The History of Woman Suffrage Volume I Part 79

Mrs. HALLOCK: Well, then, your laws. It is a pity that those statutes should not be revised so as to give a widow a carpet and other smaller articles of luxury. [Great laughter].

And such was the boasted "protection" secured to the wives and mothers by the laws of the most civilized nations on the globe, and such the law-makers in whose hands woman's interests were supposed to be secure, when we began our battle for equality. Cla.s.s laws, cla.s.s legislation, legalized robbery from the unborn child, down to the commonest necessaries of life, has been the "protection" woman has complained of from fathers, husbands, brothers, and sons. Those just awaking to an interest in this reform, see but the smoke of the former battles; they can not appreciate all the tyranny from which this agitation has freed them. Step by step, custom by custom, law by law, a partial victory has been wrested, and a public opinion slowly created that promises other victories in the near future.

Those who have not been through the conflict will never realize how dark the prospect was in starting. Denied education, and a place in the world of work, denied the rights of property, whether of her own earnings, or her inheritance, with the press and the pulpit, custom, and public opinion sustaining the law, was there ever a struggle entered upon, which at its beginning seemed more hopeless than this for woman? But these constant presentations of the laws, with the comments and arguments in our Conventions, gradually appealed to the understanding of sensible men and women, and opened the eyes of the community to the wrongs of woman, perpetrated under the specious name of justice.

All the sessions of this Convention were interrupted by the rowdyism of a number of men occupying the rear part of the hall.

PARKER PILLSBURY said he had attended three of these Conventions, but had not spoken in one before. He thought the ladies encroached a little on the men's rights, as in the first and second, the Methodists gave the ladies the use of their church in a city of the West, on condition that Parker Pillsbury should not be allowed to speak. [Applause and laughter]. Now that the door was open, and he had ventured in, he did not know what to say.

[Laughter and cries of "Go on"]. He would recommend the women to hold their next Convention at the ballot-box, as that would do more good than a hundred such as these. If their votes were refused, let them look the tax collectors in the face and defy them to come for taxes, as long as they were not allowed a voice in the Government. And carry the war into the Church, too, demand equality there as well as in the State.

He knew an orthodox church, consisting of twelve members. One was a man and a deacon, the remainder were women. A vote had to be taken for changing the day for the prayer-meeting, but some difficulty arose between the minister and the deacon, and the only way it could be settled was by the votes of the women. So the deacon went round on tip-toe, and put his head under each bonnet, and held a little private caucus meeting with one after another, and then returned to the altar and reported to the minister that the vote was unanimous. If women had any proper self-respect, they would scorn to remain one hour in any church in which they were not considered and recognized as equals.

OLIVER JOHNSON said there was a new church formed called "Progressive Friends," in which men and women stood on perfect equality. He said there was another church (Henry Ward Beecher's) in Brooklyn, where women were expected to vote on all questions connected with the business affairs of the congregation. Another church in this city (Rev. Dr. Cheever's) had a difficulty in which the capitalists tried to dismiss the pastor, because he maintained the right of the slave to freedom, and of the woman to the elective franchise. He agreed with Mr. Pillsbury that it was woman's duty to test her equality in the Church as well as the State.

AARON M. POWELL took the same ground. As women made the large majority in the churches, they could easily secure equal rights there if united in an effort to do so. Why, said he, are there no young women sitting at the reporters' desks, taking note of the proceedings of this Convention? He advocated the elective franchise, saying that no cla.s.s could be protected in all its rights without a voice in the laws.

A Mr. WARREN said he had no objection to woman's claiming equality, but when they declared their superiority, they injured themselves and the rising generation in teaching the young to disrespect the men of the household. (Great laughter and hisses).

Woman might be the savior of man, but was not G.o.d, and had no place in the G.o.dhead. (Laughter and cheers). He spoke from experience when he said men had already suffered much from the tyrannical usurpations of women. Let woman be the true helpmate of man, religiously, politically, morally, socially; but, oh!

said he, in a sorrowful tone, it will be a sad day for the race when woman takes command, and man is pushed aside. (Convulsive laughter, and cries of "Give us your experience.")

Mrs. FARNHAM was glad the subject of woman's superiority had been broached, and only regretted that as a scientific fact it could not be more seriously discussed.

A gentleman deprecated the fact that Mr. Warren had not been more fully heard.

