Eve having taken it upon herself to teach man to know the difference between good and evil, the responsibility rests upon woman to teach man to choose the good and refuse the evil. She will do this if she has freedom of opportunity.

Man has been given schools to develop brain power, and I do not underrate their value. He has nearly entered into his domain as far as the material forces are concerned, but there is a moral and spiritual element in humanity which eludes his grasp in practically everything he undertakes. This lack of the moral element is to-day our greatest danger. We do not ask for the ballot because men are tyrants, but because God has made us the conservators of the race. To-day we are queens without a scepter; the penalty to the nation is that men are largely indifferent to its best interests and many do not vote. Men are under the influence of women during the formative period of their lives, first of their mothers, then of women teachers; how can they do otherwise than underestimate the value of citizenship? How can the young men of this nation be inspired with a love of justice? It is a dangerous thing that the education of citizens is given over to women, unless these teachers have themselves the rights of citizens. How can you expect such women as have addressed you here in this convention to teach the youth to honor a Government which thus dishonors women?

The world has never known but one Susan B. Anthony. God and the world needed her and God gave her to the world and to humanity. The next Statue of Liberty will have her features. Of all the newspaper criticisms and remarks which have been made about her I read one the other day which exactly suited me; it called her "that grand old champion of progress."

The women are coming and the men will be better for their coming. Men say women are not fit to govern because they can not fight. When men live upon a very low plane so there is only one way to manage them and that is to knock them on the head, that is true. It probably was true of government in the beginning, but we are to grow up out of this low state.

When we reach the highest development, moral and spiritual forces will govern. That women can and do govern even in our present undeveloped condition is shown by the fact that three-fourths of our educators are women. I remember when it used to be said, "You can not put the boys and girls into the hands of women, because they can not thrash them." To-day brute force is almost entirely eliminated from our schools. That women should not take part in government because they can not fight was probably true in ages gone by when governments were maintained by brute force, but it does not obtain in a government ruled by public opinion expressed on a little piece of paper. Women as a class do not fight, and that is the reason they are needed to introduce into government a power of another kind, the power with which women govern their children and their husbands, that beautiful law of love which is to be the only thing that remains forever....

Our statesmen are doubting the success of self-government. They say universal suffrage is a failure, forgetting that we have never had universal suffrage. The majority of the race has never expressed its sense in government. We are a living falsehood when we compare the basic principles of our Government with things as they are now. It is becoming a common expression, "The voice of the people is not the voice of God." If you do not find God in the voice of the people you can not find him anywhere. It is said, "Power inheres in the people," and the nation is shorn of half its power for progress as long as the ballot is not in the hands of women.

What has caused heretofore the downfall of nations? The lack of morality in government. It will eat out the life of a nation as it does the heart of an individual. This question of woman's equal rights, equal duties, equal responsibilities, is the greatest which has come before us. The destiny of the whole race is comprised in four things: Religion, education, morals, politics. Woman is a religious being; she is becoming educated; she has a high code of morals; she will yet purify politics.

I want to impress upon the audience this thought, that every man is a direct factor in the legislation of this land. Every woman is not a direct factor, but yet is more or less responsible for every evil existing in the community. I have nothing but pity for that woman who can fold her hands and say she has all the rights she wants. How can she think of the great problem God has given us to solve—to redeem the race from superstition and crime—and not want to put her hand to the wheel of progress and help move the world?

Mrs. Hannah Whitall Smith (Penn.) pronounced the benediction at the closing session.

Sixteen States were represented at this Nineteenth convention, and reports were sent from many more. Mrs. Sewall, chairman of the executive committee, presented a comprehensive report of the past year's work, which included appeals to many gatherings of religious bodies. Conventions had been held in each congressional district of Kansas and Wisconsin. She referred particularly to the completion of the last of the three volumes of the History of Woman Suffrage by Miss Anthony, Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Gage. An elaborate plan of work was adopted for the coming year, which included the placing of this History in public libraries, a continuation of the appeals to religious assemblies, the appointment of delegates to all of the approaching national political conventions, and the holding by each vice-president of a series of conventions in the congressional districts of her State. It was especially desired that arrangements should be made for the enrollment in every State of the women who want to vote, and Mrs. Colby was appointed to mature a suitable plan.

Among the extended resolutions adopted were the following:

WHEREAS, For the first time a vote has been taken in the Senate of the United States on an amendment to the National Constitution enfranchising women; and

WHEREAS, Nearly one-third of the Senators voted for the amendment; therefore,

Resolved, That we rejoice in this evidence that our demand is forcing itself upon the attention and action of Congress, and that when a new Congress shall have assembled, with new men and new ideas, we may hope to change this minority into a majority.

WHEREAS, The Anti-Polygamy bill passed by both Houses of Congress provides for the disfranchisement of the non-polygamous women of Utah; and

WHEREAS, The women thus sought to be disfranchised have been for years in the peaceable exercise of the ballot, and no charge is made against them of any crime by reason of which they should lose their vested rights; therefore,

Resolved, That this association recognizes in these measures a disregard of individual rights which is dangerous to the liberties of all; since to establish the precedent that the ballot may be taken away is to threaten the permanency of our republican form of government.

Resolved, That we call the attention of the working women of the country to the fact that a disfranchised class is always an oppressed class and that only through the protection of the ballot can they secure equal pay for equal work.

Resolved, That we recognize as hopeful signs of the times the indorsement of woman suffrage by the Knights of Labor in national assembly, and by the National Woman's Christian Temperance Union, and that we congratulate these organizations upon their recognition of the fact that the ballot in the hands of woman is necessary for their success.

Resolved, That we extend our sympathy to our beloved president, in the recent death of her husband, Henry B. Stanton; and we recall with gratitude the fact that he was one of the earliest and most consistent advocates of human liberty.

Thanks were extended to the United States Senators who voted for a Sixteenth Amendment. A committee was appointed, Mrs. Blake, chairman, to wait upon President Grover Cleveland and protest against the threatened disfranchising of the women of Washington Territory; also to secure a hearing before the proper congressional committee in reference to the Edmunds-Tucker Bill, which proposed to disfranchise both the Gentile and Mormon women of Utah. The usual large number of letters were received.[63]

The following letter was read from ex-United States Treasurer F. E. Spinner, the first official to employ women:

I am eighty-five years old, and I can no longer look forward for future earthly happiness. All my joys are now retrospective, and in the long vista of years that I constantly look back upon, there is no time that affords me more pleasure than that when I was in the Treasury of the United States. The fact that I was instrumental in introducing women to employment in the offices of the Government, gives me more real satisfaction than all the other deeds of my life.

A committee consisting of the national board and chairman of the executive committee was appointed to arrange for a great international meeting the next year.

On the opening day of this convention a vote on woman suffrage was taken in the United States Senate as described in the preceding chapter; at its close a telegram was received that a Municipal Suffrage Bill had been passed by the Kansas Legislature; and its members separated with the consciousness that two distinctly progressive steps had been taken.

FOOTNOTES:

[62] Dr. Newman was an advocate of suffrage for women. After he became Bishop he wrote for publication, July 12, 1894: "The exalted mission of Christianity is to reverse the verdict of the world on the rights of woman. Until Christ came she had been regarded by State and Church, in the most highly civilized lands, as the servant of man, created for his pleasure and subordinated to his authority. Her rights of life, property and vocation were in his hands for control and final disposition.

"Against this tyranny we wage a war of extermination. Henceforth in State and Church, in business and pleasure, whether married or single, woman is to be esteemed an individual, one of the two equal units of humanity, to count one the whole world over, and to possess and exercise the rights of 'life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.'"

[63] Among the writers were Harriot Stanton Blatch of England, the Rev. Frederick A. Hinckley, Philadelphia; Prudence Crandall Philleo (Kan.); Mary V. Cowgill, Mary J. Coggeshall, editor Woman's Standard, (Ia.); Belva A. Lockwood (D. C.); General and Mrs. Rufus Saxton, Sallie Clay Bennett (Ky.); Alice M. Pickler (Dak.); Sarah R. Langdon Williams, Sarah M. Perkins (O.); Mr. and Mrs. McClung (Tenn.); telegram signed by Emmeline B. Wells and a long list of names from Utah.



CHAPTER VIII.

INTERNATIONAL COUNCIL OF WOMEN—HEARING OF 1888.

