Thus it seems evident to me that the Woman-Suffrage movement no more grew logically out of the great discussions on human bondage which began with Washington, Jefferson, Adams, Franklin, Hamilton, and John Jay, and ended with Sumner, Seward, and Lincoln, than the communes of this country grew out of the utterances of the Fathers based on the declaration that "All men are created equal, and are endowed with certain inalienable rights, among which are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness."

It was among those whose mistaken zeal and wild conduct were most mischievous, that the Suffrage sentiment gathered head. Their lack of judgment in defying the opinions of their own sex, as well as of the other, their wrapt forgetfulness of proprieties, which incited mobs and proved a fine tool for the frenzy of so-called social reformers, brought contempt upon womanhood as well as upon the cause they advocated. Women, in the churches and out, were the strength of the Anti-slavery movement; but not these women. As to the notable meeting in London, had the delegates been the highest and largest minded and most cultured of their sex, and had their cause been the noblest, they and it would have been dishonored by the method of its presentation. American women of to-day would no more applaud such conduct than did those of fifty years ago. Women have won lasting public favor and place, while Suffrage has won an uneasy footing by unenviable methods.

This survey enables us to understand what otherwise would seem most strange, how the women of the Suffrage movement, in claiming the right of suffrage, ignored the duties and powers based upon and connected with it— those that formed the defence which made possible any such nation as ours. Added to the extreme Quaker doctrine of peace-at-any-price, was the fanatical notion of the sinfulness of all war, all use of physical force, and a cool assumption that opinion was law. Mrs. Maria Chapman read, at one of the early Woman's-Rights conventions, a string of verses that reveals the absurdity of the situation. It was in reply to "A Clerical Appeal," issued by the Rev. Nehemiah Adams, whose "South-Side View of Slavery" received more Anti-slavery attention than it deserved, for it expressed only his own fantastic ideas. In the "Appeal" he maintains that women should paint in water colors only, not in oil. Mrs. Chapman says:

"Our patriot fathers, of eloquent fame, Waged war against tangible forms; Aye, their foes were men—and if ours were the same, We might speedily quiet their storms; But, ah! their descendants enjoy not such bliss, The assumptions of Britain were nothing to this.

"Could we but array all our force in the field, We'd teach these usurpers of power That their bodily safety demands they should yield, And in presence of womanhood cower; But alas! for our tethered and impotent state, Chained by notions of knighthood—we can but debate."

* * * * *

"Oh! shade of the prophet Mahomet, arise! Place woman again in her 'sphere,' And teach that her soul was not born for the skies, But to flutter a brief moment here. This doctrine of Jesus, as preached up by Paul, If embraced in its spirit will ruin us all."

Mention of Mrs. Chapman recalls her attitude toward Frederick Douglass and the further fact that he became an advocate of Suffrage. In his "Life and Times" he says: "I could not meet her [Mrs. Stanton's] arguments except with the shallow plea of 'custom,' 'natural division of duties,' 'indelicacy of woman's taking part in politics,' 'the common talk of woman's sphere,' and the like, all of which that able woman brushed away by those arguments which no man has yet successfully refuted." Mr. Douglass might have called to mind the fact, to the recognition of which he had been so thoroughly converted, and which he set forth on page 460 of his book, when he wrote: "I insisted that the liberties of the American people were dependent upon the ballot-box, the jury-box, and the cartridge-box." He forgot that Mrs. Stanton, in defiance of those social laws that had weight with him, was asking to use the first, to use partially the second, and to ignore the third, on which both of the others depend for continuance.

The "History" is dedicated to Harriet Martineau (among other women) as one who influenced the starting of the Suffrage movement. Turning to Miss Martineau's "Society in America," published in 1837, I find the following in her account of the Anti-slavery movement in the United States: "The progress of the Abolition question within three years throughout the whole of the rural districts of the North, is a far stronger testimony to the virtue of the nation than the noisy clamor of a portion of the slaveholders of the South, and the merchant aristocracy of the North, and the silence of the clergy, against it. The nation must not be judged of by that portion whose worldly interests are involved in the maintenance of the anomaly; nor yet by the eight hundred flourishing Abolition societies of the North, with all the supporters they have in unassociated individuals. If it be found that the five Abolitionists who first met in a little chamber five years ago, to measure their moral strength against this national enormity, have become a host beneath whose assaults the vicious institution is rocking to its foundations, it is time that slavery was ceasing to be a national reproach."

An observer who could be made to believe that these five Abolitionists had really accomplished more toward the overthrow of slavery than eight hundred flourishing Abolition societies and their outside supporters, and that the great body of clergymen were silent, because they did not adopt the methods of the five who set themselves against church and state, shows a credulity that leads one to question the information and the conclusions on which her judgment of the relation of American women to the Republic were based.

As a proof that when women entered into public work in a womanly way they found support from the church and the Abolitionists, we may point to perhaps the first organized charitable and industrial work done among women in this country. In 1834 Mrs. Charles Hawking, of New York City, had convened in the Third Free Church, corner of Houston and Thompson streets, a meeting which resulted in the immediate formation of "The Moral Reform Society." Clergymen who were in sympathy with the movement addressed the meeting. "The Female Guardian Society" was founded by them a year later, and a newspaper was established to present its claims. The officers were women. They visited the Tombs, and held weekly prayer-meetings. They secured the legislation necessary to bring about the separation of men and women in the city prisons, and the appointment of matrons for the women. In 1853 they procured an enactment "whereby dissipated and vicious parents, by habitually neglecting due care and provision for their offspring, shall forfeit their natural claim to them, and whereby such children shall be removed from them and placed under better influences till the claim of the parents shall be re-established by continued sobriety, industry, and general good conduct." They secured the passage of the Truant Act, and the appointment of Truant Officers. Mr. Lewis Tappan was not only the auditor for the organization, but gave effective help by suggestions that led to the establishment of the first Home for the Friendless, of which there are now seven in charge of the society. In 1854, Industrial schools were added. Cooking, housekeeping, kindergarten, and fresh-air work developed rapidly. There are now twelve industrial schools, where six thousand children are taught. The report of the first semi-annual meeting, held in Utica, N. Y., is in quaint contrast to the reports of the first Suffrage meetings. They say: "The utmost harmony and union of feeling have characterized all the proceedings, and as we looked around and saw the intelligence and piety and moral worth that was assembled there, and listened to the discussion of subjects of practical importance, while every one was manifestly seeking to know and do her duty, we could not but feel that the most determined opposer of 'women's meetings' would have found nothing to censure had he been present. There has been no frivolity, no fanaticism, no disorder. We are sure that not a wife or mother was there who was not at least as well disposed and prepared to discharge her relative duties as she would have been if she had kept at home."

Upon the great cause of Temperance, also, the Woman-Suffrage movement early laid a blighting hand. As will be remembered, total abstinence was one of the doctrines to which many of the no-government, common-property, men and women were pledged. Western and Central New York has been the birthplace of some of the wildest and most destructive movements that our social life has witnessed. If the year 1848, which saw the beginnings of the Woman-Suffrage movement, was wonderful for revolutions and insurrections the world over, the years that preceded it were remarkable, especially in this country and this State, for some of the maddest vagaries that ever have been known here. There and then arose the Shaker excitement, so fantastic that only now and then was the outside world permitted to know what was being done. Then and there Fourierism found its most fruitful field, and of the dozen or more communities that were started, several united in forming, near Rochester, an Industrial Union. John Collins started a number of vague branches of what the Fourierites called the "no-God, no-government, no-marriage, no-money, no-meat, no- salt, no-pepper" system of community. Here John H. Noyes, under the guise of a new heaven on an old earth, established his foul community at Oneida. There and then the Millerite madness sent whole congregations into the cemeteries, in white gowns, to await the sounding of the trump of Gabriel. There and then arose the great spiritualistic movement that began in Wayne County with the Fox family, became famous as the Rochester Knockings, and blossomed into communities in which "Free Love" grew out of "Individual Sovereignty." Then and there, in Wayne County, Joseph Smith pretended that the Angel Maroni had shown him, the Book of Mormon. Many of these movements were in sympathy with Woman Suffrage, and workers in them early found their way into its ranks.

