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+Project Gutenberg's Woman and the Republic, by Helen Kendrick Johnson
+
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+Title: Woman and the Republic
+       A Survey of the Woman-Suffrage Movement in the United States and
+       a Discussion of the Claims and Arguments of Its Foremost Advocates
+
+Author: Helen Kendrick Johnson
+
+Release Date: January, 2005 [EBook #7300]
+[Yes, we are more than one year ahead of schedule]
+[This file was first posted on April 9, 2003]
+
+Edition: 10
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-Latin-1
+
+*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Olaf Voss, Tiffany Vergon, Charles Aldarondo,
+Charles Franks and the Online Distributed Proofreading Team
+
+
+
+
+WOMAN AND THE REPUBLIC
+
+A SURVEY OF THE WOMAN-SUFFRAGE MOVEMENT IN THE UNITED STATES AND A
+DISCUSSION OF THE CLAIMS AND ARGUMENTS OF ITS FOREMOST ADVOCATES BY
+
+HELEN KENDRICK JOHNSON
+
+
+
+
+CONTENTS.
+
+
+CHAPTER I.    INTRODUCTORY
+CHAPTER II.   IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC?
+CHAPTER III.  WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC
+CHAPTER IV.   WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY
+CHAPTER V.    WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE LAWS
+CHAPTER VI.   WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE TRADES
+CHAPTER VII.  WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSIONS
+CHAPTER VIII. WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION
+CHAPTER IX.   WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH
+CHAPTER X.    WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX
+CHAPTER XI.   WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME
+CHAPTER XII.  CONCLUSION
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER I.
+
+
+INTRODUCTORY.
+
+
+The introduction to the "History of Woman Suffrage," published in 1881-85,
+edited by Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Susan B. Anthony and Matilda Joslyn
+Gage, contains the following statement: "It is often asserted that, as
+woman has always been man's slave, subject, inferior, dependent, under all
+forms of government and religion, slavery must be her normal condition;
+but that her condition is abnormal is proved by the marvellous change in
+her character, from a toy in the Turkish harem, or a drudge in the German
+fields, to a leader of thought in the literary circles of France, England,
+and America."
+
+I have made this quotation partly on account of its direct application to
+the subject to be discussed, and partly to illustrate the contradictions
+that seem to inhere in the arguments on which the claim to Woman Suffrage
+is founded. If woman has become a leader of thought in the literary
+circles of the most cultivated lands, she has not always been man's slave,
+subject, inferior, dependent, under all forms of government and religion;
+and, furthermore, it is not true that there has been such a marvellous
+change in her character as is implied in this statement. Where man is a
+bigot and a barbarian, there, alas! woman is still a harem toy; where man
+is little more than a human clod, woman is to-day a drudge in the field;
+where man has hewn the way to governmental and religious freedom, there
+woman has become a leader of thought. The unity of race progress is
+strikingly suggested by this fact. The method through which that unity is
+maintained should unfold itself as we study the story of the sex
+advancement of our time.
+
+Progress is a magic word, and the Suffrage party has been fortunate in its
+attempt to invoke the sorcery of the thought that it enfolds, and to blend
+it with the claim of woman to share in the public duty of voting.
+Possession of the elective franchise is a symbol of power in man's hand;
+why should it not bear the same relation to woman's upward impulse and
+action? Modern adherents ask, "Is not the next new force at hand in our
+social evolution to come from the entrance of woman upon the political
+arena?" The roots of these questions, and consequently of their answers,
+lie as deep as the roots of being, and they cannot be laid bare by
+superficial digging. But the laying bare of roots is not the only way, or
+even the best way, to judge of the strength and beauty of a growth. We
+look at the leaves, the flowers, and the fruit. "Movement" and "Progress"
+are not synonymous terms. In evolution there is degeneration as well as
+regeneration. Only the work that has been in accord with the highest
+ideals of woman's nature is fitted to the environment of its advance, and
+thus to survival and development. In order to learn whether Woman Suffrage
+is in the line of advance, we must know whether the movement to obtain it
+has thus far blended itself with those that have proved to be for woman's
+progress and for the progress of government.
+
+I am sure I need not emphasize the fact that, in studying some of the
+principles that underlie the Suffrage movement, I am not impugning the
+motives of the leaders. Nor need I dwell upon the fact that it is from the
+good comradeship of men and women that has come to prevail under our free
+conditions, that some women have hastily espoused a cause with which they
+never have affiliated, because they supposed it to be fighting against
+odds for the freedom of their sex.
+
+The past fifty years have wrought more change in the conditions of life
+than could many a Cathayan cycle. The growth of religious liberty,
+enlargement of foreign and home missions, the Temperance movement, the
+giant war waged for principle, are among the causes of this change. The
+settlement of the great West, the opening of professions and trades to
+woman consequent upon the loss of more than a half million of the nation's
+most stalwart men, the mechanical inventions that have changed home and
+trade conditions, the sudden advance of science, the expansion of mind and
+of work that are fostered by the play of a free government,--all these
+have tended to place man and woman, but especially woman, where something
+like a new heaven and a new earth are in the distant vision.
+
+To this change the Suffragists call attention, and say, "This is, in great
+part, our work." In this little book I shall recount a few of the facts
+that, in my opinion, go to prove that the Suffrage movement has had but
+little part or lot in this matter. And because of these facts I believe
+the principles on which the claim to suffrage is founded are those that
+turn individuals and nations backward and not forward.
+
+The first proof I shall mention is the latest one in time--it is the fact
+of an Anti-Suffrage movement. In the political field alone are we being
+formed into separate camps whose watchwords become more unlike as they
+become more clearly understood. The fact that for the first time in our
+history representatives of two great organizations of women are appealing
+to courts and legislatures, each begging them to refuse the prayer of the
+other, shows, as conclusively as a long argument could do, that this
+matter of suffrage is something essentially distinct from the great series
+of movements in which women thus far have advanced side by side. It is an
+instinctive announcement of a belief that the demand for suffrage is not
+progress; that it does array sex against sex; that woman, like man, can
+advance only as the race advances; and that here lies the dividing line.
+
+How absolute is that dividing line between woman's progress and woman
+suffrage, we may realize when we consider what the result would be if we
+could know to-morrow, beyond a peradventure, that woman never would vote
+in the United States. Not one of her charities, great or small, would be
+crippled. Not a woman's college would close its doors. Not a profession
+would withhold its diploma from her; not a trade its recompense. Not a
+single just law would be repealed, or a bad one framed, as a consequence.
+Not a good book would be forfeited. Not a family would be less secure of
+domestic happiness. Not a single hope would die which points to a time
+when our cities will all be like those of the prophet's vision, "first
+pure and then peaceable."
+
+Among the forces that are universally considered progressive are: the
+democratic idea in government, extinction of slavery, increase of
+educational and industrial opportunities for woman, improvement in the
+statute laws, and spread of religious freedom. The Woman-Suffrage movement
+professed to champion these causes. That movement is now nearly fifty
+years old, and has made a record by which its relation to them can be
+judged. What is the verdict?
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER II.
+
+
+IS WOMAN SUFFRAGE DEMOCRATIC?
+
+
+As the claim of woman to share the voting power is related to the
+fundamental principles of government, the progress of government must be
+studied in relation to that claim in order to learn its bearing upon them.
+It is possible to suggest in one brief chapter only the barest outline of
+such a far-reaching scrutiny, and wiser heads than mine must search to
+conclusion; but some beginnings looking toward an answer to the inquiry I
+have raised have occurred to me as not having entered into the newly-
+opened controversy on woman suffrage.
+
+I say, the newly-opened controversy, for, through these fifty years, the
+Suffragists have done nearly all the talking. So persistently have they
+laid claim to being in the line of progress for woman, that many of their
+newly aroused opponents fancied that the anti-suffrage view might be the
+ultra conservative one, and that democratic principles, strictly and
+broadly applied, might at last lead to woman suffrage, though premature if
+pushed to a conclusion now.
+
+The first step in finding out how far that position is true is, to
+ascertain what the Suffragists say about this noblest of democracies, our
+own Government. In referring to the "The History of Woman Suffrage" for
+the opinions of the leaders, I am not only using a book that on its
+publication was considered a strong and full presentment of their
+arguments, but one which they are today advertising and selling as "a
+perfect arsenal of the work done by and for women during the last half
+century." In it the editors say: "Woman's political equality with man is
+the legitimate outgrowth of the fundamental principles of our government."
+Dr. Mary Putnam Jacobi, writing in the New York Sun in April, 1894, says:
+"Never, until the establishment of universal [male] suffrage, did it
+happen that all the women in a community, no matter how well born, how
+intelligent, how well educated, how virtuous, how wealthy, were counted
+the political inferiors of all the men, no matter how base born, how
+stupid, how ignorant, how brutal, how poverty-stricken. This anomaly is
+the real innovation. Men have personally ruled the women of their
+families; the law has annihilated the separate existence of women; but
+women have never been subjected to the political sovereignty of all men
+simply in virtue of their sex. Never, that is, since the days of the
+ancient republics." Mrs. Ellen Battelle Dietrick, who, as Secretary of the
+New-England Suffrage Association, was put forward to meet all comers,
+writing in July, 1895, said: "Shall we, as a people, be true to our
+principles and enfranchise woman? or, shall we drift along in the meanest
+form of oligarchy known among men--an oligarchy which exalts every sort of
+a male into a ruler simply because he is a male, and debases every woman
+into a subject simply because she is a woman?" Mrs. Fanny B. Ames,
+speaking in Boston in 1896, said: "I believe woman suffrage to be the
+final result of the evolution of a true democracy." Not only has every
+woman speaker or writer in favor of suffrage presented this idea in some
+form, but the men also who have taken that side have done likewise. One
+among those who advocated the cause before the Committee in the
+Constitutional Convention of New York, said: "Woman Suffrage is the
+inevitable result of the logic of the situation of modern society. The
+despot who first yielded an inch of power gave up the field. We are
+standing in the light of the best interests of the State of New York when
+we stand in the way of this forward movement."