The year 1888 is distinguished for the largest and most representative woman's convention held up to that time—the International Council of Women, which met in Washington, D. C., March 25, continuing until April 1. The origin of this great body is briefly stated in the official report as follows: "Visiting England and France in 1882, Mrs. Stanton conceived the idea of an International Council of Women interested in the movement for suffrage, and pressed its consideration on the leading reformers in those countries. A few accepted the idea, and when Miss Anthony arrived in England early the following year, they discussed the question fully with each other, and seeing that such a convention was both advisable and practicable, they resolved to call it in the near future. On the eve of their departure, at a reception given them in Liverpool, the subject was presented and favorably received. Among the guests were Priscilla Bright McLaren, Margaret Bright Lucas, Alice Scatcherd and Margaret E. Parker. The initiative steps for an International Council were then taken and a committee of correspondence appointed.[64]

"When Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony returned to America it was decided, in consultation with friends, to celebrate the fourth decade of the woman suffrage movement by calling an International Council. At its nineteenth annual convention, January, 1887, the National Suffrage Association had resolved to assume the entire responsibility and to extend the invitation to all associations of women in the trades, professions and reforms, as well as those advocating political rights. The herculean task of making all the necessary arrangements fell chiefly on Miss Anthony, Miss Rachel G. Foster (Avery) and Mrs. May Wright Sewall, as Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Spofford were in Europe. To say nothing of the thought, anxiety, time and force expended, we can appreciate in some measure the magnitude of the undertaking by its financial cost of nearly $12,000.

"This was the first attempt to convene an international body of women and its conception would have been possible only with those to whom the whole cause of woman is indebted for its most daring and important innovations. The call for this meeting was issued in June, 1887:

The first public demand for equal educational, industrial, professional and political rights for women was made in a convention held at Seneca Falls, New York, in the year 1848.

To celebrate the Fortieth Anniversary of this event, an International Council of Women will be convened under the auspices of the National Woman Suffrage Association, in Albaugh's opera house, Washington, D. C., on March 25, 1888.

It is impossible to overestimate the far-reaching influence of such a Council. An interchange of opinions on the great questions now agitating the world will rouse women to new thought, will intensify their love of liberty and will give them a realizing sense of the power of combination.

However the governments, religions, laws and customs of nations may differ, all are agreed on one point, namely: man's sovereignty in the State, in the Church and in the Home. In an International Council women may hope to devise new and more effective methods for securing in these three institutions the equality and justice which they have so long and so earnestly sought. Such a Council will impress the important lesson that the position of women anywhere affects their position everywhere. Much is said of universal brotherhood, but for weal or woe, more subtle and more binding is universal sisterhood.

Women recognizing the disparity between their achievements and their labors, will no doubt agree that they have been trammeled by their political subordination. Those active in great philanthropic enterprises sooner or later realize that, so long as women are not acknowledged to be the political equals of men, their judgment on political questions will have but little weight.

It is, however, neither intended nor desired that discussions in the International Council shall be limited to questions touching the political rights of women. Formal invitations requesting the appointment of delegates will be issued to representative organizations in every department of woman's work. Literary Clubs, Art Unions, Temperance Unions, Labor Leagues, Missionary, Peace and Moral Purity Societies, Charitable, Professional, Educational and Industrial Associations will thus be offered equal opportunity with Suffrage Societies to be represented in what should be the ablest and most imposing body of women ever assembled.

The Council will continue eight days, and its sixteen public sessions will afford ample opportunity for reporting the various phases of woman's work and progress in all parts of the world, during the past forty years. It is hoped that all friends of the advancement of women will lend their support to this undertaking.

On behalf of the National Woman Suffrage Association:

ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, President. SUSAN B. ANTHONY, First Vice-Pres. MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, Second Vice-Pres. RACHEL G. FOSTER, Corresponding Sec'y. ELLEN H. SHELDON, Recording Sec'y. JANE H. SPOFFORD, Treasurer. MAY WRIGHT SEWALL, Chairman Ex. Com.

"All of the intervening months from June until the next March were spent in the extensive preparations necessary to the success of a convention which proposed to assemble delegates and speakers from many parts of the world. As the funds had to be raised wholly by private subscription, no bureau with an expensive pay-roll was established but the entire burden was carried by a few individuals, who contributed their services."[65]

Fifty-three organizations of women, national in character, of a religious, patriotic, charitable, reform, literary and political nature, were represented on the platform by eighty speakers and forty-nine delegates, from England, Ireland, France, Norway, Denmark, Finland, India, Canada and the United States. Among the subjects discussed were Education, Philanthropies, Temperance, Industries, Professions, Organizations, Social Purity, Legal, Political and Religious Conditions. While no restriction was placed upon the fullest expression of the most widely divergent views upon these vital questions of the age, the sessions, both executive and public, were absolutely without friction.

A complete stenographic report of these fifty-three meetings was transcribed and furnished to the press by a thoroughly organized corps of women under the direction of Miss Mary F. Seymour of New York City, an unexcelled if not an unparalleled feat.[66] The management of the Council by the different committees was perfect in every detail, and the eight days' proceedings passed without a break, a jar or an unpleasant circumstance.

Saturday evening, March 23, Mr. and Mrs. Spofford, of the Riggs House, gave a reception to enable the people of Washington to meet the distinguished speakers and delegates. The large parlors were thrown open and finally the big dining-room, but the throng was so dense that it was almost impossible to move from one room to another.

President and Mrs. Grover Cleveland received the Council Friday afternoon. Monday evening a reception was given by Senator and Mrs. Thomas W. Palmer of Michigan, for which eight hundred invitations were sent to foreign legations, prominent officials and the members of the Council. Senator and Mrs. Leland Stanford opened their elegant home on Tuesday afternoon in honor of the pioneers in the woman suffrage movement. In addition to these many special entertainments were given for the women lawyers, physicians, ministers, collegiate alumnae, etc., and those of a semi-private nature were far too numerous for mention.

Albaugh's Opera House was crowded to its capacity at all of the sixteen sessions. Religious services were held on both Sundays, conducted entirely by women representing many different creeds. Some of the old-time hymns were sung, but many were from modern writers—Whittier, Samuel Longfellow, John W. Chadwick, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Julia Mills Dunn, etc. The assisting ministers for the first Sunday were the Reverends Phebe A. Hanaford, Ada C. Bowles, Antoinette Brown Blackwell, Amanda Deyo. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw gave the sermon, a matchless discourse on The Heavenly Vision.

"Whereupon, O, King Agrippa, I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." Acts, xxvi:19.

In the beauty of his Oriental home the Psalmist caught the vision of the events in the midst of which you and I are living to-day. And though he wrought the vision into the wonderful prophecy of the 68th Psalm, yet so new and strange were the thoughts to men, that for thousands of years they failed to catch its spirit and understand its power.

The vision which appeared to David was a world lost in sin. He heard its cry for deliverance, he saw its uplifted hands. Everywhere the eyes of good men were turned toward the skies for help. For ages had they striven against the forces of evil; they had sought by every device to turn back the flood-tide of base passion and avarice, but to no purpose. It seemed as if all men were engulfed in one common ruin. Patient, sphinx-like, sat woman, limited by sin, limited by social custom, limited by false theories, limited by bigotry and by creeds, listening to the tramp of the weary millions as they passed on through the centuries, patiently toiling and waiting, humbly bearing the pain and weariness which fell to her lot.

Century after century came forth from the divine life only to pass into the great eternity—and still she toiled and still she waited. At last, in the mute agony of despair, she lifted her eyes above the earth to heaven and away from the jarring strifes which surrounded her, and that which dawned upon her gaze was so full of wonder that her soul burst its prison-house of bondage as she beheld the vision of true womanhood. She knew then it was not the purpose of the Divine that she should crouch beneath the bonds of custom and ignorance. She learned that she was created not from the side of man, but rather by the side of man. The world had suffered because she had not kept her divinely-appointed place. Then she remembered the words of prophecy, that salvation was to come to the race not through the man, but through the descendant of the woman. Recognizing her mission at last, she cried out: "Speak now, Lord, for thy servant heareth thee." And the answer came: "The Lord giveth the Word, and the women that publish the tidings are a great host."