THE PRESIDENT said it was the audience and not the platform that laughed. Loud calls were made for

DOUGLa.s.s, to which he responded, claiming woman's right to freedom and equality on the same grounds he based his own.

WILLIAM LLOYD GARRISON maintained woman's right to sit in Congress and the legislatures--that there should be the same number of women as men in all the national councils. He said respect for his sainted mother, love for his n.o.ble wife, and for the only daughter of his house and heart (my own f.a.n.n.y), compel me to defend the rights of all women. Those who have inaugurated this movement are worthy to be ranked with the army of martyrs and confessors in the days of old. Blessings on them! They should triumph, and every opposition be removed, that peace and love, justice and liberty, might prevail throughout the world.

A Mr. TYLER remarked that a fear had been expressed that in coming to the polls, woman would be compelled to meet men who drink and smoke. Do women encounter no such evils in their homes?

Whisky and tobacco are much greater obstacles at the marriage altar than at the polls--in the relation of wife than in that of citizen.

GEORGE WILLIAM CURTIS, then in the height of his reputation (as Howadji), spoke at length in favor of suffrage for woman, but amid constant interruptions. With a short speech from Mrs. Rose, the Convention adjourned amid great confusion.

NINTH NATIONAL CONVENTION.

In accordance with a call issued by the Central Committee, the Ninth National Woman's Rights Convention was held in the City of New York on Thursday, May 12, 1859.

The sessions commenced with a business meeting, on the afternoon of that day, in Mozart Hall. The meeting was called to order by SUSAN B.

ANTHONY, of Rochester, New York, who made a few introductory remarks, after which, the question of the expediency of memorializing the Legislatures of the different States, on the subject of granting equal rights to Woman, was discussed at some length. At the close of the debate, a resolution was adopted, that it was expedient so to memorialize the several Legislatures, and a committee[157] was appointed for that purpose, and a series of resolutions[158] offered by Caroline H. Dall.

These resolutions were discussed by Mrs. Dall, Mrs. Hallock, Mrs.

Elizabeth Neal Gay, Lucretia Mott, A. M. Powell, Charles C. Burleigh, and others.

EVENING SESSION.

At an early hour, Mozart Hall was crowded to overflowing, every seat being occupied, and crowds standing in the aisle, and the rear of the hall.

LUCRETIA MOTT had been chosen to preside, but was not able, on account of the crowd, to reach the platform at the hour appointed. The Convention was therefore called to order by Susan B. Anthony.

Mrs. CAROLINE H. DALL, of Boston, was the first speaker. She desired to commemorate the century which had just closed since the death of Mary Woolstonecraft, and to show that what she did in the old world, Margaret Fuller had done in the new; but the noise and restlessness among the audience were so great (much of which, we charitably hope, was attributable rather to the discomfort of their position than to any want of respect for the speaker, or for the cause which the Convention represented), that she yielded to the wish of the presiding officer, and sat down without speaking of Margaret Fuller.

Short speeches were made by Lucretia Mott, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, and Ernestine L. Rose; but as it proved to be another turbulent meeting, Wendell Phillips, who understood from long experience how to play with and lash a mob, and thrust what he wished to say into their long ears, all with one consent yielded the platform to him, and for nearly two hours he held that mocking crowd in the hollow of his hand.

In closing he said:

I will not attempt to detain you longer. ["Go on"--"Go on."] I have neither the disposition nor the strength to trespa.s.s any longer upon your attention. The subject is so large that it might well fill days, instead of hours. It covers the whole surface of American society. It touches religion, purity, political economy, wages, the safety of cities, the growth of ideas, the very success of our experiment. I gave to-night a character to the city of Was.h.i.+ngton which some men hissed. You know it is true. If this experiment of self-government is to succeed, it is to succeed by some saving element introduced into the politics of the present day. You know this: Your Websters, your Clays, your Calhouns, your Douglases, however intellectually able they may have been, have never dared or cared to touch that moral element of our national life. Either the shallow and heartless trade of politics had eaten out their own moral being, or they feared to enter the unknown land of lofty right and wrong.