In the midst of the Anti-slavery excitement, secret temperance organizations were formed among the women in New York State, known as the "Daughters of Temperance." "Finding," as they said, "that there was no law nor gospel in the land," they became a law unto themselves, and visited saloons, where they broke windows, glasses, and bottles, and threw kegs and barrels of liquor into the streets. A few were arrested, but they were soon discharged. As time went on, these secret organizations began to form themselves into regular bodies, and in January, 1852, they assembled their delegates at Albany to claim admission to the State Temperance organization, with no invitation or authority but their own. Susan B. Anthony was the first speaker, and when the convention decided not to hear her, it was announced that they would withdraw and hold a meeting where "men and women would be equal," which they accordingly did. The movement continued, until, three months later, Miss Anthony called "The New York State Temperance Convention," of which Mrs. Stanton was elected President. Among the resolutions that she introduced in her opening speech, were these: that "no woman remain in the relation of wife to a confirmed drunkard;" that the State should be petitioned so to "modify its laws affecting marriage and the custody of children, that the drunkard shall have no claims on either wife or child;" that "no liquor should be used for culinary purposes;" and that "as charity begins at home, let us withdraw from all associations for sending the gospel to the heathen across the ocean, for the education of young men for the ministry, for the building up of a theological aristocracy and gorgeous temples to the unknown God, and devote ourselves to the poor and suffering about us. Let us feed and clothe the naked and hungry, gather children into schools, and provide reading-rooms and decent homes for young men and women thrown alone upon the world." The organization of "The Woman's New York State Temperance Society" was formed, and Mrs. Stanton was elected its President. She issued an appeal to the women of the State, and sent a letter to the Convention at Albany which "was so radical, that its friends feared to read it," but Susan B. Anthony finally did so. They elected as delegates to the "Men's New York State Temperance Convention," to be held in Syracuse in June, Susan B. Anthony, Mrs. Amelia Bloomer, and Gerrit Smith. When they arrived they were met by the Rev. Samuel J. May, who told them that the men were shocked at the idea of admitting them, and said that he was commissioned to beg them to withdraw. They decided to present their credentials, and of course the stormy scene which they had invited followed their action. This scene was repeated in every part of the State, the agitators figuring upon their own platforms as martyrs to the noble causes of Anti-slavery, Temperance, and Woman's Rights. A single quotation from a letter of Miss Anthony's, written at this time to the league, shows that then, as now, the radical woman workers for Prohibition were nothing if not political. She says: "And it is for woman now, in the present presidential campaign, to say to her father, husband, or brother, 'If you vote for any candidate for any office whatever, who is not pledged to total abstinence and the Maine law, we shall hold you alike guilty with the rum-seller.'"

In January, 1853, a great mass-meeting was held in Albany of all the State temperance organizations. The Woman's society met in a Baptist church, which was crowded at every session. Miss Anthony presided. Twenty-eight thousand women had signed petitions for prohibitory legislation. The rules of the House were suspended, and the women were invited to present them at the speaker's desk. They were then invited to New York, and, in Metropolitan Hall, addressed a large audience, as well as in the Broadway Tabernacle and Knickerbocker Hall, Brooklyn. In the next two months they made successful tours of many cities of the State. But, like Mr. Garrison, and Stephen Foster, and H. C. Wright, the women thought that if they were not attacking and being attacked there could be no "progress" or "reform." They demanded divorce for drunkenness, they denounced wine at private tables, and called on the women to leave all church organizations where "clergymen and bishops, liquor-dealers, and wine-bibbers, were dignified and honored as deacons and elders." They denounced the church for its "apathy," and the clergy for their "hostility to the public action of women," and they soon began to turn the kindly feeling that was endeavoring to work with them into enmity, and were of course denounced in their turn.

The Society decided to invite men into their organization, but not to allow them to hold office or to vote. This they did for a year, after which men were admitted to full membership. The first annual meeting of the Woman's State Temperance Society was held in Rochester, June 1, 1853, Mrs. Stanton presiding, and the attendance was larger than they had had at any time. In the course of the meetings a heated debate on the subject of divorce took place. Mrs. Stanton and Lucy Stone took the ground that it was "not only woman's right, but her duty, to withdraw from all such unholy relations," and Mrs. Nichols and Antoinette Brown opposed them.

The men were admitted to this convention, and, to use the words of the women, "it was the policy of these worldly-wise men to restrict the debate on Temperance to such narrow limits as to disturb none of the existing conditions of society." This farce in reform soon came to an end, and the following is the epitaph pronounced over it by its founders: "The society, with its guns silenced on the popular foes, lingered a year or two, and was heard of no more." On May 12, the friends of Temperance met in Dr. Spring's Old Brick Church, New York City. A motion was made that all gentlemen present be admitted as delegates. Dr. Trall, of New York, moved an amendment, that the words "and ladies" be added, as there were delegates present from the "Woman's State Temperance Society." The motion was carried, and the credentials were received. A motion was then made that Susan B. Anthony be added to the business committee, and all was in an uproar at once. "Mayor Barstow twice asked that another chairman be appointed, as he would not preside over a meeting where woman's rights was introduced, or women were allowed to speak." Some of the gentlemen present said that "the ladies were there expressly to disturb." The ministers present, like the laymen, were divided in opinion in regard to the admission of the delegates; but the credentials were withdrawn, and in due time the bearers of them withdrew also. The writers of the "History" say: "Most of the liberal men and women now withdrew from all temperance organizations, leaving the movement in the hands of time-serving priests and politicians, who, being in the majority, effectually blocked the progress of the reform for the time—destroying, as they did, the enthusiasm of the women in trying to press it as a political measure." Comparing this work with their Anti-slavery campaign, they say: "When Garrison's forces had been thoroughly sifted, and only the picked men and women remained, he soon made political parties and church organizations feel the power of his burning words." It was the men and women from whom he and his were sifted who spoke the burning words that ended in burning deeds for the extinction of slavery; and thus it was with Temperance. There remained after the "sifting" many societies, of one of which William E. Dodge and President Mark Hopkins were chief officers, and John B. Gough was principal orator.

The writers of the "History" further say, in regard to the death of their organization: "Henceforward women took no active part in temperance until the Ohio Crusade revived them all over the nation, and gathered the scattered forces into the Woman's National Christian Temperance Union, of which Frances E. Willard is President." This is a mistake, for women were very active in connection with Temperance societies of which men were officers, and in organizations of their own, before and after the W. C. T. U. was founded. The history of that great body furnishes another proof of the injurious effect of the Suffrage movement upon the cause of Temperance. In 1872 a political Temperance party was formed in Columbus, Ohio, which, four years later, at Cleveland, became the Prohibition Party. From the first, this party inserted a plank in its platform favoring universal suffrage, and mentioning especially the extension of suffrage to women. The W. C. T. U. was founded as a non-denominational and non- partisan body, and was divided and sub-divided into committees, each having charge of a distinct branch of philanthropic work, which was by no means confined solely to Temperance measures. This has given the body great working strength, and its efforts are well known. Everything except its Suffrage labor has had rich reward. I was present at the Metropolitan Opera House in New York City (in 1886, I think), and witnessed with amazement the high-handed fashion in which an organization whose constitution forbade political coalition was handed over to the Prohibition Party, pledged to give aid and comfort. The division and bitter feeling that resulted were a serious injury to the cause of Temperance. In her contribution to the volume entitled "Woman's Work in America," Miss Willard says: "After ten years' experience, the women of this Crusade became convinced that until the people of this country divide at the ballot-box, on the foregoing [Temperance] issue, America can never be nationally delivered from the dram-shop. They therefore publicly announced their devotion to the Prohibition Party, and promised to lend it their influence, which, with the exception of a very small minority, they have since most sedulously done." Writing in "The Outlook" for June 27, 1896, Lady Henry Somerset says, in closing a sketch of Frances Willard: "The Temperance cause, in spite of the gigantic strides it has made of late years toward success, is still relegated to the shadowy land of unpopular and supposedly impracticable and visionary reform."

