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The History of Woman Suffrage, Volume IV
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CHAPTER XXXI.

DAKOTA 543-544

Suffrage work in the Territory.

NORTH DAKOTA 544-552

Efforts of women for the franchise in first constitutional convention — Organization of suffrage clubs to secure amendment of constitution — Legislative action and laws — School Suffrage — Office-holding of women — Occupations — Education — Clubs.

SOUTH DAKOTA 552-562

Same as above — Campaign of 1890 to secure Woman Suffrage Amendment — Assistance of National Association — Hardships of the canvass — Treachery of politicians — Amendment defeated by nearly 24,000 — Second attempt in 1898 — Defeated by 3,285.

CHAPTER XXXII.

DELAWARE 563-566

Organization for suffrage — Legislative action and laws — School Suffrage — Office-holding of women — Occupations — Education — Clubs.

CHAPTER XXXIII.

DISTRICT OF COLUMBIA 567-576

Peculiar position of women — Work of Suffrage Association with Congressional Committees — Property rights secured — Women on School Board — Women in Government Departments — Woman's College of Law — Other things accomplished by women of the District.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

FLORIDA 577-580

Organization for suffrage — Effort to raise "age of protection" for girls and its failure — Laws — Occupations — Education.

CHAPTER XXXV.

GEORGIA 581-588

Same as above — Annual convention of National Association in 1895.

CHAPTER XXXVI.

IDAHO 589-597

First work for woman suffrage — Submission of Amendment — Campaign of 1896 — Favored by all political parties — Carried by large majority — Favorable decision of Supreme Court — Women elected to office — Percentage of women voting — Effects of woman's vote — Endorsement of prominent men — Laws, etc.

CHAPTER XXXVII.

ILLINOIS 598-613

Organization — Obtaining School Suffrage — Supreme Court gives wide latitude to Legislature — Women trustees for State University — Equal guardianship of children for mothers — Many women in office — Women's part in Columbian Exposition — Remarkable achievement of two teachers in compelling corporations to pay taxes — Education.

CHAPTER XXXVIII.

INDIANA 614-627

Early suffrage organization — Efforts in political conventions — Work in Legislature — Laws — Amazing decisions of Supreme Court on the right of women to practice law, keep a saloon and vote — Struggle for police matrons — Women organized in fifty departments of work.

CHAPTER XXXIX.

IOWA 628-637

Long years of organized work — Continued refusal of Legislature to submit a Woman Suffrage Amendment to voters — Convention of the National Association in 1897 — Liberal laws for women — Many holding office — Bond Suffrage.

CHAPTER XL.

KANSAS 638-664

Organization work and large number of conventions — Granting of Municipal Suffrage — Alliance with parties — Efforts for Full Suffrage — Amendment submitted — Republicans fail to endorse — Campaign of 1894 — National Association and officers assist — Amendment defeated by defection of all parties — Attempt to secure suffrage by statute — A pioneer in liberal laws for women — They hold offices not held by those of any other State — Official statistics of woman's vote — Many restrictions placed on Municipal Suffrage — Class of women who use the franchise.

CHAPTER XLI.

KENTUCKY 665-677

Organization — Efforts to secure Full Suffrage from Constitutional Convention — State Association succeeds in revolutionizing the property laws for women — School Suffrage — Educational facilities, etc.

CHAPTER XLII.

LOUISIANA 678-688

Women's work at Cotton Centennial and in Anti-lottery Campaign — Organization for suffrage — Efforts in Constitutional Convention of 1898 — Taxpayer's Suffrage granted to women — Campaign in New Orleans for Sewerage and Drainage — Measure carried by the women — Napoleonic code of laws.

CHAPTER XLIII.

MAINE 689-694

Organization for suffrage — Legislative action and laws — Office-holding of women — Occupations — Education — Clubs.

CHAPTER XLIV.

MARYLAND 695-700

Same as above — Pioneers in Woman's Rights — Women vote in Annapolis — Contest of Miss Maddox to practice law — Work of women for Medical Department of Johns Hopkins University.

CHAPTER XLV.

MASSACHUSETTS 701-750

Pioneer work for suffrage — New England and State Associations and May Festivals — List of Officers — Death of Lucy Stone — Anti-Suffrage Association formed — Fifty years of Legislative Work — Republicans declare for Woman Suffrage — Submission of Mock Referendum — Campaign in its behalf — Activity of the "antis" — Measure defeated, but woman's vote more than ten to one in favor in every district — Laws — Equal guardianship of children — School Suffrage — Women in office — Education — Pay of women teachers.

NATIONAL SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION OF MASSACHUSETTS 750-754

Organization — Efforts to secure large school vote — Legislative work — Assistance in Referendum Campaign — Press work — Many meetings held.

CHAPTER XLVI.

MICHIGAN 755-771

Organization — Efforts in political conventions — Municipal Suffrage granted to women — Declared unconstitutional by Supreme Court — Coarse methods of opponents — Convention of National Association in 1899 — Laws — School Suffrage — Woman can not be prosecuting attorney — Education, etc.

CHAPTER XLVII.

MINNESOTA 772-782

Organization — Legislative action and laws — School and Library Suffrage — Women in office — Occupations — Education — Clubs.

CHAPTER XLVIII.

MISSISSIPPI 783-789

Organization — Legislative action — Good property laws — Efforts to secure suffrage for women from Constitutional Convention — Fragmentary franchise — Education.

CHAPTER XLIX.

MISSOURI 790-795

Organization — Legislative action and laws — Office-holding — Education.

CHAPTER L.

MONTANA 796-801

Organization — Attempt to obtain Woman Suffrage from first Constitutional Convention — School and Taxpayers' Suffrage granted — Legislative action and laws — Office-holding — Women's work for location of capital and at World's Fair.

CHAPTER LI.

NEBRASKA 802-809

Same as above — (School Suffrage).

CHAPTER LII.

NEVADA 810-814

Same as above.

CHAPTER LIII.

NEW HAMPSHIRE 815-819

Same as above — School Suffrage.

CHAPTER LIV.

NEW JERSEY 820-834

Organization — Attempt for amendment for School Suffrage — Defeated by 10,000 majority — Legislative action and laws — First State in which women voted — How they were deprived of the ballot — Franchise now possessed — Office-holding — Women in professions.

CHAPTER LV.

NEW MEXICO 835-838

Organization — Legislative action and laws — Office-holding — Education — Equal rights for women among Spanish-Americans.

CHAPTER LVI.

NEW YORK 839-873

Battle-ground for Woman Suffrage — Conventions for fifty years — Great campaign in 1894 to secure amendment from Constitutional Convention — Governors Hill and Flower recommend women delegates — Parties refuse to nominate them — Miss Anthony speaks in all the sixty counties — Vast amount of work by other women — In New York and Albany women organize in opposition — 600,000 petition for suffrage, 15,000 against — Convention refuses to submit Amendment to voters — Long-continued efforts in Legislature — Liberal laws for women — School and Taxpayers' Suffrage — Many women in office — Superior educational advantages — Political and other clubs.

CHAPTER LVII.

NORTH CAROLINA 874-876

Agitation of suffrage question — Legislative action and laws — Education.

CHAPTER LVIII.

OHIO 877-885

Organization — Mrs. Southworth's excellent scheme of enrollment — Legislative action and laws — Successful contest in Legislature and Supreme Court for School Suffrage — Women on School Boards — Education — Clubs — Rookwood pottery.

CHAPTER LIX.

OKLAHOMA 886-890

Organization — Legislative action and laws — Attempt to secure Full Suffrage from Legislature of 1899 — Eastern "antis" and Oklahoma liquor dealers co-operate — Treachery of a pretended friend — Office-holding — School Suffrage.

CHAPTER LX.

OREGON 891-897

Organization — Congress of Women — Legislature submits Suffrage Amendment — Defeated in 1900 by only 2,000 votes, nearly all in Portland — Excellent laws for women — School Suffrage — Occupations.

CHAPTER LXI.

PENNSYLVANIA 898-906

Organization — Press work — Philadelphia society — Women taxpayers — Legislative action and laws — Office-holding — Hannah Penn a Governor — Women in professions — Oldest Medical College for Women — Educational advantages — Clubs.

CHAPTER LXII.

RHODE ISLAND 907-921

Early organization — State officers — Legislative action and laws — Campaign for Woman Suffrage Amendment in 1887 — Ably advocated but defeated — Efforts to secure Amendment from Constitutional Convention in 1897 — Women in office — Admitted to Brown University — Clubs and Local Council of Women.

CHAPTER LXIII.

SOUTH CAROLINA 922-925

Organization — Legislative action and laws — Office-holding — Education.

CHAPTER LXIV.

TENNESSEE 926-930

Organization — Protest of women against disfranchisement — Legislative action — Cruel laws for women — Occupations — Education.

CHAPTER LXV.

TEXAS 931-935

Organization — Laws — Office-holding — Occupations — Education.

CHAPTER LXVI.

UTAH 936-956

Women enfranchised by Territorial Legislature in 1870 — Woman's Exponent — Congress disfranchises women in 1887 — They organize to secure their rights — Canvass the State and hold mass meetings — Appear before Constitutional Convention and ask for Suffrage Amendment, which is granted—Miss Anthony and the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw visit Salt Lake City—Amendment carried by large majority in 1895—Official statistics of woman's vote—Laws—Office-holding—Women legislators—Women delegates—Education—Clubs.

