothing directly in promoting the movement in the other; and if they attempt to do so, there is danger that they may hinder and embarrass those who are bearing the burden and heat of the day. The only way in which mutual help can be given is through the women of each nation working to gain ground in their own country. Then, every step so gained, every actual advance of the boundaries of civil and political rights for women is a gain, not only to the country which has secured it, but to the cause of human freedom all over the world.
This year marks the decennial of the movement in the United Kingdom. In the current number of our journal, there is a sketch of the political history of the movement here, which I commend to the attention of your convention, and which I need not repeat. The record will be seen to be one of great and rapid advance in the political rights of women, but there has been an equally marked change in other directions; women's interests in education, and women's questions generally, are treated now with much more respectful consideration than they were ten years ago. We are gratified in believing that much of this consideration is due to the attention roused by our energetic and persistent demand for the suffrage, and in believing that infinitely greater benefits of the same kind will accrue when women shall be in possession of the franchise. Beyond the material gains in legislation, we find a general improvement in the tone of feeling and thought toward women—an approach, indeed, to the sentiment recently expressed by Victor Hugo, that as man was the problem of the eighteenth century, woman is the problem of the nineteenth century. May our efforts to solve this problem lead to a happy issue.
Lydia E. Becker.
Yours truly,
Boston, Mass., January 10, 1877.
Dear Mrs. Stanton: It is with some little pain, I confess, that I accept your very courteous invitation to write a letter for your Washington convention on the 19th instant; for what I must say, if I say anything at all, is what I know will be very unacceptable—I fear very displeasing—to the majority of those to whom you will read it. If you conclude that my letter will obstruct, and not facilitate the advancement of the cause you have so faithfully labored for these many years, you have my most cheerful consent to deliver it over to that general asylum of profitless productions—the waste-basket.
Running this risk, however, I have this brief message to send to those who now meet on behalf of woman's full recognition as politically the equal of man, namely: that every woman suffragist who upholds Christianity, tears down with one hand what she seeks to build up with the other—that the Bible sanctions the slavery principle itself, and applies it to woman as the divinely ordained subordinate of man—and that by making herself the great support and mainstay of instituted Christianity, woman rivets the chain of superstition on her own soul and on man's soul alike, and justifies him in obeying this religion by keeping her in subjection to himself. If Christianity and the Bible are true, woman is man's servant, and ought to be. The Bible gave to negro-slavery its most terrible power—that of summoning the consciences of the Christians to its defense; and the Bible gives to woman-slavery the same terrible power. So plain is this to me that I take it as a mere matter of course, when all the eloquence of the woman-suffrage platform fails to arouse the Christian women of this country to a proper assertion of their rights. What else could one expect? Women will remain contented subjects and subordinates just so long as they remain devoted believers in Christianity; and no amount of argument, or appeal, or agitation can change this fact. If you cannot educate women as a whole out of Christianity, you cannot educate them as a whole into the demand for equal rights.
The reason of this is short: Christianity teaches the rights of God, not the rights of man or woman. You may search the Bible from Genesis to Revelations, and not find one clear, strong, bold affirmation of human rights as such; yet it is on human rights as such—on the equality of all individuals, man or woman, with respect to natural rights—that the demand for woman suffrage must ultimately rest. I know I stand nearly alone in this, but I believe from my soul that the woman movement is fundamentally anti-Christian, and can find no deep justification but in the ideas, the spirit, and the faith of free religion. Until women come to see this too, and to give their united influence to this latter faith, political power in their hands would destroy even that measure of liberty which free-thinkers of both sexes have painfully established by the sacrifices of many generations. Yet I should vote for woman suffrage all the same, because it is woman's right.
Francis E. Abbot.
Yours very cordially,
Washington, D. C., January 16, 1877
My Dear Friends: I thank you for your generous recognition of me as an humble co-worker in the cause of equal rights, and regret deeply my inability to be present at this anniversary of your association. I tender to you, however, my hearty congratulations on the marked progress of our cause. Wherever I have been, and with whomsoever I have talked, making equal rights invariably the subject, I find no opposing feeling to the simple and just demands we make for our cause. The chief difficulty in the way is the indifference of the people; they need an awakening. Some Stephen S. Foster or Anna Dickinson should come forward, and with their thunder and lightning, arouse the people from their deadly apathy. I am glad to know that you are to have with you our valued friend, E. M. Davis, of Philadelphia. We are indebted to him more than all besides for whatever of life is found in the movement in Pennsylvania. He has spared neither time, money, nor personal efforts. Hoping you will have abundant success, I am, dear friends, with you and the cause for which you have so nobly labored, a humble and sincere worker.