To-day the vision is a reality. From every land the voice of woman is heard proclaiming the word which is given her, and the wondering world, which for a moment stopped its busy wheel of life that it might smite and jeer her, has learned at last that wherever the intuitions of the human mind are called into special exercise, wherever the art of persuasive eloquence is demanded, wherever heroic conduct is based upon duty rather than impulse, wherever her efforts in opening the sacred doors for the benefit of truth can avail—in one and all these respects woman greatly excels man. Now the wisest and best people everywhere feel that if woman enters upon her tasks wielding her own effective armor, if her inspirations are pure and holy, the Spirit Omnipotent, whose influence has held sway in all movements and reforms, whose voice has called into its service the great workmen of every age, shall, in these last days, fall especially upon woman. If she venture to obey, what is man that he should attempt to abrogate her sacred and divine mission? In the presence of what woman has already accomplished, who shall say that a true woman—noble in her humility, strong in her gentleness, rising above all selfishness, gathering up her varied gifts and accomplishments to consecrate them to God and humanity—who shall say that such an one is not in a position to do that for which the world will no longer rank her other than among the first in the work of human redemption? Then, influenced by lofty motives, stimulated by the wail of humanity and the glory of God, woman may go forth and enter into any field of usefulness which opens up before her....

In the Scripture from which the text is taken we recognize a universal law which has been the experience of every one of us. Paul is telling the story of a vision he saw, which became the inspiration of his life, the turning point where his whole existence was changed, when, in obedience to that vision, he put himself in relation with the power to which he belonged, and recognizing in that One which appeared to him on his way from Jerusalem to Damascus his Divine Master, he also recognized that the purpose of his life could be fulfilled only when, in obedience to that Master, he caught and assimilated to himself the nature of Him, whose servant he was....

Every reformer the world has ever seen has had a similar experience. Every truth which has been taught to humanity has passed through a like channel. No one of God's children has ever gone forth to the world who has not first had revealed to him his mission, in a vision.

To this Jew, bound by the prejudices of past generations, weighed down by the bigotry of human creeds, educated in the schools of an effete philosophy, struggling through the darkness and gloom which surrounded him, when as a persecutor he sought to annihilate the disciples of a new faith, there came this vision into his life; there dawned the electric light of a great truth, which found beneath the hatred and pride and passion which filled his life and heart, the divine germ that is implanted in the soul of each one of God's children....

Then came crowding through his mind new queries: "Can it be that my fathers were wrong, and that their philosophy and religion do not contain all there is of truth? Can it be that outside of all we have known, there lies a great unexplored universe to which the mind of man can yet attain?" And filled with the divine purpose, he opened his heart to receive the new truth that came to him from the vision which God revealed to his soul.

All down through the centuries God has been revealing in visions the great truths which have lifted the race, step by step, until to-day womanhood, in this sunset hour of the nineteenth century, is gathered here from the East and the West, the North and the South, women of every land, of every race, of all religious beliefs. But diverse and varied as are our races, our theories, our religions, yet we come together here with one harmonious purpose—that of lifting humanity into a higher, purer, truer life.

To one has come the vision of political freedom. She saw how the avarice and ambition of one class with power made them forget the rights of another. She saw how the unjust laws embittered both—those who made them and those upon whom the injustice rested. She recognized the great principles of universal equality, seeing that all alike must be free; that humanity everywhere must be lifted out of subjection into the free and full air of divine liberty.

To another was revealed the vision of social freedom. She saw that sin which crushed the lives of one class, rested lightly on the lives of the other. She saw its blighting effect on both, and she lifted up her voice and demanded that there be recognized no sex in sin.

Another has come hither, who, gazing about her, saw men brutalized by the rum fiend, the very life of a nation threatened, and the power of the liquor traffic, with its hand on the helm of the Ship of State, guiding it with sails full spread straight upon the rocks to destruction. Then, looking away from earth, she beheld a vision of what the race and our nation might become, with all its possibility of wealth and power, if freed from this burden, and forth upon her mission of deliverance she sped her way.

Another beheld a vision of what it is to be learned, to explore the great fields of knowledge which the Infinite has spread before the world. And this vision has driven her out from the seclusion of her own quiet life that she might give this great truth to womanhood everywhere....

And so we come, each bearing her torch of living truth, casting over the world the light of the vision that has dawned upon her soul.

But there is still another vision which reaches above earth, beyond time—a vision which has dawned upon many, that they are here not to do their own work, but the will of Him who sent them. And the woman who sees the still higher truth, recognizes the great power to which she belongs and what her life may become when, in submission to that Master, she takes upon herself the nature of Him whom she serves.

We will notice in the second place the purpose of all these visions which have come to us. Paul was not permitted to dwell on the vision of truth which came to him. God had a purpose in its manifestation, and that purpose was revealed when He said to the wonder-stricken servant, "Arise; for I have appeared unto thee for this purpose, not that thou behold the truth for thyself, but to make thee a minister and a witness both of that which thou hast already seen and of other truths which I shall reveal unto thee. Go unto the Gentiles. Give them the truth which thou shalt receive that their eyes may be opened, and that they may be turned from darkness to light; that they, too, may receive a like inheritance with thyself...."

This, then, is God's lesson to you and to me. He opens before our eyes the vision of a great truth and for a moment He permits our wondering gaze to rest upon it; then He bids us go forth. Jacob of old saw the vision of God's messengers ascending and descending, but none of them standing still.

Herein, then, lies the secret of the success of the reformer. First the vision, then the purpose of the vision. "I was not disobedient unto the heavenly vision." This is the manly and noble confession of one of the world's greatest reformers, and in it we catch a glimpse of the secrets of the success of his divinely-appointed mission. The difference between the Saul of Tarsus and Paul the Prisoner of the Lord was measured by his obedience. This, too, is a universal law, true of the life of every reformer, who, having had revealed to him a vision of the great truth, has in obedience to that vision carried it to humanity. Though at first he holds the truth to himself, and longs to be lifted up by its power, he soon learns that there is a giving forth of that which one possesses which enriches the giver, and that the more he gives of his vision to men the richer it becomes, the brighter it grows, until it illuminates all his pathway....

Yet Paul's life was not an idle dream; it was a constant struggle against the very people whom he tried to save; his greatest foes were those to whom he was sent. He had learned the lesson all reformers must sooner or later learn, that the world never welcomes its deliverers save with the dungeon, the fagot or the cross. No man or woman has ever sought to lead his fellows to a higher and better mode of life without learning the power of the world's ingratitude; and though at times popularity may follow in the wake of a reformer, yet the reformer knows popularity is not love. The world will support you when you have compelled it to do so by manifestations of power, but it will shrink from you as soon as power and greatness are no longer on your side. This is the penalty paid by good people who sacrifice themselves for others. They must live without sympathy; their feelings will be misunderstood; their efforts will be uncomprehended. Like Paul, they will be betrayed by friends; like Christ in the agony of Gethsemane, they must bear their struggle alone.

Our reverence for the reformers of the past is posterity's judgment of them. But to them, what is that now? They have passed into the shadows where neither our voice of praise or of blame disturbs their repose.

This is the hardest lesson the reformer has to learn. When, with soul aglow with the light of a great truth, she, in obedience to the vision, turns to take it to the needy one, instead of finding a world ready to rise up and receive her, she finds it wrapped in the swaddling clothes of error, eagerly seeking to win others to its conditions of slavery. She longs to make humanity free; she listens to their conflicting creeds, and yearns to save them from the misery they endure. She knows that there is no form of slavery more bitter or arrogant than error, that truth alone can make man free, and she longs to bring the heart of the world and the heart of truth together, that the truth may exercise its transforming power over the life of the world. The greatest test of the reformer's courage comes when, with a warm, earnest longing for humanity, she breaks for it the bread of truth and the world turns from this life-giving power and asks instead of bread a stone.

It is just here that so many of God's workmen fail, and themselves need to turn back to the vision as it appeared to them, and to gather fresh courage and new inspiration for the future. This, my sisters, we all must do if we would succeed. The reformer may be inconsistent, she may be stern or even impatient, but if the world feels that she is in earnest she can not fail. Let the truth which she desires to teach first take possession of herself. Every woman who to-day goes out into the world with a truth, who has not herself become possessed of that truth, had far better stay at home.

Who would have dreamed, when at that great anti-slavery meeting in London, some years ago, the arrogance and pride of men excluded the women whom God had moved to lift up their voices in behalf of the baby that was sold by the pound—who would have dreamed that that very exclusion would be the keynote of woman's freedom? That out of the prejudice of that hour God should be able to flash upon the crushed hearts of those excluded the grand vision which we see manifested here to-day? That out of a longing for the liberty of a portion of the race, God should be able to show to women the still larger vision of the freedom of all human kind?