+
+All these writers charge the American Republic with being false to
+democratic principles in excluding women from the franchise, while but one
+of them alludes to the fact that in the ancient republics the same
+"anomaly" was seen.
+
+As I read political history, the facts go to show that the fundamental
+principles of our Government are more opposed to the exercise of suffrage
+by women than are those of monarchies. To me it seems that both despotism
+and anarchy are more friendly to woman's political aspirations than is any
+form of constitutional government, and that manhood suffrage, and not
+womanhood suffrage, is the final result of the evolution of democracy.
+
+The Suffragists repeatedly call attention to the fact that in the early
+ages in Egypt, in Greece, and in Rome, women were of much greater
+political consequence than later during the republics; but the moral they
+have drawn has been that of the superiority of the ancient times. Mrs.
+Dietrick says: "The ideal woman of Greece was Athena, patroness of all
+household arts and industries, but equally patroness of all political
+interests. The greatest city of Greece was believed to have been founded
+by her, and Greek history recorded that, though the men citizens voted
+solidly to have the city named for Neptune, yet the women citizens voted
+solidly for Athena, beat them by one vote, and carried that political
+matter. If physical force had been a governing power in Greece, and men
+its manifestation, how could such a story have been published by Greek men
+down to the second century before our era?"
+
+Mrs. Dietrick's remarkably realistic version of the old myth does not tell
+the tale as Greek men published it. Varro, who was educated at Athens,
+goes on to say: "Thereupon, Neptune became enraged, and immediately the
+sea flowed over all the land of Athens. To appease the god, the burgesses
+were compelled to impose a threefold punishment upon their wives--they
+were to lose their votes; the children were to receive no more the
+mother's name; and they themselves were no longer to be called Athenians,
+after the goddess." It seems to me this fable teaches that physical force
+was indeed the governing power in Athens at that day, and that men were
+its manifestation.
+
+The legend is generally taken to indicate the time when the Greek gens
+progressed to the family. In the ruder time, the legitimacy of the
+chieftain might be traced, because the mother, though not always the
+father, could be known with certainty. When the father became the
+acknowledged head of the household, a distinct advance was made toward
+that heroic age in which the vague but towering figures of men and women
+move across the stage. Goddesses, queens, princesses, are powerful in love
+and war. Sibyls unfold the meaning of the book of fate. Vestals feed the
+fires upon the highest and lowest altars. Later, throughout most of the
+states of Greece, something like the following order of political life is
+seen: from kings to oligarchs, from oligarchs to tyrants or despots, from
+them to some form of restricted constitutional liberty. In Sparta, all
+change of government was controlled by the machinery of war, and the
+soldiers were made forever free. Athens, separated from the rest of
+Greece, was less agitated by outward conflict. In government she passed
+from king to archon; from hereditary archon to archons chosen for ten
+years, but always from one family, then to those elected for one year,
+nine being chosen. At the time of the Areopagus there were four classes of
+citizens. The first three paid taxes, had a right to share in the
+government, and formed the defence of the state. If women were of
+political importance in earlier times, and if a republic is more favorable
+to the exercise by them of the elective franchise, we should expect to
+find women reaching their highest power under the Areopagus. Exactly the
+contrary appears to be true. Native and honorable Greek women retired to
+domestic life as the liberty of their people grew. Grote, in his "History
+of Greece," referring to the legendary period, says: "We find the wife
+occupying a station of great dignity and influence, though it was the
+practice of the husband to purchase her by valuable presents to her
+parents. She even seems to live less secluded, and to enjoy a wider sphere
+of action, than was allotted to her in historic Greece."
+
+Lecky, in his "European Morals," says: "It is one of the most remarkable
+and, to some writers, one of the most perplexing facts in the moral
+history of Greece, that in the former and ruder period women had
+undoubtedly the highest place, and their type exhibited the highest
+perfection." What the "highest perfection" is, for her type, or for man's
+type, is not here under discussion; but it is not out of place to say in
+passing that if the final conquest of the spiritual over the material
+forces of humanity is really the aim of civilization, these "facts in the
+moral history of Greece" become less "perplexing."
+
+The heroines of Homer's tales were all of noble birth--they were
+goddesses, princesses, hereditary gentlewomen. In early historic times,
+also, it was only royal or gentle blood that secured for woman political
+power. Athena was, in gentle Athens, patroness of household arts; but in
+Sparta, as Minerva, the same divinity was goddess, not of political
+interests, as Mrs. Dietrick puts it, but of war. She sprang full-armed
+from the head of Jove--rather a masculine origin, it must be owned. In
+Sparta women became soldiers as the democratic idea advanced. Princess
+Archidamia, marching at the head of her female troop to rebuke the
+senators for the decree that the women and children be removed from the
+city before the anticipated attack could come, is an example. In Etolia,
+in Argos, and in other states, the same was true. Maria and Telesilla led
+the women in battle and disciplined them in peace. But the world does not
+turn to Sparta for its ideal of a pre-Christian republic, and the
+Suffragists of our day do not propose to emulate the Spartan Amazon and
+hew their way to political power with the sword.
+
+In Athens, which does present the model, matters were far otherwise. In
+the year 700 B. C., the Spartans called upon Athens for a commander to
+lead them to the second Messenian war, and the Athenians sent them
+Tyrtaeus, their martial poet. The Spartans were displeased at his youth
+and gentle bearing; but when the battle was joined, his chanting of his
+own war-songs so animated the troops that they won against heavy odds. The
+following is a fragment translated from one of his lyrics:
+
+  "But be it ours to guard the hallowed spot,
+     To shield the tender offspring and the wife;
+   Here steadily await our destined lot,
+     And, for their sakes, resign the gift of life."
+
+Aeschylus, poet and soldier, writing a hundred and fifty years later, in
+his "Seven Against Thebes," puts into the mouth of the chieftain Eteocles
+this address to the women:
+
+  "It is not to be borne, ye wayward race;
+   Is this your best, is this the aid you lend
+   The state, the fortitude with which you steel
+   The souls of the besieged, thus falling down
+   Before the images to wail, and shriek
+   With lamentations loud? Wisdom abhors you.
+   Nor in misfortune, nor in dear success,
+   Be woman my associate. If her power
+   Bears sway, her insolence exceeds all bounds;
+   But if she fears, woe to that house and city.
+   And now by holding counsel with weak fear,
+   You magnify the foe, and turn our men
+   To flight. Thus are we ruined by ourselves.
+   This ever will arise from suffering women
+   To intermix with men. But mark me well,
+   Whoe'er henceforth dares disobey my orders--
+   Be it man or woman, old or young--
+   Vengeance shall burst upon him, the decree
+   Stands irreversible, and he shall die.
+   War is no female province, but the scene
+   For men. Hence, home! nor spread your mischiefs here.
+   Hear you, or not? Or speak I to the deaf?"
+
+Pericles, in his famous funeral oration over those who fell in the
+Peloponnesian war, thus addresses the Athenian women: "To the wives who
+will henceforth live in widowhood, I will speak, in one short sentence
+only, of womanly virtue. She is the best woman who is most truly a woman,
+and her reputation is the highest whose name is never in the mouths of men
+for good or for evil."
+
+Seclusion was the best thing that the most intellectual pre-Christian
+republic could give to its honorable women. The freedom with which the
+hetairse, who were foreigners or daughters of slaves, mingled with
+statesmen and philosophers, brought them open political influence, but not
+a hint of voting power or of office-holding.
+
+For the sake of brevity, I will confine my reference to Roman custom to a
+single pregnant sentence from Gibbon's "Decline and Fall of the Empire."
+He says: "In every age and country the wiser, or at least the stronger of
+the two sexes, has usurped the powers of the state, and confined the other
+to the cares and pleasures of domestic life. In hereditary monarchies,
+however, and especially in those of modern Europe, the gallant spirit of
+chivalry, and the law of succession, have accustomed us to allow a
+singular exception, and a woman is often acknowledged the absolute
+sovereign of a great kingdom, in which she would be deemed incapable of
+exercising the smallest employment, civil or military. But, as the Roman
+Emperors were still considered as the generals and magistrates of the
+Republic, their wives and mothers, although dignified by the name of
+Augusta, were never associated to their personal honors; and a female
+reign would have appeared an inexplicable prodigy in the eyes of those
+primitive Romans, who married without love, or loved without delicacy or
+respect."
+
+The warlike states named republics in the Middle Ages had no woman Doge,
+or Duke, although women rose to the semblance of political power with
+empires and kingdoms, in Italy and Spain as well as in Germany and France,
+Austria and Russia.
+
+Let us turn to modern Europe, in which thrones have been occupied now and
+again by queens. The progress of woman here, especially in Anglo-Saxon
+countries, has been steady, true and inspiring. In the earliest recorded
+councils of the race from which we sprang, we see freemen in full armor
+casting equal votes. During the ages of feudalism, women who were land-
+owners had the same rights as other nobles. They could raise soldiery,
+coin money, and administer justice in both civil and criminal proceedings.
+In proportion as the aristocratic power lost its hold, women were exempted
+from these services and gained in moral influence. The Germanic races were
+renowned for their respect for woman, and their love for home. As
+constitutional liberty grew, and each Englishman's house became his castle
+for defence against arbitrary power, the protection was not for himself
+but for his family. A figure-head ruler in feminine attire sits on
+England's throne to-day--the England that still unites its church and
+state, and in which feudal customs still prevail to some extent. Widows
+and spinsters who are property-owners can vote for all offices except the
+one charged under the Constitution with the framing and execution of the
+laws of the land. Aristocracy decrees that in the House of Lords the
+Bishops shall have a voice; but in the House of Commons no clergyman can
+hold a seat, and for members of Parliament no woman votes. Would any
+Suffragist hold that a clergyman was the inferior of men who do sit in the
+House of Commons? They are excluded for the same reason that woman has not
+the parliamentary vote--they are looked upon as non-combatants.