Robert Purvis.
Oakland, Cal., January 9, 1877.
To the National Suffrage Convention, Washington, D. C.:
Our incorporated State society has deputed Mrs. Ellen Clark Sargent, the wife of Hon. A. A. Sargent, our fearless champion in the United States Senate, to represent the women of California in your National Convention, and with one so faithful and earnest, we know our cause will be well represented; but there are many among us who would gladly have journeyed to Washington to participate in your councils. Many and radical changes have taken place in the past year favorable to our sex, not the least of which was the nomination and election of several women to the office of county superintendent of common schools, by both the Democratic and Republican parties, in which, however, the Democrats led. Important changes in the civil code favorable to the control of property by married women, have been made by the legislatures during the last four years, through the untiring efforts of Mrs. Sarah Wallis, Mrs. Knox and Mrs. Watson, of Santa Clara county. In our schools and colleges, in every avenue of industry, and in the general liberalization of public opinion there has been marked improvement.
Laura DeForce Gordon,
Pres. California W. S. S. (Incorporated).Yours very truly,
Mrs. Stanton's letter to The Ballot-Box briefly sums up the proceedings of the convention:
Tenafly, N. J., January 24, 1877.
Dear Editor: If the little Ballot-Box is not already stuffed to repletion with reports from Washington, I crave a little space to tell your readers that the convention was in all points successful. Lincoln Hall, which seats about fifteen hundred people, was crowded every session. The speaking was good, order reigned, no heart-burnings behind the scenes, and the press vouchsafed "respectful consideration."
The resolutions you will find more interesting and suggestive than that kind of literature usually is, and I ask especial attention to the one for a national convention to revise the constitution, which, with all its amendments, is like a kite with a tail of infinite length still to be lengthened. It is evident a century of experience has so liberalized the minds of the American people, that they have outgrown the constitution adapted to the men of 1776. It is a monarchial document with republican ideas engrafted in it, full of compromises between antagonistic principles. An American statesman remarked that "The civil war was fought to expound the constitution on the question of slavery." Expensive expounding! Instead of further amending and expounding, the real work at the dawn of our second century is to make a new one. Again, I ask the attention of our women to the educational resolution. After much thought it seems to me we should have education compulsory in every State of the Union, and make it the basis of suffrage, a national law, requiring that those who vote after 1880 must be able to read and write the English language. This would prevent ignorant foreigners voting in six months after landing on our shores, and stimulate our native population to higher intelligence. It would dignify and purify the ballot-box and add safety and stability to our free institutions. Mrs. Jane Grey Swisshelm, who had just returned from Europe, attended the convention, and spoke on this subject.
Belva A. Lockwood, who had recently been denied admission to the Supreme Court of the United States, although a lawyer in good practice for three years in the Supreme Court of the District, made a very scathing speech, reviewing the decision of the Court. It may seem to your disfranchised readers quite presumptuous for one of their number to make those nine wise men on the bench, constituting the highest judicial authority in the United States, subjects for ridicule before an audience of the sovereign people; but, when they learn the decision in Mrs. Lockwood's case, they will be reassured as to woman's capacity to cope with their wisdom. "To arrive at the same conclusion, with these judges, it is not necessary," said Mrs. Lockwood, "to understand constitutional law, nor the history of English jurisprudence, nor the inductive or deductive modes of reasoning, as no such profound learning or processes of thought were involved in that decision, which was simply this: 'There is no precedent for admitting a woman to practice in the Supreme Court of the United States, hence Mrs. Lockwood's application cannot be considered.'"
On this point Mrs. Lockwood showed that it was the glory of each generation to make its own precedents. As there was none for Eve in the garden of Eden, she argued there need be none for her daughters on entering the college, the church, or the courts. Blackstone—of whose works she inferred the judges were ignorant—gives several precedents for women in the English courts. As Mrs. Lockwood—tall, well-proportioned, with dark hair and eyes, regular features, in velvet dress and train, with becoming indignation at such injustice—marched up and down the platform and rounded out her glowing periods, she might have fairly represented the Italian Portia at the bar of Venice. No more effective speech was ever made on our platform.