Grand as is this vision which meets us here, it is but the dawning of a new day; and as the first beams of morning light give promise of the radiance which shall envelop the earth when the sun shall have arisen in all its splendor, so there comes to us a prophecy of that glorious day when the vision which we are now beholding, which is beaming in the soul of one, shall enter the hearts and transfigure the lives of all.

The formal opening of the Council, Monday morning, March 25, was thus described: "The vast auditorium, perfect in its proportions and arrangements, was richly decorated with the flags of all nations and of every State in the Union. The platform was fragrant with evergreens and flowers, brilliant with rich furniture, crowded with distinguished women, while soft music with its universal language attuned all hearts to harmony. The beautiful portrait of the sainted Lucretia Mott, surrounded with smilax and lilies of the valley, seemed to sanctify the whole scene and to give a touch of pathos to all the proceedings."

This great meeting, like so many before and since that time, was opened by Miss Anthony. After the invocation and the hymn, she said in part:

Forty years ago women had no place anywhere except in their homes; no pecuniary independence, no purpose in life save that which came through marriage. From a condition, as many of you can remember, in which no woman thought of earning her bread by any other means than sewing, teaching, cooking or factory work, in these later years the way has been opened to every avenue of industry, to every profession, whereby woman to-day stands almost the peer of man in her opportunities for financial independence. What is true in the world of work is true in education, is true everywhere.

Men have granted us, in the civil rights which we have been demanding, everything almost but the pivotal right, the one that underlies all other rights, the one with which citizens of this republic may protect themselves—the right to vote.

I have the pleasure of introducing to you this morning the woman who not only joined with Lucretia Mott in calling the first convention, but who for the greater part of twenty years has been president of the National Suffrage Association—Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton.

The entire audience arose with clapping of hands and waving of handkerchiefs to greet this leader, who had come from England to attend the Council. In the course of a long and dignified address of welcome, she said:

Whether our feet are compressed in iron shoes, our faces hidden with veils and masks; whether yoked with cows to draw the plow through its furrows, or classed with idiots, lunatics and criminals in the laws and constitutions of the State, the principle is the same; for the humiliations of spirit are as real as the visible badges of servitude. A difference in government, religion, laws and social customs makes but little change in the relative status of woman to the self-constituted governing classes, so long as subordination in all countries is the rule of her being. Through suffering we have learned the open sesame to the hearts of each other. With the spirit forever in bondage, it is the same whether housed in golden cages with every want supplied, or wandering in the dreary deserts of life, friendless and forsaken. Long ago we of America heard the deep yearnings of the souls of women in foreign lands for freedom responsive to our own. Mary Wollstonecraft, Madame de Stael, Madam Roland, George Sand, Frederica Bremer, Elizabeth Barrett Browning, Frances Wright and George Eliot alike have pictured the wrongs of woman in poetry and prose. Though divided by vast mountain ranges, oceans and plains, yet the psalms of our lives have been in the same strain—too long, alas, in the minor key—for hopes deferred have made the bravest hearts sometimes despairing. But the same great over-soul has been our faith and inspiration. The steps of progress already achieved in many countries should encourage us to tune our harps anew to songs of victory....

I think most of us have come to feel that a voice in the laws is indispensable to achieve success; that these great moral struggles for higher education, temperance, peace, the rights of labor, international arbitration, religious freedom, are all questions to be finally adjusted by the action of government and thus, without a direct voice in legislation, woman's influence will be entirely lost.

Experience has fully proved that sympathy as a civil agent is vague and powerless until caught and chained in logical propositions and coined into law. When every prayer and tear represents a ballot, the mothers of the race will no longer weep in vain over the miseries of their children. The active interest women are taking in all the great questions of the day is in strong contrast with the apathy and indifference in which we found them half a century ago, and the contrast in their condition between now and then is equally marked. Those who inaugurated the movement for woman's enfranchisement, who for long years endured the merciless storm of ridicule and persecution, mourned over by friends, ostracized in social life, scandalized by enemies, denounced by the pulpit, scarified and caricatured by the press, may well congratulate themselves on the marked change in public sentiment which this magnificent gathering of educated women from both hemispheres so triumphantly illustrates....

We, who like the children of Israel, have been wandering in the wilderness of prejudice and ridicule for forty years feel a peculiar tenderness for the young women on whose shoulders we are about to leave our burdens. Although we have opened a pathway to the promised land and cleared up much of the underbrush of false sentiment, logic and rhetoric intertwisted with law and custom, which blocked all avenues in starting, yet there are still many obstacles to be encountered before the rough journey is ended. The younger women are starting with great advantages over us. They have the results of our experience; they have superior opportunities for education; they will find a more enlightened public sentiment for discussion; they will have more courage to take the rights which belong to them. Hence we may look to them for speedy conquests. When we think of the vantage-ground woman holds to-day, in spite of all the artificial obstacles placed in her way, we are filled with wonder as to what the future mothers of the race will be when free to have complete development.

Thus far women have been the mere echoes of men. Our laws and constitutions, our creeds and codes, and the customs of social life are all of masculine origin. The true woman is as yet a dream of the future. A just government, a humane religion, a pure social life await her coming....

At the close of this address Miss Anthony presented greetings from the Woman's Liberal Association of Bristol, England, signed by many distinguished names; from the Woman Suffrage Association of Norway, and from a number of prominent women in Dublin.[67] There were also individual letters from Mrs. Priscilla Bright McLaren and many other foreigners.[68]

Dr. Elizabeth C. Sargent and eight other women physicians of San Francisco sent cordial good wishes. Congratulations were received from many Americans,[69] and a cablegram from Mrs. Harriot Stanton Blatch, of England.

Miss Anthony then presented the foreign delegates: England, Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant, Mrs. Alice Scatcherd, Mrs. Ashton Dilke, Madame Zadel B. Gustafson; Ireland, Mrs. Margaret Moore; France, Madame Isabella Bogelot; Finland, Baroness Alexandra Gripenberg; Denmark, Madame Ada M. Frederiksen; Norway, Madame Sophie Magelsson Groth; Italy, Madame Fanny Zampini Salazar; India, Pundita Ramabai Sarasvati; Canada, Mrs. Bessie Starr Keefer.

After all had acknowledged the introduction with brief remarks, Miss Anthony presented, amid much applause, Lucy Stone, Frances E. Willard, Julia Ward Howe, Isabella Beecher Hooker, Matilda Joslyn Gage, Clara Barton—the most eminent galaxy of women ever assembled upon one platform. Frederick Douglass and Robert Purvis were introduced as pioneers in the movement for woman suffrage.

It would be impossible within the limits of one chapter to give even the briefest synopsis of the addresses which swept through the week like a grand procession. The program only could convey an idea of the value of this intellectual entertainment which called together, day after day and night after night, audiences that taxed the capacity of the largest opera house in Washington.[70]

On the second Sunday afternoon, Easter Day, the services consisted of a symposium conducted by sixteen women, of all religious faiths and of none. In the evening, when as in the morning a vast and interested audience was present, brief farewells were spoken by a number of the foreign delegates. The leading address was by Mrs. Zerelda G. Wallace on the Moral Power of the Ballot. Mrs. Stanton closed the meeting with a great speech, and the following resolution was adopted:

It is the unanimous voice of this International Council that all institutions of learning and of professional instruction, including schools of theology, law and medicine, should, in the interests of humanity, be as freely opened to women as to men, and that opportunities for industrial training should be as generally and as liberally provided for one sex as for the other. The representatives of organized womanhood in this Council will steadily demand that in all avocations in which both men and women engage, equal wages shall be paid for equal work; and they declare that an enlightened society should demand, as the only adequate expression of the high civilization which it is its office to establish and maintain, an identical standard of personal purity and morality for men and women.

During the month of preparation for this International Council, the idea came many times to Mrs. Sewall that it should result in a permanent organization. The other members gave a cordial assent to this proposition, and the necessary committees were appointed. Before the delegates left Washington both a National and International Council of Women were formed.[71]

Immediately following the Council the National Woman Suffrage Association held its Twentieth annual convention in the Church of Our Father, April 3, 4, 1888. As there had been eight days of continuous speech-making this meeting was devoted principally to the presenting of State reports and transacting of necessary business. There were, however, a number of addresses from the distinguished women who remained after the Council to attend this convention.

The Committee on National Enrollment, Mrs. Louisa Southworth of Ohio, chairman, reported 40,000 names of adult citizens who favored equal suffrage; 9,000 of these were from Ohio and 9,000 from Nebraska. Women were urged to send petitions to members of Congress from their respective States. Mrs. Stanton was requested to prepare a memorial to be presented to each of the national political conventions to be held during the year, and committees were appointed to visit each for the purpose of securing in their platforms a recognition of woman suffrage.

The most interesting feature was the hearing before the Senate Committee on Woman Suffrage, which took place April 2.[72] Mrs. Stanton made the opening address, in which she took up the provisions of the Federal Constitution, one by one, and showed how they had been violated in their application to women, saying:

Even the preamble of the Constitution is an argument for self-government—"We, the people." You recognize women as people, for you count them in the basis of representation. Half our Congressmen hold their seats to-day as representatives of women. We help to swell the figures by which you are here, and too many of you, alas, are only figurative representatives, paying little heed to our rights as citizens.

"No bill of attainder shall be passed." "No title of nobility granted." So says the Constitution; and yet you have passed bills of attainder in every State of the Union making sex a disqualification for the franchise. You have granted titles of nobility to every male voter, making all men rulers, governors, sovereigns over all women.

"The United States shall guarantee to every State in the Union a republican form of government." And yet you have not a republican form of government in a single State. One-half the people have never consented to one law under which they live. They have rulers placed over them in whom they have no choice. They are taxed without representation, tried in our courts by men for the violation of laws made by men, with no appeal except to men, and for some crimes over which men should have no jurisdiction....

Landing in New York one week ago, I saw 400 steerage passengers leave the vessel. Dull-eyed, heavy-visaged, stooping with huge burdens and the oppressions endured in the Old World, they stood in painful contrast with the group of brilliant women on their way to the International Council here in Washington. I thought, as this long line passed by, of the speedy transformation the genial influences of equality would effect in the appearance of these men, of the new dignity they would acquire with a voice in the laws under which they live, and I rejoiced for them; but bitter reflections filled my mind when I thought that these men are the future rulers of our daughters; these will interpret the civil and criminal codes by which they will be governed; these will be our future judges and jurors to try young girls in our courts, for trial by a jury of her peers has never yet been vouchsafed to woman. Here is a right so ancient that it is difficult to trace its origin in history, a right so sacred that the humblest criminal may choose his juror. But alas for the daughters of the people, their judges, advocates, jurors, must be men, and for them there is no appeal. But this is only one wrong among many inevitable for a disfranchised class. It is impossible for you, gentlemen, to appreciate the humiliations women suffer at every turn....

You have now the power to settle this question by wise legislation. But if you can not be aroused to its serious consideration, like every other step in progress, it will eventually be settled by violence. The wild enthusiasm of woman can be used for evil as well as good. To-day you have the power to guide and direct it into channels of true patriotism, but in the future, with all the elements of discontent now gathering from foreign countries, you will have the scenes of the French Commune repeated in our land. What women, exasperated with a sense of injustice, have done in dire extremities in the nations of the Old World, they will do here....

I will leave it to your imagination to picture to yourselves how you would feel if you had had a case in court, a bill before some legislative body or a political aspiration for nearly half a century, with a continual succession of adverse decisions, while law and common justice were wholly on your side. Such, honorable gentlemen, is our case....

In the history of the race there has been no struggle for liberty like this. Whenever the interest of the ruling classes has induced them to confer new rights on a subject class it has been done with no effort on the part of the latter. Neither the American slave nor the English laborer demanded the right of suffrage. It was given in both cases to strengthen the Liberal party. The philanthropy of the few may have entered into those reforms, but political expediency carried both measures. Women, on the contrary, have fought their own battles and in their rebellion against existing conditions have inaugurated the most fundamental revolution the world has ever witnessed. The magnitude and multiplicity of the changes involved make the obstacles in the way of success seem almost insurmountable....

Society is based on this fourfold bondage of woman—Church, State, Capital and Society—making liberty and equality for her antagonistic to every organized institution. Where, then, can we rest the lever with which to lift one-half of humanity from these depths of degradation, but on "that columbiad of our political life—the ballot—which makes every citizen who holds it a full armed monitor?"

Miss Anthony then introduced a number of the foreign delegates who had been in attendance at the National Council. Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant of England, in an eloquent address, said:

I stand here as the grandniece of one of the greatest orators and clearest and wisest statesmen that Europe has known, Edmund Burke. It seems to me an almost overwhelming humility that I should be compelled to echo the magnificent impeachment that he made against Warren Hastings, in our House of Commons, on behalf of the oppressed women of Hindostan, in this my passionate appeal on behalf of oppressed women all over the world....

By all you have held most sacred and beautiful in the women who have loved you and made life possible for you—for their sake and in their name—I do intreat that you will not allow your grandest women to plead for another half century. Say rather "the past has been a long night of wrong, but the day has come and the hour in which justice shall conquer."

Mrs. Alice Scatcherd, delegate from the Liberal and the Suffrage Associations of Leeds and neighboring cities, gave an interesting account of the manner in which Englishwomen exercise the franchise and the influence they wield in politics.

Miss Anthony then said, "I have the pleasure of introducing to you the woman who, twenty-five years ago, wrote the Battle Hymn of the Republic, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe." Mrs. Howe spoke briefly, saying: "My heart has been full with the words of others which have been here uttered; but a single word will enable me to cast in my voice with theirs with all the emphasis that my life and such power as I have will enable me to add. Gentlemen, what a voice you have here to-day for universal suffrage. Think that not only we American women, your own kindred, appear here—and you know what we represent—but these foremost women from other countries, representing not alone the native intelligence and character of those countries, but deep and careful study and precious experience, and think that between them and us who ask for suffrage, there is entire unanimity. We all say the same words; we are all for the same thing...."

Mrs. Caroline E. Merrick, wife of the former Chief Justice of Louisiana, addressed the committee with that deep and touching earnestness so characteristic of Southern women.

After saying that women were present from every State and Territory who would add their pleadings if there were time, Miss Anthony introduced Mrs. Bessie Starr Keefer of Canada, who told of the good effects of woman suffrage in that country. Miss Anthony then said: "Gentlemen of the committee, here stands before you one who is commander-in-chief of an army of 250,000 women. It is said women do not want to vote, but this woman has led this vast army to the ballot-box, or to a wish to get there. I present to you Miss Frances E. Willard."

This was the only time Miss Willard ever appeared before a Suffrage Committee in the Capitol, and she was heard with much interest. Beginning with the playful manner which rendered her speeches so attractive, she closed with great seriousness:

I suppose these honorable gentlemen think that we women want the earth, when we only want half of it. We call their attention to the fact that our brethren have encroached upon the sphere of woman. They have definitely marked out that sphere, and then they have proceeded with their incursion by the power of invention. They have taken away the loom and the spinning-jenny, and they have obliged Jenny to seek her occupation somewhere else. They have set even the tune of the old knitting-needle to humming by steam. So that we women, full of vigor and desire to be active and useful and to react upon the world around us, finding our industrial occupations largely gone, have been obliged to seek out a new territory and to pre-empt from the sphere of our brothers some of that which they have hitherto considered their own.

I know it is a sentiment of chivalry in some good men which hinders them from giving us the ballot. They think we might not be what they admire so much; they think we should be lacking in womanliness of character. I ask you to notice if the women who have been in this International Council, if the women who are school teachers all over this nation, if these hundreds of thousands are not a womanly set of women, and yet they have gone outside of the old sphere. We believe that in the time of peace women can come forward and with peaceful plans can use weapons which are grand and womanly, and that their thoughts, winged with hope and the force of the heart given to them, will have an effect far mightier than physical power. For that reason we ask you that they shall be allowed to stand at the ballot-box, because we believe that there every person expresses his individuality. The majesty or the meanness of a person comes out at the ballot-box more than anywhere else. The ballot is the compendium of all there is in civilization, and of all that civilization has done for us. We believe that the mothers who had the good sense to train noble men, like you who have achieved high positions, had the good sense to train your sisters in the same way, and that it is a pity the State has lost that other half of the conservative power which comes from a Christian rearing and a Christian character.