+
+The Greek and Roman republics appear to have followed an instinct that was
+unerring in the condition of society when they removed women from the
+seats of power as the commonwealth gathered strength. Gibbon, in the
+sentences quoted, attributes the fact that queens as well as kings have
+occupied the thrones of modern Europe to the chivalry of men toward those
+who would yet be incapable of exercising actual power except for the
+backing of a standing army, or an hereditary nobility sworn to their
+support, both of which are composed solely of men. If this be true, it
+should be visible in the workings of the constitutional restrictions upon
+monarchies that have developed in the past fifty years, during which the
+principle of democratic government has advanced with enormous strides over
+a great portion of the globe.
+
+In the Austro-Hungarian monarchy there is restricted woman suffrage. The
+kingdom of Italy has restricted municipal woman suffrage. The little
+republic that separates those countries, the land of Tell and the Vaudois,
+has direct manhood suffrage only.
+
+Sweden and Norway are apparently parting company. Sweden chooses to keep
+its king and its aristocracy, and it has restricted woman suffrage; but
+Norway, which is working toward free institutions, and last year voted to
+remove the insignia of union from the Norwegian flag, has no woman
+suffrage. [Footnote: In the city of Berne, Switzerland, in 1852, a proxy
+vote was given to independent women who paid a commercial tax, but they
+made no effort to use it until 1885, when contending political factions
+compelled them to do so in a measure. Norway's women have a local school
+vote. Both these cases of exception serve to prove the rule that I am
+trying to set forth.]
+
+Autocratic Russia and its Asiatic colonies have more woman suffrage than
+England. Finland, a constitutional monarchy, was ceded to the Emperor of
+Russia in 1809. Women there have all except the parliamentary suffrage.
+The Governor-General of the Senate is nominated by the Emperor, and is
+chief of the military force. The National Assembly is convoked by the
+Emperor whenever he sees fit. The duties of that Assembly are to consider
+laws proposed by the Emperor and elaborated by the Committee of Affairs
+and four members nominated by the Emperor, who sit in St. Petersburg. The
+Emperor has the veto power over any act of theirs. That National Assembly
+consists of representatives of the nobility, the clergy, the burghers, and
+the peasantry, the consent of all of whom must be obtained to any measure
+that makes a change in the constitution or imposes taxes. But the royal
+veto can set aside any decision.
+
+Iceland, a dependency of Denmark, has municipal woman suffrage, and women
+are eligible to municipal office. It has its own legislature, which
+governs jointly with the King, the executive power being in the hands of
+the King alone.
+
+In the great extensions of suffrage in England in 1848, an amendment for
+the extension of suffrage to women was introduced in Parliament by Mr.
+Disraeli. Lord Northcote, Lord John Manners, and other conservatives,
+upheld it; but the liberal leaders opposed it, Gladstone and John Bright
+among them. John Blight's family were strenuous for the movement, and he
+had fancied himself its friend until the issue came; then the old champion
+of freedom, proved true to the instinct that guards it in the nation. In
+the constantly increasing liberty of the lower classes of England, an
+essential principle which excludes women from the parliamentary vote has
+been maintained. Lady Spencer Churchill and other Suffrage leaders look to
+Viscount Templeton and Lord Salisbury for support to-day.
+
+A woman-suffrage bill of many years' standing and absurd provisions, has
+just passed to a second reading in the House of Commons. Although it was
+treated as a joke by all parties, it served to emphasize the fact that Sir
+Vernon Harcourt and the Liberals are opposed to any advance in this
+direction.
+
+In the late extension of suffrage in Canada, the movement for woman
+suffrage had conservative support, while every liberal leader opposed it.
+No South American Republic has woman suffrage. With the deposition of
+Liliuokalani, woman's directs political power in the Hawaiian Islands
+died. In France only the Anarchists "admit women" to public council, and
+that party in Germany has here and there inscribed woman suffrage upon its
+banners.
+
+Not only England, Scotland and Wales, but Canada, definitely excepts the
+vote for members of parliament in giving suffrage to woman, and only
+widows and spinsters are admitted to the minor forms of franchise. As to
+the other British colonies, what is the situation? Much stress has been
+laid on what has been termed the progress of the Suffrage movement in
+Australasia. There is but one Australian colony in which the legislative
+assembly is elected; in the others it is appointed for life, or for short
+terms. Where it is thus appointed, women vote on various matters. In
+Victoria, which contains the capital city, Melbourne, and which is the
+most progressive and democratic colony in Australia, the Legislative
+Assembly is elected, and that body is chosen by unrestricted male suffrage
+only, while, as with the House of Commons in the mother country, clergymen
+are not allowed to sit in it. In West Australia, the newest colony, the
+voting is done by men alone. In Cape Colony women have restricted
+municipal suffrage; but the Assembly is elected by the vote of men who own
+a certain amount of property.
+
+In the Orange Free State every adult white male is a full burgher, having
+a vote for the President, who is chosen for five years. The Transvaal
+Republic has no woman suffrage amid its hand-to-hand struggles.
+
+To comprehend the condition of European governmental affairs, one must
+follow the condition of things produced by the struggle of socialistic and
+anarchistic elements. Between the King on the one hand, and these forces
+on the other, the true Liberal parties are slowly progressing toward free
+institutions; both aristocratic and anarchistic movements being more
+favorable than liberalism to woman-suffrage aspirations.
+
+The countries where woman has full suffrage (save in the United States)
+are all dependencies of royalty. They are: The Isle of Man, Pitcairn's
+Island, New Zealand, and South Australia. The most important of these, New
+Zealand, was once a promising colony, but it has been declining for a
+quarter of a century. The men outnumber the women by forty thousand. The
+act conferring the parliamentary franchise on both European and Maori
+women received the royal sanction in 1892. At the session of Parliament
+that passed the act a tax was put upon incomes and one upon land, so that
+a desperate civilization seemed to be trying all the experiments at once.
+Certainly, woman suffrage in New Zealand was not adopted because the
+Government was so stable, so strong, so democratic, that these conditions
+must thus find fit expression. [Footnote: The Australasian colonies are
+taking steps toward the formation of a Federal Union. While this book is
+in press news comes that the Federal Convention, by a vote of 23 to 12,
+has refused to allow women to vote for members of the House of
+Representatives.]
+
+South Australia not only gives women full suffrage, but makes them
+eligible to a seat in Parliament. The colony is a vast, mountainous,
+largely unsettled region, with a high proportion of native and Chinese,
+and, in 1894, had but 73,000 voters, including the women. The Socialistic
+Labor movement, which has played a large part in Australasian politics,
+here succeeded in dominating the government. There was an attempt to
+establish communistic villages with public money, a proposal to divide the
+public money _pro rata,_ and one to build up a system of state life-
+insurance; and taxes were to be levied on salaries, and on all incomes
+above a certain point. It was found that the sixty thousand women who were
+authorized to vote throughout Australia assisted the socialistic schemes
+that are hindering progress and that tend to anarchy and not to
+republicanism. There is a royal Governor, and suffrage is based on
+household and property qualifications. It is an aristocratic and social
+combination, not a triumph of democratic ideas or principles. Dr. Jacobi,
+in her "Common Sense applied to Woman Suffrage," says: "The refusal to
+extend parliamentary suffrage to women who are possessed of municipal
+suffrage, does not mean, as Americans are apt to suppose, that women are
+counted able to judge about the small concerns of a town, but not about
+imperial issues. It means that women are still not counted able to
+exercise independent judgment at all, and, therefore, are to remain
+counted out when this is called for; but that the property to which they
+happen to belong, and which requires representation, must not be deprived
+of this on account of an entangling female alliance. This is the very
+antipodes of the democratic doctrine, perhaps also somewhat excessive,
+that a man requires representation so much that he must not be deprived of
+it on account of the accident of not being able to read or write!"
+
+With Dr. Jacobi's interpretation, I will deal later. What I wish now to do
+is, to call attention to her admission of the fact that woman suffrage in
+England and in her colonies is not democratic, and to connect it with the
+other fact that no republic, from that of Greece to our own, has
+introduced it, although manhood suffrage has been universal in Switzerland
+for many years, and in France since 1848.
+
+So it would seem that under a monarchical system, with a standing army and
+a hereditary nobility to support the throne, the royal mandate could be
+issued by a woman. Any Queen, as well as the one that Alice met in
+Wonderland, could say, "Off with his head!" But when freedom grew, and the
+democratic idea began to prevail, and each individual man became a king,
+and each home a castle, the law given by God and not by man came into
+exercise, and upon each man was laid the duty of defending liberty and
+those who were physically unfitted to defend themselves.
+
+Let us turn now to our own country. Technically, at least, women possessed
+the suffrage in our first settlements. In New England, in the early days,
+when church-membership as the basis of the franchise excluded three-
+fourths of the male inhabitants from its exercise, women could vote. Under
+the old Provincial charters, from 1691 to 1780, they could vote for all
+elective offices. From 1780 to 1785, under the Articles of Confederation,
+they could vote for all elective offices except the Governor, the Council,
+and the Legislature. The comment made upon this by the Suffrage writers
+is, that "the fact that woman exercised the right of suffrage amid so many
+restrictions, is very significant of the belief in her right to the
+ballot-box." My comment is, that the same lesson we have learned in Europe
+is repeated here with wonderful emphasis. Under the transported
+aristocracy of churchly power in the state, they shared the undemocratic
+rule. When freedom broadened a little, and, under a system that still
+acknowledged allegiance to the British Crown, all property-holders or
+other "duly qualified" colonists could vote, they still had the voice that
+England grants to-day, the voice of an estate. When liberty took another
+step and a league was formed of "firm friendship" in which each Colony was
+to be independent and yet banded for offensive and defensive aid, the
+women were retired from the special vote on the result of which lay the
+actual execution of the law. But this country was not yet a republic, or
+even a nation. Washington himself said that the state of things under the
+Articles of Confederation was hardly removed from anarchy. In 1789 a
+constitution was adopted, which made the American people a nation. Its
+preamble read: "We, the people of the United States, in order to form a
+more perfect union, establish justice, insure domestic tranquillity,
+provide for the common defence, promote the general welfare, and secure
+the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, do ordain and
+establish this Constitution for the United States of America." Under this
+Constitution the last vestiges of churchly political rule, and of
+property-qualification for voting, have gradually disappeared. New Jersey
+was the last State to repeal her property-qualification laws. In 1709 she
+made "male freeholders" who held a certain amount of property the only
+voters. In 1790 her Constitution, through an error in wording, admitted
+"all inhabitants" with certain property to vote. This was in force until
+1807, when an act was passed conferring the suffrage upon "free white male
+citizens twenty-one years of age worth fifty pounds proclamation money,
+clear estate," etc. From 1790 to 1807 a good many women, generally from
+the Society of Friends, took part in elections. After 1807 they attempted
+to do so, as owners of property. Finally, that qualification for the male
+voter was done away with, and with it the woman-suffrage agitation
+disappeared.