CHAPTER LXVII.

VERMONT 957-963

Organization — Legislative action and laws — School Suffrage — Women office-holders — Education — Progressive steps.

CHAPTER LXVIII.

VIRGINIA 964-966

Agitation of suffrage question — Laws for women — Education — Woman head of family.

CHAPTER LXIX.

WASHINGTON 967-979

Women enfranchised by Territorial Legislature in 1883 — Figures of vote — Unconstitutionally disfranchised by Supreme Court — Suffrage Amendment refused in Constitutional Convention for Statehood — Submitted separately and defeated in 1889 — Action of political conventions in 1896 — Experience in Legislature — Amendment again submitted — Campaign of 1898 — Defeated by majority less than one-half that of nine years before — Organization — Legislative action and laws — School suffrage — Office-holding — Occupations.

CHAPTER LXX.

WEST VIRGINIA 980-984

Organization — Legislative action and laws — Office-holding — Education.

CHAPTER LXXI.

WISCONSIN 985-993

Organization — Canvass of State — Long but successful struggle to secure School Suffrage — Decisions of Supreme Court — Laws — Women in office — Education.

CHAPTER LXXII.

WYOMING 994-1011

First place in the United States to enfranchise women — Territorial Legislature gave Full Suffrage in 1869 — People satisfied with it — Constitutional Convention for Statehood unanimously includes Woman Suffrage — Strong speeches in favor — Fight against it in Congress — Debate for amusement of present and wonder of future generations — Men of Wyoming stand firm — Finally admitted to the Union — Celebration in new State — Honors paid to women — Miss Anthony and the Rev. Anna Howard Shaw visit Cheyenne — Interesting scene — Highest testimony in favor of Woman Suffrage — Legislature of 1901 urges every State to enfranchise its women — Women on juries — Effects of woman's vote — Laws — Office-holding.

CHAPTER LXXIII.

GREAT BRITAIN.

EFFORTS FOR PARLIAMENTARY FRANCHISE 1012-1037

Household suffrage for men proves a disadvantage to women — Primrose League and Liberal Federation — Women in politics — Vote on Suffrage Bill in 1886 — Nineteenth Century and Fortnightly Review open their columns to a discussion — Parliamentary tactics in 1891 to defeat the Bill — Vote in 1892 shows opposing majority of only 17 out of 367 — Great efforts of women in 1895-6 — Petition of 257,796 presented — In 1897 the Bill passes second reading by majority of 71 — Kept from a vote since then by shrewd management — Its friends and its enemies — Franchise given to women in Ireland — Efforts of wage-earning women — Death of Queen Victoria.

LAWS SPECIALLY AFFECTING WOMEN 1021

Guardianship of Children, Property Rights of Wives, etc.

LAWS RELATING TO LOCAL GOVERNMENT 1022

Municipal Franchise for Women of England, Scotland and Ireland — Women on school boards, county councils, poor-law boards, etc. — Deprived of seats in borough councils.

WOMEN IN PUBLIC WORK 1023

On Royal Commissions, as factory, school and sanitary inspectors.

STEPS IN EDUCATION 1024

Admission to Universities and opening of Woman's Colleges.

THE ISLE OF MAN 1025

Full Suffrage granted to women.

NEW ZEALAND 1025

Steps for the Parliamentary Franchise — Granted in 1893 — Statistics of woman's vote.

SOUTH AUSTRALIA 1027

As above — Granted in 1894.

WEST AUSTRALIA 1029

As above — Granted in 1899.

NEW SOUTH WALES 1029

As above — Granted in 1902.

VICTORIA 1031

Efforts for Parliamentary Franchise.

QUEENSLAND 1032

As above.

TASMANIA 1033

As above.

SOUTH AFRICAN AND OTHER COLONIES 1033

DOMINION OF CANADA 1034

Efforts for Parliamentary Franchise — Present political conditions — Municipal and School Suffrage in the various Provinces — Right of women to hold office.

CHAPTER LXXIV.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE IN OTHER COUNTRIES 1038-1041

A limited vote granted in most places — Situation in Germany — Woman's franchise in Russia — Advanced action in Finland — Situation in Belgium — Many rights in Sweden and Norway.

CHAPTER LXXV.

NATIONAL ORGANIZATIONS OF WOMEN 1042-1073

First societies on record — Progress by decades — Women's club houses — Changed status of women's conventions — List of National Associations — Evolution of their objects — Women gradually learning the disadvantages of disfranchisement — 4,000,000 enrolled in organized work for the good of humanity — Must necessarily become great factor in public life — Government will be obliged to have their assistance.

APPENDIX.

EMINENT ADVOCATES OF WOMAN SUFFRAGE 1075-1085

Presidents, Vice-presidents, Supreme Court Judges, U. S. Senators and Representatives, Governors of States, Presidents of Universities, Clergymen and other noted individuals who advocate the enfranchisement of women.

TESTIMONY FROM WOMAN SUFFRAGE STATES 1085-1094

Signed statements from the highest authorities in Colorado, Idaho, Utah and Wyoming as to the value of woman's vote in public affairs and the absence of predicted evils.

NEW YORK 1094-1096

Legal opinion on Suffrage and Office-holding for Women.

WASHINGTON 1096-1098

Detailed statement of women's voting and their unconstitutional disfranchisement by the Territorial Supreme Court.

CONSTITUTION OF NATIONAL-AMERICAN WOMAN SUFFRAGE ASSOCIATION 1098-1104

Resume of its principal points — Officers — Standing and Special Committees — Life Members — List of delegates to national conventions.

ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF SUBJECTS 1105-1121

ALPHABETICAL INDEX OF PROPER NAMES 1122-1144



CHAPTER I.

WOMAN'S CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT TO VOTE.

In the early days of the movement to enfranchise women, no other method was considered than that of altering the constitution of each individual State, as it was generally accepted that the right to prescribe the qualifications for the suffrage rested entirely with the States and that the National Constitution could not be invoked for this purpose. While the word "male" was not used in this document, yet with the one exception of New Jersey, where women exercised the full suffrage from the adoption of its first constitution in 1776 until 1807, there is no record of any woman's being permitted to vote. At the inception of the republic women were almost wholly uneducated; they were unknown in the industrial world; there were very few property owners among them; the manifold exactions of domestic duties absorbed all their time, strength and interest; and for these and many other causes they were not public factors in even the smallest sense of the word. One could readily believe that the founders of the Government never imagined a time when women would ask for a voice were it not for the significant fact that every State constitution, except the one mentioned above, was careful to put up an absolute barrier against such a contingency by confining the elective franchise strictly to "male" citizens—and there it has stood impassable down to the present day.

It was almost the exact middle of the nineteenth century before the first demand was made by women for the right to represent themselves—the right for which their forefathers had fought a seven-years' war, and the one which had been made the corner-stone of the new Government. The complete story of the startling results which followed this demand never has been told but once, and that was when Vol. I of this History of Woman Suffrage was written. It was related then by the two who were the principal personages in a period which tried women's souls as they were never tried before—Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony.[3]

This movement for the freedom of women was scarcely launched when the long-threatened Civil War broke forth and precipitated the struggle for the liberty of another class whose slavery seemed far more terrible than the servitude of white women. The five years' ordeal which followed developed women as all the previous centuries had not been able to do, and when peace reigned once more, when an entire race had been born into freedom and the republic had been consecrated anew, the whole status of the American woman had been changed and the lines which circumscribed her old sphere had been forever obliterated. Women were studying laws, constitutions and public questions as never before in all history, and, as they saw millions of colored men endowed with the full prerogatives of citizenship, they began to ask, "Am I not also a citizen of this great republic and entitled to all its rights and privileges?"

Up to this time the word "male" never had appeared in the Federal Constitution. In 1865, when the leaders among women were beginning to gather up their scattered forces, and the Fourteenth Amendment was under discussion, they saw to their amazement and indignation that it was proposed to incorporate in that instrument this discriminating word. Miss Anthony was the first to sound the alarm, and Mrs. Stanton quickly came to her aid in the attempt to prevent this desecration of the people's Bill of Rights. The thrilling account of their efforts to thwart this highhanded act, their abandonment in consequence by nearly all of their co-workers before and during the war, their anger and humiliation at seeing the former slaves, whom they had helped to free, made their political superiors and endowed with a personal representation in Government which women had been pilloried for asking—all this is graphically told in Vol. II of the History of Woman Suffrage, Chaps. XVII and XXI. The story with many personal touches is also related in the Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, Chaps. XV and XVI.

The Fourteenth Amendment was declared adopted July 28, 1868,[4] and the women felt that the ground had been swept from beneath their feet, as now the barriers opposed to their enfranchisement by all the State constitutions had been doubly and trebly strengthened by sanction of the National Constitution. The first ray of encouragement came in October, 1869, when, at a State woman suffrage convention held in St. Louis, Mo., Francis Minor, a leading attorney of that city, declared that this very Fourteenth Amendment in enfranchising colored men had performed a like service for all women. His argument was embodied concisely in the following resolutions, which were adopted by that convention with great enthusiasm, and by the National Association at its annual convention in Washington, D. C., the next January:

WHEREAS, All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside; therefore be it

Resolved, 1. That the immunities and privileges of American citizenship, however defined, are national in character and paramount to all State authority.