The Temperance cause is not relegated to a shadowy land, but has just taken, in many places, notably in New York State, another gigantic stride toward success. Prohibition has proved less faithful to the women than Miss Willard said the women had proved to it; for, in the struggle to survive the attack upon its life made by Populism in 1896, it refused to re-insert the Woman-Suffrage plank in its platform. Mrs. Helen Gougar bolted with the Populists. Mrs. Boole, of New York, in behalf of the W.C.T.U., moved the re-insertion in the platform of the Woman-Suffrage plank, which had been stricken out when it was decided to make prohibition the only issue. Amidst great confusion, Mrs. Boole was obliged to withdraw her motion, and when she changed her claim from that for a plank in the platform to one for a resolution which declared the convention to be in favor of Woman Suffrage, it was accepted by the Committee on Resolutions, and adopted with only a few dissenting votes. In view of the fact that the party has had a Suffrage plank since 1872, when it began to be, this does seem like a turning of the back rather than of the cold shoulder. When to its motto "No sectarianism in religion, no sectionalism in politics," the W. C. T. U. added "No sex in citizenship," it fastened itself to a principle that has not progressed. Its Temperance work "for God and home and native land" has gone on; but the political alliance and effort have alike proved futile. A striking proof of this fact is seen in the reports of the non-political sections of the W. C. T. U. itself. Police matrons have been placed through their petitions, and educational and philanthropic work that is directly in the line of doing away with the liquor evil, and is worthy of high praise, has been accomplished. Miss Willard, in her article already alluded to, reports that "under the leadership of Mrs. Mary H. Hunt, the W. C. T. U. has secured laws requiring scientific temperance instruction in thirty States." The number is now forty-two, and I cannot help believing that Mrs. Hunt must feel more hopeful of the favorable results to temperance of well-directed effort to influence those who have the power to execute the laws they pass, than Miss Willard has reason to feel for its success through prohibition and the forceless votes of women whose power in philanthropy is fully recognized and cheerfully acknowledged. Women talk as if the solid vote of their sex would be cast in favor of temperance. The census of 1890 reveals the fact that there were in that year three times as many woman hotel-keepers as in 1870, and seven times as many saloon-keepers and bar-tenders.

Again, in the Nation's greatest crisis, Woman Suffrage showed itself to be the antipodes of woman's progress. Those of us whose once sable locks are now silvered are content to wear the badge of years, when we remember that we were permitted to live long enough ago to have felt the expansion of soul, the fervor of loyal love, the melting power of an overwhelming universal sorrow and a united joy, which filled the mighty days during a war for freedom and for the life of the Republic. Most of the women of the land were working with a devotion that spared neither strength nor life. What was the Woman-Suffrage Association doing? I answer in their own words. In their "History," they say: "While the most of women never philosophize on the principles that underlie national existence, there were those in our late war who understood the political significance of the struggle: the 'irrepressible conflict between freedom and slavery; between national and State rights.' They saw that to provide lint, bandages, and supplies for the army, while the war was not conducted on a wise policy, was labor in vain; and while many organizations, active, vigilant, self-sacrificing, were multiplied to look after the material wants of the army, these few formed themselves into a National Loyal League to teach sound principles of government, and to impress on the nation's conscience, that 'freedom to the slaves was the only way to victory.'" They further say: "Accustomed as most women had been to works of charity, to the relief of outward suffering, it was difficult to rouse their enthusiasm for an idea, to persuade them to labor for a principle. They clamored for practical work, something for their hands to do; for fairs, sewing societies to raise money for soldiers' families, for tableaux, readings, theatricals, anything but conventions to discuss principles and to circulate petitions for emancipation. They could not see that the best service they could render the army was to suppress the rebellion, and that the most effective way to accomplish that was to transform the slaves into soldiers. The Woman's Loyal League voiced the solemn lessons of the war; universal suffrage, and universal amnesty."

The Woman's Loyal League "voiced" the fact that the professional agitators of the Suffrage movement were not patriots. Again they filled the land with words, while all the others of their sex were blazoning the page of their country's history with deeds of the noblest self-sacrifice, the most gentle daring. When we remember with what infinite patience the great emancipator was waiting for the hour when in his wisdom he discerned that he could "best save the Union by emancipating all the slaves," we realize what added sorrow may have been pressed upon his heart by the foolish petitions that the League were rolling up by the hundred thousand and sending to a Congress that was powerless to heed them if it would. Statesmen and Generals were staggered by the stupendous task of guiding a great people and saving the Union in the most powerful rebellion ever known; but these few women knew from the beginning that "the war was not conducted on a wise policy," and that to provide for the army was "labor in vain." They joined the great body of fault-finders and talkers, and lifted not a finger in practical work. And they are the women who would fain vote for and become America's rulers! The "other women," who were narrow-minded enough to prepare stores and raise money for the army, and do such concrete work as nursing in the hospital and on the field, had been busy for nearly two years when the Suffrage women bestirred themselves in their own way. In March, 1863, they issued the following appeal to the "Loyal Women of the Nation," which I quote at length because it is an excellent example of their methods, which "began in words and ended in words:"

"In this crisis of our country's destiny, it is the duty of every citizen to consider the peculiar blessings of a republican form of government, and decide what sacrifices of wealth and life are demanded for its defence and preservation. The policy of the war, our whole future life, depends on a clearly-defined idea of the end proposed, and the immense advantages to be secured to ourselves and all mankind by its accomplishment. No mere party or sectional cry, no technicalities of constitution or military law, no mottoes of craft or policy, are big enough to touch the great heart of a nation in the midst of revolution. A grand idea, such as freedom or justice, is needful to kindle and sustain the fires of a high enthusiasm. At this hour the best word and work of every man and woman are imperatively demanded. To man, by common consent, is assigned the forum, camp, and field. What is woman's legitimate work, and how she may best accomplish it, is worthy of our earnest counsel with one another. We have heard many complaints of the lack of enthusiasm among Northern women; but, when a mother lays her son on the altar of her country, she asks an object equal to the sacrifice. In nursing the sick and wounded, knitting socks, scraping lint and making jellies, the bravest and best may weary if the thoughts mount not in faith to something beyond and above it all. Work is worship only when a noble purpose fills the soul. Woman is equally interested and responsible with man in the final settlement of this problem of self-government; therefore let none stand idle spectators now. When every hour is big with destiny, and each delay but complicates our difficulties, it is high time for the daughters of the Revolution, in solemn council, to unseal the last will and testament of the Fathers—lay hold of their birthright of freedom, and keep it a sacred trust for all coming generations. To this end we ask the Loyal Women of the Nation to meet in the church of the Puritans (Dr. Cheever's), New York, on Thursday, the 14th of May next." This was signed by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and Susan B. Anthony, in behalf of the Woman's Central Committee.

Having set forth their belief that by common consent the forum, the camp, and the field were assigned to men, these women secured a forum from which to promulgate advice and direction to the men who were indeed allowed possession of the camp and the field. After a speech, in which, among other things, Miss Anthony said: "Instead of suppressing the real cause of the war, it should have been proclaimed, not only by the people, but by the President, Congress, Cabinet, and every military commander," she presented resolutions, which included this:

"Resolved: that there can never be a true peace in this Republic until all the civil and political rights of all citizens of African descent and all women are practically established."