+
+State after State, in carrying out the compact of the Federal Republic,
+had inserted the word "male" into the Constitutions that embodied the
+American conception of a more vital and enduring freedom.
+
+But there are now four States of the Union where women have full suffrage,
+a few where they have a measure of municipal suffrage, and many where they
+have the school suffrage. What bearing do these facts have upon my claim
+that woman suffrage is undemocratic?
+
+The States where they have full suffrage are Utah, Wyoming, Colorado, and
+Idaho. How far was its introduction into these States the result of
+advanced legislation in accord with true republicanism? Utah Territory was
+the first spot in the country in which the measure gained a foothold, and
+that was not believed by its introducers to be a part of the United
+States. The Mormons who founded Salt Lake City supposed themselves to be
+settling on Mexican territory, outside the jurisdiction of American law.
+Woman suffrage was almost coincident with its beginnings, and it came as a
+legitimate part of the union of state and church, of communism, of
+polygamy. The dangers that especially threaten a republican form of
+government are anarchy, communism, and religious bigotry; and two of these
+found their fullest expression, in this country, in the Mormon creed and
+practice. Fealty to Mormonism was disloyalty to the United States
+Government. Thus, the introduction of woman suffrage within our borders
+was not only undemocratic, it was anti-democratic.
+
+Woman suffrage was secured in Wyoming by means that bring dishonor upon
+democracy. Wyoming was organized as a Territory in 1868. Many of its
+native settlers were from Utah. For its vast, mountainous extent of nearly
+98,000 square miles, the census gave a population of only 9,118 persons.
+Of these the native-born numbered 5,605, foreign-born, 3,513. The males
+numbered 7,219; the females, 1,899. The "History of Woman Suffrage"
+records the fact that the measure was secured in the first Territorial
+legislature through the political trickery of an illiterate and
+discredited man, who was in the chair. Mr. Bryce, in "The American
+Commonwealth," alludes in a note to the same fact. Women voted in 1870. In
+1871 a bill was passed repealing the suffrage act, but was vetoed by the
+Governor, on the ground that, having been admitted, it must be given a
+fair trial. An attempt to pass the repeal over his veto was lost by a
+single vote. Certainly, the entrance of woman suffrage into Wyoming was
+not a triumph of democratic progress and principle.
+
+Colorado was admitted into the Union in 1876, and great efforts were made
+by Suffragists to secure the "Centennial" State. This resulted in a
+submission of the question to the people, who rejected it by a majority of
+7,443 in a total vote of 20,665. From the first of the agitation for the
+free coinage of silver, Colorado has been enthusiastically in favor of
+that measure. In 1892 her devotion to it caused all parties to unite on
+that issue and gave the vote of the State to General Weaver, Populist
+candidate for President, and to David H. Waite, Populist candidate for
+Governor. The question of woman suffrage was resubmitted to the people at
+this election, and the constitutional amendment concerning it was carried
+by a majority of only 5,000 in a total vote of 200,000. Neither that
+movement nor its results present triumphant democracy.
+
+In 1894 the Populist party of Idaho put a plank in its platform favoring
+the submission of a woman-suffrage amendment to the people. In 1896 the
+Free Silver Populist movement swept the State. A majority of the votes
+cast on the Suffrage question were cast in its favor, but not a majority
+of all the votes cast at the election. The supreme courts have generally
+held that, in so important a matter, a complete majority vote was
+required, but the Supreme Court of Idaho did not so hold, and woman
+suffrage is now established in that State. This, also, is hardly a success
+of sound democracy.
+
+The subject of woman suffrage has lately been dealt with by two States
+that represent republican progress at its best. They are New York and
+Massachusetts. In the former State a Constitutional Convention in 1894
+gave an impartial hearing to the subject, and decided not to submit to the
+people an amendment striking the word "male" from the State Constitution.
+Massachusetts at its State election in 1895 asked the people to vote upon
+the question of extending municipal suffrage to women, and the answer was
+given in a heavy adverse majority. Fewer than four in one hundred women
+qualified to vote on the subject voted in its favor, and half a million
+women declined to vote at all. A majority of over 100,000 votes was cast
+against it by men. Utah and New York, Wyoming and Massachusetts, which
+States do Americans hold up as nearest their model? In which have women
+made most progress, and showed themselves most likely to understand their
+rights, privileges and duties?
+
+During the late Presidential election the issues passed the boundary that
+separates party politics from patriotic faith. For months preceding that
+struggle the Suffrage body had conducted the most efficient campaign in
+its history. When the test came, California voted for sound money against
+repudiation, for authority against anarchy, by a small majority, and threw
+its ballots heavily against woman suffrage. With the enthusiastic help of
+its woman voters, Colorado gave its electoral voice 16 to 1 against sound
+money and sound Americanism. Which State can claim that its action rings
+truest to the stroke of honest metal in finance and in defence of national
+honor?
+
+A few States have extended municipal suffrage to woman. It is generally
+local and restricted Only in Kansas is there full municipal suffrage. Dr.
+Jacobi, in her "Common Sense," says: "Municipal suffrage in Kansas demands
+no property qualification, and its exercise therefore does not differ in
+the least from that required in a Presidential election." This is a
+mistake, for the difference is essential and illustrates the undemocratic
+character of woman suffrage. Municipal suffrage in Kansas, like the
+Territorial suffrage in Wyoming, was given by legislative act, and could
+be done away with by another legislative act without appeal to the people,
+or any change of the Constitution. It did not touch the vital question
+whether women, in a democracy, could form a component part of the
+government. Mrs. Stanton well understood that difference. Kansas had long
+possessed local municipal suffrage when, in 1894, the question of granting
+full suffrage, by constitutional amendment, was submitted to the people.
+Mrs. Stanton then wrote: "My hope now rests with Kansas. If that fails
+too, we must trust no longer to the Republican and Democratic parties, but
+henceforth give our money, our eloquence, our enthusiasm to a People's
+party that will recognize woman as an equal factor in a new civilization."
+There was enough leaven of republicanism working then to cause the old
+fighting-ground, the free-soil State, to reject the amendment by a popular
+majority of 35,000. To the "People's Party" in Kansas woman suffrage may
+look for the most striking illustration of its results. Where municipal
+suffrage could be secured only by constitutional enactment, and was so
+secured, it would differ merely in degree from presidential suffrage; but
+it never has been so secured in any State except those that give full
+constitutional suffrage. It is on a par with school suffrage, except that
+legislative enactment extends the vote to town and city matters.
+
+The history of the school suffrage affords another proof of the
+incompatibility of republicanism and constitutional suffrage for woman.
+Dr. Jacobi recognizes the difference between constitutional and school
+suffrage when she says: "Women continually sign petitions for this
+privilege, till startled by the discovery that it also means something
+else. It means, however, in the State of New York, according to the
+decision of the Supreme Court, that woman can only enjoy this privilege
+thoroughly if empowered by constitutional amendment to vote for all
+officers as well as for school commissioners." The States that have
+refused to comply with the Suffragists' demand for the elective franchise,
+the most progressive States, have been first to grant school suffrage,
+under constitutional limits. The twenty-seven odd States that grant school
+suffrage have had different methods of dealing with the question, because
+their laws differ, but both the positive proof of its being granted, and
+the negative proof of its being withheld, tell the same story in regard to
+the fundamental principle involved. This is shown strikingly in the
+situation in Kansas. Women have full municipal suffrage, and the Supreme
+Court of that State decided that they could vote for school treasurer,
+which was a charter office, but could not vote for County Superintendent
+of Schools, because that office was provided for in the Constitution. The
+school suffrage may or may not have a property qualification attached.
+That makes no difference. The difference is the essential one between
+delegated power and sovereign power. The States differ so widely in their
+methods of dealing with municipal as well as school legislation, that only
+a study of the laws of each State will reveal the situation. In Ohio, in
+1895, for instance, the Legislature passed a bill enabling women to vote
+on a municipal tax-levy, which the courts held was unconstitutional, while
+they granted votes on license and other local questions.
+
+In answer to the question whether, in Massachusetts, a woman could be a
+member of a school committee, the Supreme Court returned the following
+decision in 1874: "The Constitution contains nothing relating to school
+committees; the office is created and regulated by statute; and the
+Constitution confers upon the General Court full power and authority to
+name and settle annually, or provide by fixed laws for naming and
+settling, all civil officers within the Commonwealth the election and
+constitution of whom are not in the Constitution otherwise provided for.
+The question is therefore answered in the affirmative." The Supreme Court
+of New York, in 1892, held that "School Commissioners are constitutional
+officers within Article II. part 1 of the Constitution, and consequently
+the law of 1892 giving women the right to vote for them is void." The case
+was that of Matilda Joslyn Gage. The office of School Commissioner was
+created after the adoption of the Constitution, and it was therefore urged
+that the Constitution did not bear upon it; but the Supreme Court further
+decided that the law gave the Legislature the right to appoint or to elect
+the Commissioner; and as they had decided that the office should be
+elective, the women could not vote for that office. They vote for
+district-school officers under various local permissions or limitations.
