The History of Woman Suffrage Volume I Part 54

I believe that the Convention which framed the Const.i.tution had no view to the admission of females, either single women or widows, to elect the public officers. But such is the phraseology of the Const.i.tution that it seems a violation of it not to admit their votes. The best const.i.tutions have guarded against mistakes on this head. Those of Ma.s.sachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Vermont, etc., do not admit of female electors. Whether this be right or wrong, the objection to our Const.i.tution is, that it does not settle the point one way or the other with an absolute certainty. The practice is variable. The generally received opinion, however, is that the Const.i.tution permits it.

In this state of the matter it is not competent for the Legislature to interfere. Nothing short of a const.i.tutional declaration can decide the question; which is, in fact, an important one, and is growing more and more so to the country in proportion as the towns and villages increase in numbers and population. For, independent of the theoretic question, it is evident that the admission of these votes gives a vast advantage to the thickly settled places over the more dispersed population of the country.

In another note the author says: "Mr. Fox in his late harangue in the British House of Commons, in favor of more _equal_ suffrage, concedes the unfitness of _females_ to share in elections. He says no instance of their partic.i.p.ation of public suffrage in any government can be shown; and that this right (which many of his party hold to be a natural one, though he affects to stop short of that) is properly denied to the fairest productions of nature.

Of widows and spinsters above twenty-one, there can not, I imagine, be fewer than 10,000. It is certainly not unimportant to leave doubtful the rights of so great a number of people."

Mr. Whitehead's report clearly shows three unjust inferences from the facts stated:

_First._ That all the corruptions of that special election in Ess.e.x County could be traced to the women.

_Second._ That the quiet, good order, and dignity of the State could be secured only by the restriction of the suffrage to "free white male citizens worth fifty pounds."

_Third._ "The unreasonableness of the demand" for representation by women tax-payers.

1st. Tradition shows that the voting early and often in varied feminine costume, was done by men five feet four, "picked men," not for their bravery, but for their inferiority. Depriving women of their right to vote, because the men abused their privilege, under cover of s.e.x, in 1807, was, however, on the same principle that politicians in 1881 propose to disfranchise the women of Utah, because of their polygamous relations. That is, punish the women who claim a right to only one-sixth part of a man's time and affections, because the men claim six wives apiece. The question naturally suggests itself to any fair mind, why not deprive the men of the suffrage, and let the women vote themselves each one husband? Who doubts the fate of the system under such legislation? Every woman in her normal condition, unless wholly perverted by the religious dogma of self-sacrifice and self-crucifixion, desires to own the man she loves as absolutely and completely, as every man desires to consecrate to himself alone the woman he loves. So to deprive the women of Ess.e.x of their right to vote to have the county buildings in Elizabeth, because of the undue excitement and dishonesty of the men, was to punish the best cla.s.s of citizens for the crimes of the worst.

2d. The a.s.sumption that "free white male citizens worth fifty pounds,"

could legislate for "aliens, women, and negroes," better than those cla.s.ses could for themselves, is to deny the fundamental principle of republicanism; Governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed; and to rea.s.sert the despotic ideas of the old world that national safety depends on the wisdom of privileged orders--n.o.bles, kings, and czars. The experiment in Wyoming has fully proved that when "free white male citizens" reigned supreme, the polls there were scenes of drunkenness, violence, and death; men knocking each other down and putting bullets through each other's brains were of annual occurrence. But when the suffrage was extended, and women admitted to the polling booths, quiet, good order, and dignity were inaugurated.

3d. "Taxation without representation is tyranny." James Otis said: "To tax a man's property without his consent, is in effect disfranchising him of every civil right. For what one civil right is worth a rush, after a man's property is subject to be taken from him at the pleasure of another?" Is not such injustice as grievous to woman as man? Does the accident of s.e.x place woman outside of all ordinary principles of law and justice? It is the essence of cruelty and tyranny to take her hard earnings without her consent, blocked as her way is to wealth and independence, to make sidewalks, highways, and bridges; to build jails, prisons, and alms-houses, the legitimate outgrowth of the whisky traffic, which she abhors. On what principle of republican government is one cla.s.s of tax-payers thus defrauded of one of the most sacred rights of citizens.h.i.+p? What logical argument can be made to prove "the unreasonableness of this demand," for one cla.s.s above all others? Principles of justice, to have any value or significance, must be universal in their application to all humanity.

