As Mrs. Stanton finished she introduced her daughter, Mrs. Blatch, a resident of England, who in a few impressive remarks showed that on the great socialistic questions of the day—capital and labor, woman suffrage, race prejudice—England was liberal and the United States conservative; that the latter had beautiful ideas but did not apply them, and tended too much to the worship of legislation.
The Hon. Wm. Dudley Foulke, retiring president of the American Association, an uncompromising advocate of woman's enfranchisement, then made a strong and scholarly address in the course of which he said:
The fundamental rights of self-government, the right of each man to cast his single vote and have it counted as it is cast, is of greater and more lasting importance than any of the temporary consequences which flow from the result of any election. Beyond all matters of expediency and good administration lies the great question of human liberty and equality, which can only be maintained by the uncorrupted equal suffrage of every citizen; and so sacred is this in the eyes of the law that years of penitentiary service are prescribed for the interference with the right of a single human being of the male sex to cast the vote which the law allows him.
But there may be a moral guilt outside the law, of a character quite similar to that which is so punished when it comes within the terms of the statute, and it may be the crime, not of a single lawbreaker, but of the entire community that establishes the constitutions and enacts the statutes, which denies these equal rights to citizens who are subject to equal burdens. Wherever the rule of power is substituted for the just and equitable principle that all who are subject to government should have a voice in controlling it, we are guilty under the form of law of the same violation of the just rights of others for which the corruptor of elections and the forger of tally-sheets is tried, convicted and incarcerated. Yet from the remotest times the world has done this thing, for equal rights have never been conceded to women, and so warped are our convictions by custom and prejudice that a denial of their political equality seems as natural as the breath we draw....
Paternalism in government, which seeks to do good to the people against their will, is wrong in the Czar of Russia and in old King George, but is quite right and just when it affects only our wives, sisters and daughters! They have everything they need, why ask the ballot? Ah, my friends, so long as they have not the right to determine the thing they need, so long as the ultimate sovereignty remains with men to say what is good and what is bad for them, they are deprived of that which we, as men, esteem the most precious of all rights. I suppose there never was a time when men did not believe that women had everything they ought to want; that they had as much as was good for them. The woman must obey in consideration of the kind protection which her lord vouchsafes to her. The wife's property ought to belong to the husband, because upon him the law casts the burden of sustaining the family. There must be a ruler, and the husband ought to be that one. But this is the same principle which, during thousands of years, maintained the divine right of kings. When we apply it to our system of suffrage the number of sovereigns is increased, that is all. It is a recognition of the divine right of man to legislate for himself and woman too. It is only a difference in the number of autocrats and the manner in which their decrees are promulgated....
By what argument can a man defend his own suffrage as a right and not concede an equal right to woman? A just man ought to accord to every other human being, even his own wife, the rights which he demands himself.
"But she has her sphere and she ought not go beyond it." My friend, who gave you the right to determine what that sphere should be? If nature prescribes it, nature will carry out her own ordinances without your prohibitory legislation. I have the greatest contempt for the sort of legislation which seeks to enable nature to carry out her own immutable laws. I would have very little respect for any decree, enacted with whatever solemnity, which should prescribe that an object shall fall towards the earth and not from it; and I have just as little respect for any statute of man which enacts that women shall continue to love and care for their children by shutting them out from political action and preferment lest they should neglect the duties of the household....
"But," say you, "woman is already adequately represented. She does not form a separate class. She has no interests different from those of her husband, brother or father." These arguments have been used even by so eminent an authority as John Bright. Is it indeed a fact? Wherever woman owns property which she would relieve from unjust taxation; wherever she has a son whom she would preserve from the temptations of intemperance, or a daughter from the enticements of a libertine, or a husband from the conscriptions of war, she has a separate interest which she is entitled to protect.
"But she can control legislation by her influence." If it were proposed to take away our right to vote, we would think it a satisfactory answer that our influence would still remain? If she has influence she is entitled to that and her vote too. You have no right to burn down a man's house because you leave him his lot.
"But woman does not want the suffrage." How do you know? have you given her an opportunity of saying so? Wherever the right has been accorded it has been generally exercised, and the best proof of her wishes is the actual use which she makes of the ballot when she has it. But it makes no difference whether all women want to vote or whether most women want to vote, so long as there is one woman who insists upon this simple right, the justice of America can not afford to deny it....
At the close of Mr. Foulke's address Mrs. Stanton was obliged to leave in order to reach New York City in time for her steamer. The entire audience arose, the women waving handkerchiefs and the men joining in three farewell cheers.
One splendid address followed another, morning and evening, while the afternoons were occupied with business meetings, and even here there were many little speeches which were worthy of preservation. Among them was one of Miss Anthony's, in which she said: "If it is necessary, I will fight forty years more to make our platform free for the Christian to stand upon, whether she be a Catholic and counts her beads, or a Protestant of the straightest orthodox sect, just as I have fought for the rights of the 'infidels' the last forty years. These are the principles I want to maintain—that our platform may be kept as broad as the universe, that upon it may stand the representatives of all creeds and of no creeds—Jew and Christian, Protestant and Catholic, Gentile and Mormon, believer and atheist."
Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker (Conn.) discussed The Centennial of 1892, demanding the recognition of women. Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell (N. Y.) spoke on the Present, the Destiny of To-day. Mrs. Ormiston Chant (Eng.) depicted the glory of The Coming Woman. Mrs. Carrie Chapman Catt made her first appearance on the national platform with an address on The Symbol of Liberty, describing political conditions with a keen knowledge of the facts and showing their need of the intelligence, morality and independence of women. The subject selected by Miss Phoebe W. Couzins, herself an office-holder, was Woman's Influence in Official Government.
Henry B. Blackwell made a strong speech on Woman Suffrage a Growth of Civilization. He read a letter from Lucy Stone, his wife, who was to have spoken on The Progress of Women but was prevented by illness, in which she said: "The time is full of encouragement for us. We look back to our small beginnings and over the many years of constant endeavor to secure for women the application of the principles which are the foundation of a representative government. Now we are a host. Both Houses of Congress and the legislative bodies in nearly all the States, have our questions before them. So has the civilized world. Surely at no distant day the sense of justice which exists in everybody will secure our claim, and we shall have at last a truly representative government, of the people, by the people and for the people. We may, therefore, rejoicing in what is already gained, look forward with hope to the future."
A large audience listened to the address of Mrs. Julia Ward Howe on The Chivalry of Reform, during which she said: