Woman and the Republic Part 5

Place woman again in her 'sphere,'

And teach that her soul was not born for the skies, But to flutter a brief moment here.

This doctrine of Jesus, as preached up by Paul, If embraced in its spirit will ruin us all."

Mention of Mrs. Chapman recalls her att.i.tude toward Frederick Dougla.s.s and the further fact that he became an advocate of Suffrage. In his "Life and Times" he says: "I could not meet her [Mrs. Stanton's] arguments except with the shallow plea of 'custom,' 'natural division of duties,'

'indelicacy of woman's taking part in politics,' 'the common talk of woman's sphere,' and the like, all of which that able woman brushed away by those arguments which no man has yet successfully refuted." Mr.

Dougla.s.s might have called to mind the fact, to the recognition of which he had been so thoroughly converted, and which he set forth on page 460 of his book, when he wrote: "I insisted that the liberties of the American people were dependent upon the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the cartridge-box." He forgot that Mrs. Stanton, in defiance of those social laws that had weight with him, was asking to use the first, to use partially the second, and to ignore the third, on which both of the others depend for continuance.

The "History" is dedicated to Harriet Martineau (among other women) as one who influenced the starting of the Suffrage movement. Turning to Miss Martineau's "Society in America," published in 1837, I find the following in her account of the Anti-slavery movement in the United States: "The progress of the Abolition question within three years throughout the whole of the rural districts of the North, is a far stronger testimony to the virtue of the nation than the noisy clamor of a portion of the slaveholders of the South, and the merchant aristocracy of the North, and the silence of the clergy, against it. The nation must not be judged of by that portion whose worldly interests are involved in the maintenance of the anomaly; nor yet by the eight hundred flouris.h.i.+ng Abolition societies of the North, with all the supporters they have in una.s.sociated individuals. If it be found that the five Abolitionists who first met in a little chamber five years ago, to measure their moral strength against this national enormity, have become a host beneath whose a.s.saults the vicious inst.i.tution is rocking to its foundations, it is time that slavery was ceasing to be a national reproach."

An observer who could be made to believe that these five Abolitionists had really accomplished more toward the overthrow of slavery than eight hundred flouris.h.i.+ng Abolition societies and their outside supporters, and that the great body of clergymen were silent, because they did not adopt the methods of the five who set themselves against church and state, shows a credulity that leads one to question the information and the conclusions on which her judgment of the relation of American women to the Republic were based.

As a proof that when women entered into public work in a womanly way they found support from the church and the Abolitionists, we may point to perhaps the first organized charitable and industrial work done among women in this country. In 1834 Mrs. Charles Hawking, of New York City, had convened in the Third Free Church, corner of Houston and Thompson streets, a meeting which resulted in the immediate formation of "The Moral Reform Society." Clergymen who were in sympathy with the movement addressed the meeting. "The Female Guardian Society" was founded by them a year later, and a newspaper was established to present its claims. The officers were women. They visited the Tombs, and held weekly prayer-meetings. They secured the legislation necessary to bring about the separation of men and women in the city prisons, and the appointment of matrons for the women.

In 1853 they procured an enactment "whereby dissipated and vicious parents, by habitually neglecting due care and provision for their offspring, shall forfeit their natural claim to them, and whereby such children shall be removed from them and placed under better influences till the claim of the parents shall be re-established by continued sobriety, industry, and general good conduct." They secured the pa.s.sage of the Truant Act, and the appointment of Truant Officers. Mr. Lewis Tappan was not only the auditor for the organization, but gave effective help by suggestions that led to the establishment of the first Home for the Friendless, of which there are now seven in charge of the society. In 1854, Industrial schools were added. Cooking, housekeeping, kindergarten, and fresh-air work developed rapidly. There are now twelve industrial schools, where six thousand children are taught. The report of the first semi-annual meeting, held in Utica, N. Y., is in quaint contrast to the reports of the first Suffrage meetings. They say: "The utmost harmony and union of feeling have characterized all the proceedings, and as we looked around and saw the intelligence and piety and moral worth that was a.s.sembled there, and listened to the discussion of subjects of practical importance, while every one was manifestly seeking to know and do her duty, we could not but feel that the most determined opposer of 'women's meetings' would have found nothing to censure had he been present. There has been no frivolity, no fanaticism, no disorder. We are sure that not a wife or mother was there who was not at least as well disposed and prepared to discharge her relative duties as she would have been if she had kept at home."

Upon the great cause of Temperance, also, the Woman-Suffrage movement early laid a blighting hand. As will be remembered, total abstinence was one of the doctrines to which many of the no-government, common-property, men and women were pledged. Western and Central New York has been the birthplace of some of the wildest and most destructive movements that our social life has witnessed. If the year 1848, which saw the beginnings of the Woman-Suffrage movement, was wonderful for revolutions and insurrections the world over, the years that preceded it were remarkable, especially in this country and this State, for some of the maddest vagaries that ever have been known here. There and then arose the Shaker excitement, so fantastic that only now and then was the outside world permitted to know what was being done. Then and there Fourierism found its most fruitful field, and of the dozen or more communities that were started, several united in forming, near Rochester, an Industrial Union.

John Collins started a number of vague branches of what the Fourierites called the "no-G.o.d, no-government, no-marriage, no-money, no-meat, no- salt, no-pepper" system of community. Here John H. Noyes, under the guise of a new heaven on an old earth, established his foul community at Oneida.

There and then the Millerite madness sent whole congregations into the cemeteries, in white gowns, to await the sounding of the trump of Gabriel.

There and then arose the great spiritualistic movement that began in Wayne County with the Fox family, became famous as the Rochester Knockings, and blossomed into communities in which "Free Love" grew out of "Individual Sovereignty." Then and there, in Wayne County, Joseph Smith pretended that the Angel Maroni had shown him, the Book of Mormon. Many of these movements were in sympathy with Woman Suffrage, and workers in them early found their way into its ranks.

In the midst of the Anti-slavery excitement, secret temperance organizations were formed among the women in New York State, known as the "Daughters of Temperance." "Finding," as they said, "that there was no law nor gospel in the land," they became a law unto themselves, and visited saloons, where they broke windows, gla.s.ses, and bottles, and threw kegs and barrels of liquor into the streets. A few were arrested, but they were soon discharged. As time went on, these secret organizations began to form themselves into regular bodies, and in January, 1852, they a.s.sembled their delegates at Albany to claim admission to the State Temperance organization, with no invitation or authority but their own. Susan B.

Anthony was the first speaker, and when the convention decided not to hear her, it was announced that they would withdraw and hold a meeting where "men and women would be equal," which they accordingly did. The movement continued, until, three months later, Miss Anthony called "The New York State Temperance Convention," of which Mrs. Stanton was elected President.

Among the resolutions that she introduced in her opening speech, were these: that "no woman remain in the relation of wife to a confirmed drunkard;" that the State should be pet.i.tioned so to "modify its laws affecting marriage and the custody of children, that the drunkard shall have no claims on either wife or child;" that "no liquor should be used for culinary purposes;" and that "as charity begins at home, let us withdraw from all a.s.sociations for sending the gospel to the heathen across the ocean, for the education of young men for the ministry, for the building up of a theological aristocracy and gorgeous temples to the unknown G.o.d, and devote ourselves to the poor and suffering about us. Let us feed and clothe the naked and hungry, gather children into schools, and provide reading-rooms and decent homes for young men and women thrown alone upon the world." The organization of "The Woman's New York State Temperance Society" was formed, and Mrs. Stanton was elected its President. She issued an appeal to the women of the State, and sent a letter to the Convention at Albany which "was so radical, that its friends feared to read it," but Susan B. Anthony finally did so. They elected as delegates to the "Men's New York State Temperance Convention," to be held in Syracuse in June, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, and Gerrit Smith. When they arrived they were met by the Rev. Samuel J. May, who told them that the men were shocked at the idea of admitting them, and said that he was commissioned to beg them to withdraw. They decided to present their credentials, and of course the stormy scene which they had invited followed their action. This scene was repeated in every part of the State, the agitators figuring upon their own platforms as martyrs to the n.o.ble causes of Anti-slavery, Temperance, and Woman's Rights. A single quotation from a letter of Miss Anthony's, written at this time to the league, shows that then, as now, the radical woman workers for Prohibition were nothing if not political. She says: "And it is for woman now, in the present presidential campaign, to say to her father, husband, or brother, 'If you vote for any candidate for any office whatever, who is not pledged to total abstinence and the Maine law, we shall hold you alike guilty with the rum-seller.'"

In January, 1853, a great ma.s.s-meeting was held in Albany of all the State temperance organizations. The Woman's society met in a Baptist church, which was crowded at every session. Miss Anthony presided. Twenty-eight thousand women had signed pet.i.tions for prohibitory legislation. The rules of the House were suspended, and the women were invited to present them at the speaker's desk. They were then invited to New York, and, in Metropolitan Hall, addressed a large audience, as well as in the Broadway Tabernacle and Knickerbocker Hall, Brooklyn. In the next two months they made successful tours of many cities of the State. But, like Mr. Garrison, and Stephen Foster, and H. C. Wright, the women thought that if they were not attacking and being attacked there could be no "progress" or "reform."

They demanded divorce for drunkenness, they denounced wine at private tables, and called on the women to leave all church organizations where "clergymen and bishops, liquor-dealers, and wine-bibbers, were dignified and honored as deacons and elders." They denounced the church for its "apathy," and the clergy for their "hostility to the public action of women," and they soon began to turn the kindly feeling that was endeavoring to work with them into enmity, and were of course denounced in their turn.

The Society decided to invite men into their organization, but not to allow them to hold office or to vote. This they did for a year, after which men were admitted to full members.h.i.+p. The first annual meeting of the Woman's State Temperance Society was held in Rochester, June 1, 1853, Mrs. Stanton presiding, and the attendance was larger than they had had at any time. In the course of the meetings a heated debate on the subject of divorce took place. Mrs. Stanton and Lucy Stone took the ground that it was "not only woman's right, but her duty, to withdraw from all such unholy relations," and Mrs. Nichols and Antoinette Brown opposed them.

The men were admitted to this convention, and, to use the words of the women, "it was the policy of these worldly-wise men to restrict the debate on Temperance to such narrow limits as to disturb none of the existing conditions of society." This farce in reform soon came to an end, and the following is the epitaph p.r.o.nounced over it by its founders: "The society, with its guns silenced on the popular foes, lingered a year or two, and was heard of no more." On May 12, the friends of Temperance met in Dr.

Spring's Old Brick Church, New York City. A motion was made that all gentlemen present be admitted as delegates. Dr. Trall, of New York, moved an amendment, that the words "and ladies" be added, as there were delegates present from the "Woman's State Temperance Society." The motion was carried, and the credentials were received. A motion was then made that Susan B. Anthony be added to the business committee, and all was in an uproar at once. "Mayor Barstow twice asked that another chairman be appointed, as he would not preside over a meeting where woman's rights was introduced, or women were allowed to speak." Some of the gentlemen present said that "the ladies were there expressly to disturb." The ministers present, like the laymen, were divided in opinion in regard to the admission of the delegates; but the credentials were withdrawn, and in due time the bearers of them withdrew also. The writers of the "History" say: "Most of the liberal men and women now withdrew from all temperance organizations, leaving the movement in the hands of time-serving priests and politicians, who, being in the majority, effectually blocked the progress of the reform for the time--destroying, as they did, the enthusiasm of the women in trying to press it as a political measure."

Comparing this work with their Anti-slavery campaign, they say: "When Garrison's forces had been thoroughly sifted, and only the picked men and women remained, he soon made political parties and church organizations feel the power of his burning words." It was the men and women from whom he and his were sifted who spoke the burning words that ended in burning deeds for the extinction of slavery; and thus it was with Temperance.

There remained after the "sifting" many societies, of one of which William E. Dodge and President Mark Hopkins were chief officers, and John B. Gough was princ.i.p.al orator.

The writers of the "History" further say, in regard to the death of their organization: "Henceforward women took no active part in temperance until the Ohio Crusade revived them all over the nation, and gathered the scattered forces into the Woman's National Christian Temperance Union, of which Frances E. Willard is President." This is a mistake, for women were very active in connection with Temperance societies of which men were officers, and in organizations of their own, before and after the W. C. T.

U. was founded. The history of that great body furnishes another proof of the injurious effect of the Suffrage movement upon the cause of Temperance. In 1872 a political Temperance party was formed in Columbus, Ohio, which, four years later, at Cleveland, became the Prohibition Party.

From the first, this party inserted a plank in its platform favoring universal suffrage, and mentioning especially the extension of suffrage to women. The W. C. T. U. was founded as a non-denominational and non- partisan body, and was divided and sub-divided into committees, each having charge of a distinct branch of philanthropic work, which was by no means confined solely to Temperance measures. This has given the body great working strength, and its efforts are well known. Everything except its Suffrage labor has had rich reward. I was present at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City (in 1886, I think), and witnessed with amazement the high-handed fas.h.i.+on in which an organization whose const.i.tution forbade political coalition was handed over to the Prohibition Party, pledged to give aid and comfort. The division and bitter feeling that resulted were a serious injury to the cause of Temperance. In her contribution to the volume ent.i.tled "Woman's Work in America," Miss Willard says: "After ten years' experience, the women of this Crusade became convinced that until the people of this country divide at the ballot-box, on the foregoing [Temperance] issue, America can never be nationally delivered from the dram-shop. They therefore publicly announced their devotion to the Prohibition Party, and promised to lend it their influence, which, with the exception of a very small minority, they have since most sedulously done." Writing in "The Outlook" for June 27, 1896, Lady Henry Somerset says, in closing a sketch of Frances Willard: "The Temperance cause, in spite of the gigantic strides it has made of late years toward success, is still relegated to the shadowy land of unpopular and supposedly impracticable and visionary reform."

The Temperance cause is not relegated to a shadowy land, but has just taken, in many places, notably in New York State, another gigantic stride toward success. Prohibition has proved less faithful to the women than Miss Willard said the women had proved to it; for, in the struggle to survive the attack upon its life made by Populism in 1896, it refused to re-insert the Woman-Suffrage plank in its platform. Mrs. Helen Gougar bolted with the Populists. Mrs. Boole, of New York, in behalf of the W.C.T.U., moved the re-insertion in the platform of the Woman-Suffrage plank, which had been stricken out when it was decided to make prohibition the only issue. Amidst great confusion, Mrs. Boole was obliged to withdraw her motion, and when she changed her claim from that for a plank in the platform to one for a resolution which declared the convention to be in favor of Woman Suffrage, it was accepted by the Committee on Resolutions, and adopted with only a few dissenting votes. In view of the fact that the party has had a Suffrage plank since 1872, when it began to be, this does seem like a turning of the back rather than of the cold shoulder. When to its motto "No sectarianism in religion, no sectionalism in politics," the W. C. T. U. added "No s.e.x in citizens.h.i.+p," it fastened itself to a principle that has not progressed. Its Temperance work "for G.o.d and home and native land" has gone on; but the political alliance and effort have alike proved futile. A striking proof of this fact is seen in the reports of the non-political sections of the W. C. T. U. itself. Police matrons have been placed through their pet.i.tions, and educational and philanthropic work that is directly in the line of doing away with the liquor evil, and is worthy of high praise, has been accomplished. Miss Willard, in her article already alluded to, reports that "under the leaders.h.i.+p of Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, the W. C. T. U. has secured laws requiring scientific temperance instruction in thirty States." The number is now forty-two, and I cannot help believing that Mrs. Hunt must feel more hopeful of the favorable results to temperance of well-directed effort to influence those who have the power to execute the laws they pa.s.s, than Miss Willard has reason to feel for its success through prohibition and the forceless votes of women whose power in philanthropy is fully recognized and cheerfully acknowledged. Women talk as if the solid vote of their s.e.x would be cast in favor of temperance. The census of 1890 reveals the fact that there were in that year three times as many woman hotel-keepers as in 1870, and seven times as many saloon-keepers and bar-tenders.

Again, in the Nation's greatest crisis, Woman Suffrage showed itself to be the antipodes of woman's progress. Those of us whose once sable locks are now silvered are content to wear the badge of years, when we remember that we were permitted to live long enough ago to have felt the expansion of soul, the fervor of loyal love, the melting power of an overwhelming universal sorrow and a united joy, which filled the mighty days during a war for freedom and for the life of the Republic. Most of the women of the land were working with a devotion that spared neither strength nor life.

What was the Woman-Suffrage a.s.sociation doing? I answer in their own words. In their "History," they say: "While the most of women never philosophize on the principles that underlie national existence, there were those in our late war who understood the political significance of the struggle: the 'irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery; between national and State rights.' They saw that to provide lint, bandages, and supplies for the army, while the war was not conducted on a wise policy, was labor in vain; and while many organizations, active, vigilant, self-sacrificing, were multiplied to look after the material wants of the army, these few formed themselves into a National Loyal League to teach sound principles of government, and to impress on the nation's conscience, that 'freedom to the slaves was the only way to victory.'" They further say: "Accustomed as most women had been to works of charity, to the relief of outward suffering, it was difficult to rouse their enthusiasm for an idea, to persuade them to labor for a principle.

They clamored for practical work, something for their hands to do; for fairs, sewing societies to raise money for soldiers' families, for tableaux, readings, theatricals, anything but conventions to discuss principles and to circulate pet.i.tions for emanc.i.p.ation. They could not see that the best service they could render the army was to suppress the rebellion, and that the most effective way to accomplish that was to transform the slaves into soldiers. The Woman's Loyal League voiced the solemn lessons of the war; universal suffrage, and universal amnesty."

The Woman's Loyal League "voiced" the fact that the professional agitators of the Suffrage movement were not patriots. Again they filled the land with words, while all the others of their s.e.x were blazoning the page of their country's history with deeds of the n.o.blest self-sacrifice, the most gentle daring. When we remember with what infinite patience the great emanc.i.p.ator was waiting for the hour when in his wisdom he discerned that he could "best save the Union by emanc.i.p.ating all the slaves," we realize what added sorrow may have been pressed upon his heart by the foolish pet.i.tions that the League were rolling up by the hundred thousand and sending to a Congress that was powerless to heed them if it would.

Statesmen and Generals were staggered by the stupendous task of guiding a great people and saving the Union in the most powerful rebellion ever known; but these few women knew from the beginning that "the war was not conducted on a wise policy," and that to provide for the army was "labor in vain." They joined the great body of fault-finders and talkers, and lifted not a finger in practical work. And they are the women who would fain vote for and become America's rulers! The "other women," who were narrow-minded enough to prepare stores and raise money for the army, and do such concrete work as nursing in the hospital and on the field, had been busy for nearly two years when the Suffrage women bestirred themselves in their own way. In March, 1863, they issued the following appeal to the "Loyal Women of the Nation," which I quote at length because it is an excellent example of their methods, which "began in words and ended in words:"

"In this crisis of our country's destiny, it is the duty of every citizen to consider the peculiar blessings of a republican form of government, and decide what sacrifices of wealth and life are demanded for its defence and preservation. The policy of the war, our whole future life, depends on a clearly-defined idea of the end proposed, and the immense advantages to be secured to ourselves and all mankind by its accomplishment. No mere party or sectional cry, no technicalities of const.i.tution or military law, no mottoes of craft or policy, are big enough to touch the great heart of a nation in the midst of revolution. A grand idea, such as freedom or justice, is needful to kindle and sustain the fires of a high enthusiasm.

At this hour the best word and work of every man and woman are imperatively demanded. To man, by common consent, is a.s.signed the forum, camp, and field. What is woman's legitimate work, and how she may best accomplish it, is worthy of our earnest counsel with one another. We have heard many complaints of the lack of enthusiasm among Northern women; but, when a mother lays her son on the altar of her country, she asks an object equal to the sacrifice. In nursing the sick and wounded, knitting socks, sc.r.a.ping lint and making jellies, the bravest and best may weary if the thoughts mount not in faith to something beyond and above it all. Work is wors.h.i.+p only when a n.o.ble purpose fills the soul. Woman is equally interested and responsible with man in the final settlement of this problem of self-government; therefore let none stand idle spectators now.

When every hour is big with destiny, and each delay but complicates our difficulties, it is high time for the daughters of the Revolution, in solemn council, to unseal the last will and testament of the Fathers--lay hold of their birthright of freedom, and keep it a sacred trust for all coming generations. To this end we ask the Loyal Women of the Nation to meet in the church of the Puritans (Dr. Cheever's), New York, on Thursday, the 14th of May next." This was signed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, in behalf of the Woman's Central Committee.

Having set forth their belief that by common consent the forum, the camp, and the field were a.s.signed to men, these women secured a forum from which to promulgate advice and direction to the men who were indeed allowed possession of the camp and the field. After a speech, in which, among other things, Miss Anthony said: "Instead of suppressing the real cause of the war, it should have been proclaimed, not only by the people, but by the President, Congress, Cabinet, and every military commander," she presented resolutions, which included this:

"Resolved: that there can never be a true peace in this Republic until all the civil and political rights of all citizens of African descent and all women are practically established."

The reading of the resolutions was followed by one of the long, acrimonious debates with which those who read the reports of their conventions are familiar. They resented it bitterly when Mrs. Hoyt, of Wisconsin, said: "The women of the North were invited here to meet in convention, not to hold a Temperance meeting, not to hold an Anti-slavery meeting, not to hold a Woman's Rights convention, but to consult as to the best practical way for the advancement of the loyal cause. We have a great many very flouris.h.i.+ng Loyal Leagues throughout the West, and we have kept them sacred from Anti-slavery, Woman's Rights, Temperance, and everything else, good though they may be. In our League we have several objects in view. The first is, retrenchment in household expenses, to the end that the material resources of the Government may be, so far as possible, applied to the entire and thorough vindication of its authority. Second, to strengthen the loyal sentiment of the people at home, and instil a deeper love of the National flag. The third and most important object is to write to the soldiers in the field, thus reaching nearly every private in the army, to encourage and stimulate him in the way that ladies know how to do." After expressions of strong resentment, those who had called the convention returned to their generalizing in regard to the duty and influence of woman, and to denunciations of the Government for its conduct of the war. The resolutions which had called forth the strictures were accepted, and Miss Anthony announced that "The resolution recommending practical work was not yet prepared." It was written at a business meeting following, and read thus:

"Resolved, that we, loyal women of the nation, do hereby pledge ourselves one to another, in a Loyal League, to give support to the Government in so far as it makes the war a war for freedom."

If the Government of the United States had received no more practical pledges, from no more loyal hearts than these, there would have been little reward for the patriotic devotion that laid down life in defence of the Union. A sentiment that was often expressed by the Suffragist was that as woman had no vote she could not properly be called upon to be loyal.

The "practical" work finally accomplished was the gathering of another monster pet.i.tion, in which they told President Lincoln that "Northern power and loyalty can never be measured until the purpose of the war be liberty to man." To the close of the war they did nothing but sign such pet.i.tions.