Matilda Joslyn Gage, whose speeches are always replete with historical research, reviewed the action of the Republican party toward woman from the introduction of the word "male" into the fourteenth amendment of the constitution down to the celebration of our national birthday in Philadelphia, when the declaration of the mothers was received in contemptuous silence, while Dom Pedro and other foreign dignitaries looked calmly on. Mrs. Gage makes as dark a chapter for the Republicans as Mrs. Lockwood for the judiciary, or Mrs. Blake for the church. Mrs. B. had been an attentive listener during the trial of the Rev. Isaac See before the presbytery of Newark, N. J., hence she felt moved to give the convention a chapter of ecclesiastical history, showing the struggles through which the church was passing with the irrepressible woman in the pulpit. Mrs. Blake's biblical interpretations and expositions proved conclusively that Scott's and Clark's commentaries would at no distant day be superceded by standard works from woman's standpoint. It is not to be supposed that women ever can have fair play as long as men only write and interpret the Scriptures and make and expound the laws. Why would it not be a good idea for women to leave these conservative gentlemen alone in the churches? How sombre they would look with the flowers, feathers, bright ribbons and shawls all gone—black coats only kneeling and standing—and with the deep-toned organ swelling up, the solemn bass voice heard only in awful solitude; not one soprano note to rise above the low, dull wail to fill the arched roof with triumphant melody! One such experiment from Maine to California would bring these bigoted presbyteries to their senses.
Miss Phoebe Couzins, too, was at the convention, and gave her new lecture, "A Woman without a Country," in which she shows all that woman has done—from fitting out ships for Columbus, to sharing the toils of the great exposition—without a place of honor in the republic for the living, or a statue to the memory of the dead. Hon. A. G. Riddle and Francis Miller spoke ably and eloquently as usual; the former on the sixteenth amendment and the presidential aspect, modestly suggesting that if twenty million women had voted, they might have been able to find out for whom the majority had cast their ballots. Mr. Miller recommended State action, advising us to concentrate our forces in Colorado as a shorter way to success than constitutional amendments.
His speech aroused Susan B. Anthony to the boiling point; for, if there is anything that exasperates her, it is to be remanded, as she says, to John Morrissey's constituency for her rights. She contends that if the United States authority could punish her for voting in the State of New York, it has the same power to protect her there in the exercise of that right. Moreover, she said, we have two wings to our movement. The American Association is trying the popular-vote method. The National Association is trying the constitutional method, which has emancipated and enfranchised the African and secured to that race all their civil rights. To-day by this method they are in the courts, the colleges, and the halls of legislation in every State in the Union, while we have puttered with State rights for thirty years without a foothold anywhere, except in the territories, and it is now proposed to rob the women of their rights in those localities. As the two methods do not conflict, and what is done in the several States tells on the nation, and what is done by congress reacts again on the States, it must be a good thing to keep up both kinds of agitation.
In the middle of November the National Association sent out thousands of petitions and appeals for the sixteenth amendment, which were published and commented on extensively by the press in every State in the Union. Early in January they began to pour into Washington at the rate of a thousand a day, coming from twenty-six different States. It does not require much wisdom to see that when these petitions were placed in the hands of the representatives of their States, a great educational work was accomplished at Washington, and public sentiment there has its legitimate effect throughout the country, as well as that already accomplished in the rural districts by the slower process of circulating and signing the petitions. The present uncertain position of men and parties, has made politicians more ready to listen to the demands of their constituents, and never has woman suffrage been treated with more courtesy in Washington.
To Sara Andrews Spencer we are indebted, for the great labor of receiving, assorting, counting, rolling-up and planning the presentation of the petitions. It was by a well considered coup d'etat that, with her brave coadjutors, she appeared on the floor of the House at the moment of adjournment, and there, without circumlocution, gave each member a petition from his own State. Even Miss Anthony, always calm in the hour of danger, on finding herself suddenly whisked into those sacred enclosures, amid a crowd of stalwart men, spittoons, and scrap-baskets, when brought vis-a-vis with our champion, Mr. Hoar, hastily apologized for the intrusion, to which the honorable gentleman promptly replied, "I hope, Madam, yet to see you on this floor, in your own right, and in business hours too." Then and there the work of the next day was agreed on, the members gladly accepting the petitions. As you have already seen, Mr. Hoar made the motion for the special order, which was carried and the petitions presented. Your readers will be glad to know, that Mr. Hoar has just been chosen, by Massachusetts, as her next senator—that gives us another champion in the Senate. As there are many petitions still in circulation, urge your readers to keep sending them until the close of the session, as we want to know how many women are in earnest on this question. It is constantly said, "Women do not want to vote." Ten thousand told our representatives at Washington in a single day that they did! What answer?
Elizabeth Cady Stanton
Yours sincerely,
The press commented as follows:
Sixteenth Amendment.—The woman suffragists, who had a benefit in the House of Representatives, on Friday, when their petitions were presented, transferred their affections to the Senate on Saturday to witness the presentation of a large number of petitions in that body. It is impossible to tell whether the results desired by the women will follow this concerted action, but it is certain that they have their forces better organized this year than they ever had before, and they have gone to work on a more systematic plan.—[National Republican.