2. That while the Constitution of the United States leaves the qualification of electors to the several States, it nowhere gives them the right to deprive any citizen of the elective franchise which is possessed by any other citizen—to regulate not including the right to prohibit.

3. That, as the Constitution of the United States expressly declares that no State shall make or enforce any laws that shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, those provisions of the several State constitutions which exclude women from the franchise on account of sex are violative alike of the spirit and letter of the Federal Constitution.

4. That, as the subject of naturalization is expressly withheld from the States, and as the States clearly have no right to deprive of the franchise naturalized citizens, among whom women are expressly included, still more clearly have they no right to deprive native-born women citizens of the franchise.

In support of these resolutions various portions of the National Constitution were quoted, including Article IV, Section 2: "The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States;" and Section 4: "The United States shall guarantee to every State in this Union a republican form of government." Many other authorities were cited, including numerous court decisions, as to the right of women to the suffrage now that their citizenship had been clearly established and the protection of its privileges and immunities guaranteed.

This position was sustained by many of the best lawyers in the United States, including members of Congress. The previous May the National Woman Suffrage Association had been formed in New York City, and henceforth this right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment was made the keynote of all its speeches, resolutions, etc., as will be seen in the History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, Chap. XXIII.

For the first time the Federal Constitution had defined the term "citizen," leaving no doubt that a woman was a citizen in the fullest meaning of the word. Until now there had been but one Supreme Court decision on this point—that of Chief Justice Taney in 1857, in the Dred Scott Case, which declared that citizens were "the political body who, according to our republican institutions, form the sovereignty and hold the power, and conduct the Government through their representatives." This plainly had barred negroes and white women from citizenship.

At the next general election, in 1872, women attempted to vote in many parts of the country, in some cases their votes being received, in others rejected.[5] The vote of Miss Anthony was accepted in Rochester, N. Y., and she was then arrested for a criminal offense, tried and fined in the U. S. Circuit Court at Canandaigua, by Associate Justice Ward Hunt of the U. S. Supreme Court. There is no more flagrant judicial outrage on record. The full account of this case, in which she was refused the right of trial by jury as guaranteed by the Constitution, will be found in Vol. II, History of Woman Suffrage, p. 627 and following; also much more in detail in the Life and Work of Susan B. Anthony, p. 423, with her great Constitutional Argument delivered in fifty of the postoffice districts of the two counties before the trial, p. 977 and following.

The vote of Mrs. Virginia L. Minor was refused in St. Louis and she brought suit against the inspectors of election. The case was decided against her in the Circuit Court of the county and the Supreme Court of Missouri. She then carried it to the Supreme Court of the United States—Minor vs. Happersett et al. No. 182, October term, 1874. The case was argued by her husband, Francis Minor, and after the lapse of a quarter of a century it is still believed that his argument could not have been excelled. The decision was delivered by Chief Justice Waite, March 29, 1875, and was in brief: "The National Constitution does not define the privileges and immunities of citizens. The United States has no voters of its own creation. The Constitution does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one, but the franchise must be regulated by the States. The Fourteenth Amendment does not add to the privileges and immunities of a citizen; it simply furnishes an additional guarantee to protect those he already has. Before the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments the States had the power to disfranchise on account of race or color. These Amendments, ratified by the States, simply forbade that discrimination but did not forbid that against sex."

The full text of argument and decision will be found in the History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 715 and following. In making this decision the Court was compelled to reverse absolutely its own finding of three years previous in what was known as the Slaughter House Cases (16 Wallace) which said: "The negro having by the Fourteenth Amendment been declared to be a citizen of the United States, is thus made a voter in every State in the Union."

The Fifteenth Amendment says: "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude." No right is conferred by this amendment. It simply guarantees protection for a right already existing in the citizen, and the negro having been declared a citizen by the Fourteenth Amendment is thus protected in his right to vote. But whence did he obtain this right unless from the National Constitution, which the Supreme Court in the Minor decision declares "does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one"? Volume II of this History of Woman Suffrage, containing nearly 1,000 pages, is devoted mainly to a recital of the efforts on the part of women to obtain and exercise the franchise through the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments. This decision of the Supreme Court destroyed the last hope, although it did not shake the belief of the leaders of this movement in the justice and legality of their claim.

A number of the women contended that, if the National Constitution did not confer Full Suffrage, it did at least guarantee Federal Suffrage—the right to vote for Congressional Representatives—and in this opinion they were sustained by eminent lawyers. The National Association, however, never made an issue of this question, considering that it would be useless, but it has a Standing Committee on Federal Suffrage empowered to make such efforts in this direction as it deems advisable.[6]

The assertion is made that if Congress had no authority over the election of its own members, it would be wholly unable to perpetuate itself should the States at any time decide that they no longer care to be under the authority of a central governing body, and refuse to elect Representatives. Many able reports have been made by this Standing Committee, and the question was clearly stated in an article in The Arena, December, 1891, by Francis Minor, who gave the question of woman suffrage a more thorough legal examination, perhaps, than any other man. He prepared the following bill which was presented in the House of Representatives, April 25, 1892, by the Hon. Clarence D. Clark, member from Wyoming:

AN ACT TO PROTECT THE RIGHT OF CITIZENS OF THE UNITED STATES TO REGISTER AND TO VOTE FOR MEMBERS OF THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES.

WHEREAS, The right to choose Members of the House of Representatives is vested by the Constitution in the people of the several States, without distinction of sex, but for want of proper legislation has hitherto been restricted to one-half of the people; for the purpose, therefore, of correcting this error and of giving effect to the Constitution:

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled: That at all elections hereafter held in the several States of this Union for members of the House of Representatives, the right of citizens of the United States, of either sex, above the age of twenty-one years, to register and to vote for such Representatives shall not be denied or abridged by the United States, or by any State, on account of sex.

The argument for the authority of Congress to pass this law is based partly on Article I of the Federal Constitution:

SECTION 2. The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States; and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature.

SECTION 4. The time, place and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives shall be prescribed in each State by the Legislature thereof, but the Congress may at any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing Senators.[7]

Congress is here endowed unquestionably with the right to regulate the election of Representatives. James Madison, one of the framers of the Constitution, when asked the intention of this clause, in the Virginia convention of 1788, called to ratify this instrument, answered that the power was reserved to Congress because "should the people of any State by any means be deprived of the right of suffrage, it was judged proper that it should be remedied by the General Government." [Elliott's Debates, Vol. II, p. 266.]

Again Madison said in The Federalist (No. 54), in speaking of the enumeration for Representatives:

The Federal Constitution, therefore, decides with great propriety in the case of our slaves when it views them in the mixed character of persons and property. This is in fact their true character. It is the character bestowed on them by the laws under which they live; and it will not be denied that these are the proper criteria; because it is only under the pretext that the laws have transformed the negroes into subjects of property, that a place is disputed them in the computation of numbers; and it is admitted that, if the laws were to restore the rights which have been taken away, the negroes could no longer be refused an equal share of representation.

Therefore, as women are counted in the enumeration on which the Congressional apportionment is based, they are legally entitled to an equal share in direct representation.

In 1884 the case of Jasper Yarbrough and others who had been sentenced to hard labor in the penitentiary in Georgia for preventing a colored man from voting for a member of Congress, was brought to the U. S. Supreme Court by a petition for a writ of habeas corpus. The decision rendered March 2, virtually nullified that given by this court in the case of Mrs. Minor in 1875, as quoted above, which held that "the National Constitution has no voters," for this one declared:

But it is not correct to say that the right to vote for a member of Congress does not depend on the Constitution of the United States. The office, if it be properly called an office, is created by the Constitution and by that alone. It also declares how it shall be filled, namely, by election. Its language is: "The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States; and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State Legislature."

The States in prescribing the qualifications of voters for the most numerous branch of their own Legislature, do not do this with reference to the election for members of Congress. Nor can they prescribe the qualifications for those eo nomine [by that name].

They define who are to vote for the popular branch of their own Legislature, and the Constitution of the United States says the same persons shall vote for members of Congress in that State.

It adopts the qualification thus furnished as the qualification of its own electors for members of Congress. It is not true, therefore, that the electors for members of Congress owe their right to vote to the State law in any sense which makes the exercise of the right to depend exclusively on the law of the State.

Counsel for petitioners seizing upon the expression found in the opinion of the Court in the case of Minor vs. Happersett, "that the Constitution of the United States does not confer the right of suffrage upon any one," without reference to the connection in which it is used, insists that the voters in this case do not owe their right to vote in any sense to that instrument. But the Court was combating the argument that this right was conferred on all citizens, and therefore upon women as well as men.(!)

In opposition to that idea it was said the Constitution adopts, as the qualification for voters for members of Congress, that which prevails in the State where the voting is to be done; therefore, said the opinion, the right is not definitely conferred on any person or class of persons by the Constitution alone, because you have to look to the law of the State for the description of the class. But the Court did not intend to say that, when the class or the person is thus ascertained, his right to vote for a member of Congress was not fundamentally based upon the Constitution which created the office of member of Congress, and declared it should be elective, and pointed to the means of ascertaining who should be electors.