I turn to Dr. Brockett's great book, "Woman in the Civil War," and I find recorded the names and the work of four hundred and eighty-four women who gave invaluable and honorable special service, some of them even to the sacrifice of life itself; and of all this number, only a half dozen are known in Suffrage annals.

Cure by ballot has been the one and only remedy suggested by Suffrage conventions for all the ills, real or imaginary, that are endured by women. As long ago as 1854, in a convention in Philadelphia, they uttered the same sentiment. In commenting upon Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm's book, "Half a Century," they say: "While ever and anon during the last forty years Mrs. Swisshelm has seized some of these dilettante literary women with her metaphysical tweezers, and held them up to scorn for their ridicule of the Woman Suffrage conventions, yet in her own recently published work, in her mature years, she vouchsafes no words of approval for those who have inaugurated the greatest movement of the centuries. ...

It is quite evident from her last p.r.o.nunciamento that she has no just appreciation of the importance and dignity of our demand for justice and equality. A soldier without a leg is a fact so much more readily understood than all women without ballots, and his loss so much more readily comprehended and supplied, that we can hardly blame any one for doing the work of the hour, rather than struggling a lifetime for an idea.

Hence it is not a matter of surprise that most women are more readily enlisted in the suppression of evils in the concrete, than in advocating the principles that underlie them in the abstract, and thus ultimately choosing the broader and more lasting work."

In her "Reminiscences," contributed to the "History," Mrs. Emily Collins says: "From 1858 to 1869 my home was in Rochester, N.Y. There, by brief newspaper articles and in other ways, I sought to influence public sentiment in favor of this fundamental reform. In 1868 a society was organized there for the reformation of abandoned women. At one of its meetings I endeavored to show how futile all their efforts would be while women, by the laws of the land, were made a subject cla.s.s."

This was typical action. Thus it was in Anti-slavery, thus in Temperance, thus in the Civil War, and thus it has been with general reforms. What Suffragists have deemed to be an abstract "right" has prevented them from taking active part in any efforts put forth to end a concrete wrong. As time goes on, this spirit becomes more injurious, because progress is carrying philanthropy into higher fields of moral action, and in so doing is carrying it away from and above the plane where rests the ballot-box.

While Suffrage effort is directed toward keeping all issues in the political arena, the trend of legislation is to take them out of politics.

By the public votes of men and the private votes and public appeals of women, philanthropic and educational matters are being removed from the uncertainties and fluctuations of party action. As they are thus brought out of the sphere where woman is powerless and into that in which it is natural for her to act, the whole force of sympathy, and her ability to picture and to pursue an ideal, are finding exercise and are hastening the day when there will be no slavery, no drunkenness, no war, and no violation of woman's chast.i.ty. Dr. Jacobi, in her volume, says: "Why should we wonder at the low tone which habitually prevails in relation to public affairs, when the women who stand as guardians at the fountain sources and household shrines of thought are trained to believe that there are no Rights, but only Privileges, Expediencies, Immunities? Can those who cower before the public ridicule which greets the enunciation of the Rights of Women; who are habituated to stifle generous impulses for their own larger freedom at the authoritative dictation of the men they see in power,--can such women be relied upon to nerve the Nation's heart for generous deeds?" Who were trained by women at the fountain sources and household shrines? The very men whom they now see in "authoritative dictation." And so well did they train them that when both are called upon to nerve the nation's heart for generous deeds, they act together--the trainer and the trained--moved by the same magnetic impulse of a n.o.ble devotion. It is purely gratuitous to a.s.sume, because women generally have discredited the dogma of Woman Suffrage, that they have therefore no just conception of rights. Women are as ambitious, as self-a.s.sertive, as are men. They deal more naturally with abstractions, and are more tenacious of purpose. They are impatient of hindrance, and it is inconsistent with facts to infer that they have been "stifling generous impulses for their own larger freedom," at the dictation of their own sons. The executive power and wisdom of these sons they feel to be the very thing they most desire for them, a reward for their own abounding faith and love.