The reading of the resolutions was followed by one of the long, acrimonious debates with which those who read the reports of their conventions are familiar. They resented it bitterly when Mrs. Hoyt, of Wisconsin, said: "The women of the North were invited here to meet in convention, not to hold a Temperance meeting, not to hold an Anti-slavery meeting, not to hold a Woman's Rights convention, but to consult as to the best practical way for the advancement of the loyal cause. We have a great many very flourishing Loyal Leagues throughout the West, and we have kept them sacred from Anti-slavery, Woman's Rights, Temperance, and everything else, good though they may be. In our League we have several objects in view. The first is, retrenchment in household expenses, to the end that the material resources of the Government may be, so far as possible, applied to the entire and thorough vindication of its authority. Second, to strengthen the loyal sentiment of the people at home, and instil a deeper love of the National flag. The third and most important object is to write to the soldiers in the field, thus reaching nearly every private in the army, to encourage and stimulate him in the way that ladies know how to do." After expressions of strong resentment, those who had called the convention returned to their generalizing in regard to the duty and influence of woman, and to denunciations of the Government for its conduct of the war. The resolutions which had called forth the strictures were accepted, and Miss Anthony announced that "The resolution recommending practical work was not yet prepared." It was written at a business meeting following, and read thus:

"Resolved, that we, loyal women of the nation, do hereby pledge ourselves one to another, in a Loyal League, to give support to the Government in so far as it makes the war a war for freedom."

If the Government of the United States had received no more practical pledges, from no more loyal hearts than these, there would have been little reward for the patriotic devotion that laid down life in defence of the Union. A sentiment that was often expressed by the Suffragist was that as woman had no vote she could not properly be called upon to be loyal. The "practical" work finally accomplished was the gathering of another monster petition, in which they told President Lincoln that "Northern power and loyalty can never be measured until the purpose of the war be liberty to man." To the close of the war they did nothing but sign such petitions.

I turn to Dr. Brockett's great book, "Woman in the Civil War," and I find recorded the names and the work of four hundred and eighty-four women who gave invaluable and honorable special service, some of them even to the sacrifice of life itself; and of all this number, only a half dozen are known in Suffrage annals.

Cure by ballot has been the one and only remedy suggested by Suffrage conventions for all the ills, real or imaginary, that are endured by women. As long ago as 1854, in a convention in Philadelphia, they uttered the same sentiment. In commenting upon Mrs. Jane G. Swisshelm's book, "Half a Century," they say: "While ever and anon during the last forty years Mrs. Swisshelm has seized some of these dilettante literary women with her metaphysical tweezers, and held them up to scorn for their ridicule of the Woman Suffrage conventions, yet in her own recently published work, in her mature years, she vouchsafes no words of approval for those who have inaugurated the greatest movement of the centuries. ... It is quite evident from her last pronunciamento that she has no just appreciation of the importance and dignity of our demand for justice and equality. A soldier without a leg is a fact so much more readily understood than all women without ballots, and his loss so much more readily comprehended and supplied, that we can hardly blame any one for doing the work of the hour, rather than struggling a lifetime for an idea. Hence it is not a matter of surprise that most women are more readily enlisted in the suppression of evils in the concrete, than in advocating the principles that underlie them in the abstract, and thus ultimately choosing the broader and more lasting work."

In her "Reminiscences," contributed to the "History," Mrs. Emily Collins says: "From 1858 to 1869 my home was in Rochester, N.Y. There, by brief newspaper articles and in other ways, I sought to influence public sentiment in favor of this fundamental reform. In 1868 a society was organized there for the reformation of abandoned women. At one of its meetings I endeavored to show how futile all their efforts would be while women, by the laws of the land, were made a subject class."

This was typical action. Thus it was in Anti-slavery, thus in Temperance, thus in the Civil War, and thus it has been with general reforms. What Suffragists have deemed to be an abstract "right" has prevented them from taking active part in any efforts put forth to end a concrete wrong. As time goes on, this spirit becomes more injurious, because progress is carrying philanthropy into higher fields of moral action, and in so doing is carrying it away from and above the plane where rests the ballot-box. While Suffrage effort is directed toward keeping all issues in the political arena, the trend of legislation is to take them out of politics. By the public votes of men and the private votes and public appeals of women, philanthropic and educational matters are being removed from the uncertainties and fluctuations of party action. As they are thus brought out of the sphere where woman is powerless and into that in which it is natural for her to act, the whole force of sympathy, and her ability to picture and to pursue an ideal, are finding exercise and are hastening the day when there will be no slavery, no drunkenness, no war, and no violation of woman's chastity. Dr. Jacobi, in her volume, says: "Why should we wonder at the low tone which habitually prevails in relation to public affairs, when the women who stand as guardians at the fountain sources and household shrines of thought are trained to believe that there are no Rights, but only Privileges, Expediencies, Immunities? Can those who cower before the public ridicule which greets the enunciation of the Rights of Women; who are habituated to stifle generous impulses for their own larger freedom at the authoritative dictation of the men they see in power,—can such women be relied upon to nerve the Nation's heart for generous deeds?" Who were trained by women at the fountain sources and household shrines? The very men whom they now see in "authoritative dictation." And so well did they train them that when both are called upon to nerve the nation's heart for generous deeds, they act together—the trainer and the trained—moved by the same magnetic impulse of a noble devotion. It is purely gratuitous to assume, because women generally have discredited the dogma of Woman Suffrage, that they have therefore no just conception of rights. Women are as ambitious, as self-assertive, as are men. They deal more naturally with abstractions, and are more tenacious of purpose. They are impatient of hindrance, and it is inconsistent with facts to infer that they have been "stifling generous impulses for their own larger freedom," at the dictation of their own sons. The executive power and wisdom of these sons they feel to be the very thing they most desire for them, a reward for their own abounding faith and love. Privileges, Expediencies, and Immunities are their Rights. How well fitted such rights are to enable them to nerve the Nation's heart was seen in the great crisis we have been considering, when the ignoble dogma of Suffrage caused its believers to fail in generous impulse and to stand aloof in the time of a supreme need.

I cannot agree with Dr. Jacobi that a low tone habitually prevails in relation to public affairs. The guards freshly thrown about the ballot, and the greater watchfulness over entrance to citizenship, are two of the most obvious advances at this moment.



CHAPTER V.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS.

In the fourth and fifth counts of the Declaration of Sentiments, the Suffragists say: "Having deprived her of this first right of a citizen, the elective franchise, thereby leaving her without representation in the halls of legislation, he has oppressed her on all sides." "He has made her, if married, in the eye of the law, civilly dead."

The following four counts all refer to a married woman's civil deadness; and I will give them in order, and then consider the five counts together:

"He has taken from her all right in property, even to the wages she earns." "He has made her, morally, an irresponsible being, as she can commit many crimes with impunity, provided they be done in the presence of her husband." "In the covenant of marriage, she is compelled to promise obedience to her husband, he becoming, to all intents and purposes, her master—the law giving him power to deprive her of her liberty, and to administer chastisement." "He has so framed the laws of divorce, as to what shall be proper causes, and, in case of separation, to whom the guardianship of the children shall be given, as to be wholly regardless of the happiness of women—the law, in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands."

That the women did not find themselves, as might be supposed from their charges, living under the edicts of the Middle Ages, is proved by their hunt through statute-books for such of the eighteen grievances as relate to laws. They also say that "while they had felt the insults incident to sex, in many ways, as every proud thinking woman must, yet they had not in their own experience endured the coarser forms of tyranny resulting from unjust laws; but had souls large enough to feel the wrongs of others." Until they knew what those wrongs were, it would seem they could hardly have felt for them intelligently. It would seem, too, that the great body of American women were also unaware that they had been, and were still being, legally and morally robbed, enslaved, and murdered. In fact, Suffrage speakers have been compelled to account for their unconcern by considering it the result of long subjection, and at the same time have had to claim that these stupid beings were fit to rule with and over men.