+In a case brought to decide the right of women to vote for County
+Superintendent of Schools the Supreme Court of Illinois, in 1893, held
+that, as the office was designated in the Constitution as elective, women
+could not vote for it. The decision further said. "The votes for State
+Superintendent of Instruction, and County Superintendent, are provided for
+by law, and the Legislature cannot change the law. It may be that it is
+competent for the Legislature to provide that women who are citizens of
+the United States and over twenty-one may vote at elections held for
+school directors and other school officers not mentioned in the
+Constitution." Later, the Supreme Court held that women were entitled to
+vote for school trustees, as "no officer of the school district is
+mentioned in the State Constitution."
+
+The Supreme Court of Ohio, in 1894, held that the provision of the act of
+April 24, 1894, conferring upon women the right to vote at elections of
+certain school officers, is valid, such right being within the legislative
+power to provide for the establishment and maintenance of public schools,
+and not within Article V. part 1, of the Constitution, which limits the
+right to male citizens. Judge Shauck says: "The whole subject of the
+public schools is delegated to the Assembly. As the common-school
+organization is wholly a creation of the Legislature, it is in the power
+of the Legislature to determine the qualifications of an elector and
+office-holder in it." In upholding his ruling, he cited similar decisions
+from the Supreme Courts of Illinois, Kansas, Nebraska, Massachusetts,
+Michigan, and Iowa.
+
+This rapid survey suggests, it seems to me, that, instead of being "a
+legitimate outgrowth of the fundamental principles of our government,"
+woman suffrage is really incompatible with true republican forms. Pre-
+civilized conditions, aristocratic tendencies, the forces that would
+destroy government--these appear to be its natural allies. We must study
+more closely its connection with representative government the better to
+comprehend this portentous truth.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER III.
+
+
+WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE AMERICAN REPUBLIC.
+
+
+The writers of the "History of Woman Suffrage" give the following account
+of the founding of their Association. In July, 1848, Elizabeth Cady
+Stanton, Lucretia Mott, Martha O. Wright, and Ann McClintock issued an
+unsigned call for a convention, which was asked to consider the social,
+civil, and religious condition and rights of woman; and in preparation for
+the meeting, they wrote a "Declaration of Sentiments," which was adopted
+by the assembly. They say, in describing the writing of this declaration:--
+"The reports of Peace, Temperance, and Anti-Slavery conventions were
+examined, but all alike seemed too tame and pacific for the inauguration
+of a rebellion such as the world had never before seen. We knew women had
+wrongs, but how to state them was the difficulty, and this was increased
+from the fact that we ourselves were fortunately organized and
+conditioned.... After much delay, one of the circle took up the
+Declaration of 1776, and read it aloud with spirit and emphasis, and it
+was at once decided to adopt the historic document, with some slight
+changes. Knowing that women must have more to complain of than men under
+any circumstances possibly could, and seeing the Fathers had eighteen
+grievances, a protracted search was made through statute books, church
+usages, and the customs of society to find that exact number."
+
+In such solemnly puerile fashion did they work out a travesty on one of
+the most august utterances ever penned. A young man who was present
+remarked: "Tour grievances must be grievous indeed when you are obliged to
+go to books in order to find them out." He might have added, "And they
+must be false indeed when you have to found most of your charges on dead-
+letter statutes and outgrown usages and customs."
+
+The Preamble of their Declaration reads: "When, in the course of human
+events, it becomes necessary for one portion of the family of man to
+assume among the people of the earth a position different from that which
+they have hitherto occupied, but one to which the laws of nature and of
+nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind
+requires that they should declare the causes that impel them to such a
+course."
+
+The declaration is as follows: "We hold these truths to be self-evident:
+That all men and women are created equal; that they are endowed by their
+Creator with certain inalienable rights; that among these are life,
+liberty and the pursuit of happiness; that to secure these rights
+governments are instituted, deriving their just powers from the consent of
+the governed. Whenever any form of government becomes destructive of these
+ends, it is the right of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to
+it, and to insist upon the institution of a new government, laying its
+foundation on such principles, and organizing its powers in such form, as
+to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and happiness.
+Prudence, indeed, will dictate that governments long established should
+not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all
+experience hath shown that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while
+evils are suffer able, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to
+which they were accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and
+usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinces a design to
+reduce them under absolute despotism, it is their duty to throw off such
+government, and to provide new guards for their future security. Such has
+been the patient sufferance of the women under this government, and such
+is now the necessity which constrains them to demand the equal station to
+which they are entitled. The history of mankind is a history of repeated
+injuries and usurpations on the part of man toward woman, having in direct
+object the establishment of an absolute tyranny over her. To prove this,
+let facts be submitted to a candid world." Then follows a categorical
+parody of the eighteen grievances, which will be duly considered in this
+and later chapters.
+
+After thirty years of Suffrage effort, the leaders say that this
+instrument contained all that the most radical have ever claimed. The
+Fathers of the Revolution say in their Preamble: "When, in the course of
+human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the
+political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume
+among the powers of the earth the separate and equal station to which the
+laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the
+opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which
+impel them to the separation." The Mothers of the Woman's Rebellion say:
+"When, in the course of human events, it becomes necessary for one portion
+of the family of man to assume among the people of the earth a position
+different from that which they have hitherto occupied, but one to which
+the laws of nature and of nature's God entitle them, a decent respect for
+the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes that
+impel them to such a course." The strained and ridiculous attitude
+produced by ignoring the essential difference between a political movement
+and a sex movement is visible in every line, and yet that instinct which
+finds for a new cause its appropriate channel never carried more truly
+than in this presentment of the ultimate purpose of woman suffrage. The
+Fathers were met to dissolve the relations that bound their land
+politically to a foreign power, and to form a separate and equal nation.
+The Mothers were met to dissolve the relations that bound their sex
+politically to man, and to form a separate and equal sex organization. The
+Fathers proposed to free men, women, and children from the yoke of
+England. The Mothers proposed to free women and girls from the yoke of
+men. It is suggestive to consider the "slight changes," between the two
+Declarations.
+
+The Fathers of the Revolution begin their protest by saying: "We hold
+these truths to be self-evident:--That all men are created equal, that
+they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that
+among these are life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness." The Mothers
+of the Woman's Rebellion add nothing to the meaning, but detract greatly
+from the force of its expression, when in their parody they say: "We hold
+these truths to be self-evident: That all men and women are created equal,
+and are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights; that
+among these are life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness." These women
+of all in America were the first to belittle themselves by seeming to
+assume that in a revolutionary document that was promulgated to declare a
+determination to wrest from tyranny the liberty that was an inalienable
+right for all, they and their sex were excluded because the generic term
+"man" was employed in relation to another inalienable right, which was
+about to be set forth,--that of revolution against intolerable tyranny.
+The Americans who framed that instrument would have been the last men in
+the world to assert that women were not the equals of men. They were not
+discussing abstract human or sex conditions. They met "to institute a new
+government." The Mothers of the Woman's Rebellion had an inalienable right
+to meet "to institute a new government," if they believed as sincerely as
+did the Fathers of the Revolution that "a long train of abuses and
+usurpations, pursuing invariably the same object, evinced a design to
+reduce them under absolute despotism." Life, liberty, and the pursuit of
+happiness were their natural and God-given rights. If they truly believed
+that these were trampled upon by government, they might be justified in
+revolting and attempting to form a new government. That they did not so
+believe, seems to be proved by their statement that "they knew that woman
+had wrongs, but how to state them was the difficulty, and this was
+increased from the fact that they themselves were fortunately organized
+and conditioned." The Declaration of Independence meant war against the
+ever-growing encroachment of despotism. The gauntlet was thrown down at
+the feet of a king by his subjects. The Declaration of Sentiments meant
+war against the whole social order as then constituted. The gauntlet was
+thrown down at the feet of man by those who declared him to be a
+determined foe.
+
+They had not the remotest notion of "instituting a new government," far
+from it; they relied upon the old government to sustain them in making
+their attempted "rebellion" a revolution. Without the backing of the
+state's defence, they had no expectation or hope of enforcing any new
+enactment they might desire. They were gladly consenting to be governed,
+in order to prove that they withheld consent.
+
+Should woman suffrage prevail, the foundation principles of democracy
+would have to be overthrown and "a new government instituted" in which the
+power should be delegated and not direct, if the nation thus formed was to
+"assume among the powers of the earth a separate and equal station." The
+leaders of the Suffrage movement well understood that they claimed no
+inalienable right to institute a new government, and this is again shown
+in another "slight change" made by them. The first count in the suffrage
+indictment against all men, but especially against those of the American
+Republic, reads as follows: "He has never permitted her to exercise her
+inalienable right to the elective franchise." The Fathers made no claim or
+suggestion that the suffrage was an inalienable right, or a right at all.
+Not only is there nothing to intimate that voting was a natural right, but
+from that day to this it has been the theory and the practice of our
+Government to control the suffrage. The fact that "governments were
+instituted among men" for the purpose of securing inalienable rights,
+proves that in the opinion of the Declarers the method of instituting a
+government was not in itself inalienable. Governments to secure certain
+inalienable rights are instituted among men, wrote Jefferson, "deriving
+their just powers from the consent of the governed." This was not the
+first government founded upon "consent of the governed." The English
+government had been so founded, but our fathers now refused their consent.
+That particular government could no longer exist for them with their
+consent. In their judgment, it had become destructive of the proper ends
+of all government, and so they proclaimed that the inalienable right to
+liberty made it--to use the words of the Declaration--"the right, the
+duty, of those who suffer from it to refuse allegiance to it, and to
+institute a new government."
