Miss Phoebe W. Couzins (Mo.) in closing her address said: "At the gateway of this nation, the harbor of New York, there soon shall stand a statue of the Goddess of Liberty, presented by the republic of France—a magnificent figure of a woman, typifying all that is grand and glorious and free in self-government. She will hold aloft an electric torch of great power which is to beam an effulgent light far out to sea, that ships sailing towards this goodly land may ride safely into harbor. So should you thus uplift the women of this nation, and teach these men, at the very threshold, when first their feet shall touch the shore of this republic, that here woman is exalted, ennobled and honored; that here she bears aloft the torch of intelligence and purity which guides our Ship of State into the safe harbor of wise laws, pure morals and secure institutions."
It had been the custom of these committees, when they reported at all, to delay doing so until the following year. In 1884, however, those of both Senate and House submitted reports soon after the hearings. The favorable recommendation was presented March 28, 1884, signed by Thomas W. Palmer, Henry W. Blair, Elbridge G. Lapham and Henry B. Anthony. Senators Francis Marion Cockrell and Joseph E. Brown dissented.[24] The name of Senator James G. Fair does not appear on either document, but he had signed an adverse report in 1882.
An adverse majority report from the House Judiciary Committee was presented by William C. Maybury (Mich.) and began thus:
The right of suffrage is not and never has, under our system of government, been one of the essential rights of citizenship....
What class or portion of the whole people of any State should be admitted to suffrage, and should, by virtue of such admission, exert the active and potential control in the direction of its affairs, was a question reserved exclusively for the determination of the State.
[The report loses sight entirely of the point that this question was not and never has been left to "the people" of a State, but that men alone usurped the right to decide who should be admitted to the suffrage, arbitrarily excluded women and have kept them excluded.]
Under the influence of a just fear that without suffrage as a protective power to the newly-acquired rights and privileges guaranteed to the former slave he might suffer detriment, and with this dominant motive in view, originated the Fifteenth Amendment. It will be noted that by this later amendment the privilege of suffrage is not sought to be conferred on any class; but an inhibition is placed upon the States from excluding from the privilege of suffrage any class on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.
[The Fifteenth Amendment does not mention the "privilege" of suffrage. It says expressly, "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged." But whether it be a "right" or a "privilege," where did the negro get that which the States are forbidden to deny or abridge, if it does not inhere in citizenship? The report is incorrect in saying that the State is prohibited from excluding any "class;" it is only the "males" of any class who are protected from exclusion. The same right or privilege belongs to women, but they are not protected in the exercise of it. Women never have asked Congress to grant them any new right or privilege, but only to prohibit the States from denying or abridging what is already theirs, as it did in the case of negro men.]
Woman's true sphere is not restricted, but is boundless in resources and consequences. In it she may employ every energy of the mind and every affection of the heart, while within its limitless compass, under Providence, she exercises a power and influence beyond all other agencies for good. She trains and guides the life that is, and forms it for the eternity and immortality that are to be. From the rude contact of life, man is her shield. He is her guardian from its conflicts. He is the defender of her rights in his home, and the avenger of her wrongs everywhere.
[That is, what man considers her true sphere is not restricted, but she is not allowed to decide for herself what shall be its dimensions. "Her power for good is beyond all other agencies," but it is not wanted in affairs of State, where surely it is needed quite as badly as in any place in the world. "Man is her shield, guardian, defender and avenger." Witness the Common Law of England, made by men, under which women lived for centuries and which is still in force in a number of the States; witness the records of the courts with the wife-beaters and slayers, the rapists, the seducers, the husbands who have deserted their families, the schemers who have defrauded widows and orphans—witness all these and then say if all men are the natural protectors of women. But even if they were, witness the millions of women who are not legally entitled to the protection and assistance of any man. However, the report does not forget these women.]
The exceptional cases of unmarried females are too rare to change the general policy, while expectancy and hope, constantly being realized in marriage, are happily extinguishing the exceptions and bringing all within the rule which governs wife and matron.
To permit the entrance of political contention into the home would be either useless or pernicious—useless if man and wife agree, and pernicious if they differ. In the former event the volume of ballots alone would be increased without changing results. In the latter, the peace and contentment of home would be exchanged for the bedlam of political debate and become the scene of base and demoralizing intrigue.