4th. As to the point made by "Eumenes," "that women are not fit persons to take part in government," "that they do not even pretend to any judgment on the subject," we have simply to say that the writer's prejudices contradict all the facts of our common experience. Women are so pre-eminently fitted for government, that the one fear in all ages among men has been lest by some chance they should be governed by women; and the smaller the man the greater the fear.

Blackstone says "the elements of sovereignty are three: 'Wisdom, Goodness, and Power.'" Admitting for the sake of argument that "Power"

in this connection means physical force, the distinctive point of male superiority, and not moral power, which may be equal in both s.e.xes, all must concede the remaining necessary elements to woman as well as man. Who so bold, or blind, as to deny wisdom and goodness, the chief elements of beneficent government, to woman, with the long record of ill.u.s.trious and saintly characters gilding every page of history before him?

Whatever doubts the women known to the author of "Eumenes" might have had as to their own capacities; the women of to-day do a.s.sume to know that they are more capable of self-government than men are, and that they understand the principles that underlie a republic far better than the vast majority of foreigners now crowding our sh.o.r.es, the Right Honorable James Charles Fox to the contrary notwithstanding.

Yea, without danger of contradiction, we may say there are women in this nation even now, who understand the political issues of this hour quite as well as those who stand at the head of our government.

We are very apt to accept popular a.s.sertions ofttimes repeated as truisms, and in this way man's superiority has pa.s.sed into a proverb, and the s.e.x in general believe it. When Milton penned the line, "G.o.d, thy will, thou mine," and made his Eve thus reverently submissive to her Adam, he little thought of bright girls in the nineteenth century, well versed in science, philosophy, and the languages, sitting in the senior cla.s.s of a college of the American republic, laughing his male conceit to scorn.

FOOTNOTES:

[76] The _New York Tribune_, Feb. 19, 1881, gives the following interesting facts: "William Franklin, the illegitimate son of Benjamin, who was long a resident of New York and hereabout, conducted in person his father's postal system. At Amboy, or Perth Amboy, a little town of once high aristocratic standing, which dozes on the edge of the Jersey hills and overlooks the oyster groves of Prince's Bay, began the Post-Office of North America under John Hamilton in 1694. It was a private patent, and he sold it to the Government. Many years afterward William Franklin settled at the same place, where once his father pa.s.sed in Hamilton's day a footsore vagrant pressing from Boston to Philadelphia to get bread. There the younger Franklin reared a 'palace,' and lived in it as Governor of New Jersey till his adherence to the Crown, that had done better for him than his father--made him an exile and a captive. He was sent under guard to East Windsor, Conn., and his jail was made in the house of Captain Ebenezer Grant there, of the family of President Grant's ancestors, and he was prohibited the use of pen, ink, and paper--a needless punishment to a man who had delivered so many letters to others."

[77] In the _New York Observer_, 1876.

[78] After a diligent search for Mr. James Ross and his promised "interesting chapter of local history," we learned that the author was in his grave, and that from his posthumous papers this valuable doc.u.ment had not yet been exhumed by his literary executor.

[79] The following letter contains the sentiments referred to in the text:

ORANGE, N. J., _Dec. 18, 1858_.

MR. MANDEVILLE, TAX COLLECTOR, SIR:--Enclosed I return my tax bill, without paying it. My reason for doing so is, that women suffer taxation, and yet have no representation, which is not only unjust to one-half the adult population, but is contrary to our theory of government. For years some women have been paying their taxes under protest, but still taxes are imposed, and representation is not granted. The only course now left us is to refuse to pay the tax. We know well what the immediate result of this refusal must be.

But we believe that when the attention of men is called to the wide difference between their theory of government and its practice, in this particular, they can not fail to see the mistake they now make, by imposing taxes on women, while they refuse them the right of suffrage, and that the sense of justice which is in all good men, will lead them to correct it. Then we shall cheerfully pay our taxes--not till then.

Respectfully, LUCY STONE.

[80] See _Was.h.i.+ngton National Intelligencer_ for Oct. 15, 1857, and _Historical Magazine_, Vol. I., page 360.

[81] _Frank Leslie's Magazine_, Feb., 1877.

CHAPTER XIII.

REMINISCENCES.

BY E. C. S.