The Fifteenth Amendment of the Constitution, by its limitation of the power of the States in the exercise of their right to prescribe the qualifications of voters in their own elections, and by its limitation of the power of the United States over that subject, clearly shows that the right of suffrage was considered to be of supreme importance to the National Government and was not intended to be left within the exclusive control of the States.

In such cases this Fifteenth Article of amendment does proprio vigore [by its own force] substantially confer on the negro the right to vote, and Congress has the power to protect and enforce that right. In the case of United States vs. Happersett, so much relied on by counsel, this Court said, in regard to the Fifteenth Amendment, that it has invested the citizens of the United States with a new constitutional right which is within the protecting power of Congress. That right is an exemption from discrimination in the exercise of the elective franchise on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude.

This new constitutional right was mainly designed for [male] citizens of African descent. The principle, however, that the protection of the exercise of this right is within the power of Congress, is as necessary to the right of other citizens to vote in general as to the right to be protected against discrimination.

This legal hair-splitting is beyond the comprehension of the average lay mind and will be viewed by future generations with as much contempt as is felt by the present in regard to the infamous decision of the Supreme Court in the Dred Scott case in 1857. If it decides anything it is that the right to vote for Congressional Representatives is a Federal right, vested in all the people by the National Constitution, and one which it is beyond the power of the States to regulate. Therefore, no State has the power to deprive women of the right to vote for Representatives in Congress.

Those who hold that women are already entitled to Federal Suffrage under the National Constitution, further support their claim by a series of decisions as to the citizenship of women and the inherent rights which it carries. They quote especially the case of the United States vs. Kellar. The defendant was indicted by a Federal grand jury in Illinois for illegal voting in a Congressional election, as he never had been naturalized. He and his mother were born in Prussia, but came to the United States when he was a minor, and she married a naturalized citizen. The case was tried in June, 1882, in the Circuit Court of the United States for the Southern District of Illinois, by Associate Justice Harlan of the U. S. Supreme Court, who discharged the defendant. He held that the mother, having become a citizen by marriage while the son was a minor, transferred citizenship to him. In other words she transmitted a Federal Citizenship including the right to vote which she did not herself possess, thus enfranchising a child born while she was an alien. The whole matter was settled not by State but by Federal authority.[8] If a mother can confer this right on a son, why not on a daughter? But why does she not possess it herself? The clause of the National Constitution which established suffrage at the time that instrument was framed, does not mention the sex of the elector.

The argument for Federal Suffrage was presented in a masterly manner before the National Convention of 1889 by U. S. Senator Henry W. Blair (N. H.); and it was discussed by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Minor. See present volume, Chap. IX.

From this bare outline of the claim that women already possess Federal Suffrage, or that Congress has authority to confer it without the sanction of the States, readers can continue the investigation. Notwithstanding its apparent equity, the leaders of the National Association, including Miss Anthony herself, felt convinced after the decision against Mrs. Minor that it would be useless to expect from the Supreme Court any interpretation of the Constitution which would permit women to exercise the right of suffrage. They had learned, however, through the passage of the Fourteenth and Fifteenth Amendments, that it had been possible to amend this document in such a way as to enfranchise an entire new class of voters—or in other words to protect them in the exercise of a right which it seemed that in some mysterious way they already possessed. As the Fourteenth Amendment declared the negroes to be citizens, and the Fifteenth forbade the United States or any State to deny or abridge "the right of citizens of the United States to vote, on account of race, color or previous condition of servitude," it was clearly evident that this right inhered in citizenship. This being the case women must already have it, but as there was no national authority prohibiting the States from denying or abridging it, each of them did so by putting the word "male" in its constitution as a qualification for suffrage; just as many of them had used the word "white" until the adoption of the Fifteenth Amendment by a three-fourths majority made this unconstitutional. Therefore, since the Minor vs. Happersett decision, the National Association has directed its principal efforts to secure from Congress the submission to the several State Legislatures of a Sixteenth Amendment which should prohibit disfranchisement on account of "sex," as the Fifteenth had done on account of "color."

The association does not discourage attempts in various States to secure from their respective Legislatures the submission of an amendment to the voters which shall strike out this word "male" from their own constitutions. On the contrary, it assists every such attempt with money, speakers and influence, but having seen such amendments voted on sixteen times and adopted only twice (in Colorado and Idaho), it is confirmed in the opinion that the quickest and surest way to secure woman suffrage will be by an amendment to the Federal Constitution. In other words it holds that women should be permitted to carry their case to the selected men of the Legislatures rather than to the masses of the voters.

From 1869 until the decision in the Minor case in 1875, the National Association went before committees of every Congress with appeals for a Declaratory Act which would permit women to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment. Since that decision it has asked for a Sixteenth Amendment. In both cases it has been supported by petitions of hundreds of thousands of names.

The ablest women this nation has produced have presented the arguments and pleadings. Many of the older advocates have passed away, but new ones have taken their place. It is the unvarying testimony of the Senate and House Committees who have granted these hearings, that no body of men has appeared before them for any purpose whose dignity, logic and acumen have exceeded, if indeed they have equaled, those of the members of this association. They have been heard always with respect, often with cordiality, but their appeals have fallen, if not upon deaf, at least upon indifferent ears. They have asked these committees to report to their respective Houses a resolution to submit this Sixteenth Amendment. Sometimes the majority of the committee has been hostile to woman suffrage and presented an adverse report: sometimes it has been friendly and presented one favorable; sometimes there have been an opposing majority and a friendly minority report, or vice versa; but more often no action whatever has been taken. During these thirty years eleven favorable reports have been made—five from Senate, six from House Committees.[9]

In the History of Woman Suffrage, Vols. II and III, will be found a full record of various debates which occurred in Senate and House on different phases of the movement to secure suffrage for women previous to 1884, when the present volume begins. In 1885 Thomas W. Palmer gave his great speech in the United States Senate in advocacy of their enfranchisement; and in 1887 occurred the first and only discussion and vote in that body on a Sixteenth Amendment for this purpose, both of which are described herein under their respective dates.

In the following chapters will be found an account of the annual conventions of the National Suffrage Association since 1883, and of the American until the two societies united in 1890, with many of the resolutions and speeches for which these meetings have been distinguished. They contain also portions of the addresses, covering every phase of this subject, made at the hearings before Congressional Committees, and the arguments advanced for and against woman suffrage in the favorable and adverse reports of these committees, thus presenting both sides of the question. Readers who follow the story will be obliged to acknowledge that the very considerable progress which has been made toward obtaining the franchise is due to the unceasing and long-continued efforts of this association far more than to all other agencies combined; and that the women who compose this body have demonstrated their capacity and their right to a voice in the Government infinitely beyond any class to whom it has been granted since the republic was founded.

FOOTNOTES:

[3] The part of this record with which Miss Anthony herself was directly connected, and which comprises by far the greater portion of the whole, is given with many personal incidents in her Life and Work. [Husted-Harper.]

[4] ARTICLE XIV.

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty or property, without due process of law, or deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice-President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

[5] Women also had attempted to vote in local and State elections in 1870 and 1871. An account of the trials and decisions which followed will be found in the History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, Chap. XXV.

[6] The most earnest advocates of the constitutional right of women to Federal Suffrage are Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett, Ky.; Mrs. Clara B. Colby, D. C.; Mrs. Martha E. Root, Mich.; Miss Sara Winthrop Smith, Conn. They have done a large amount of persistent but ineffectual work in the endeavor to obtain a recognition of this right.

[7] Senator John Sherman did at one time introduce a bill for this purpose.

[8] This is precisely what was done in the case of Susan B. Anthony above referred to.

[9] The first report, in 1871, was signed by Representatives Benjamin F. Butler (Mass.) and William A. Loughridge (Ia.): History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, p. 464.

The second, in 1879, was signed by Senators George F. Hoar (Mass.), John H. Mitchell (Ore.), Angus Cameron (Wis.): Id., Vol. III, p. 131.

The third, in 1882, was signed by Senators Elbridge G. Lapham (N. Y.), Thomas W. Ferry (Mich.), Henry W. Blair (N. H.), Henry B. Anthony (R. I.): Id., p. 231.

The fourth, in 1883, was signed by Representative John D. White (Ky.): Id., p. 263.

For the fifth and sixth, in 1884, see Chap. III of present volume; for the seventh and eighth, in 1886, Id., Chap. V. (See also, Chap. VI.); for the ninth and tenth, in 1890, Id., Chap. X; for the eleventh, in 1892, Id., Chap. XII.

It is worthy of notice that from 1879 to 1891, inclusive, Miss Susan B. Anthony was enabled to spend the congressional season in Washington [see pp. 188, 366], and during this time nine of these eleven favorable reports were made.

For adverse reports see History of Woman Suffrage: 1871, Vol. II, p. 461; 1878, Vol. III, p. 112; 1882, Id., p. 237; 1884, present volume, Chap. III (see also, Chap. VI); 1892, Id., Chap. XII; 1894, Id., Chap. XIV; 1896, Id., Chap. XVI.



CHAPTER II.

THE NATIONAL SUFFRAGE CONVENTION OF 1884.

The first Woman's Rights Convention on record was held in Seneca Falls, N. Y., in July, 1848; the second in Salem, O., in April, 1850; the third in Worcester, Mass., in October, 1850. By this time the movement for the civil, educational and political rights of women was fully initiated, and every year thenceforth to the beginning of the Civil War national conventions were held in various States for the purpose of agitating the question and creating a favorable public sentiment. These were addressed by the ablest men and women of the time, and the discussions included the whole scope of women's wrongs, which in those days were many and grievous.