Sixteenth Amendment in the Senate—the Ten Thousand Petitioners Royally Treated.—That women will, by voting, lose nothing of man's courteous, chivalric attention and respect is admirably proven by the manner in which both houses of congress, in the midst of the most anxious and perplexing presidential conflict in our history, received their appeals from twenty-three States for a sixteenth amendment protecting the rights of women.
In both houses, by unanimous consent, the petitions were presented and read in open session. The speaker of the House gallantly prepared the way yesterday, and the most prominent senators to-day improved the occasion by impressing upon the Senate the importance of the question. Mr. Sargent reminded the senators that there were forty thousand more votes for woman suffrage in Michigan than for the new State constitution, and Mr. Dawes said, upon presenting the petition from Massachusetts, that the question was attracting the attention of both political parties in that State, and he commended it to the early and earnest consideration of the Senate. Mr. Cockrell of Missouri, merrily declared that his petitioners were the most beautiful and accomplished daughters of the State, which of course he felt compelled to do when Miss Couzins' bright eyes were watching the proceedings from the gallery. Mr. Cameron of Pennsylvania, suggested that it would have been better to put them all together and not consume the time of the Senate with so many presentations.
The officers of the National Woman Suffrage Association held a caucus after the adjournment of the Senate, and decided to thank Mr. Cameron for his suggestion, and while they had no anxiety lest senators should consume too much time attending to the interests of women whom they claim to represent, and might reasonably anticipate that ten millions of disfranchised citizens would trouble them considerably with petitions while this injustice continued, yet they would promptly adopt the senator's counsel and roll up such a mammoth petition as the Senate had not yet seen from the thousands of women who had no opportunity to sign these. Accordingly they immediately prepared the announcement for the friends of woman suffrage to send on their names to the chairman of the congressional committee. They naturally feel greatly encouraged by the evident interest of both parties in the proposed sixteenth amendment, and will work with renewed strength to secure the coöperation of the women of the country.—[Washington Star.
The time has evidently arrived when demands for a recognition of the personal, civil and political rights of one-half—unquestionably the better half—of the people cannot be laughed down or sneered down, and recent indications are that they cannot much longer be voted down. It was quite clear on Friday and Saturday, when petitions from the best citizens of twenty-three States were presented in House and Senate, that the leaders of the two political parties vied with each other in doing honor to the grave subject proposed for their consideration. The speaker of the House set a commendable example of courtesy to women by proposing that the petitions be delivered in open House, to which there was no objection. The early advocates of equal rights for women—Hoar, Kelley, Banks, Kasson, Lawrence, and Lapham—were, if possible, surpassed in courtesy by those who are not committed, but are beginning to see that a finer element in the body politic would clear the vision, purify the atmosphere and help to settle many vexed questions on the basis of exact and equal justice.
In the Senate the unprecedented courtesy was extended to women of half an hour's time on the floor for the presentation of petitions, exactly alike in form, from twenty-one States, and while this kind of business this session has usually been transacted with an attendance of from seven to ten senators, it was observed that only two out of twenty-three senators who had sixteenth amendment petitions to present were out of their seats. Senator Sargent said the presence of women at the polls would purify elections and give us a better class of public officials, and the State would thus be greatly benefited. The subject was receiving serious consideration in this country and in England. Senator Dawes, in presenting the petition from Massachusetts, said the subject was commanding the attention of both political parties in his own State.
The officers of the National Association, who had been able to give only a few days' time to securing the coöperation of the women of the several States in their present effort, held a caucus after the adjournment of the Senate, and decided to immediately issue a new appeal for a mammoth petition, which would even more decidedly impress the two houses with the importance of protecting the rights of women by a constitutional amendment. Considering the many long days and weeks consumed in both houses in discussing the political rights of the colored male citizens, there is an obvious propriety in giving full and fair consideration to the protection of the rights of wives, mothers and daughters.—[The National Republican, January 22, 1877.