I have spoken thus on the principles which have made me, a conservative woman, devoted to the idea of the ballot, and one in heart with all these good and true suffrage women, though not one in organic community. I represent before you the Woman's Christian Temperance Union and not a suffrage society, but I bring these principles to your sight, and I ask you, my brothers, to be grand and chivalrous towards us in this new departure which we now wish to make.

I ask you to remember that it is women who have given the costliest hostages to fortune, and out into the battle of life they have sent their best beloved into snares that have been legalized on every hand. From the arms which held him long, the boy has gone forever, for he will not come back again to the home. Then let the world in the person of its womanhood go forth and make a home in the State and in society. By all the pains and dangers the mother has shared, by the hours of patient watching over beds where little children tossed in fever and pain, by the incense of ten thousand prayers wafted to God from earnest lips, I charge you, gentlemen, give woman power to go forth, so that when her son undertakes life's treacherous battle, his mother will still walk beside him clad in the garments of power.

Miss Anthony, who knew better than anyone else when not another word was needed, said at the close of Miss Willard's touching address: "Now, gentlemen, we are greatly obliged to you. I feel very proud of all my 'girls' who have come before you this morning, and you may consider the meeting adjourned."

FOOTNOTES:

[64] The following report was prepared by Mrs. Parker: At a large and influential gathering of the friends of woman suffrage, at Parliament Terrace, Liverpool, November 16, 1883, convened by E. Whittle, M. D., to meet Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony prior to their return to America, a resolution was proposed by Mrs. Parker of Penketh, seconded by Mrs. McLaren of Edinburgh, and unanimously passed: "Recognizing that union is strength and that the time has come when women all over the world should unite in the just demand for their political enfranchisement; therefore

"Resolved, That we do here appoint a committee of correspondence, preparatory to forming an International Woman Suffrage Association.

"Resolved, That the committee consist of the following friends, with power to add to their number.

"For the American Center—Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Miss Susan B. Anthony, Miss Rachel G. Foster. For Foreign Centers—(An extended committee was named of prominent persons in Great Britain, Ireland and France)."

[65] There were printed and distributed by mail 10,000 Calls (four pages each); 10,000 Appeals (two pages each); sketches were prepared of the lives and work of a number of the delegates and circulated by means of a Press Committee of over ninety persons in various cities of many States. On March 10, the first edition (5,000) of the sixteen-page program was issued; this was followed by five other editions of 5,000 each and a final seventh edition of 7,000 copies. Each edition required revision and the introduction of alterations made necessary by changing conditions. There were written in connection with the preparations about 4,000 letters. Including those concerning railroad rates, there were not less than 10,000 more circulars of various kinds printed and distributed. A low estimate of the number of pages thus issued (circulars, calls, programs, etc.) gives 672,000. During the week of the Council and the following convention of the N. W. S. A., the Woman's Tribune was published by Mrs. Clara Bewick Colby eight times (four days sixteen pages, four days twelve pages), the daily edition averaging 12,500 copies.

The receipts from contributions and memberships were in round numbers $5,000; from sale of seats and boxes at opera-house $5,000, and from sale of daily Woman's Tribune, photographs and badges, collections, advertisements, etc., $1,500, making a total of nearly $12,000. The largest sums were from Julia T. Foster, $400; Elizabeth Thompson, $250; Mrs. Leland Stanford, $200; Rachel G. Foster, $200; and $100 each from Adeline Thomson, Ellen Clark Sargent, Emma J. Bartol, Margaret Caine, Sarah Knox Goodrich, Mary Hamilton Williams, Lucy Winslow Curtis, Mary Gray Dow, Jane S. Richards, George W. Childs and Henry C. Parsons. The cost of the Tribune (printing, stenographic report, mailing, etc.) was over $3,600; hall rent, $1,800. When one considers the entertainment of so many officers, speakers and delegates, printing, postage, the salary of one clerk for a year (whose board was a contribution from Miss Adeline Thomson and Miss Julia Foster of Philadelphia), and the thousand et ceteras of such a meeting, the total cost of about $12,000 is not surprising. An international convention of men, held in Washington within the year, cost in round numbers $50,000.

[66] After the Council Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony and Miss Foster remained in Washington for six weeks preparing a complete report of the addresses and proceedings which filled nearly 500 pages. Five thousand copies of these were printed, a large number of which were placed in the public libraries of the United States and foreign countries.

[67] Anna Maria Haslam, Honorable Secretary Woman's Suffrage Association; Mary Edmundson, Honorable Secretary Dublin Prison Gate Mission; Hannah Maria Wigham, President Women's Temperance Association, Dublin, and Member of Peace Committee; Wilhelmina Webb, Member of Ladies' Sanitary Committee, Women's Suffrage, etc., Rose McDowell, Honorable Secretary Women's Suffrage Committee, Isabella Mulvany, Head Mistress Alexandra School, Dublin, Harriet W. Russell, Member of Women's Temperance Association; Deborah Webb, late Honorable Secretary Ladies' Dublin Contagious Diseases Act Repeal Association; Lucy Smithson, Member of the Sanitary Committee and Women's Suffrage Association; Emily Webb, Member of Women's Suffrage Association; Agnes Mason, Medical Student and Member of the Women's Suffrage Committee; Ellen Allen, Member of Women's Temperance and Peace Associations.

[68] Among these were Elizabeth Pease Nichol, Eliza Wigham, Edinburgh; Mrs. Jacob Bright, Catherine Lucas Thomasson, Margaret E. Parker, Jane Cobden, Margaret Bright Lucas, Caroline Ashurst Biggs, Frances Lord, F. Henrietta Muller, England; Isabella M. S. Tod, Belfast, Caroline de Barrau, Theodore Stanton, Hubertine Auclert, editor of La Citoyenne, Maria Deraismes, Eugenie Potonie, M. Dupuis Vincent, France; Johanna Frederika Wecket, Germany, Prince Kropotkin, Russia.

[69] John G. Whittier, T. W. Higginson, Oliver Johnson, George W. Julian, Samuel E. Sewall, Amelia Bloomer, Dr. James C. Jackson, Theodore D. Weld, Elizabeth Buffam Chace, Rev. T. De Witt Talmage, Abigail Scott Dumway, Mrs. Frank Leslie, Dr. Laura Ross Wolcott, Charlotte B. Wilbour, Dr. Agnes Kemp, Augusta Cooper Bristol, Dr. Seth and Mrs. Hannah Rogers, Dr. Alida C. Avery, Harriet S. Brooks, Sarah Burger Stearns, Helen M. Gougar, Caroline B. Buell, Lucy N. Colman.

[70] Among those not mentioned above who gave addresses were E. Florence Barker, Susan H. Barney, Leonora M. Barry, Isabel C. Barrows, Cora A. Benneson, Ada M. Bittenbender, Henry B. Blackwell, Lillie Devereux Blake, Martha McClellan Brown, Dr. Mary Weeks Burnett, Helen Campbell, Matilda B. Carse, Ednah D. Cheney, Sarah B. Cooper, "Jennie June" Croly, Caroline H. Dall, Abby Morton Diaz, Mary F. Eastman, Martha A. Everett, Martha R. Field, Alice Fletcher, J. Ellen Foster, Caroline M. S. Frazer, Helen H. Gardiner, Anna Gordon, Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, Frances E. W. Harper, Marilla M. Hills, Clara C. Hoffman, Laura C. Holloway, John W. Hutchinson, Mary H. Hunt, Laura M. Johns, Mary A. Livermore, Huldah B. Loud, Ella M. S. Marble, Marion McBride, Laura McNeir, Prof. Rena A. Michaels, Harriet N. Morris, Amelia Hadley Mohl, Mrs. John P. Newman, Clara Neymann, ex-U. S. Senator S. C. Pomeroy, Anna Rice Powell, Amelia S. Quinton, Emily S. Richards, Victoria Richardson, Harriet H. Robinson, Elizabeth Lisle Saxon, Lita Barney Sayles, Harriette R. Shattuck, Hannah Whitall Smith, Elizabeth G. Stuart, Prof. Louisa Reed Stowell, Dr. Sarah Hackett Stevenson, M. Louise Thomas, Esther M. Warner, Dr. Caroline B. Winslow, Jennie Fowler Willing, Dr. Ruth M. Wood, Anna M. Worden.

On Pioneers' Evening about forty of the most prominent of the old workers were on the platform.

