The History of Woman Suffrage Volume III Part 17

_Resolved_, That it is logical that these amendments should fail to protect even the male African for whom said courts, legislatures and parties declare they were expressly designed and enacted.

_Resolved_, That the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States in denying Belva A. Lockwood admission to its bar, while she was ent.i.tled under the law and under its rules to that right, violated their oath of office.

_Resolved_, That the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Edmonds chairman, in its report on the bill to allow women to practice law in the courts of the United States in which it declares that "further legislation is not necessary," evaded the plain question at issue before it in a manner unworthy of judges learned in the honorable profession of the law, and thereby sanctioned an injustice to the women of the whole country.

WHEREAS, The general government has refused to exercise federal power to protect women in their right to vote in the various States and territories; therefore,

_Resolved_, That it should forbear to exercise federal power to disfranchise the women of Utah, who have had a more just and liberal spirit shown them by Mormon men than Gentile women in the States have yet perceived in their rulers.

WHEREAS, The proposed legislation for the Chinese women on the Pacific slope and for outcast women in our cities, and the opinion of the press that no respectable woman should be seen in the streets after dark, are all based upon the presumption that woman's freedom must be forever sacrificed to man's licence; therefore,

_Resolved_, That the ballot in woman's hand is the only power by which she can restrain the liberty of those men who make our streets and highways dangerous to her, and secure the freedom that belongs to her by day and by night.

[Ill.u.s.tration: Frances E. Willard]

At the close of the convention it was decided at a meeting of the executive committee to present an address to the president and both houses of congress, and that a printed copy of the resolutions should be laid on the desk of every member. The president having granted a hearing,[46] the following address was presented:

_To his Excellency, the President of the United States_:

WHEREAS, Representatives of a.s.sociations of women waited upon your excellency before the delivery of your first and second annual messages, asking that in those doc.u.ments you would remember the disfranchised millions of citizens of the United States; and,

WHEREAS, Upon careful examination of those messages, we find therein specifically enumerated, the interests, great and small, of all cla.s.ses of men, and recommendations of needful legislation to protect their civil and political rights, but find no mention made of any need of legislation to protect the political, civil, or social rights of one-half of the people of this republic, and,

WHEREAS, There is pending in the Senate a const.i.tutional amendment to prohibit the several States from disfranchising United States citizens on account of s.e.x, and a similar amendment is pending upon a tie vote in the House Judiciary Committee; and as pet.i.tions to so amend the const.i.tution have been presented to both houses of congress from more than 40,000 well-known citizens of thirty-five States and five territories,

THEREFORE, we respectfully ask your excellency, in your next annual message, to make mention of the disfranchised millions of wives, mothers and daughters of this republic, and to recommend to congress that women equally with men be protected in the exercise of their civil and political rights.

On behalf of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, _President_.

MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, _Corresponding Secretary_.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Chairman Executive Committee_.

The delegates from the territory of Utah were also received by the president. They called his attention to the effect of the enforcement of the law of 1862 upon 50,000 Mormon women, to render them outcasts and their children nameless, asking the chief executive of the nation to give some time to the consideration of the bill pending under different headings in both houses. The president asked them to set forth the facts in writing, that he might carefully weigh so important a matter. A memorial was also presented to congress by these ladies, closing thus:

We further pray that in any future legislation concerning the marriage relation in any territory under your jurisdiction you will consider the rights and the consciences of the women to be affected by such legislation, and that you will consider the permanent care and welfare of children as the sure foundation of the State.

And your pet.i.tioners will ever pray.

EMMELINE B. WELLS.

ZINA YOUNG WILLIAMS.

Mr. Cannon of Utah moved that the memorial be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary with leave to report at any time. It was so referred. The Judiciary Committee of the Senate brought in a bill legitimatizing the offspring of plural marriages to a certain date; also authorizing the president to grant amnesty for past offenses against the law of 1862.

The _Congressional Record_ of January 24, under the head of pet.i.tions and memorials, said:

The vice-president, Mr. Wheeler of New York, presented the pet.i.tion of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Susan B. Anthony, officers of the National a.s.sociation, praying for the pa.s.sage of Senate joint resolution No. 12, providing for an amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, protecting the rights of women, and also that the House Judiciary Committee be relieved from the further consideration of a similar resolution.

Mr. FERRY--If there be no objection I ask that the pet.i.tion be read at length.

The VICE-PRESIDENT--The Chair hears no objection, and it will be reported by the secretary.

The pet.i.tion was read and referred to the Committee on Privileges and Elections, as follows:

_To the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States, in Congress a.s.sembled:_

WHEREAS, More than 40,000 men and women, citizens of thirty-five States and five territories, have pet.i.tioned the forty-fifth congress asking for an amendment to the federal const.i.tution prohibiting the several States from disfranchising United States citizens on account of s.e.x; and

WHEREAS, A resolution providing for such const.i.tutional amendment is upon the calendar (Senate resolution No. 12, second session forty-fifth congress), and a similar resolution is pending upon a tie vote in the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives; and

WHEREAS, The women of the United States const.i.tute one-half of the people of this republic and have an inalienable right to an equal voice with men in the nation's councils; and

WHEREAS, Women being denied the right to have their opinions counted at the ballot-box, are compelled to hold all other rights subject to the favors and caprices of men; and

WHEREAS, In answer to the appeals of so large a number of honorable pet.i.tioners, it is courteous that the forty-fifth congress should express its opinion upon this grave question of human rights; therefore,

We pray your honorable body to take from the calendar and pa.s.s Senate resolution No. 12, providing for an amendment to the const.i.tution protecting the rights of women; and

We further pray you to relieve the House Judiciary Committee from the further consideration of the woman suffrage resolution brought to a tie vote in that committee, February 5, 1878, that it may be submitted to the House of Representatives for immediate action.