Privileges, Expediencies, and Immunities are their Rights. How well fitted such rights are to enable them to nerve the Nation's heart was seen in the great crisis we have been considering, when the ign.o.ble dogma of Suffrage caused its believers to fail in generous impulse and to stand aloof in the time of a supreme need.

I cannot agree with Dr. Jacobi that a low tone habitually prevails in relation to public affairs. The guards freshly thrown about the ballot, and the greater watchfulness over entrance to citizens.h.i.+p, are two of the most obvious advances at this moment.

CHAPTER V.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS.

In the fourth and fifth counts of the Declaration of Sentiments, the Suffragists say: "Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides." "He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead."

The following four counts all refer to a married woman's civil deadness; and I will give them in order, and then consider the five counts together:

"He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns." "He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband." "In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master--the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastis.e.m.e.nt." "He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be proper causes, and, in case of separation, to whom the guardians.h.i.+p of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women--the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands."

That the women did not find themselves, as might be supposed from their charges, living under the edicts of the Middle Ages, is proved by their hunt through statute-books for such of the eighteen grievances as relate to laws. They also say that "while they had felt the insults incident to s.e.x, in many ways, as every proud thinking woman must, yet they had not in their own experience endured the coa.r.s.er forms of tyranny resulting from unjust laws; but had souls large enough to feel the wrongs of others."

Until they knew what those wrongs were, it would seem they could hardly have felt for them intelligently. It would seem, too, that the great body of American women were also unaware that they had been, and were still being, legally and morally robbed, enslaved, and murdered. In fact, Suffrage speakers have been compelled to account for their unconcern by considering it the result of long subjection, and at the same time have had to claim that these stupid beings were fit to rule with and over men.

While the counts contain concrete statements, the closing clause--"the law in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands"--sets forth an abstract idea in justification of which they furnish no proof. In the counts as they stood in the Declaration of Sentiments, the general laws were not accused of doing any injustice, personal or civil, to an unmarried woman, except in reference to the one matter of withholding the vote, which they claimed was wrong because she had an inalienable right to the ballot and was subject to tax. Not a personal law did they ask to have changed for her protection. They recognized the fact that, unless she was married, a woman in the United States stood upon a legal equality with man. The hue and cry in regard to a married woman was, that she was not treated as if _femme sole_. The _femme sole_ could make contracts and wills, sue and be sued, and do all and sundry in her own name that her brother could do. With a married woman the situation was different. Will any one contend that in the past the married woman has been held in less honor than the unmarried?

Can it be thought for a moment that the law-makers expressed their contempt for wives and mothers, and their respect for daughters and sisters who were unmarried? Tradition and fact, poetry and prose, romance and reality, all go to prove that the reverential feeling of the world has gathered about the wife and the mother. The men who made those laws turned for their ideals of abstract justice to their mothers' faith and teaching; and it seems most incongruous to a.s.sume, as do the Suffrage arguments, that, while all the laws relating to women were tyrannical at some point, those in regard to married women were the ones wherein men embodied their most cruel and revengeful feeling. It also appears to be a gratuitous a.s.sumption that whatever was different in the legal treatment of men and women came from man's belief in his own supremacy, especially toward the wife into whose hands he had committed the keeping of his home and his honor.

In 1881, after more than thirty years of agitation of the subject, the Suffrage leaders said: "The condition of married women under the laws of all countries has been essentially that of slaves, until modified in some respects, within the last quarter of a century, in the United States." And again they said: "The change from the old common law of England, in regard to the civil rights of women, from 1848 to the advance legislation in most of the Northern States in 1880, marks an era both in the status of woman as a citizen and in our American system of jurisprudence. When the State of New York gave married women certain rights of property, the individual existence of the wife was recognized, and the old idea that husband and wife are one, and that one the husband, received its death-blow. From that hour the statutes of the several States have been steadily diverging from the old English codes. Most of the Western States copied the advance legislation of New York, and some are now even more liberal."