While the counts contain concrete statements, the closing clause—"the law in all cases, going upon a false supposition of the supremacy of man, and giving all power into his hands"—sets forth an abstract idea in justification of which they furnish no proof. In the counts as they stood in the Declaration of Sentiments, the general laws were not accused of doing any injustice, personal or civil, to an unmarried woman, except in reference to the one matter of withholding the vote, which they claimed was wrong because she had an inalienable right to the ballot and was subject to tax. Not a personal law did they ask to have changed for her protection. They recognized the fact that, unless she was married, a woman in the United States stood upon a legal equality with man. The hue and cry in regard to a married woman was, that she was not treated as if femme sole. The femme sole could make contracts and wills, sue and be sued, and do all and sundry in her own name that her brother could do. With a married woman the situation was different. Will any one contend that in the past the married woman has been held in less honor than the unmarried? Can it be thought for a moment that the law-makers expressed their contempt for wives and mothers, and their respect for daughters and sisters who were unmarried? Tradition and fact, poetry and prose, romance and reality, all go to prove that the reverential feeling of the world has gathered about the wife and the mother. The men who made those laws turned for their ideals of abstract justice to their mothers' faith and teaching; and it seems most incongruous to assume, as do the Suffrage arguments, that, while all the laws relating to women were tyrannical at some point, those in regard to married women were the ones wherein men embodied their most cruel and revengeful feeling. It also appears to be a gratuitous assumption that whatever was different in the legal treatment of men and women came from man's belief in his own supremacy, especially toward the wife into whose hands he had committed the keeping of his home and his honor.

In 1881, after more than thirty years of agitation of the subject, the Suffrage leaders said: "The condition of married women under the laws of all countries has been essentially that of slaves, until modified in some respects, within the last quarter of a century, in the United States." And again they said: "The change from the old common law of England, in regard to the civil rights of women, from 1848 to the advance legislation in most of the Northern States in 1880, marks an era both in the status of woman as a citizen and in our American system of jurisprudence. When the State of New York gave married women certain rights of property, the individual existence of the wife was recognized, and the old idea that husband and wife are one, and that one the husband, received its death-blow. From that hour the statutes of the several States have been steadily diverging from the old English codes. Most of the Western States copied the advance legislation of New York, and some are now even more liberal."

This sentence contains another of the constantly recurring instances of the methods by which the Suffrage mind jumps to unwarranted conclusions. When the State of New York gave married women certain property rights, it recognized their legal existence in a new way, but not their individual existence—that had been recognized by every act of law and custom, from the registry of their birth to that of their marriage or their death. Socially and civilly, every woman in the United States had had opportunity to make her individuality felt, and if there was any difference in advantage in respect of this, it was supposed to lie with the married woman. So true is this, that Mrs. Stanton and Mrs. Mott had to hunt for oppressive laws, and most of the women of this land have no real sense of the great and liberal change in laws concerning married women since 1848. I am no more approving of or admiring the old English common law, or the canon law, concerning women, than I am approving of or admiring the law that came to light recently in the Transvaal and would have allowed the torture of Jameson and his men, who, as a matter of fact, were allowed to go almost unpunished. The law of the Dutch Government in Africa belonged to the Middle Ages; their conduct belonged to to-day. I only believe that at the time when it was possible for one man to frame for another man such laws of physical and mental torment as every code reveals, their laws for women were the best they could devise, and were those which led to the freedom of the women of to-day. A law of England still favors only the first-born son, and he only because he is the firstborn. What wonder that girls have been denied succession; and what an evidence of man's desire to show favor and not the "insult incident to sex," that he has placed woman on thrones upon which he has had to sustain her by main force.

There is no need that I should darken my pages with the English laws concerning married women. The Suffrage leaders have spread them abroad; Blackstone says they were intended for woman's protection and benefit, and adds the remark, "So great a favorite is the female sex with the laws of England." If I quoted them, I should be constrained to quote barbarous laws concerning men of the same era, and to note the lack of all laws concerning the brute creation; for neither of these matters is touched by Suffrage writers. Dr. Jacobi is willing to say that "in the eye of the law, the married white woman in the North was as devoid of personality as the African slave in the South," and she also says: "By another error of interpretation, certain laws which remain on the statute-book, or which have been recently added, have been considered so peculiarly favorable to women, that they are thought to prove a legislative tendency to grant special immunities to women so long as they consent to remain unfranchised." Does she mean to say that the lawmakers have asked the women if they would consent to remain unfranchised? I thought that leaving them unfranchised without asking their consent was, in Suffrage eyes, the very front of the offending. The laws that remain on the statute-book, and those that have been recently added, go to prove to my mind that the old laws were meant to be generous as well as just; second, that the trend of legislation is peculiarly favorable to woman; and, thirdly, that those laws which between man and man might be looked upon as offsets to suffrage equality, between man and woman could not be so considered. They were, therefore, proper immunities for persons whose consent was not asked through the vote because, in the nature of the difference between the sexes, a prime requisite for compliance was lacking. Dr. Jacobi goes on to say: "The fear has been expressed that these 'immunities' and 'privileges' would be forfeited were the franchise conferred. And this fear has actually been advanced as an argument—as the basis of protest against equal suffrage." Either the law is tyrannical to women, or it is not. If Suffrage leaders are actually talking of its privileges and immunities to women, and trying to explain them away, we may leave the burden of proof to them. But as to the gist of her remark in regard to the connection between legal privileges and equal suffrage: Fear of losing the legal immunities that are granted to both married and unmarried women on account of their attitude as wards of the State when they are not able to assume the first duty implied in giving up the wardship—that of physical defence to themselves and others—is a most legitimate fear, and is a sound reason for protest against equal suffrage. Wrapped up with the legal privileges of women are those of their children—the rights of minors. For boys, special privileges cease at the age of twenty-one. For girls, they do not. Legal equality would set the boy and the girl on the same level at once. The law of equality could know no such thing as "exemption" for the unmarried woman, or "dower right" or "maintenance" for the married woman that would not be equally binding on both husband and wife. In Germany, rich American women are maintaining their land-poor husbands under legal stress, "in the style to which they have been accustomed," because the law of Germany is "equal" in respect to property maintenance of husband and wife. In Ohio, where Suffrage agitation has been persistent, the legislature in 1894 passed an act "enabling a husband, as well as a wife, to sue and obtain alimony pending divorce proceedings."

We began by talking of legal disabilities, and, led by the Suffragists themselves, are already discussing legal immunities.

The editors of the "History" say: "The laws affecting woman's civil rights have been greatly improved during the past thirty years, but the political demand has made but questionable progress, though it must be counted as the chief influence in modifying the laws. The selfishness of man was readily enlisted in securing woman's civil rights, while the same element in his character antagonized her demand for political equality." If it was his selfishness that procured woman civil rights and privileges, was it his unselfishness that formerly denied them? The fact that the States that granted them first, and most fully, are the ones where Suffrage has made least progress, suggests the injustice of the charge.

But a question of real interest is, must the political demand made by women be counted as the chief influence in modifying the laws?

In 1836, Judge Hertell presented, in the New York Legislature, a bill to secure property rights to married women, which had been drawn up under the supervision of the Hon. John Savage, Chief Justice of the Supreme Court, and the Hon. John C. Spencer, one of the revisers of the statutes. In its behalf Ernestine Rose and Paulina Wright Davis circulated a petition, to which they gained only five signatures among their own sex.

Ernestine Rose was a Polish Jewess who had renounced all faith with her own. She was an extreme communist, and before coming here to labor for Liberalism and Woman Suffrage, she had presided over a body called "An Association of all Classes of all Nations, without distinction of sect, sex, party condition, or color." Paulina Wright Davis, gifted though she was, was a radical of an extreme type. How much the character of the advocates had to do with their failure, it is impossible to say, but it appears to be another proof of the evil influence of Suffrage action upon woman's progress that so good a work should have been in hands so unfitted for it. The bill did not become a law. Mrs. Rose records that she continued to send petitions with increased numbers of signatures until 1848-49; that from 1837 to 1848 she addressed the New York Legislature five times, and a good many times after the latter date. That she was not recognized as an aid to legislation seems evident from the testimony that follows.