Immediately after the war the political disabilities of the negro man were so closely akin to those of all women that the advocates of universal suffrage organized under the name of the Equal Rights Association. The "reconstruction period," however, engendered so many differences of opinion, and a platform so broad permitted such latitude of debate, the women soon became convinced that their own cause was being sacrificed. Therefore in May, 1869, under the leadership of Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Miss Susan B. Anthony, the National Woman Suffrage Association was formed in New York City, having for its sole object the enfranchisement of women. From this time it held a convention in Washington, D. C., every winter.

The above mentioned associations and conventions, as well as the American Woman Suffrage Association, formed at Cleveland, O., in November, 1869, under the leadership of Mrs. Lucy Stone, are described in detail in the preceding volumes of this History. The present volume begins with the usual convention of the National Association in Washington in 1884. This place was selected for a twofold purpose: because here a more cosmopolitan audience could be secured than in any other city, including representatives from every State in the Union and from all the nations of the world; and because here the association could carry directly to the only tribunal which had power to act, its demand for a submission to the State Legislatures of an amendment to the Federal Constitution which should forbid disfranchisement on account of sex. During each of these conventions it was the custom for committees of the Senate and House to grant hearings to the leading advocates of this proposition.

The Sixteenth of these annual conventions met in Lincoln Hall, in response to the usual Call,[10] March 4, 1884, continuing in session four days.[11]

On the evening before the convention a handsome reception was given at the Riggs House by Charles W. and Mrs. Jane H. Spofford to Miss Susan B. Anthony, which was attended by several hundred prominent men and women. Delegates were present from twenty-six States and Territories.[12] Miss Anthony was in the chair at the opening session and read a letter from Mrs. Stanton, who was detained at home, in which she paid a glowing tribute to Wendell Phillips, the staunch defender of the rights of women, who had died the preceding month.

Mrs. Mary B. Clay, in speaking of the work in her State, said:

In talking to a Kentuckian on the subject of woman's right to qualify under the law, you have to batter down his self-conceit that he is just and generous and chivalric toward woman, and that she can not possibly need other protection than he gives her with his own right arm—while he forgets that it is from man alone woman needs protection, and often does she need the right to protect herself from the avarice, brutality or neglect of the one nearest to her. The only remedy for her, as for man himself, in this republic, is the ballot in her hand. He thinks he is generous to woman when he supplies her wants, forgetting that he has first robbed her by law of all her property in marriage, and then may or may not give her that which is her own by right of inheritance....

A mother, legally so, has no right to her child, the husband having the right to will it to whom he pleases, and even to will away from the mother the unborn child at his death. The wife does not own her own property, personal or real, unless given for her sole use and benefit. If a husband may rent the wife's land, or use it during his life and hers, and take the increase or rental of it, and after her death still hold it and deprive her children of its use, which he does by curtesy, and if she can not make a will and bequeath it at her death, then I say she is robbed, and insulted in the bargain, by such so-called ownership of land. "A woman fleeing from her husband and seeking refuge or protection in a neighbor's house, the man protecting her makes himself liable to the husband, who can recover damages by law." "If a husband refuse to sue for a wife who has been slandered or beaten, she can not sue for herself." These are Kentucky laws.

Mrs. Harriette R. Shattuck closed her record for Massachusetts by saying: "The dead wall of indifference is at last broken down and the women 'remonstrants,' by their active resistance to our advancing progress, are not only turning the attention of the public in our direction and making the whole community interested, but also are paving the way for future political action themselves. By remonstrating they have expressed their opinion and entered into politics."

Mrs. Abigail Scott Duniway gave a full report of the situation in Oregon, and a hopeful outlook for the success of the pending suffrage amendment.[13] This was followed later by a strong address. A letter was read from Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett (Ky.). Dr. Clemence S. Lozier (N. Y.) spoke briefly, saying that for eleven years her parlor had been opened each month for suffrage meetings, and that "this question is the foundation of Christianity; for Christians can look up and truly say 'Our Father' only when they can treat each other as brothers and sisters." Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell (N. Y.) gave an eloquent address on The Outlook, answering the four stock questions: Why do not more women ask for the ballot? Will not voting destroy the womanly instincts? Will not women be contaminated by going to the polls? Will they not take away employment from men?

At the opening of the evening session Miss Anthony read a letter from Mrs. Millicent Garrett Fawcett of England, and an extract from a recent speech by her husband, Henry Fawcett, member of Parliament and Postmaster General, strongly advocating the removal of all political disabilities of women. Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert (Ills.) spoke on The Statesmanship of Women, citing illustrious examples in all parts of the world. Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.) gave a trenchant and humorous speech on The Unknown Quantity in Politics, showing the indirect influence of women which unfortunately is not accompanied with responsibility. She took up leading candidates and their records, criticising or commending; illustrated how in every department women are neglected and forgotten, and closed as follows:

It is better to have the power of self-protection than to depend on any man, whether he be the Governor in his chair of State, or the hunted outlaw wandering through the night, hungry and cold and with murder in his heart. We are tired of the pretense that we have special privileges and the reality that we have none; of the fiction that we are queens, and the fact that we are subjects; of the symbolism which exalts our sex but is only a meaningless mockery. We demand that these shadows shall take substance. The coat of arms of the State of New York represents Liberty and Justice supporting a shield on which is seen the sun rising over the hills that guard the Hudson. How are justice and liberty depicted? As a police judge and an independent voter? Oh, no; as two noble and lovely women! What an absurdity in a State where there is neither liberty nor justice for any woman! We ask that this symbolism shall assume reality, for a redeemed and enfranchised womanhood will be the best safeguard of justice.

Mrs. Blake was followed by Mrs. Martha McClellan Brown, of Cincinnati Wesleyan College, who spoke on Disabilities of Woman. Miss Anthony read the report from Missouri by Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, who strongly supported her belief in the constitutional right of women to the franchise. A letter of greeting was read from Miss Fannie M. Bagby, managing editor St. Louis Chronicle; Miss Phoebe W. Couzins (Mo.) gave a brilliant address entitled What Answer?

At the evening session the hall was crowded. The speech of Mrs. Belva A. Lockwood (D. C.), the first woman admitted to practice before the Supreme Court, was a severe criticism on the disfranchising of the women in Utah as proposed by bills now before Congress. It was a clear and strong legal argument which would be marred by an attempt at quotation.

In an address on Women Before the Law, the report says:

Mrs. Helen M. Gougar of Indiana traced the development of human liberty as shown in the history of the ballot, which was at first given to a certain class of believers in orthodox religions, then to property holders, then to all white men. She showed how class legislation had been gradually done away with by allowing believer and unbeliever, rich and poor, white and black, to vote unquestioned and unhindered, and as a result of this onward march of justice, the last remaining form of class legislation, now shown by the sex ballot, must pass away. She declared the sex-line to be the lowest standard upon which to base a privilege and unworthy the civilization of the present time. She answered many of the popular objections to woman suffrage by showing that if education were to be made the test of the ballot, women would not be the disfranchised class in America, as three-fifths of all graduates from the public schools in the last ten years have been women. If morality were to be made a test, women would do more voting than men. The ratio of law-abiding women to men is as one to every 103; of drunken women to drunken men, one to every 1,000. Reasoning from these facts, if sobriety, virtue and intelligence were necessary qualifications, women enfranchised would largely reflect these elements in the Government.

At noon on March 6 the delegates were courteously received at the White House by President Chester A. Arthur.

During the afternoon session the Pennsylvania report was presented by Edward M. Davis, son-in-law of Lucretia Mott, and an exhaustive account of Woman's Work in Philadelphia by Mrs. Lucretia L. Blankenburg. A letter from Mrs. Anna C. Wait (Kas.) was read by Mrs. Bertha H. Ellsworth, who closed with a tribute to Mrs. Wait and a poem dedicated to Kansas.

The guest of the convention, Mrs. Jessie M. Wellstood of Edinburgh, presented a report made by Miss Eliza Wigham, secretary of the Scotland Suffrage Association, prefaced with some earnest remarks in which she said:

To those who are sitting at ease, folding their hands and sweetly saying: "I have all the rights I want, why should I trouble about these matters?" let me quote the burning words of the grand old prophet Isaiah, which entered into my soul and stirred it to action: "Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters, give ear unto my speech; many days shall ye be troubled, ye careless women, etc." It is just because we fold our hands and sit at ease that so many of our less fortunate fellow creatures are leading lives of misery, want, sin and shame.

In the evening Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) delivered a beautiful address on Forgotten Women, which she closed with these words: "It was not a grander thing to lead the forlorn hope in 1776, not a grander thing to strike the shackles from the black slaves in 1863, than it would be in 1884 to carry a presidential campaign on the basis of Political Equality to Women. The career, the fame, to match that of Washington, to match that of Lincoln, awaits the man who will espouse the cause of forgotten womanhood and introduce that womanhood to political influence and political freedom."

Interesting addresses were made by Mrs. Mary E. Haggart (Ind.), Why Do Not Women Vote? and by the Rev. Phebe A. Hanaford, pastor of the Second Universalist Church, Jersey City, on New Jersey as a Leader—the first to grant suffrage to women. They voted from 1776 until the Legislature took away the right in 1807.