The reports of the Conventions held in Seneca Falls and Rochester, N.

Y., in 1848, attracted the attention of one destined to take a most important part in the new movement--Susan B. Anthony, who for her courage and executive ability was facetiously called by William Henry Charming, the Napoleon of our struggle. At this time she was teaching in the Academy at Canajoharie, a little village in the beautiful valley of the Mohawk.

"The Woman's Declaration of Independence" issued from those conventions, startled and amused her, and she laughed heartily at the novelty and presumption of the demand. But on returning home to spend her vacation, she was surprised to find that her sober Quaker parents and sisters having attended the Rochester meetings, regarded them as very profitable and interesting, and the demands made as proper and reasonable. She was already interested in the anti-slavery and temperance reforms, and was an active member of an organization called "The Daughters of Temperance," and had spoken a few times in their public meetings. But the new gospel of "Woman's Rights," found a ready response in her mind, and from that time her best efforts have been given to the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman.

It was in the month of May, of 1851, that I first met Miss Anthony.

That was to both of us an eventful meeting, that in a measure henceforth shaped our lives. As our own estimate of ourselves and our friends.h.i.+p may differ somewhat from that taken from an objective point of view, I will give an extract from what a mutual friend wrote of us some years ago:

Miss Susan B. Anthony, a well-known, indefatigable and life-long advocate of temperance, anti-slavery, and woman's rights, has been, since 1851, Mrs. Stanton's intimate a.s.sociate in reformatory labors. These celebrated women are of about equal ages, but of the most opposite characteristics, and ill.u.s.trate the theory of counterparts in affection by entertaining for each other a friends.h.i.+p of extraordinary strength.

Mrs. Stanton is a fine writer, but a poor executant; Miss Anthony is a thorough manager, but a poor writer. Both have large brains and great hearts; neither has any selfish ambition for celebrity; but each vies with the other in a n.o.ble enthusiasm, for the cause to which they are devoting their lives.

Nevertheless, to describe them critically, I ought to say that opposites though they be, each does not so much supplement the other's difficiencies as augment the other's eccentricities. Thus they often stimulate each other's aggressiveness, and at the same time diminish each other's discretion.

But whatever may be the imprudent utterances of the one, or the impolitic methods of the other, the animating motives of both are evermore as white as the light. The good that they do is by design; the harm by accident. These two women sitting together in their parlors, have for the last thirty years been diligent forgers of all manner of projectiles, from fire works to thunderbolts, and have hurled them with unexpected explosion into the midst of all manner of educational, reformatory, religious, and political a.s.semblies, sometimes to the pleasant surprise and half welcome of the members, more often to the bewilderment and prostration of numerous victims; and in a few signal instances, to the gnas.h.i.+ng of angry men's teeth. I know of no two more pertinacious incendiaries in the whole country! Nor will they themselves deny the charge. In fact this noise-making twain are the two sticks of a drum for keeping up what Daniel Webster called "the rub-a-dub of agitation."

How well I remember the day I first met my life-long friend. George Thompson and William Lloyd Garrison having announced an anti-slavery meeting in Seneca Falls, Miss Anthony came to attend it. These gentlemen were my guests. Walking home after the adjournment, we met Mrs. Bloomer and Miss Anthony on the corner of the street waiting to greet us. There she stood with her good earnest face and genial smile, dressed in gray silk, hat and all the same color, relieved with pale blue ribbons, the perfection of neatness and sobriety. I liked her thoroughly, and why I did not at once invite her home with me to dinner, I do not know. She accuses me of that neglect and never has forgiven me, as she wished to see and hear all she could of our n.o.ble friends. I suppose my mind was full of what I had heard, or my coming dinner, or the probable behavior of three mischievous boys who had been busily exploring the premises while I was at the meeting. That I had abundant cause for anxiety in regard to the philosophical experiments these young savages might try, the reader will admit when informed of some of their performances.[82]

It is often said by those who know Miss Anthony best, that she has been my good angel, always pus.h.i.+ng and guiding me to work, that but for her pertinacity I should never have accomplished the little I have; and on the other hand, it has been said that I forged the thunderbolts and she fired them. Perhaps all this is in a measure true. With the cares of a large family, I might in time, like too many women, have become wholly absorbed in a narrow family selfishness, had not my friend been continually exploring new fields for missionary labors. Her description of a body of men on any platform, complacently deciding questions in which women had an equal interest, without an equal voice, readily roused me to a determination to throw a firebrand in the midst of their a.s.sembly.