+
+In the New York Constitutional Convention of 1867, Mr. George William
+Curtis defended the proposition so to amend the Constitution as to extend
+the suffrage to women. In the course of his eloquent remarks he said: "The
+Chairman of the Committee asked Miss Anthony whether, if suffrage was a
+natural right, it could be denied to children? Her answer seemed to me
+perfectly satisfactory. She said simply, 'All that we ask is an equal and
+not an arbitrary regulation. If _you_ have the right, _we_ have it.'" To
+me it seems to discredit the logical powers both of Miss Anthony and of
+Mr. Curtis that one should have made this reply and the other should have
+rested content with it. That was a pertinent question, and it was not
+answered at all. To say "if you have the right, we have it," is not to
+tell whether one thinks children should have it. As a matter of fact, an
+agitation of "the rights of minors" arose from the discussion of "natural
+right," and also an agitation for "minority representation" that is
+continued to this day. Mr. Curtis added: "The honorable Chairman would
+hardly deny that to regulate the exercise of a right according to obvious
+reason and experience is one thing, to deny it absolutely and forever is
+another." To regulate a law is to abolish it, either relatively or
+absolutely, for some, and to maintain it for others. When the State of New
+York says that no alien who has not been naturalized shall vote, that no
+boy under twenty-one shall vote, that no person resident in one town or
+ward shall vote in another, that no criminal or pauper shall vote,--it
+acts on the natural principle of self-defence, which contravenes the dogma
+of a natural right of any one to the suffrage. On that principle it would
+be impossible for the Congress to impeach a President; to forbid, as it
+did, those who had been in rebellion from voting; or to deny the suffrage
+to a child or to any human being. Government itself becomes impossible.
+Judge Story, whom Suffrage writers claim as favorable to their cause on
+other grounds, says that the right of voting has always been treated as a
+granted and not a natural right, derived from and regulated by each
+country according to its ideas of government. Both Federal and State
+courts have decided again and again that there is no such thing as a
+natural right to suffrage.
+
+The "consent of the governed" certainly meant something very different to
+our fathers, and to our statesmen, and to ourselves, from what it could
+mean to any other government on earth. Although the phrase itself may have
+been a euphemism which sprang from Jefferson's sympathy with the mighty
+rumblings of feeling that preceded the French Revolution, still, it was
+certainly meant that, so far as they could make it so, there should be
+vastly more consenting by popular vote than had been dreamed of in the
+mother country. But it did not mean that each and every individual in the
+state must consent to each and every law that governed him; for not only
+has no government ever been instituted which derived "just powers" in that
+way, but none ever will be, for there never can be such unanimity. It did
+not mean that every individual must consent to be governed somehow, by
+some scheme of government; for its laws were carefully framed so as to
+compel the external allegiance of those who never consent--the criminal
+and the anarchist. It did not mean even that consent, in the sense of
+agreement, was expected from a large body, or a small body, as the case
+might happen, of those who held views opposed to the policies that were
+controlling at any given time. It meant just what Jefferson meant in that
+other dictum of his: "The will of the majority is the natural law of every
+society, and the only sure guardian of the rights of man." Together they
+interpret each other, and are worthy of our Declaration and our Bill of
+Rights.
+
+The inalienable right to liberty in all mankind forbids the right of
+anarchy in any of mankind; and the question of woman suffrage, strange as
+it may appear, actually narrows itself down, as it seems to me, to the
+question whether we shall have democracy or anarchy. Democratic government
+is at an end when those who issue decrees are not identical with those who
+can enforce those decrees.
+
+But, after all, the claim to suffrage as a natural right has been
+practically abandoned by those who first made that claim. Their next
+proposition was, that it was a universal right, springing from the
+necessary conditions of organized society, and so should be granted to
+woman as a member of that society. They say in their Declaration: "He
+deprived her of the first right of a citizen--the elective franchise."
+Chief Justice Waite of the United States Supreme Court decided that
+citizenship carried with it no voting power or right. The same decision
+has been handed down by many courts in disposing of test cases.
+
+It seems to me quite as evident that what is now called universal manhood
+suffrage does not rest upon any belief by the state that this is "the
+first right of a citizen," because no one doubts that if the time came
+when a majority deemed that the preservation of the state depended upon
+disfranchising a number of voters, they would be disfranchised although
+they remained citizens. The Suffrage leaders have, in theory at least,
+also abandoned the claim to suffrage on the ground of their universal
+right as citizens. A proof of this is seen in the fact that at various
+times they have suggested the extension of suffrage under qualification.
+Among the latest that I have noticed, is an address of Mrs. Stanton's to a
+Suffrage Convention, held in 1894, in which she proposed the following:
+"Resolved, that the women of New York petition the Legislature of the
+State to extend the suffrage to women on an educational qualification."
+She must therefore believe that the Legislature has the _legal_ right to
+qualify it for men; and to withhold it from women is but an extension of
+the right to qualify suffrage, because it only says: "We do not consider
+woman citizens qualified to be voters." Writing a year ago, Mrs. Stanton
+said: "It is the duty of the educated women of this Republic to protest
+against the extension of the suffrage to another man until they themselves
+are enfranchised!" Thus it would appear that Mrs. Stanton does not believe
+in universal suffrage. A Suffrage speaker in New York not long ago said
+naively: "We [the women, when enfranchised] will vote to withhold the
+suffrage from the ignorant." She did not explain what would happen if the
+ignorant voted not to have the suffrage withheld; nor did she appear to
+realize that she was practically admitting that the present voters have
+the right to withhold the suffrage from those whom _they_ consider
+unfitted for it.
+
+But it is not true that American women did not, and do not, "consent to be
+governed." They have always consented loyally and joyfully. From the time
+of the Boston Tea Party down to the Civil War, and in such times of peace
+and prosperity as were indicated by the Columbian Exposition, when the
+Government formally asked the assistance of its woman citizens, they
+showed their consent by their deeds, and only the suffrage faction treated
+the invitation to share in the Exposition after the immemorial fashion of
+a discontented element. And the Suffragists themselves consent to be
+governed every time they accept the protection of the law or invoke it
+against a debtor; for they thereby acknowledge its proper application to
+themselves if the case were reversed.
+
+The second count in the list of political grievances runs: "He has
+compelled her to submit to laws in the formation of which she had no
+voice." This was not true, for the women who wrote that sentence were free
+to use their voices in regard to every law they desired to affect, and
+circumstances have proved that they were sure of being heard, and, if the
+law were just, and for the general good, of assisting materially to
+establish it. At the very time when Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Lucretia
+Mott were writing that indictment against the United States Government,
+Dorothea Dix was presenting a memorial to the National Congress asking for
+an appropriation of five hundred thousand acres of the public lands to
+endow hospitals for the indigent insane. That bill failed to pass, but in
+1850 another bill, which she presented, asking for ten millions of acres,
+passed the House and failed in the Senate merely for want of time to
+consider it. Four years later a bill making appropriations of the ten
+millions of acres to the separate States passed both houses, and President
+Pierce vetoed it, because he believed the general Government had no
+constitutional power to make such appropriations. She then went to the
+Legislatures of the States, with the result that is so well known. Rhode
+Island, Pennsylvania, New York, Indiana, Illinois, Louisiana, and North
+Carolina founded lunatic asylums, and the work was begun which is
+culminating in the separation of the insane from the criminal, the women
+from the men, in every town and county of the land. The right of petition
+is not only as open to women as to men, but because of the non-partisan
+character of their claims and suggestions they find quicker hearing. Miss
+Louise Lee Schuyler has been more successful in securing the enactment of
+laws for which she presented the need than any one politician in the State
+of New York, before whose Legislature they have both pleaded,--he with a
+vote which had to contend against other votes, she with a voice that spoke
+the united mind of a body of philanthropic women. There was no unjust law
+which the Suffrage Association could not have changed during these fifty
+years, had it cared to try, and indeed its members make the boast that
+many of the changes are their own. Change and improvement of laws was not
+their aim. It was a vote upon changing or not changing laws that they
+sought for. The difference is world-wide.
+
+The third count in the indictment runs: "He has withheld from her rights
+which are given to the most ignorant men--both natives and foreigners."
+Dr. Jacobi represented the Suffrage cause before the Special Committee of
+the Constitutional Convention of New York State in 1894. After drawing, in
+fine and truthfully glowing words, a picture of woman's progress under the
+institutions and laws of the United States, she said: "For the first time,
+all political right, privilege and power reposes undisguisedly on the one
+brutal fact of sex, unsupported, untempered, unalloyed by any attribute of
+education, any justification of intelligence, any glamour of wealthy any
+prestige of birth, any insignia of actual power.... To-day, the immigrants
+pouring in through the open gates of our seaport towns, the Indian when
+settled in severalty, the negro hardly emancipated from the degradation of
+two hundred years of slavery,--may all share in the sovereignty of the
+State. The white woman,--the woman in whose veins runs the blood of those
+heroic colonists who founded our country, of those women who helped to
+sustain the courage of their husbands in the Revolutionary War; the woman
+who may have given the flower of her youth and health in the service of
+our Civil War--that woman is excluded. To-day women constitute the only
+class of sane people excluded from the franchise, the only class deprived
+of political representation, except the tribal Indians and the Chinese."
+To the same effect the editors of the "Suffrage History" say: "The
+superiority of man does not enter into the demand for suffrage; for in
+this country all men vote; and as the lower orders, of men are not
+superior to the higher orders of women, they must hold and exercise the
+right of self-government on some other ground than superiority to woman."
+Here it would seem that Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony had been thinking,
+but they never followed their own thought to its inevitable conclusion.
+Universal manhood suffrage does relieve the men of this country from the
+unjust aspersion the women of the Suffrage movement put upon them, that
+they excluded women on account of inferiority.
+
+No native American, who by the very fact of that nativity is bound to
+support the Constitution of the United States, and no foreign-born citizen
+who has taken the oath of allegiance to it, has a right by his vote to do
+anything that will imperil or impede the carrying out of its principles
+and its commands. "The establishment of justice, the insurement of
+domestic tranquillity, provision for the common defence, security in the
+blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity," cannot be perfected
+or maintained without the present exercise and the reserve power of
+manhood strength. This Government laid aside all "attribute of education,
+or glamour of wealth, or prestige of birth," and committed its life to the
+keeping of its defenders. In this land, the vote is the "insignia of
+actual power," but it is only the insignia; the power to defend themselves
+and those who make country and home worth defending, lies with the
+individual defenders. To attempt to put it into the hands of those who are
+not physically fitted to maintain the obligations that may result from any
+vote or any legislative act, is to render law a farce, and to betray the
+trust imposed upon them by the constitution they have sworn to uphold.