At the afternoon session of the last day Mrs. Lizzie D. Fyler, a lawyer of Arkansas, gave an extended resume of the legal and educational position of women in that State, which was shown to be in advance of many of the eastern and western States. George W. Clark, one of the old Abolition singers contemporaneous with the Hutchinsons, expressed a strong belief in woman suffrage and offered a tribute of song to Wendell Phillips. Brief addresses were made by Mrs. J. Ellen Foster (Ia.) and Mrs. Morrison (Mass.). A letter of greeting was read from the corresponding secretary, Rachel G. Foster, Julia and Mrs. Julia Foster (Penn.), written in Florence, Italy. Mrs. Caroline Gilkey Rogers described School Suffrage in Lansingburgh, N. Y.

An eloquent address was made by Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.), in which she said:

There are a great many excellent people in the world who are strongly prejudiced against what they designate "isms," but who are always glad of any opportunity of serving God, as they express it. I ask what can finite beings do to serve Omnipotence unless it be to exert all their powers for the good of humanity, for the uplifting of man, which, if aught of ours could do, must rejoice our Creator. When we see more than one-half of the adult human family—reasonably industrious and intelligent, if we make for them no larger claim, and certainly the raison d'etre of the other half—called to account by the laws of the land and held in strict obedience to them without the slightest voice in their making, with neither form nor shadow of representation before State or country, do we not see that there rests upon the entire race a stigma that materialist and idealist, agnostic and churchman, should each and all hasten to remove?

"Behold, the fields are white unto harvest, but the laborers are few!" How can it be longer tolerated that the wives and mothers, the sisters and daughters, of a land claiming the highest degree of civilization and boasting of freedom as its watchword, should still rank before the law with criminals, idiots and slaves? I feel as confident as I do of my existence, that the apathy which we are now fighting against, especially among our own sex, springs mainly from want of thought; the women of culture throughout the country placidly accept the comfortable conditions in which they find themselves. They receive without question the formulated theories of woman's sphere as they accept the formulated theories of the orthodox religions into which they may chance to have been born; occasionally an original thinker steps out of the ranks and finds herself after a while with a few followers. They remain but few, however, for it is too much trouble to think.

At the evening session the Rev. Florence Kollock (Ills.) spoke on The Ethics of Woman Suffrage, saying in part:

By what moral right stands a law upon the statute books that infringes upon the rights and duties of womanhood, that prohibits a mother from the full discharge of the duties of her sacred office, as all are prohibited through the law that forbids them the opportunity of throwing their whole moral strength, influence and convictions against the existence and growth of social and political iniquities and in defense of truth and purity? The great evils of our day are of such a nature that all, regardless of moral principles or sex, suffer from their effects, proving clearly that all have a moral obligation in these matters, and the fact that one human being suffers from an evil carries with it the highest authority to remove that evil.

The silent influence of woman has failed to accomplish the desired good of humanity, has failed to bring about the needed moral reforms, and all observing persons are ready to concede that posing is a weak way of combating giant evils—that attitudism can not take the place of activity. To suppress the full utterance of the moral convictions of those who so largely mold the character of the race is a crime against humanity, against progress, against God.

Mrs. Shattuck, in discussing the question, said:

It is absolutely necessary for the improvement of the race that the manly and womanly elements shall be side by side in all walks of life, and the fact that our social status, our literature and our educational systems have been greatly improved by woman's co-operation with man, points to the eternal truth that man and woman must work hand in hand in the State also, in order that it shall be uplifted and saved. Woman herself will not be harmed by the ballot, for the acquisition of greater responsibilities improves and not degrades the recipient thereof. If the ballot has made man worse it will make woman worse, and not otherwise. Whoever studies the history of the race from age to age and nation to nation finds the world has advanced and not retrograded by giving responsibility to the individual. The opposition to woman suffrage strikes a blow at the foundation-stone of this republic, which is self-representation by means of the ballot. At the bottom of this opposition is a subtle distrust of American institutions, an idea of "restricted suffrage" which is creeping into our republic through so-called aristocratic channels.

A distinguishing feature of this convention was the large number of letters and reports sent from abroad, undoubtedly due to the fact that Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony had spent the preceding year in Europe, making the acquaintance and arousing the interest of foreign men and women in the status of the suffrage question in the United States. Among these letters was one from Miss Frances Power Cobbe in which she said: "The final and complete emancipation of our sex ere long, I think, is absolutely certain. All is going well here and I hope with you in America; and with all my heart, dear Miss Anthony, I wish you and the woman's convention triumphant success."

Miss Jane Cobden, daughter of Richard Cobden, said in the course of her letter: "I feel all the more certain of the righteousness of the work in which I am so much engaged, because I know from words spoken and written by my father as far back as 1845, that had he been living at the present day I should have had his sympathy. He was nothing if not consistent, and so he said in a speech delivered in London that year on Free Trade: 'There are many ladies present, I am happy to say. Now it is a very anomalous and singular fact that they can not vote themselves and yet they have the power of conferring votes upon other people. I wish they had the franchise, for they would often make a much better use of it than their husbands.'"

Miss Caroline Ashurst Biggs, for many years editor of the Englishwoman's Review, sent a full report of the situation in England. There was a letter of greeting also from Miss Lydia Becker, editor of the Women's Suffrage Journal and member of the Manchester School Board. John P. Thomasson and Peter A. Taylor, members of Parliament, favored woman suffrage in the strongest terms, the latter saying: "Justice never can be done to the rising generations till the influence of the mother is freed from the ignominy of exclusion from the great political and social work of the day." Mrs. Thomasson, daughter of Margaret Bright Lucas, and Mrs. Taylor, known as the organizer of the women's suffrage movement in England, also sent cordial good wishes.[14]

The wife of Jacob Bright, who was largely responsible for the Married Women's Property Bill, presented a review of present suffrage laws; his sister, Mrs. Priscilla Bright McLaren, wife of Duncan McLaren, M. P., and the great Abolitionist, Mrs. Elizabeth Pease Nichol of Edinburgh, sent long and valuable letters. Mrs. McLaren wrote:

I was in Exeter Hall, London, on the day our Parliament assembled; a prayer-meeting was held there the whole of that day. Earnest were the intercessions that the hearts of our rulers might be influenced to repeal every vestige of the Contagious Diseases Acts; and the women especially prayed that our men might be led to send representatives to Parliament of much higher morality than such Acts testified to, and that the eyes of the women of their country might be opened to see the iniquity of such legislation. I venture to express that the burden of my prayer had been, whilst sitting in that meeting, that the eyes of the women there assembled, and of the women throughout our country, might be opened to see that we could not expect men who did not consider morality to be a necessary part of their own character, to regard it as needful for the men who were to represent them in Parliament; that we needed a new moral power to be brought into exercise at our elections, and as Parliament was meeting that day and one of its first acts would be to bring in a new reform bill, that we might unite in prayer that the petitions so long put forth by many of the women of this land, that their claim to the suffrage should be included in this new Act for the extended representation of the people, might be righteously answered; and the power given to women not only to pray for what was just and right, but to have by the Parliamentary vote a direct power to promote that higher legislation which they all so much desired. I know nothing which calls for more faith and patience than to hear women pleading for justice, and refusing to help get it in the only legitimate way....

Whilst we have our anomalies here, you have a glaring inconsistency in your country. It is not a property qualification which gives a vote in America. Is not every human being, who is of age, according to your Constitution, entitled to equal justice and freedom? Are you women not human beings? The lowest and most ignorant man who leaves any shore and lands on yours, ere he has earned a home or made family ties, becomes a citizen of your great country; whilst your own women, who during a life-time may have done much service and given much to the State, are denied the right accorded to that man, however low his condition may be. You are fighting to overcome this great monopoly of citizenship. We watch your proceedings with deep interest. We rejoice in your successes and sympathize with you in your endeavors to gain fresh victories.

Congratulatory letters were received from Ewing Whittle, M. D., of the Royal Academy, Liverpool, and Miss Isabella M. S. Tod, the well-known reformer of Belfast. M. Leon Richer, the eminent writer of Paris, and Mlle. Hubertine Auclert, editor of La Citoyenne, sent cordial words of co-operation. There were also greetings from Mrs. Ernestine L. Rose, a Polish exile, one of the first women lecturers in America; from the wife and daughter of A. A. Sargent, U. S. Minister to Berlin; from Theodore Stanton; Miss Florence Kelley, daughter of the Hon. William D. Kelley; the wife of Moncure D. Conway; Rosamond, daughter of Robert Dale Owen; Mrs. Charlotte B. Wilbour and Dr. Frances E. Dickinson, all Americans residing abroad.

Among the noted men and women of the United States who sent letters endorsing equal suffrage, were George William Curtis, William Lloyd Garrison, U. S. Senators Henry B. Anthony and Henry W. Blair, the Hon. George W. Julian, the Hon. William I. Bowditch, Robert Purvis, the Rev. Anna Oliver, Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace, the "mother" of Ben Hur, and Mrs. Abby Hutchinson Patton.[15]

To this assembly Bishop Matthew Simpson, of the Methodist Episcopal Church, sent almost his last public utterance:

For more than thirty years I have been in favor of woman suffrage. I was led to this position not by the consideration of the question of natural rights or of alleged injustice or of inequality before the law, but by what I believed would be the influence of woman on the great moral questions of the day. Were the ballot in the hands of women, I am satisfied that the evils of intemperance would be greatly lessened, and I fear that without that ballot we shall not succeed against the saloons and kindred evils in large cities. You will doubtless have many obstacles placed in your way; there will be many conflicts to sustain; but I have no doubt that the coming years will see the triumph of your cause; and that our higher civilization and morality will rejoice in the work which enlightened woman will accomplish.