In the previous chapter I have quoted the editors of the "History" as saying that the first thing that led them to demand political rights was the discussion, in several of the State legislatures, of these property questions in regard to married women. Another proof that they did not inspire the early laws is seen in the following extracts from a letter from the Hon. George Geddes, written to Mrs. Gage, in 1880, and answering her question as to who was responsible for the Married-Woman's Property- Rights bill, which was passed in 1848. He said:

"I have very distinct recollections of the whole history of this very radical measure. Judge Fine, of St. Lawrence, was its originator, and he gave me his reasons for introducing the bill. He said that he married a lady who had some property of her own, which he had, all his life, tried to keep distinct from his, that she might have the benefit of her own, in the event of any disaster happening to him in pecuniary matters. He had found much difficulty, growing out of the old laws, in this effort to protect his wife's interests.... I, too, had special reasons for desiring this change in the law. I had a young daughter, who, in the then condition of my health, was quite likely to be left in tender years without a father, and I very much desired to protect her in the little property I might be able to leave.... I believe this law originated with Judge Fine, without any outside prompting. On the third day of the session he gave notice of his intention to introduce it, and only one petition was presented in favor of the bill, and that came from Syracuse, and was due to the action of my personal friends.... We all felt that the laws regulating married women's, as well as married men's, rights demanded careful revision and adaptation to our times and to our civilization.... In reply to your inquiries in regard to debates that preceded the action of 1848, I must say I know of none, and I am quite sure that in our long discussions no allusion was made to anything of the kind."

It would thus appear that neither Mrs. Gage, nor Mrs. Stanton, nor Miss Anthony knew the names of the proposer and defenders of the bill that opened the way in New York for all the liberal legislation that has followed, and thirty years after its passage they inquired whether any debates had preceded it. Certainly, then, their own had not. It is also evident how much "selfishness" prompted the bill.

In a pamphlet published by the New York Woman-Suffrage Association to report their proceedings during the Constitutional Convention of 1894, it is recorded that Mr. F. B. Church, of Alleghany, presented an appeal from his county asking for the suffrage. In the course of his remarks he said: "Sir, beginning in 1848, the male citizens of the State of New York, not at the clamor of the women, as I understand it, but actuated by a sense of justice, began to remove the disabilities under which women labored at that time. Gradually, from that time on, the barriers had been stricken away, until, in 1891, I believe, the last impediments were removed."

In 1844, Rhode Island had passed property laws for married women. In 1848- 9 Connecticut and Texas, as well as New York, did so, apparently uninfluenced by anything except their "sense of justice." In 1850-'52 Alabama and Maine passed such laws. In 1853 New Hampshire, Indiana, Wisconsin, and Iowa changed their laws in this respect. They moved forward in this reform, as did the other States, before there was even a beginning of Suffrage agitation in them.

In 1847, Mrs. C. J. II. Nichols, who afterward became a Suffrage worker, addressed to the voters of Vermont a series of editorials setting forth the property disabilities of women. In October of that year, Hon. Larkin Mead, moved, he said, by her presentation, introduced a bill into the Senate, which, becoming a law, secured to the wife real estate owned by her at marriage, or acquired by gift, devise, or inheritance during marriage, with the rents, issues, and profits, as against any debts of the husband; but to make a sale or conveyance of either her realty or its use valid, it must be the joint act of husband and wife. She might by last will and testament dispose of her lands, tenements, hereditaments, and any interest therein descendable to her heirs, as if "sole." Mrs. Nichols says that in 1852 she drew up a petition signed by more than two hundred business men and tax-paying widows, asking the Legislature to make women voters in school matters. Mrs. Nichols's report is clear, sound, definite, and she seems to have been of real service, and to have won what she sought. She says, "Up to 1850 I had not taken position for suffrage, although I had shown the absurdity of regarding it as unwomanly." She appears to have done a great deal of clever as well as earnest and spirited talking in the West, after she had "taken position for suffrage," and she reports that, when she removed to Kansas, her claims were for "equal educational rights and privileges in all the schools and institutions of learning fostered or controlled by the State." "An equal right in all matters pertaining to the organization and conduct of the common schools." "Recognition of the mother's equal right with the father to the control and custody of their mutual offspring." "Protection in person, property, and earnings for married women and widows, the same as for men." The first three were fully granted, the fourth was changed as to "personal service." In her pleading for "political rights," she was associated with John O. Wattles, and the amendment they proposed was defeated in the Legislature.

Petitions for "Woman's Right" and changes of the laws were circulated in Massachusetts as early as 1848. In 1849, a year after the first Suffrage Convention, Ohio, Maine, Indiana, and Missouri, had passed laws giving to married women the right to their own earnings. A "Memorial" was sent by the Suffrage Association to the Ohio Constitutional Convention in 1850, from which I take the following: "We believe the whole theory of the common law in relation to woman is unjust and degrading." (Then follows political injustice.) "We would especially call your attention to the legal condition of married women." (Then follow general statements and quotations from the common law.) The attention of the memorialists was called by the proper authorities to the fact that the statute laws of Ohio had radically changed the general matters charged. In answering comment, Mrs. Coe said: "The committee were perfectly aware of the existence of the statutes mentioned, but did not see fit to incorporate them in the petition, not only on account of their great length, but because they do not at all invalidate the position which the petition affects to establish—the inequality of the sexes before the law; because if the wife departs from the conditions of the statutes, and thus comes under the common law, they are against her." She then adds: "There are other laws which might be mentioned, which really give woman an apparent advantage over man; yet, having no relevancy to the subject in the petition, we did not see fit to introduce them."

The ignorance displayed here is phenomenal. Common law is operative only in the absence of statute law. The Ohio statute (as with all statutes) superseded the common law; and if the woman "departs from the condition of the statute," she suffers the penalty prescribed therein, without reference to her previous position before the law.

One of the earliest demands made by the Suffrage Association was for a law that should allow of absolute divorce for drunkenness; and this was soon followed by demands for divorce for other causes. In presenting a petition to the New York Legislature, pressing these measures, Mrs. Stanton addressed the Assembly, and from her remarks I take the following words: "Allow me to call the attention of that party now so much interested in the slave of the Carolinas to the similarity in his condition and that of the mothers, wives, and daughters of the Empire State. The negro has no name. He is Cuffy Douglas, or Cuffy Brooks, just whose Cuffy he may chance to be. The woman has no name. She is Mrs. Richard Roe, or Mrs. John Doe, just whose Mrs. she may chance to be. Cuffy has no right to his earnings; he cannot buy or sell, nor make contracts, nor lay up anything that he can call his own. Mrs. Roe has no right to her earnings; she can neither buy, sell, nor make contracts, nor lay up anything that she can call her own. Cuffy has no right to his children; they may be bound out to cancel a father's debts of honor. The white unborn child, even by the last will of the father, may be placed under the guardianship of a stranger, a foreigner. Cuffy has no legal right to existence; he is subject to restraint and moderate chastisement. Mrs. Roe has no legal existence; she has not the best right to her person. The husband has the power to restrain and administer moderate chastisement. The prejudice against color, of which we hear so much, is no stronger than that against sex. It is produced by the same cause, and manifested very much in the same way. The negro's skin and the woman's sex are both prima facie evidence that they were intended to be in subjection to the white Saxon man. The few social privileges which the man gives the woman, he makes up to the negro in civil rights. The woman may sit at the same table and eat with the white man; the free negro may hold property and vote."