The National Association held its anniversary in Masonic Temple, New York, May 24, 1877. Isabella Beecher Hooker, vice-president for Connecticut, called the meeting to order and invited Rev. Olympia Brown to lead in prayer. Mrs. Gage made the annual report of the executive committee. Dr. Clemence S. Lozier of New York was elected president for the coming year. Pledges were made to roll up petitions with renewed energy; and resolutions were duly discussed[22] and adopted:
Whereas, Such minor matters as declaring peace and war, the coining of money, the imposition of tariff, and the control of the postal service, are forbidden the respective States; and whereas, upon the framing of the constitution, it was wisely held that these property rights would be unsafe under the control of thirteen varying deliberative bodies; and whereas, by a curious anomaly, power over suffrage, the basis and corner-stone of the nation, is held to be under control of the respective States; and
Whereas, the experience of a century has shown that the personal right of self-government inhering in each individual, is wholly insecure under the control of thirty-eight varying deliberative bodies; and
Whereas, the right of self-government by the use of the ballot inheres in the citizen of the United States; therefore,
Resolved, That it is the immediate and most important duty of the government to secure this right on a national basis to all citizens, independent of sex.
Resolved, That the right of suffrage underlies all other rights, and that in working to secure it women are doing the best temperance, moral reform, educational, and religious work of the age.
Resolved, That we solemnly protest against the recent memorial to congress, from Utah, asking the disfranchisement of the women of that territory, and that we ask of congress that this request, made in violation of the spirit of our institutions, be not granted.
Resolved, That the thanks of the National Woman Suffrage Association are hereby tendered to the late speaker of the House of Representatives, Hon. Samuel J. Randall, Pa.; and to Representatives Banks, Mass.; Blair, N. H.: Bland, Mo.; Brown, Kan.; Cox, N. Y.; Eames, R. I.; Fenn, Col.; Hale, Me.; Hamilton, N. J.; Hendee, Vt.; Hoar, Mass.; Holman, Ind.; Jones, N. H.; Kasson, Iowa; Kelley, Pa. Knott, Ky.; Lane, Oregon; Lapham, N. Y.; Lawrence, O.; Luttrel, Cal.; Lynde, Wis.; McCrary, Iowa; Morgan, Mo.; O'Neill, Pa.; Springer, Ill.; Strait, Minn.; Waldron, Mich.; Warren, Conn.; Wm. B. Williams, Mich.; and Senators Allison, Iowa; Bogy, Mo.; Burnside, R. I. (for Conn. and R. I.); Cameron, Pa.; Cameron, Wis.; Chaffee, Col.; Christiancy, Mich.; Cockrell, Mo.; Conkling, N. Y.; Cragin, N. H.; Dawes, Mass.; Dorsey, Ark. (a petition from Me.); Edmunds, Vt.; Frelinghuysen, N. J.; Hamlin, Me.; Kernan, N. Y.; McCreery, Ky.; Mitchell, Oregon; Morrill, Vt.; Morton, Ind.; Oglesby, Ill.; Sargent, Cal.; Sherman, Ohio; Spencer, Ala. (a petition from the District); Thurman, Ohio (a petition from Kansas); Wadleigh, N. H.; Wallace, Pa.; Windom, Minn.; Wright, Iowa, for representing the women of the United States in the presentation of the sixteenth amendment petitions from ten thousand citizens, in open House and Senate, at the last session of congress.
Resolved, That while we recognize with gratitude the opening of many new avenues of labor and usefulness to women, and the amelioration of their condition before the law in many States, we still declare there can be no fair play for women in the world of business until they stand on the same plane of citizenship with their masculine competitors.
Resolved, That in entering the professions and other departments of business heretofore occupied largely by men, the women of to-day should desire to accept the same conditions and tests of excellence with their brothers, and should demand the same standard for men and women in business, art, education, and morals.
Resolved, That the thanks of this association are hereby tendered to the Hon. Geo. F. Hoar of Massachusetts, for rising in his place in the Cincinnati presidential convention, and asking in behalf of the disfranchised women of the United States that the convention grant a hearing to Mrs. Spencer, of Washington, the accredited delegate of the National Woman Suffrage Association.
Great unanimity was reached in these sentiments and the enthusiasm manifested gave promise of earnest labor and more hopeful results. It was felt that there was reason to thank God and take courage.
The day before the opening of the Tenth Washington Convention a caucus was held in the ladies' reception-room[23] in the Senate wing of the capitol. A roll-call of the delegates developed the fact that every State in the Union would be represented by women now here and en route, or by letter. Mrs. Spencer said she had made a request in the proper quarter, that the delegates should be allowed to go on the floor when the Senate was actually in session, and present their case to the senators. She had been met with the statement that such a proceeding was without precedent. Mrs. Hooker suggested that inasmuch as there was a precedent for such a course in the House, the delegates should meet the following Thursday to canvass for votes in the House of Representatives. Another delegate recalled the fact that Mrs. General Sherman and Mrs. Admiral Dahlgren had been admitted upon the floor of the Senate while it was in session, to canvass for votes against woman suffrage.