[71] The officers of the National Council were: President, Frances E. Willard, Ill.; vice-president-at-large, Susan B. Anthony, N. Y.; cor. sec., May Wright Sewall, Ind.; rec. sec., Mary F. Eastman, Mass.; treas., M. Louise Thomas, N. Y. Officers of the International Council: President, Millicent Garrett Fawcett, England; vice-president-at-large, Clara Barton, United States; cor. sec. Rachel G. Foster, United States; rec. sec., Kirstine Frederiksen, Denmark.

[72] This committee consisted of Senator Francis M. Cockrell, Mo.; Joseph E. Brown, Ga.; Samuel Pasco, Fla.; Henry W. Blair, N. H.; Thomas W. Palmer, Mich.; Jonathan Chace, R. I.; Thomas M. Bowen, Colo. No hearing was held before the Judiciary Committee of the House, but on April 24 Mrs. Sallie Clay Bennett of Kentucky obtained an audience and made an extended and unanswerable argument from two points of view, the Scriptural and the Constitutional. Her address is printed in full in the Woman's Tribune of April 28, 1888.



CHAPTER IX.

THE NATIONAL SUFFRAGE CONVENTION OF 1889.

The Twenty-first annual convention of the National Association met in the Congregational Church at Washington, Jan. 21-23, 1889, in answer to the official Call:

Neither among politicians, nor among women themselves, is this in any sense a party movement. While the Prohibition party in Kansas incorporated woman suffrage in its platform, the Republicans made it a fact by extending municipal suffrage to the women of that State. The Democrats of Connecticut on several occasions voted for woman suffrage while Republicans voted against it. In the New York Legislature Republicans and Democrats alike have advocated and voted for the measure. In Congress the last vote in the House stood eighty Republicans for woman suffrage and nearly every Democrat against it, while not a single Democrat voted in favor of it on the floor of the Senate. Both the Labor and Greenback parties have uniformly recognized woman suffrage in their platforms.... Our strength for future action lies in the fact that woman suffrage has some advocates in all parties and that we, as an association, are pledged to none.

The denial of the ballot to woman is the great political crime of the century, before which tariff, finance, land monopoly, temperance, labor and all economic questions sink into insignificance; for the right of suffrage involves all questions of person and of property.

While each party in power has refused to enfranchise woman, being skeptical as to her moral influence in government, yet with strange inconsistency they alike seek the aid of her voice and pen in all important political struggles. While not morally bound to obey the laws made without their consent, yet we find women the most law-abiding class of citizens in the community. While not recognized as a component part of the Government, they are most active in all great movements for education, religion, philanthropy and reform.

The magnificent convocation of women from the world over—held in Washington last March—a Council more important than any since the Diet of Worms—was proof of woman's marvelous power of organization and her clear comprehension of the underlying principles of all questions of government. With such evidence of her keen insight and executive ability, we invite all interested in good government to give us the inspiration of their presence in the coming convention.

In the absence of Mrs. Stanton Miss Anthony presided, opening her address with the sentence, "Here we have stood for the last twenty-one years, demanding of Congress to take the necessary step to secure to the women of this nation protection in the exercise of their constitutional right to a voice in the government." She introduced the Hon. Albert G. Riddle (D. C.), who in 1871 had made an argument before the Joint Judiciary Committee in favor of woman's right to vote under the Fourteenth Amendment; and later had argued before the Supreme Court her right to vote in the District. In the course of his remarks he said: "All the changes in favor of woman—everything indeed that has been achieved—has been in consequence of this contest for woman suffrage. Its advocates began it; they traveled along with it; and all that has been gained in the statutes of the various States and of the United States has been by their efforts; whatever has taken a crystallized form of irrepealable law is because of this discussion, because of this agitation."

Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker (Conn.) read the resolution demanding a representation of women in the Centennial Celebration of the Adoption of the United States Constitution soon to be held in New York City. Miss Anthony then introduced Senator Henry W. Blair (N. H.), who was received with much applause, as the unswerving champion of woman suffrage. In an address considering the constitutional phase of the question, he said:

There has been such progress in the formulation of the State and the national law that it has become necessary for the Supreme Court of the United States to decide that we are not a sovereign people, that we have no nation at all, in order to prevent woman from exercising the right of suffrage throughout this country. In that decision which deprived Mrs. Virginia L. Minor of her right, the Supreme Court was driven to the necessity of deciding in express terms, "The United States has no voters of its own creation." If the United States has no voters, then the old doctrine of State sovereignty is the true one and there is no nation. We are subservient and subordinate to the power of the States to-day by virtue of this decision just exactly as it was claimed we were prior to the recent war. We thought the war established the fact that we were a nation; that the controversy which led up to the war had been decided in favor of the sovereignty of the nation. Under our republican form of government the sovereignty is lodged in the masses of the people. If, therefore, it is not in the man who votes by virtue of his membership in the association of the people known as the United States, then there is no sovereignty there....

As the law now is, in the Federal Constitution there must always have been such a voter of the United States, for in the second clause of the first article it is provided that there shall be a House of Representatives "elected by the people in the States." Where that provision is made it says that the electors shall have the qualifications of the electors in the States. But it does not say that they shall be the same individuals; it does not say that they are to act in the same capacity. They might vary in different portions of the country, in different States; but nevertheless, in giving to the people of the States the right to specify the qualifications which should belong to the electors of the United States, the Constitution did not give up the power to create electors itself....

Take the Fifteenth Amendment. There is the first instance in the entire Constitution where we find the franchise declared to be a "right," and in specific terms alluded to as such. And there it is provided that a right already recognized as existing shall not be abridged by the United States or by the States—a right already existing, not established. And by virtue of that amendment and the provision that this existing right shall not be denied or abridged on account of "race, color or previous condition of servitude," either by the United States or by the States, the national existence of the voter is established....

I think our great difficulty about this is that women perhaps do not, to the extent that they should, place their cause upon the platform that it is a right; that to uphold that it is not a right is a wrong greater than any which has been perpetrated in the past; that freedom to half the human race is a glorious achievement which it still remains for mankind to accomplish....

There is no way in which you can do so much for this world as by giving liberty to those who are the mothers of the generations past and to come; so that freedom to think, freedom to formulate opinions, freedom to decide by the majority of the whole of mature human nature, shall be the universal boon as far as the human race extends....

Miss Anthony then read a letter from Mrs. Stanton which embodied that spirit of independence possessed by her almost beyond all other women:

I notice that in some of our conventions resolutions of thanks are passed to senators, congressmen and legislators for advocating some minor privileges which have been conceded to women, such as admission to colleges and professions, limited forms of suffrage, etc. Now I do not see any occasion for gratitude to these honorable gentlemen who, after robbing us of all our fundamental rights as citizens, propose to restore a few minor privileges. There is not one impulse of gratitude in my soul for any of the fragmentary privileges which by slow degrees we have wrung out of our oppressors during the last half century, nor will there be so long as woman is robbed of all the essential rights of citizenship.

If strong appeals could induce the highway robber to return a modicum of what he had stolen, it might mitigate the miseries of his victim, but surely there would be no reason for gratitude, and an expression of thanks to him would be quite as much out of place as are complimentary resolutions passed in our conventions to legislators for their concessions to women. They deserve nothing at our hands until they make full restitution of all we possessed in the original compact under the colonial constitutions—rights over which in the nature of things men could have no lawful jurisdiction whatever.... Woman has the same right to a voice in this government that man has, and it is based on the same natural desire and capacity for self-government and self-protection....

Until woman is recognized as an equal factor in civilization, and is possessed of her personal property, civil and political rights, all minor privileges and concessions are but so many added aggravations, and are insulting mockeries of that justice, liberty and equality which are the birthright of every citizen of a republic. "Universal suffrage," said Charles Sumner, "is the first proof and only basis of a genuine republic."

Mrs. Stanton referred to the bravery of recent women writers in attacking social problems, citing Mrs. Humphrey Ward, Margaret Deland, Olive Schreiner, Mona Caird and Helen Gardiner. She closed with a tribute to the co-laborers who had died during the past year, among them the Rev. James Freeman Clarke, Judge Samuel E. Sewall, Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, Dr. Mary F. Thomas, Miss Abby W. May and numerous others.