It is difficult for our thought to reach the low level from which this comparison is made. It ignores all the moral and spiritual conceptions that gave rise to and hallow marriage. But looking upon marriage as a mere financial compact, and taking the laws even as they then were, a few things may be said. "Cuffy has no name that he can call his own." Elizabeth Cady Stanton has her own baptismal name, the name of her honored father, and that of her honored husband, and the opportunity to make those names more her own by personal achievement than any one's else. Her mother, her father, her husband, and her son are as dependent upon her for preserving the character and distinctiveness of that name, as she is upon them. Why Lucy Stone should have put inconvenience and indignity upon both herself and her husband for the sake of continuing to wear her father's name instead of assuming her husband's, I never could understand. She did not share the name she gave her child. And there is another distinction between the nameless Cuffy and the trebly-named Saxon woman. The husband's name was not thrust upon her. By uttering the simple monosyllable "No," she could decline to wear it. It was only as she consented to be mistress of a husband's heart and home that she passed from the condition of femme sole and acquired a title and an additional name. "Cuffy has no right to his earnings." This would be of less consequence to Cuffy if he had a right to his master's earnings. When a right to another's earnings goes along with the mutual relation toward a home of master and mistress, the difference between Cuffy and Mrs. Roe is unspeakable. "Cuffy cannot buy or sell, make contracts, nor lay up anything that he can call his own." If Cuffy had the right to prevent his master from buying, selling, making contracts, or laying up anything that he could call his own until Cuffy's wants had been provided for in the most ample manner, the world would have felt less moved over Cuffy's wrongs. "Cuffy has no right to his children." Mrs. Roe has a right to compel Mr. Roe to bestow his name upon her children, and to support the boys until they are twenty-one, and the girls forever. "Cuffy has no legal right to existence." Mrs. Roe has so much legal right to existence that she stands toward the State and toward her husband in the relation of a preferred creditor. The State cannot call upon her for its most arduous duties, which must however be performed in her behalf. Her husband cannot dispose of real property without her signature. If he dies solvent, nothing can prevent her taking a fair share of his estate, and he may give her the whole; but if he dies bankrupt, neither his will, nor the State, nor anything else, can make her pay one dollar of his debts. "Cuffy is subject to restraint and moderate chastisement." "The husband has the power to restrain and administer moderate chastisement." The public horsewhipping of a husband by his wife is a rare sight, but when it occurs the law is far more ready to overlook the breach of order than it is to permit the slightest attempt at assault and battery upon the wife. As the remaining statements have no reference to the laws, I may excuse myself from telling how strangely beneath the dignity of truth they seem to me. That they were urged in connection with a bill asking for divorce for drunkenness suggests that such a plea was made an entering wedge for the radical divorce measures that have been advocated in Suffrage conventions. Any State would, at that time, grant legal separation for a wife from a drunken husband, and would compel the husband to support the wife to the extent of his means.

This matter of easier divorce has been pressed steadily from the beginning, but with very little of the result that the Suffragists desired.

In the Convention of the National Council of Women, which met in Washington, D. C., in February, 1895, the Suffrage Associations were largely represented. Their committee on divorce reform consisted of Ellen Battelle Dietrick, Chairman, and Mary A. Livermore and Fanny B. Ames. Their report was, in part, as follows: "In accordance with the instructions of the Executive Committee of the Council, your chairman sent forty-eight letters to the Governors of States and Territories, asking each to call the attention of his legislature to the situation concerning divorce laws, and requesting the appointment of a committee to consider the matter, said committee to consist of an equal number of men and women."

Here it is the same old story. Theirs is not an intelligent presentment of changes desired, but simply a continued urging of women for personal share in the making of the laws. In commenting upon the refusal of the Governor of Iowa, among others, the Committee says: "And yet Iowa is one of the States which has recently formed a commission of men to consider making Iowa divorce laws uniform with those of all other States." The laws that make it possible for a woman divorced in one State to be looked upon in another State as still bound, were not petitioned against.

Uniformity in the divorce laws of the United States is one of the great legislative reforms that are moving slowly but surely; and with that, it appears, the Suffrage appeal has nothing to do. The Committee closed its report by saying: "We might as well face the fact that the official servants of the United States cherish frank contempt for woman's opinions and wishes, and that, too, in regard to a matter which concerns the welfare of women far more vitally than it does the welfare of men. The one thing we should deprecate is having men make any new laws or fresh provisions for women's protection."

In the spring of 1854 Miss Anthony and Ernestine Rose presented a petition to the New York Legislature, and the Albany "Argus," of March 4, published a resume of their appeal. The demands were: That husband and wife should be tenants in common of property, without survivorship, but with a partition on the death of one; that a wife should be competent to discharge trusts and powers the same as a single woman; that the statute in respect to a married woman's property be changed so that her property could descend as though she had been unmarried; that married women should be entitled to execute letters testamentary, and of administration; that married women should have power to make contracts and transact business as though unmarried; that they should be entitled to their own earnings, subject to their proportional liability for support of children; that post-nuptial acquisitions should belong equally to husband and wife; that married women should stand on the same footing as single women, as parties or witnesses in legal proceedings; that they should be sole guardians of the minor children; that the homestead should be inviolable and inalienable for widows and children; that the laws in relation to divorce should be revised, and drunkenness made cause for absolute divorce; that better care should be taken of single women's property, that their rights might not be lost through ignorance; that the preference of males in the descent of real estate should be abolished; that women should exercise the right of suffrage, and be eligible to all offices, occupations, and professions, and to act as jurors; that courts of conciliation should be organized as peacemakers; that a law should be enacted extending the masculine designation in all statutes of the State to females.

I cannot fully understand Miss Anthony's position; but in some notable particulars, not her laws but better ones are in force. When Miss Anthony wrote to inquire who was responsible for repealing an act of 1860 for which she had worked with her well-known zeal, Judge Charles J. Folger replied, in part: "I think—with deference I say it—that you are not strictly accurate in calling the legislation of 1862 a repealing one. In but one thing did it repeal, in the sense of taking away right or power or privilege or freedom that the Act of 1860 gave. On the contrary, in some respects it gave more or greater."

Miss Anthony says, in comment on Judge Folger's letter: "Mr. Folger makes mistakes in regard to the effect of these bills; quite forgetting that the wife has never had an equal right to the joint earnings of the copartnership, as no valuation has ever been placed on her labor in the household, to which she gives all her time, thought, and strength. A law securing to the wife the absolute right to half the joint earnings, and, at the death of the husband, the same control of property and children that he has when she dies, might make some show of justice; but it is a provision not yet on the statute-books of any civilized nation."

If it were to be placed on the statute-book, would not one have to be placed beside it making the wife equally responsible for the support of the husband? The law can only take cognizance of the earnings of that member of the firm who transacts business with the outside world. How the proceeds of mutual labor shall be best made their own is for each husband and wife to settle; it cannot be matter of legislation. It is interesting to think what an increase of domesticity there would be if a business partnership, such as Miss Anthony suggests, were demanded by the statutes. The law, which now lays the whole support on the husband and father, whether the wife and daughter work in the home or not, would make it obligatory for the home partner to give all her time, thought, and strength to labor in the household, in order to bring in her bill for services.

The real test of the working of woman suffrage is to be found in the answer to the question whether better laws have been framed as a consequence?

There has been no advance in legislation in Utah or Wyoming through the action or votes of women. The authorities whom I have consulted do not know of any legislation in Colorado which, can be traced directly to the presence of women in the legislature. Exception may possibly be made in regard to the Age-of-Consent bill, which, in common with nearly all the States, Colorado passed in favor of raising the age. That bill was introduced by a woman member, and was strongly advocated by the others, and it called forth an unwise discussion and a repulsive scene in the House. A great many women have been elected to county offices, in that State, especially those connected with the schools, and those of Clerk and Treasurer. In answer to a question, my correspondent adds: "I do not know of any great improvements of any kind or description in our county affairs that have been made in the past four years."

In Wyoming, where women have voted so many years, less restraint is imposed on liquor-selling than in most of the other States. Divorce is granted for any one of eleven causes, after a residence of but six months. The age of consent was only fourteen years as late as 1890. Gambling is legal; not only do the laws mention many games with cards as lawful, but a statute declares: "No town, city, or municipal corporation in this Territory shall hereafter have power to prohibit, suppress or regulate any gaming-house or game, licensed as provided for in this chapter." "Excusable homicide" is also defined by statute. It is allowable "when committed by accident or misfortune, in the heat of passion or sufficient provocation, or upon a sudden combat; provided that no undue advantage is taken, nor any dangerous weapon used, and that the killing is not done in a cruel or unusual manner." The laws could hardly have been worse before women voted.

It is matter of surprise to find how generally in Western towns and States in which woman has voted or held office, "Woman has degraded politics, and politics has degraded woman." This is not, to my mind, proof that American women are degenerating, but it suggests that the women who have sought political life are not representative.

Another legal demand very early made by the Suffrage leaders was that for the entrance of women into men's colleges. So far as the State could control this by law, it has done so. Every educational institution that receives State support, from the primary school to the State University, is now open to women. Cornell University, opened in October, 1868, was aided by a State gift of a million acres, and opened its doors to women in April, 1872. In the West, the State Universities would have been closed for lack of pupils, during the war, if women had not attended them.