And your pet.i.tioners will ever pray.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, _President_.

MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, _Corresponding Secretary_.

SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Chairman Executive Committee_.

At the opening of the last session of the forty-fifth congress most earnest appeals (copies of which were sent to every member of congress) came from all directions for the presentation of a minority report from the Committee on Privileges and Elections. The response from our representatives was prompt and most encouraging.

The first favorable report our question had ever received in the Senate of the United States was presented by the Hon. George F.

h.o.a.r, February 1, 1879:

_The undersigned, a minority of the Committee on Privileges and Elections, to whom were referred the resolution proposing an amendment to the const.i.tution prohibiting discrimination in the right of suffrage on account of s.e.x, and certain pet.i.tions in aid of the same, submit the following minority report:_

The undersigned dissent from the report of the majority of the committee. The demand for the extension of the right of suffrage to women is not new. It has been supported by many persons in this country, in England and on the continent, famous in public life, in literature and in philosophy. But no single argument of its advocates seems to us to carry so great a persuasive force as the difficulty which its ablest opponents encounter in making a plausible statement of their objections. We trust we do not fail in deference to our esteemed a.s.sociates on the committee when we avow our opinion that their report is no exception to this rule.

The people of the United States and of the several States have founded their political inst.i.tutions upon the principle that all men have an equal right to a share in the government. The doctrine is expressed in various forms. The Declaration of Independence a.s.serts that "all men are created equal" and that "governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." The Virginia bill of rights, the work of Jefferson and George Mason, affirms that "no man or set of men are ent.i.tled to exclusive or separate emoluments or privileges from the rest of the community but in consideration of public services." The Ma.s.sachusetts bill of rights, the work of John Adams, besides reaffirming these axioms, declares that "all the inhabitants of this commonwealth, having such qualifications as they shall establish by their frame of government, have an equal right to elect officers, and to be elected for public employment." These principles, after full and profound discussion by a generation of statesmen whose authority upon these subjects is greater than that of any other that ever lived, have been accepted by substantially the whole American people as the dictates alike of practical wisdom and of natural justice. The experience of a hundred years has strengthened their hold upon the popular conviction. Our fathers failed in three particulars to carry these principles to their logical result. They required a property qualification for the right to vote and to hold office.

They kept the negro in slavery. They excluded women from a share in the government. The first two of these inconsistencies have been remedied. The property test no longer exists. The fifteenth amendment provides that race, color, or previous servitude shall no longer be a disqualification. There are certain qualifications of age, of residence, and, in some instances of education, demanded; but these are such as all sane men may easily attain.

This report is not the place to discuss or vindicate the correctness of this theory. In so far as the opponents of woman suffrage are driven to deny it, for the purpose of an argument addressed to the American people, they are driven to confess that they are in the wrong. This people are committed to the doctrine of universal suffrage by their const.i.tutions, their history and their opinions. They must stand by it or fall by it. The poorest, humblest, feeblest of sane men has the ballot in his hand, and no other man can show a better t.i.tle to it. Those things wherein men are unequal--intelligence, ability, integrity, experience, t.i.tle to public confidence by reason of previous public service--have their natural and legitimate influence under a government wherein each man's vote is counted, to quite as great a degree as under any other form of government that ever existed.

We believe that the principle of universal suffrage stands to-day stronger than ever in the judgment of mankind. Some eminent and accomplished scholars, alarmed by the corruption and recklessness manifested in our great cities, deceived by exaggerated representations of the misgovernment of the Southern States by a race just emerging from slavery, disgusted by the extent to which great numbers of our fellow-citizens have gone astray in the metaphysical subtleties of financial discussion, have uttered their eloquent warnings of the danger of the failure of universal suffrage. Such utterances from such sources have been frequent.

They were never more abundant than in the early part of the present century. They are, when made in a serious and patriotic spirit, to be received with the grat.i.tude due to that greatest of public benefactors--he who points out to the people their dangers and their faults.

But popular suffrage is to be tried not by comparison with ideal standards of excellence, but by comparison with other forms of government. We are willing to submit our century of it to this test. The crimes that have stained our history have come chiefly from its denial, not from its establishment. The misgovernment and corruption of our great cities have been largely due to men whose birth and training have been under other systems. The abuses attributed by political hostility to negro governments at the South--governments from which the intelligence and education of the State held themselves sulkily aloof--do not equal those which existed under the English or French aristocracy within the memory of living men. There have been crimes, blunders, corruptions, follies in the history of our republic. Aristides has been banished from public employment, while Cleon has been followed by admiring throngs. But few of these things have been due to the extension of the suffrage. Strike out of our history the crimes of slavery, strike out the crimes, unparalleled for ferocity and brutality, committed by an oligarchy in its attempt to overthrow universal suffrage, and we may safely challenge for our national and State governments comparison with monarchy or aristocracy in their best and purest periods.