+Universal manhood suffrage is the crowning result in the long evolution of
+government. Our statesmen of the Revolutionary period did not contemplate
+it. But stability was the thing for which they sought--the thing for which
+all statesmen of all times have been searching. If a government is not
+stable, it is of little consequence that it is full of noble ideals; and
+the most far-reaching thought has now grasped the idea that manhood
+strength is the natural and only defence of the state. This is the
+underlying theory of our Government, the one solid rock on which it rests.
+"When any question of governmental policy comes up, we virtually decide
+it, sooner or later, by a manhood vote; and as the decision has a majority
+of the men of the country behind it, there is no power that can overthrow
+it. If we attempt to establish policies or execute laws to which a
+majority of the men are opposed, we throw away our one assurance of
+stability, and are in constant danger of revolution. Even in the
+comparatively brief history of our Republic, there are plentiful instances
+to show that a majority of men will not submit to a minority, no matter
+how many non-combatants are joined with that minority. To give women a
+position of apparent power, without its reality, would be to make our
+Government forever unstable.
+
+"This is placing the Christian and civilized Government that stands as an
+example of peaceful progress on a foundation of brute force," cries the
+Suffragist. The founders of the Woman Suffrage movement apparently did not
+take the least account of either the military or the judicial powers that
+are provided for in every State constitution, as well as in the Nation's.
+They demanded "immediate admission to all the rights and privileges which
+belong to them as citizens of the United States," but said not a word
+about the duties, disabilities, and money loss involved in the possession
+of those rights and privileges. The Fathers of the Revolution closed their
+Declaration of Independence from the tyranny of England by pledging "their
+lives, their fortunes and their sacred honor" to attain it. The Mothers of
+the Woman's Rebellion closed their Declaration of Independence from the
+tyranny of man, and especially from the tyranny of the United States
+Government, with a pledge to distribute tracts and hold conventions, while
+they depended upon the courtesy of the tyrants to protect them in the
+peaceful execution of their design. Is it any wonder that the descendants
+of the old heroes who had fought their way to our liberties smiled when
+the by-laws of the would-be revolt were handed to them?
+
+When the attention of the women was called to the fact that force was
+needed, and that women were exempt from military service and jury and
+police duty, they answered that "In an age when the wrongs of society are
+adjusted in the courts and at the ballot-box, material force yields to
+reason and majorities." So successful has our Government been in carrying
+out the benign purposes for which its heroes staked their lives, their
+fortunes, and their sacred honor, that in ordinary times we see little of
+the strength that stands quietly but firmly behind every law's enactment
+and every poll's decision. The "strong arm" of the law would lose its
+power to compel obedience if behind the decree of judge, jury, and
+legislators there was not a sheriff or a body of militia ready to commit
+the unconsenting criminal to prison, or to take care of an unruly
+minority. At an election, the minority do not acquiesce in the decision of
+the majority because the outcome of the vote has convinced them that the
+majority were right, and they were wrong. They have not become suddenly
+converted to the views of the majority. That decision, as recorded by the
+ballot, shows that if the minority do not keep their opinion in abeyance,
+there are men enough on the other side to compel them. Civilization has
+advanced so far that, instead of blows there are arguments in court,
+instead of bullets there are ballots at the polls; but the blows and the
+bullets must always be ready, in case the arguments and the ballots are
+unheeded. The physical strength that was given to man to use, like every
+other gift, for the good of the race, he is so using when he holds it as a
+_dernier ressort_ for law and order.
+
+Dr. Jacobi says, in her address, "capacity to bear arms, in fulfilment of
+military duty, is not, in the State of New York, reckoned among the
+necessary qualifications of voters." The statement is also made by other
+Suffragists that "numerous classes of men who enjoy political rights are
+exempt from military duty,--all men over forty-five, all who suffer mental
+or physical disability, such as the loss of an eye or a forefinger;
+clergymen, physicians, Quakers, school-teachers, professors, and
+presidents of colleges, judges, legislators, congressmen, state-prison
+officials, and all county, State, and National officers; fathers,
+brothers, or sons having certain relatives dependent upon them for
+support, all of these summed up in every State would make millions who may
+be exempted, and therefore there is no force in the plea that if women
+vote they must fight." It is not true that any class of voters is exempt.
+The State, regulating that matter as it regulates the age and residence of
+voters, as long as it has more defenders than it needs for immediate use,
+makes demand upon the youngest or strongest, but if it needs them all,
+then all must serve. Again, all, whether young or old, perfect or
+imperfect, must be reckoned with as elements in making up the count.
+Lawless men do not exempt themselves from riot and rebellion because they
+are lame or over forty-five. In the South, during the Rebellion, there
+were few indeed who did not serve in some capacity. If there were blind
+and aged men enough to make a real difference in majorities, Americans
+would quickly see the propriety of doing as some republics that have to
+stand with arms more "at attention" have done, and exclude them from the
+vote.
+
+But, suppose all those mentioned were really exempt, how would that apply
+to women? If a like number were counted out, there would still be a goodly
+array, from the maiden of twenty-one to the matron of forty-five, from
+which to draw. Mrs. Stanton and Miss Anthony write: "Women have led armies
+in all ages, have held positions in the army and navy for years in
+disguise, have fought, bled, and died on the battlefield in our late war."
+The isolated occasions on which they have done so are not such as to
+commend the practice, neither do the Suffragists propose seriously to
+commend it. Dr. Jacobi, in her address before the Committee of the
+Constitutional Convention, says: "We do not admit that exemption from
+military duty is a concession of courtesy, for which women should be so
+grateful as to refrain from asking for anything else. The military
+functions performed by men, and so often perverted to most atrocious uses,
+have never been more than the equivalent for the function of child-bearing
+imposed by nature upon women. It is not a fanciful nor sentimental, it is
+an exact and just equivalent. The man who exposes his life in battle, can
+do no more than his mother did in the hour she bore him. And the functions
+of maternity persist, and will persist, to the end of time,--while the
+calls to arms are becoming so faint and rare that three times since the
+Revolutionary War, an entire generation of men has grown up without having
+heard them."
+
+This question of military service is not a question of equivalent at all--
+sentimental or otherwise; it is a question of the actual service, and as
+to the service to the state given by women in bearing sons, the men work
+not only to support those sons but to support also their mothers and
+sisters, and that far beyond the child-bearing age of the mother.
+
+As to the rareness of the calls, I read of seven wars since the
+Revolution, and three insurrections, not counting the riots and strikes at
+Chicago, Homestead, Brooklyn, and in the mountains in the West. Dr. Jacobi
+said in an article in the "New York Sun," two years ago, "We do not vote
+for war." That appears like a quibble, for we vote for what brings, or may
+bring it; but neither is it exact in fact. Three times, at least, in our
+history men have deposited their ballots in the box, knowing that the
+result meant peace or war. These were at the second election of Madison in
+1812, the election of Polk in 1844, and that most solemn of all the acts
+of our country-men, the second election of President Lincoln. There have
+been other elections in which war issues were linked with the decisions,
+but in a less direct way.
+
+The same writer says also, "The will of the majority rules, for the time
+being, not, as has been crudely asserted, because it possesses the power,
+by brute force, to compel the minority to obey its behests; but because,
+after ages of strife, it has been found more convenient, more equitable,
+more conducive to the welfare of the state, that the minority should
+submit, until, through argument and persuasion, they shall have been able
+to win over the majority. Now that this stage in the evolution of modern
+society has been reached, it has become possible for women to demand their
+share also in the expression of the public opinion that is to rule. They
+could not claim this while it was necessary to defend opinions by arms;
+but this is no longer either necessary or expected." How long is it since
+this comfortable state of things was evolved? Has England consented to it?
+In view of Venezuela and the Monroe Doctrine it would be necessary to have
+her. Has Spain mentioned her resignation of a right to appeal to arms in
+case she was not pleased with the conduct of our Government in regard to
+Cuba? Does the Sultan know about it, so that in case we see a good fair
+fighting chance to help the Armenians he will understand that the ages of
+strife are over, and that persuasion has been found more equitable and
+convenient than a resort to arms? And the Czar, and the erratic German
+Emperor, are they in the evolutionary agreement? Force is just what men
+are able to make it. It is not brutish unless it is brutishly used. There
+is as much force in the world to-day as there ever has been, but it is
+better applied. It is the object of a Christian civilization to persuade
+more and more men to come to the defence of good against evil in forms of
+government. Despotism and absolutism are corrupt uses of force.
+Republicanism and a constitutional government are its nobler uses. But the
+force is still behind them, or there would be no power to continue such
+liberal forms. During the first Republic, Marathon and Thermopylae saved
+the principle of Western democracy against Oriental despotism, Salamis and
+Plataea saved Greek letters and Greek art to the continents that were yet
+to be. Christianity changed the motive but not the method in evolution;
+and, finally in the last great Republic, the American Revolution
+proclaimed liberty of thought, the war of 1812 secured American
+independence, while, beside the wandering Antietam and on the field of
+Gettysburg "green regiments went to their graves like beds" that the Union
+might live, and that human slavery might die. Manhood force, led by
+intelligence and goodness, is the bulwark of that maternity that must
+persist if heroes are to be. Dr. Jacobi's admission that women could not
+claim the vote while it was necessary to defend opinions by arms, is a
+vital one, for it contravenes her entire argument.