The New York State Suffrage Association includes in its report of the doings at the Constitutional Convention a report of its legislative work for the twenty-two years of its existence. Of the many petitions presented during those years, but three relate to anything but Suffrage in some form, and these did not originate with the New York Suffrage Association. One of these three related to the bill to secure police matrons in New York City. Work was begun in 1882 and ended in success in 1891, there being strong opposition to it. The act to provide woman physicians for prisons, and one making mother and father joint guardians of children, passed in 1888 and 1892. Three of the Suffrage bills refer to school matters, one of which was successful and two were lost. Five relate to municipal suffrage, all of which were defeated. The remaining sixteen bills were all for full suffrage, were all urged by many speakers, and were all defeated. I give, in closing, Mr. Francis M. Scott's summary of the laws of New York State that relate especially to women and are in force to-day. Much special legislation urged by Suffrage petitions has not been enacted at all, and much has been passed in a different form. Suffragists say that the change of laws constitutes no reason for opposing suffrage, but to my mind it constitutes a most excellent one. What has been done by petition proves the power to do more by the same means, and the fact that much of the best legislation has been against the demand of the Suffragists or in precedence of it, proves that the rights of women are in hands that are capable of meeting fresh interests as they arise.

Every profession and business is open to women to exactly the same extent as to men, and already women have found a place in law, medicine, architecture, journalism, and other professions.

Single women always could engage in commercial and mercantile pursuits without hindrance or restriction.

Notwithstanding her marriage, a woman now holds and enjoys her separate property, however acquired, freed from any interference or control on the part of her husband, and from all liability for his debts.

She may sell, assign, and transfer her real and personal property, and carry on any trade or business and perform any labor and services on her own sole and separate account, and her earnings are her own sole and separate property.

She may sue and be sued, as if she were unmarried, and may maintain an action in her own name for injury to her person or character (including actions for slander or libel), and the proceeds of any such action are her sole and separate property.

She may contract to the same extent, with like effect in the same form as if she were unmarried, and she and her separate estate are liable thereon.

A widow is endowed of the third part of all the real estate whereof her husband is seized of an estate of inheritance at any time during the marriage. This interest, termed during the lifetime of her husband inchoate, attaches at the instant of marriage to all real estate the husband then owns, and after marriage to all real estate he acquires. Having once attached, it cannot be divested by any act of the husband, or any of his creditors. The wife alone can release it, and she forfeits it only in case of a divorce dissolving the marriage for her misconduct.

The husband cannot either sell or devise his real estate, except subject to this dower right of his wife. The husband's estate by courtesy in his wife's real estate is by no means so broad or so well secured as is the wife's right of dower. It does not attach at all until the birth of a living child, and the wife may absolutely defeat it at any time without any consent on the part of her husband, either by conveying her real estate during her lifetime, or by devising it by her will. It is no longer necessary for the husband to join with the wife in conveying her property.

A husband is liable for necessaries purchased by his wife, and also for money given to the wife by a third person in order to enable her to purchase necessaries, and he is bound to support her and her children without regard to the extent of her individual and separate estate. No similar obligation to furnish necessaries to a husband is imposed upon a wife. The legal definition of necessaries is very broad, being "such things as are actually required for the wife's support commensurate with the husband's means, her wonted living as his spouse, and her station in the community."

In case of a divorce, whether partial or absolute, obtained by the wife, the husband is required to pay alimony for her support during the rest of her life, even if she should re-marry. A wife from whom a husband obtains a divorce cannot be required to contribute in any way to his support.

Although the law has opened wide the door for all women to engage in business, it still discriminates in their favor in many particulars. No woman can be arrested in a civil action, or held by an execution against the body, except in cases in which it is shown that she has committed "a wilful injury to person, character, or property," or has been guilty of such an evasion of duty as is equivalent to a contempt of court. Thus a woman engaged in business cannot be arrested in an action for a debt fraudulently contracted.

All women judgment debtors, whether married or single, enjoy certain exemptions from the sale of their property under execution, which, in the case of men, extend only to a householder; that is, a man who has, and provides for, a household or family.

Every married woman is the joint guardian of her children with her husband, with equal powers, rights, and duties in regard to them with her husband. It is only the survivor, be it father or mother, who possesses the right to appoint a guardian by deed or by will. She has now equal rights with the father over her children.

As matter of practice, the courts when called upon to award the custody of minor children in cases of separation, determine the question with reference solely to the interests of the child, with a strong leaning in the mother's favor.

A husband's creditors have no claim upon the proceeds of a policy of insurance upon his life for the benefit of his wife, unless the annual premiums paid by him shall have exceeded five hundred dollars. The proceeds of such a policy are exempt from execution for any debt owed by the wife.

The statutes contain a large number of special provisions for the benefit of female employees in factories and mercantile houses. In the city of New York, if any man fails to pay the wages due a female employee up to fifty dollars, not only is none of his property exempt from execution, but he is liable to be imprisoned upon a body execution, and kept in close confinement without the privilege of bail. A similar rule is applicable in Brooklyn.

No woman can be called upon to perform military duty.

No woman can be required to serve upon any jury.

No woman can be called upon by the sheriff or any peace officer to assist in quelling a disturbance or making an arrest.



CHAPTER VI.

WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES.

The fifth count in the Suffrage Declaration of Sentiments reads as follows: "He has monopolized nearly all the profitable employments, and from those she is permitted to follow she receives but scanty remuneration."

The women who wrote that in 1848, in common with the majority of American women, were presumably being well provided for in their own homes, by men whose boast it was that their wives and daughters did not need or care to seek employment elsewhere. It is true that at that time, because of this supposed advantage, as married women they could not have engaged in separate business that would involve the making of contracts or distinct bargain and sale. To the world the husband was the wife's financial manager. But at that time the wife could enter any of the employments as a paid clerk or worker. This count seems more surprising in view of the fact that, writing only three years later, to a Suffrage convention that met in Akron, Ohio, Mrs. Stanton said: "The trades and professions are all open to us; let us quietly enter and make ourselves, if not rich and famous, at least independent and respectable." Two years later still, Colonel Thomas W. Higginson wrote to another Suffrage convention that met in Akron, Ohio: "We complain of the industrial disadvantages of women, and indicate at the same time their capacities for a greater variety of pursuits. Why not obtain a statement on as large a scale as possible, first of what women are doing now, commercially and mechanically, throughout the Union, and secondly, of the embarrassments which they meet, the inequality of their wages, and all the other peculiarities of their position." This would have been most valuable and interesting, and it would seem that something of the kind should have preceded the sweeping accusation made in the Declaration; but there appears in their "History" no evidence of its having been done. In 1859 Caroline H. Ball said, in addressing a Suffrage convention: "I honor women who act. That is the reason that I greet so gladly girls like Harriet Hosmer, Louisa Landor, and Margaret Foley. Whatever they do, or do not do, for Art, they do a great deal for the cause of labor. I do not believe any one in this room has an idea of the avenues that are open to women already." Then follows a list of the trades then pursued by women in Great Britain. Of the United States she said: "Of factory operatives in 1845 there were 55,828 men and 75,710 women. Women are glue-makers, glove-makers, workers in gold and silver leaf, hair- weavers, hat and cap-makers, hose-weavers, workers in India-rubber, paper- hangers, physicians, picklers and preservers, saddlers and harness-makers, shoe-makers, soda-room keepers, snuff and cigar-makers, stock and suspender-makers, truss-makers, typers and stereotypers, umbrella-makers, upholsterers, card-makers, photographers, house and sign-painters, fruit- hawkers, button-makers, tobacco-packers, paper-box makers, embroiderers, and fur-sewers." She added: "In New Haven seven women work with seventy men in a clock factory (at half wages)." And in summing up she said: "The great evils that lie at the foundation of depressed wages are that want of respect for labor which prevents ladies from engaging in it, and that want of respect for women which prevents men from valuing properly the work they do. Make women equal with men before the law, and wages will adjust themselves."