Neither of these great names has linked its fame with one great moral question of the day. They deal with money questions, with tariffs, with parties, with State law, and if by chance they touch the slave question, it is only like Jewish hucksters trading in the relics of Saints. The reformers--the fanatics, as we are called--are the only ones who have launched social and moral questions. I risk nothing when I say, that the anti-slavery discussion of the last twenty years has been the salt of this nation; it has actually kept it alive and wholesome. Without it, our politics would have sunk beyond even contempt. So with this question. It stirs the deepest sympathy; it appeals to the highest moral sense; it enwraps within itself the greatest moral issues. Judge it, then, candidly, carefully, as Americans, and let us show ourselves worthy of the high place to which G.o.d has called us in human affairs. (Applause).

MEMORIAL.

To the Honorable the Legislature of the State of ----

The National Woman's Rights Convention, held in New York City, May 12, 1859, appointed your memorialists a Committee to call your attention to the anomalous position of one-half the people of this Republic.

All republican const.i.tutions set forth the great truth that every human being is endowed with certain inalienable rights--such as life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness--and as a consequence, a right to the use of all those means necessary to secure these grand results.

1st.--A citizen can not be said to have a right to life, who may be deprived of it for the violation of laws to which she has never consented--who is denied the right of trial by a jury of her peers--who has no voice in the election of judges who are to decide her fate.

2d.--A citizen can not be said to have a right to liberty, when the custody of her person belongs to another; when she has no civil or political rights--no right even to the wages she earns; when she can make no contracts--neither buy nor sell, sue or be sued--and yet can be taxed without representation.

3d.--A citizen can not be said to have a right to happiness, when denied the right to person, property, children, and home; when the code of laws under which she is compelled to live is far more unjust and tyrannical than that which our fathers repudiated at the mouth of the cannon nearly one century ago.

Now, we would ask on what principle of republicanism, justice, or common humanity, a minority of the people of this Republic have monopolized to themselves all the rights of the whole? Where, under our Declaration of Independence, does the white Saxon man get his power to deprive all women and negroes of their inalienable rights?

The mothers of the Revolution bravely shared all dangers, persecutions, and death; and their daughters now claim an equal share in all the glories and triumphs of your success. Shall they stand before a body of American legislators and ask in vain for their right of suffrage--their right of property--their right to the wages they earn--their right to their children and their homes--their sacred right to personal liberty--to a trial by a jury of their peers?

In view of these high considerations, we demand, then, that you shall, by your future legislation, secure to women all those rights and privileges and immunities which in equity belong to every citizen of a republic.

And we demand that whenever you shall remodel the Const.i.tution of the State in which you live, the word "male" shall be expurgated, and that henceforth you shall legislate for all citizens. There can be no privileged cla.s.ses in a truly democratic government.

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, MARTHA C. WEIGHT, WENDELL PHILLIPS, CAROLINE M. SEVERANCE, CAROLINE H. DALL, THOMAS W. HIGGINSON, ERNESTINE L. ROSE, SUSAN B. ANTHONY, ANTOINETTE BROWN BLACKWELL, _Committee_.

The above memorial was extensively circulated and sent to the Legislature of every State in the nation, but, owing to the John Brown raid and the general unrest and forebodings of the people on the eve of our civil war, it commanded but little attention.

FORM OF APPEAL AND PEt.i.tION CIRCULATED IN THE STATE OF NEW YORK DURING THE SUMMER AND AUTUMN OF 1859.

_To the Women of the Empire State:_

It is the desire and purpose of those interested in the Woman's Rights movement, to send up to our next Legislature an overwhelming pet.i.tion, for the civil and political rights of woman. These rights must be secured just as soon as the majority of the women of the State make the demand. To this end, we have decided thoroughly to canva.s.s our State before the close of the present year. We shall hold conventions in every county, distribute tracts and circulate pet.i.tions, in order, if possible, to arouse a proper self-respect in woman.

The want of funds has heretofore crippled all our efforts, but as large bequests have been made to our cause during the past year, we are now able to send out agents and to commence anew our work, which shall never end, until, in Church and State, and at the fireside, the equality of woman shall be fully recognized.

We hope much from our Republican legislators. Their well-known professions encourage us to believe that our task is by no means a hard one. We shall look for their hearty co-operation in every effort for the elevation of humanity. We have had bills before the Legislature for several years, on some of which, from time to time, have had most favorable reports. The property bill of '48 was pa.s.sed by a large majority. The various bills of rights, to wages, children, suffrage, etc., have been respectfully considered. The bill presented at the last session, giving to married women their rights to make contracts, and to their wages, pa.s.sed the House with only three dissenting votes, but owing to the pressure of business at the close of the session, it was never brought before the Senate.