During the second day's proceedings the Rev. Alexander Kent, of the Church of Our Father (Universalist), addressed the convention, saying in part:

It is not uncommon among writers on woman suffrage to find the root of the trouble in those notions of the creation and fall set forth in the ancient Jewish Scriptures—notions which have very generally prevailed throughout Christendom until recently, and which even yet have a large hold upon many people professing to be Christians. In the account of the origin of evil given by the ancient Hebrew writer, woman is the chief offender, and upon her falls the burden of the penalty. In sorrow she is to bring forth her children; her desire is to be to her husband and he is to rule over her. Unquestionably this has tended to prolong the reign of brute force in Christendom by perpetuating a belief in the rightful headship of man in the family and State. But it is a great mistake to see in this Scripture the root of the evil. It is only the record of a theory offered to explain a fact—which antedated both the theory and the record. We find the fact to-day even where we do not find the record—the woman ruled by the man in places where there is no knowledge whatever of the Hebrew Scriptures. I doubt not that among the founders of our Government—meaning the people generally—this doctrine of the rightful headship of man and the subordination of woman was sacredly held as a part of the revealed word of God, and that as such it operated to keep the women as well as the men of that day from perceiving the full significance, the comprehensive scope of the principles affirmed by their leaders, in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence....

If the ballot in the hands of woman is to do a great work for society, it will be first and foremost because of its wholesome influence on herself—because it rouses in her more of hope, more of laudable ambition, more of earnest purpose, more of self-reliance, more independence of the fashions, frivolities and conventionalities of society and the dictates of the church....

Praying for the speedy coming of this day, and hoping it may work gradually toward a purer and happier social life, and a further companionship in thought and feeling, in purpose and effort, between men and women, and especially between husbands and wives in the life of the home, I express my sympathy with the purpose of this convention.

Mrs. Caroline Hallowell Miller (Md.) took the ground that, after fifty years of argument, women now should unite in a continuous demand for the rights of citizenship.

In introducing the Hon. William D. Kelley (Penn.) Miss Anthony said that not only in Congress, where he was known as the Father of the House, but years ago in his own State Legislature, he advocated the political equality of women. After paying a tribute to his mother, to Mary Wollstonecraft and to Frances Wright, he said: "I am here, because I feel that I should again declare publicly the justice of the enfranchisement of women, which, having cherished through youth and early manhood, I asserted in a public address in Independence Hall, at high noon on the Fourth of July, 1841, before there was any organization for promoting woman's rights politically." He then sketched results already achieved and urged women to keep the flame burning for the benefits which would come to posterity.

The Rev. Olympia Brown (Wis.) spoke on Foreign Rule, and after pointing out the glory of a country which offered a home to all, and expressing a belief in universal suffrage, she continued:

In Wisconsin we have by the census of 1880 a population of 910,072 native-born, 405,425 foreign-born. Our last vote cast was 149,463 American, 189,469 foreign; thus you see nearly 1,000,000 native-born people are out-voted and out-governed by less than half their number of foreigners. Is that fair to Americans? Is it just to American men? Will they not, under this influence, in a little while be driven to the wall and obliged to step down and out? When the members of our Legislatures are the greater part foreigners, when they sit in the office of mayor and in all the offices of our city, and rule us with a rod of iron, it is time that American men should inquire if we have any rights that foreigners are bound to respect....

The last census shows, I think, that there are in the United States three times as many American-born women as the whole foreign population, men and women together, so that the votes of women will eventually be the only means of overcoming this foreign influence and maintaining our free institutions. There is no possible safety for our free school, our free church or our republican government, unless women are given the suffrage and that right speedily.... The question in every political caucus, in every political convention, is not what great principles shall we announce, but what kind of a document can we draw up that will please the foreigners?...

When we remember that the first foot to touch Plymouth Rock was a woman's—that in the first settlement of this country women endured trials and privations and stood bravely at the post of duty, even fighting in the ranks that we might have a republic—and that in our great Western world women came at an early day to make the wilderness blossom as the rose, and rocked their babies' cradles in the log cabins when the Indians' war-whoop was heard on the prairies and the wolves howled around their doors—when we remember that in the last war thousands of women in the Northwest bravely took upon themselves the work of the households and the fields that their husbands and sons might fight the battles of liberty—when we recollect all this, and then are told that loyal women, pioneer women, the descendants of the Pilgrim Fathers, are not even to ask for the right of suffrage lest the Scandinavians should be offended, it is time to rise in indignation and ask, Whose country is this? Who made it? Who have periled their lives for it?

Our American women are property holders and pay large taxes; but the foreigner who has lived only one year in the State, and ten days in the precinct, who does not own a foot of land, may vote away their property in the form of taxes in the most reckless manner, regardless of their interests and their rights. Women are well-educated; they are graduating from our colleges; they are reading and thinking and writing; and yet they are the political inferiors of all the riff-raff of Europe that is poured upon our shores. It is unbearable. There is no language that can express the enormous injustice done to women....

We can not separate subjects and say we will vote on temperance or on school matters, for all these questions are part of government.... When women as well as men are voters, the church will get some recognition. I marvel that all ministers are not in favor of woman suffrage, when I consider that their audiences are almost entirely composed of women and that the church to-day is brought into disrepute because it is made up of disfranchised members. The minister would stand a hundred-fold higher than he does now if women had the suffrage. Everybody would want to know what the minister was saying to those women voters.

We are in danger in this country of Catholic domination, not because the Catholics are more numerous than we are, but because the Catholic church is represented at the polls and the Protestant church is not. The foreigners are Catholic—the greater portion of them; the foreigners are men—the greater part of them, and members of the Catholic church, and they work for it and vote for it. The Protestant church is composed of women. Men for the most part do not belong to it; they do not care much for it except as something to interest the women of their household. The consequence is the Protestant church is comparatively unrepresented at the ballot-box....

I urge upon you, women, that you put suffrage first and foremost, before every other consideration upon earth. Make it a religious duty and work for the enfranchisement of your sex, which means the growth and development of noble characters in your children; for you can not educate your children well surrounded by men and women who hold false doctrines of society, of politics, of morals. Leave minor issues, leave your differences of opinion about the Trinity, or the Holy Ghost, or endless misery; about high license and low license; or Dorcas Societies and Chautauqua Circles. Let them all go; they are of no consequence compared with the enfranchisement of women.

Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell gave a humorous series of Suffrage Pictures in New York, which was greatly relished by the audience. Mrs. Laura M. Johns described Municipal Suffrage in Kansas in an enthusiastic and interesting manner. The Rev. Anna Howard Shaw then delivered her lecture, which has since become so famous, The Fate of Republics, tracing the rise and fall of the republics of history, which grew because of material prosperity and failed because of moral weakness. All were in the hands of men, and women were excluded from any share.[73]

Mrs. Harriette R. Shattuck gave an account of the recent school election in Boston where 19,490 women voted, a much higher percentage of those registered than of the men, and thus defeated the dangerous attempt which had been made by the Church to interfere with the State. Richard W. Blue, State Senator of Kansas, was called to the platform by Mrs. Gougar as one who had greatly aided its Municipal Suffrage Bill.

Mrs. May Wright Sewall (Ind.) spoke on Women in the Recent Campaign. In the National Prohibition Convention they sat as delegates and served on committees. In all parts of the country Republican and Democratic women organized clubs and marched in processions; but she called attention to the fact that these methods are not advocated by the suffrage societies so long as women remain disfranchised. Over two hundred clubs were formed for political study. All of the parties placed women on their platforms to speak in behalf of the candidates. A Central Republican Headquarters was opened in New York and put in charge of a national committee of women who sent out hundreds of thousands of campaign documents. When election day came not one of all these women could put her opinion in the ballot-box.

At the evening session Mrs. Lillie Devereux Blake (N. Y.) in her trenchant way discussed Political Methods and pointed out the inconsistent and illogical declarations of platforms and speakers when applied to women, also the delight afforded to men by the tin horns and fireworks. She suggested for President Harrison's Cabinet, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Secretary of State; Susan B. Anthony, Secretary of War; May Wright Sewall, Secretary of the Treasury; Zerelda G. Wallace, Secretary of the Navy; Clara Barton, Secretary of the Interior; Laura de Force Gordon, Attorney-General.

Mrs. Sarah M. Perkins (O.) spoke on The Concentration of Forces, showing how prone women are to organize for every object except suffrage, and yet the majority of these workers would rejoice to have the power which lies in the ballot and would be infinitely better equipped for their work.