Thus, whenever I saw that stately Quaker girl coming across my lawn, I knew that some happy convocation of the sons of Adam were to be set by the ears, by one of our appeals or resolutions. The little portmanteau stuffed with facts was opened, and there we had what the Rev. John Smith and the Hon. Richard Roe had said, false interpretations of Bible texts, the statistics of women robbed of their property, shut out of some college, half paid for their work, the reports of some disgraceful trial, injustice enough to turn any woman's thoughts from stockings and puddings. Then we would get out our pens and write articles for papers, or a pet.i.tion to the Legislature, letters to the faithful here and there, stir up the women in Ohio, Pennsylvania, or Ma.s.sachusetts, call on _The Lily_, _The Una_, _The Liberator_, and _The Standard_, to remember our wrongs as well as those of the slave.

We never met without issuing a p.r.o.nunciamento on some question.

We were at once fast friends, in thought and sympathy we were one, and in the division of labor we exactly complemented each other. In writing we did better work together than either could alone. While she is slow and a.n.a.lytical in composition, I am rapid and synthetic. I am the better writer, she the better critic. She supplied the facts and statistics, I the philosophy and rhetoric, and together we have made arguments that have stood unshaken by the storms of thirty long years: arguments that no man has answered. Our speeches may be considered the united product of our two brains.

So entirely one are we, that in all our a.s.sociations, ever side by side on the same platform, not one feeling of jealousy or envy has ever shadowed our lives. We have indulged freely in criticism of each other when alone, and hotly contended whenever we have differed, but in our friends.h.i.+p of thirty years there has never been a break of one hour. To the world we always seem to agree and uniformly reflect each other. Like husband and wife, each has the feeling that we must have no differences in public. Thus united, at an early day we began to survey the State and nation, the future field of our labors. We read with critical eyes the proceedings of Congress and Legislatures, of General a.s.semblies and Synods, of Conferences and Conventions, and discovered that in all alike the existence of woman was entirely ignored.

Night after night by an old-fas.h.i.+oned fireplace we plotted and planned the coming agitation, how, when, and where each entering wedge could be driven, by which woman might be recognized, and her rights secured.

Speedily the State was aflame with disturbances in temperance and teachers' conventions, and the press heralded the news far and near that women delegates had suddenly appeared demanding admission in men's conventions; that their rights had been hotly contended session after session, by liberal men on the one side; the clergy and learned professors on the other; an overwhelming majority rejecting the women with terrible anathemas and denunciations. Such battles were fought over and over in the chief cities of many of the Northern States, until the bigotry of men in all the reforms and professions was thoroughly tested. Every right achieved: to enter a college; to study a profession; to labor in some new industry, or to advocate a reform measure, was contended for inch by inch.

Many of those enjoying all these blessings, now complacently say, "If these pioneers in reform, had only pressed their measures more judiciously; in a more ladylike manner; in more choice language; in a more deferential att.i.tude, the gentlemen could not have behaved so rudely." We give in these pages enough of the characteristics of these women, of the sentiments they expressed, of their education, ancestry, and position, to show that no power could have met the prejudice and bigotry of that period more successfully than they did, who so bravely and persistently fought and conquered them.

True, those gentlemen were all quite willing that women should join their societies and churches, to do the drudgery, to work up the enthusiasm in fairs and revivals, conventions and flag presentations, to pay a dollar apiece into their treasury for the honor of being members of their various organizations, to beg money for the church, circulate pet.i.tions from door to door, to visit saloons, to pray with or defy rum-sellers, to teach school at half-price, and sit round the outskirts of a hall like so many wall flowers in teachers' State Conventions; but they would not allow them to sit on the platform, address the a.s.sembly, nor vote for men and measures.

Those who had learned the first lessons of human rights from the lips of Beriah Green, Samuel J. May, and Gerrit Smith, would not accept any such position. When women abandoned the temperance reform, all interest in the question gradually died out in the State, and practically nothing was done in New York for nearly twenty years.

Gerrit Smith made one or two attempts toward an "anti-dram-shop party," but as women could not vote they felt no interest in the measure, and failure was the result.