The resolutions presented by Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert (Ills.), chairman of the committee, were adopted.

WHEREAS, The fundamental idea of a republic is the right of self-government, the right of every citizen to choose her own representatives to enact the laws by which she is governed; and

WHEREAS, This right can be secured only by the exercise of the suffrage; therefore

Resolved, That the ballot in the hand of every qualified citizen constitutes the true political status of the people, and to deprive one-half of the people of the use of the ballot is to deny the first principle of a republican government.

Resolved, That it is the duty of Congress to submit a Sixteenth Amendment to the National Constitution, securing to women the right of suffrage; first, because the disfranchisement of one-half of the people deprives that half of the means of self-protection and support, limits their resources for self-development and weakens their influence on popular thought; second, because giving all men the absolute authority to decide the social, civil and political status of women, creates a spirit of caste, unrepublican in tendency; third, because in depriving the State of the united wisdom of man and woman, that important "consensus of the competent," our form of government becomes in fact an oligarchy of males instead of a republic of the people.

Resolved, That since the women citizens of the United States have thus far failed to receive proper recognition from any of the existing political parties, we recommend the appointment by this convention of a committee on future political action.

Resolved, That as there is a general awakening to the rights of women in all European countries, the time has arrived to take the initiative steps for a grand International Woman Suffrage Convention, to be held in either England or America, and that for this purpose a committee of three be appointed at this convention to correspond with leading persons in different countries interested in the elevation of women.

Miss Couzins submitted the following, which was unanimously accepted:

Resolved, That in the death of Wendell Phillips the nation has lost one of its greatest moral heroes, its most eloquent orator and honest advocate of justice and equality for all classes; and woman in her struggle for enfranchisement has lost in him a steadfast friend and wise counselor. His consistency in the application of republican principles of government brought him to the woman suffrage platform at the inauguration of the movement, where he remained faithful to the end. The National Woman Suffrage Association in convention assembled, would express their gratitude for his brave words for woman before the Legislatures of so many States and on so many platforms, both in England and America, and would extend their sincere sympathy to her who was his constant inspiration to the utterance of the highest truth, his noble wife, Ann Green Phillips.

Resolved, That the services of Anna Ella Carroll of Maryland, who directed the armies of the republic up the Tennessee river and then southward to the center of the Confederate power to its base in northern Alabama, cutting the Memphis and Charleston railroad and thus breaking the backbone of the rebellion, entitle her justly to the name of the military genius of the war; that her long struggle for recognition at the hands of our Government commends her to the sympathy of all who believe in truth and justice; and the continued refusal of the Government to acknowledge this woman's service, which saved to us the Union, defeated national bankruptcy and prevented the intervention of foreign powers, merits the condemnation of all lovers of right, and we hereby not only send to her our loving recognition and sympathy, but pledge ourselves to arouse this nation to the fact of her services.[16]

The plan of work submitted by Mrs. Gougar, chairman of the committee, was adopted.[17] This was supplemented by suggestions of the national board as to methods of organization.[18]

The following officers were elected: president, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, N. Y.; vice-presidents-at-large, Susan B. Anthony, Matilda Joslyn Gage, N. Y., the Rev. Olympia Brown, Wis., Phoebe W. Couzins, Mo., Abigail Scott Duniway, Ore.; recording secretaries, Ellen H. Sheldon, D. C., Julia T. Foster, Penn.; Pearl Adams, Ills.; corresponding secretary, Rachel G. Foster (Avery), Penn.; foreign corresponding secretaries, Caroline Ashurst Biggs, Lydia E. Becker, England; Marguerite Berry Stanton, Hubertine Auclert, France; treasurer, Jane H. Spofford, D. C.; auditors, Ruth C. Dennison, Julia A. Wilbur, D. C.; chairman of executive committee, May Wright Sewall, Ind., and vice-presidents in every State.

The financial report showed the receipts for 1884 to be in round numbers $2,000, and a balance of $300 still remaining in the treasury.

In her address closing the convention Miss Anthony said:

The reason men are so slow in conceding political equality to women is because they can not believe that women suffer the humiliation of disfranchisement as they would. A dear and noble friend, one who aided our work most efficiently in the early days, said to me, "Why do you say the 'emancipation of women?'" I replied, "Because women are political slaves!" Is it not strange that men think that what to them would be degradation, slavery, is to women elevation, liberty? Men put the right of suffrage for themselves above all price, and count the denial of it the most severe punishment. If a man serving a term in State's prison has one friend outside who cares for him, that friend will get up a petition begging the Governor to commute his sentence, if for not more than forty-eight hours prior to its expiration, so that, when he comes out of prison he may not be compelled to suffer the disgrace of disfranchisement and may not be doomed to walk among his fellows with the mark of Cain upon his forehead. The only penalty inflicted upon the men, who a few years ago laid the knife at the throat of the Nation, was that of disfranchisement, which all men, loyal and disloyal, felt was too grievous to be borne, and our Government made haste to permit every one, even the leader of them all, to escape from this humiliation, this degradation, and again to be honored with the crowning right of United States citizenship. How can men thus delude themselves with the idea that what to them is ignominy unbearable is to women honor and glory unspeakable.[19]

An able address from Mrs. Matilda Joslyn Gage (N. Y.) arrived too late for the convention. It was a denial of the superiority of man from a scientific standpoint, and was so original in thought that it deserves to be reproduced almost in full:

....We must bear in mind the old theologic belief that the earth was flat, the center of the universe, around which all else revolved—that all created things animate and inanimate, were made for man alone—that woman was not part of the original plan of creation but was an after-thought for man's special use and benefit. So that a science which proves the falsity of any of these theological conceptions aids in the overthrow of all.

The first great battle fought by science for woman was a Geographical one lasting for twelve centuries. But finally, Columbus, sustained and sent on his way by Isabella in 1492, followed by Magellan's circumnavigation of the globe twenty years later, settled the question of the earth's rotundity and was the first step toward woman's enfranchisement.

Another great battle was in progress at the same time and the second victory was an Astronomical one. Copernicus was born, the telescope discovered, the earth sank to its subordinate place in the solar system and another battle for woman was won.

Chemistry, long opposed under the name of Alchemy, at last gained a victory, and by its union of diverse atoms began to teach men that nature is a system of nuptials, and that the feminine is everywhere present as an absolute necessity of life.

Geology continued this lesson. It not only taught the immense age of creation, but the motherhood of even the rocks.

Botany was destined for a fierce battle, as when Linnaeus declared the sexual nature of plants, he was shunned as having degraded the works of God by a recognition of the feminine in plant life.

Philology owes its rank to Catherine II of Russia, who, in assembling her great congress of deputies from the numerous provinces of her empire, gave the first impetus to this science. Max Mueller declares the evidence of language to be irrefragable, and it is the only history we possess prior to historic periods. Through Philology we ascend to the dawn of nations and learn of the domestic, religious and governmental habits of people who left neither monuments nor writing to speak for them. From it we learn the original meaning of our terms, father and mother. Father, says Mueller, who is a recognized philological authority, is derived from the root "Pa," which means to protect, to support, to nourish. Among the earliest Aryans, the word mater (mother), from the root "Ma," signified maker; creation being thus distinctively associated with the feminine. Taylor, in his Primitive Culture says the husband acknowledged the offspring of his wife as his own as thus only had he a right to claim the title of father.

While Philology has opened a new fount of historic knowledge, Biology, the seventh and most important witness, the latest science in opposition to divine authority, is the first to deny the theory of man's original perfection. Science gained many triumphs, conquered many superstitions, before the world caught a glimpse of the result toward which each step was tending—the enfranchisement of woman.

Through Biology we learn that the first manifestation of life is feminine. The albuminous protoplasm lying in silent darkness on the bottom of the sea, possessing within itself all the phenomena exhibited by the highest forms of life, as sensation, motion, nutrition and reproduction, produces its like, and in all forms of life the capacity for reproduction undeniably stamps the feminine. Not only does science establish the fact that primordial life is feminine, but it also proves that a greater expenditure of vital force is requisite for the production of the feminine than for the masculine.

The experiments of Meehan, Gentry, Treat, Herrick, Wallace, Combe, Wood and many others, show sex to depend upon environment and nutrition. A meager, contracted environment, together with innutritious or scanty food, results in a weakened vitality and the birth of males; a broad, generous environment together with abundant nutrition, in the birth of females. The most perfect plant produces feminine flowers; the best nurtured insect or animal demonstrates the same law. From every summary of vital statistics we gather further proof that more abundant vitality, fewer infantile deaths and greater comparative longevity belong to woman. It is a recognized fact that quick reaction to a stimulus is proof of superior vitality. In England, where very complete vital statistics have been recorded for many years, it is shown that while the mean duration of man's life within the last thirty years has increased five per cent. that of woman has increased more than eight per cent. Our own last census (tenth) shows New Hampshire to be the State most favorable for longevity. While one in seventy-four of its inhabitants is eighty years old, among native white men the proportion is but one to eighty, while among native white women, the very great preponderance of one to fifty-eight is shown.

That the vitality of the world is at a depressed standard is proven by the fact that more boys are born than girls, the per cent. varying in different countries. Male infants are more often deformed, suffer from abnormal characteristics, and more speedily succumb to infantile diseases than female infants, so that within a few years, notwithstanding the large proportion of male births, the balance of life is upon the feminine side. Many children are born to a rising people, but this biological truth is curiously supplemented by the fact that the proportion of girls born among such people, is always in excess of boys; while in races dying out, the very large proportion of boys' births over those of girls is equally noticeable.

From these hastily presented scientific facts it is manifest that woman possesses in a higher degree than man that adaptation to the conditions surrounding her which is everywhere accepted as evidence of superior vitality and higher physical rank in life; and when biology becomes more fully understood it will also be universally acknowledged that the primal creative power, like the first manifestation of life, is feminine.

FOOTNOTES:

[10] The Call ended as follows: "The satisfactory results of Unrestricted Suffrage for Women in Wyoming Territory, of School Suffrage in twelve States, of Municipal and School Suffrage in England and Scotland, of Municipal and Parliamentary Suffrage in the Isle of Man, with the recent triumph in Washington Territory; also the constant agitation of the suffrage question in this country and in England, and the demands that women are everywhere making for larger liberties, are most encouraging signs of the times. This is the supreme hour for all who are interested in the enfranchisement of women to dedicate their time and money to the success of this movement, and by their generous contributions to strengthen those upon whom rests the responsibility of carrying forward this beneficent reform.

"ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, President. "SUSAN B. ANTHONY, Vice-Pres't at Large. "MAY WRIGHT SEWALL, Ch. Ex. Committee. "JANE H. SPOFFORD, Treasurer."

[11] The report of this convention, edited by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton, is the most complete of any ever issued by the association and has been placed in most of the public libraries of the United States.

[12] A list of delegates and those making State reports from year to year will be found in the last chapter of the Appendix.

[13] The history of the work in the various States, as detailed more or less fully in these reports from year to year, will be found recorded in the State chapters.

[14] Letters were received from S. Alfred Steinthal, treasurer of the Manchester society; F. Henrietta Mueller, member of the London School Board; Frances Lord, poor-law guardian in London; Eliza Orme, England's first woman lawyer; Dr. Agnes McLaren, Hannah Ford, Mary A. Estlin, Anna M. and Mary Priestman, Margaret Priestman Tanner, Rebecca Moore, Margaret E. Parker, all distinguished English women.

[15] California—Clarina I. H. Nichols, Mrs. S. J. Manning, Sarah Knox Goodrich; Colorado—Dr. Alida C. Avery, Henry C. Dillon; Connecticut—Frances Ellen Burr; District of Columbia—Cornelia A. Sheldon; Illinois—Dr. Alice B. Stockham, Ada H. Kepley, Pearl Adams, Lucinda B. Chandler, Annette Porter, M. D.; Iowa—Caroline A. Ingham, Jonathan and Mary V. S. Cowgill, M. A. Root; Kansas—Ex-Governor and Mrs. J. P. St. John, Mary A. Humphrey, Lorenzo Westover, Susan E. Wattles, Mrs. Van Coleman; Kentucky—Ellen B. Dietrick; Massachusetts—Lilian Whiting; Michigan—Catharine A. F. Stebbins, Mrs. R. M. Young, Cordelia F. Briggs; Maine—Ellen French Foster, Lavina M. Snow; Minnesota—Eliza B. Gamble, Laura Howe Carpenter, Mrs. T. B. Walker; Missouri—Elizabeth Avery Meriwether, Annie R. Irvine; Nebraska—Judge and Mrs. A.D. Yocum, Madame Charlton Edholm, Harriet S. Brooks; New Jersey—Theresa Walling Seabrook, Augusta Cooper; New Hampshire—Armenia S. White, Eliza Morrill; New York—Madame Clara Neymann, Mary F. Seymour, Jean Brooks Greenleaf, Mary F. Gilbert, Mathilde F. Wendt, Helen M. Loder, Augusta Lilienthal, Amy Post, Sarah H. Hallock, Elizabeth Oakes Smith; Ohio—Frances Dana Gage; Pennsylvania—Adeline Thomson, Deborah A. Pennock, Matilda Hindman, Hattie M. Du Bois, Mrs. Lovisa C. McCullough; Rhode Island—Catherine C. Knowles; Texas—Jennie Bland Beauchamp; Virginia—N. O. Town; Washington Ty.—Barbara J. Thompson; Wisconsin—Almeda B. Gray, Evaleen L. Mason, Mathilde Anneke; Canada—Dr. Emily H. Stowe.

[16] For a full account of Miss Carroll's services and such congressional action as was taken, see History of Woman Suffrage, Vol. II, pp. 3 and 863. It is the story of a national disgrace.

[17] Resolved, That we hold a convention in every unorganized State and Territory during the present year, as far as possible, at the capital.

Resolved, That we consider the enfranchisement of the women citizens of the United States the paramount issue of the hour, therefore

Resolved, That we will, by all honorable methods, oppose the election of any presidential candidate who is a known opponent to woman suffrage, and we recommend similar action on the part of our State associations in regard to State and congressional candidates and further

Resolved, That the officers of this convention shall communicate with presidential nominees of the several political parties and ascertain their position upon this question.

Resolved, That all Legislatures shall be requested to memorialize Congress upon the submission of a Sixteenth Amendment to the Constitution, this to be the duty of the vice presidents of the States and Territories.

WHEREAS, The National Government, through Congress and the Supreme Court, has persistently refused to protect the women of the several States and Territories in "the right of the citizen to vote," therefore

Resolved, That this association most earnestly protests against national interference to abolish the right where it has been secured by the Legislature—as, for example, the Edmunds Tucker Bill, which proposes to disfranchise all the women of Utah, thus inflicting the most degrading penalty upon the innocent equally with the guilty, by robbing them of their most sacred right of citizenship.

[18] The method of organization must be governed by circumstances. In some localities it is best to call a public meeting, in others to invite the friends of the movement to a private conference. Both women and men should be members and co-operate, and the society should be organized on as broad and liberal a basis as possible.

Hold conventions, picnics, teas, and occasionally have a lecture from some one who will draw a large crowd. Utilize your own talent, encourage your young women and men to speak, read essays and debate on the question. Hold public celebrations of the birthdays of eminent women, and in that way interest many who would not attend a pronounced suffrage meeting.

Persons who can not be induced to attend a public meeting will often accept an invitation to a parlor conference or entertainment where woman suffrage can be made the subject of conversation. Cultured women and men, who "have given the matter no thought," can be interested through a paper presenting the life and work of such women as Margaret Fuller, Abigail Adams, Lucretia Mott, etc., or showing the rise and progress of the woman suffrage movement, giving short biographies of the leaders.

Advocate suffrage through your local papers. Send them short, pithy communications, and, when possible, secure a column in each, to be edited by the society.

Invite pastors of churches to select from the numerous appropriate texts in the Bible and preach occasionally upon this subject.

A strong effort should be made to circulate literature. Every society should own a copy of the Woman Question in Europe, by Theodore Stanton, of the History of Woman Suffrage, by Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony and Mrs. Gage, of Mrs. Robinson's Massachusetts in the Woman Suffrage Movement, of T. W. Higginson's Common Sense for Women, of John Stuart Mill's Subjection of Women, and of Frances Power Cobbe's Duties of Women. These will furnish ammunition for arguments and debates.

Suffrage leaflets should be circulated in parlors and places of business, and "pockets" should be filled and hung in railroad stations, post-offices and hotels, that "he who runs may read." Over these should be printed "Woman Suffrage—Take and Read."

All the above methods aim rather at the education of the popular mind than the judiciary and legislative branches of the Government. The next step is to educate the representatives in Congress and on the bench of the Supreme Court in the principles of constitutional law and republican government, that they may understand the justice of the demands for a Sixteenth Amendment which shall forbid the several States to deny or abridge the rights of women citizens of the United States.

[19] Miss Anthony never wrote her addresses and no stenographic reports were made. Brief and inadequate newspaper accounts are all that remain.



CHAPTER III.

CONGRESSIONAL HEARINGS AND REPORTS OF 1884.

Both Senate and House of the preceding Congress had appointed Select Committees on Woman Suffrage to whom all petitions, etc., were referred.[20] The Senate of the Forty-eighth Congress renewed this committee, but the House declined to do so. Early in the session, Dec. 19, 1883, the Committee on Rules refused to report such a committee but authorized Speaker Warren Keifer of Ohio to present the question to the House. A spirited debate followed which displayed the sentiment of members against the question of woman suffrage itself. John H. Reagan of Texas was the principal opponent, saying in the course of his remarks:

I hope that it will not be considered ungracious in me that I oppose the wish of any lady. But when she so far misunderstands her duty as to want to go to working on the roads and making rails and serving in the militia and going into the army, I want to protect her against it. I do not think that sort of employment suits her sex or her physical strength. I think also, when we attempt to overturn the social status of the world as it has existed for six thousand years, we ought to begin somewhere where we have a constitutional basis to stand upon....

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