+
+Another plea of the Suffrage leaders is that "men send substitutes, and so
+could women." The answer in regard to exempt classes will apply here also,
+because in case of need both substitute and substituter are obliged to
+serve. During our Civil War the fact that a man had sent a substitute did
+not prevent him from being called in the next draft. The state claims both
+men as its defenders. But whom do the women propose to substitute? Other
+women? No, they propose to substitute men! The Suffragists seriously
+suggest that half the population, exempted by nature from military duty,
+shall become organic members of a government whose reliance, embodied in
+every constitution, is upon the ability and the willingness of its organic
+members to do military duty in defence of those constitutions, and that
+this exempted half may have it as their sole office, in case of war, to
+vote when and where the lives, the fortunes, and the sacred honor of those
+other organic members shall be laid down or imperilled. Suffragists seem
+to forget, when they boast of Joan of Arc, that the army she led was
+masculine.
+
+The English socialist, Mrs. Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady
+Stanton, in her addresses in this country two years ago, said: "Woman is
+not protected through chivalry, but because the men know that to put women
+to the front is national suicide. Woman's part in war is not to wail or
+weep, but to furnish the army for the future." Then there is to be an army
+for the future! Was there no "national suicide" when over three million
+men were "put to the front" in the Rebellion, and more than five hundred
+thousand, North and South, laid down their lives, so that through the
+veins of this generation runs none of the gallant blood they spilled?
+Shall the fathers, and possible fathers, be the only ones to die, if the
+mothers and betrothed proclaim themselves no longer desirous of being
+protected by such high sacrifice? If women cease to "weep and wail," will
+men not cease to be willing to be "furnished by them to the army?"
+
+  "At any cost one good is cheap--
+   The soldiers die lest women weep;
+   And this reward is great and high--
+   The women weep that soldiers die."
+
+Women and soldiers cannot transpose their work. The duty of each to the
+Republic is equally "great and high;" but in order to be done it must be
+kept distinct as now.
+
+But all this is subordinate to the real, vital question. In the passages
+just quoted, the writers make an error that is made so persistently by all
+Suffragists whenever the argument of force is alluded to, that it seems
+necessary to repeat the explanation. They assume that this argument,
+briefly stated, is: The men do the fighting, therefore they ought to be
+rewarded with the ballot. That is _not_ the argument; it is no matter of
+reward. The argument, briefly stated, is this: Stability is one of the
+highest virtues that any government can possess, and perhaps the most
+necessary. It can have no stability if it issues decrees that it cannot
+enforce. The only way to avoid such decrees is, to make sure that behind
+every law and every policy adopted stands a power so great that no power
+in the land can overthrow it. The only such power possible consists of a
+majority of the men. Therefore, the only safe thing for the Government to
+do is, to carry out the ascertained will of a majority of the men. This
+does not always secure ideally good laws, but it does secure stability and
+avoids revolution. The majority may blunder; but they are the only power
+that can correct their own blunders.
+
+But war does not call for the only form of public service. There are
+others provided for in the National and State constitutions, which are
+constant and exacting. They are jury, police and militia duty. When a boy
+reaches twenty-one the law says to him, "You are my servant." If a fire
+breaks out, the foreman can legally lay his hand on the boy's shoulder,
+and say, "Help to put out this conflagration." When the law is broken, the
+sheriff can say to him, "Help me make this arrest." When a turn of the
+judicial wheel brings out his name, he must serve the state on a jury; if
+a riot occurs, he can be called out to quell it; and if a war arises, he
+can be drafted to fight against the country's enemies. There is not a
+single act of defence to which the voter was subjected by law when the
+Constitution was framed, to which he is not subject now, and subject
+because he is a voter. The vote is not given to him as a reward for
+standing ready to give this service to the state; it is a recognition by
+the state that, as he must stand ready to defend it, he should assist in
+establishing the laws which it may call upon him to enforce. As he has
+assisted to frame them, he cannot refuse to defend them. Woman's only
+relation to this defence is that of beneficiary, and therefore her
+relation to the laws with which that defence is associated must be one of
+advice and not of control. Fortunately for her, advice may prove sometimes
+to be control of the most satisfactory kind, a kind that admits of mental
+power and does not exact physical.
+
+The statement is further made by Suffragists that "though woman needs
+protection of one man against his whole sex, in pioneer life, in threading
+her way through a lonely forest, on the highway, or in the streets of a
+metropolis on a dark night, she sometimes needs, too, the protection of
+all men against this one. But even if she could be sure, as she is not, of
+the ever-present, all-protecting power of one strong arm, that would
+be weak indeed compared with the subtle, all-pervading influence of just
+and equal laws for all women. Hence woman's need of the ballot, that she
+may hold in her own right hand the weapon of self-protection and defence."
+The possession of the ballot has not been able to secure for men "the
+subtle and all-pervading influence of just and equal laws," and despite
+his holding the ballot in his own hand, man has had to hold also a more
+apparent weapon if he visit a striker's camp or meddle with an anarchist
+riot. Something more tangible than protective influence is needed to make
+the public streets of this city safe for women in broad daylight. Again,
+they say that "Wisdom would suggest division of labor in peace as well as
+in war." Wisdom would have no chance to make such a suggestion, if women
+attempted to do the same work as do men, in the same way. There is true
+division of labor now, in peace as well as in war.
+
+Suffragists mention as a final indignity the extension of the suffrage to
+the negro. Their protest only serves to suggest another forcible
+illustration of the fact that law and the enforcement of law may be
+different things. The suffrage is not extended to the negro. The Congress
+of the United States voted that it should be so extended; and while the
+Government stood behind his vote with its military power, the negro voted.
+But no one pretends that he has done so, to any practical extent, since
+that time. Unarmed, the negro finds that he cannot enforce his own vote
+against the will of white men armed to the teeth. The "all-pervading
+influence of just and equal laws" cannot enforce it for him. Would the
+women be any better off, if the men chose that they should not exercise
+the vote? Who would enforce it?
+
+This fact and argument show how little arbitration has to do with the
+practical decision concerning suffrage. Suffrage writers and speakers harp
+upon the thought that arbitration will take the place of force. That
+method of settling disputes cannot come too quickly, but it has not come
+yet. It has no real bearing on the organization of the state as resting
+upon the civil and military service of its citizens. England consented to
+arbitrate with the powerful United States, but refused to arbitrate with
+defenceless Nicaragua in a far less important matter. Congress has
+seriously considered exterminating the remnant of the beautiful herd of
+seals that once played in our Northern Pacific waters, because British
+subjects have continued, in violation of the Arbitration treaty, to kill
+the animals with cruelty. Behind arbitration, as behind all law and order,
+military power must always stand and must sometimes be used. One more
+proof that the vote is not the real power, but only its insignia, lies in
+the fact that legislation has not been able to put an end to strikes and
+riots. Laws that forbid them are passed with all due form; but when they
+come, as come they do, the reading of the riot act is suspended and the
+regiments are ordered to Chicago, or Buffalo, or Brooklyn, or Homestead,
+or Cripple Creek, or Cleveland, or the Indian country. The force of those
+bodies was not "brutal," it was physical power obeying mental; and unless
+mental power can command physical, there is no way in which mental power
+can enforce its decrees in government. There are now facing us tremendous
+moral issues, which presage tremendous struggles; and a very notable
+example of the dangers that would attend woman suffrage is suggested by
+them. If women had the power to create a numerical majority when there was
+a majority of the law's natural and only defenders against them, they
+might soon precipitate a crisis that would lead to bloodshed, which they
+would be powerless either to prevent or to allay. Would the majority of
+men submit to the minority of men associated with non-combatants? American
+history furnishes no reason for supposing that they would. The Dorr War in
+Rhode Island is a case in point, in local matters. I am neither an
+alarmist nor a believer in war as a panacea; but if we discuss this
+subject at all, we must discuss it with facts and not fancies in our
+minds.
+
+Dr. Jacobi again says, in her book: "It may be said, for it has been said,
+that the objection to seeing a vote of seven hundred men overcome by a
+coalition of three hundred men with eight hundred women, lies in the fact
+that the defeated minority knows, if it had a free hand and was allowed to
+use fisticuffs, it could pound into a jelly a majority composed so largely
+of women. It would feel, therefore, sullen, restive, and justly indignant,
+that it should be prohibited from using this power and obliged to submit
+to a merely nominal force and supremacy."
+
+The objection to seeing seven hundred men defeated by a coalition of three
+hundred men with eight hundred women, lies in the fact that the defeated
+minority knows that it has a free hand, and that nothing less than eight
+hundred men could prevent it from using its physical power, were it so
+inclined. Only a force and supremacy that was real, and not nominal, could
+make it to submit. The rhetorical trick of belittling the matter by
+speaking of it as "fisticuffs" will not pass in this discussion. When the
+South Carolina negroes on election day looked into the rifle-barrels of
+the Red-shirt clubs, it was no matter of fisticuffs. When every statesman
+in our country was eagerly seeking a peaceful solution of the Hayes-Tilden
+dispute, it was not fisticuffs that they feared. When the Dostie
+convention was broken up and its leaders murdered in New Orleans, it was
+not by means of fisticuffs. When the Chicago anarchists threw their bomb
+into the ranks of the policemen in Haymarket Square, they were not playing
+at fisticuffs. When the rail way strikers in Pittsburg stopped the trains,
+"killed" the locomotives, and burned the freight, there was no fisticuffs
+about it. And when a Southern minority refused to abide by the result of
+the election of 1860, and the Northern majority shouldered muskets and
+went down and compelled them to, not the most flippant writer would have
+thought of calling it fisticuffs. All these are simply readily recalled
+instances of the necessity for power in the enforcement of law.
+
+She goes on to say: "But is it only in such a hypothetical case that a
+minority would know it could, if allowed to resort to physical force,
+shiver to fragments the majority? The burly brakemen in railroad strikes
+would, probably, in a fair hand-to-hand encounter, be much bested over all
+the stockholders of the road,--weakened, not only because they included
+women in their midst, but also by sedentary habits and predominately
+indoor occupations. Why do they not try this way of settling their
+difficulties? Why do not the classes in England, who still remain entirely
+disfranchised, and with whom rests so much physical strength, drop their
+fists into the balance as Brennus did his sword, and cut short the futile,
+womanish discussion? The answer is ready in every one's mouth. It is not
+that it cannot be done, but that, on the whole, people are all agreed that
+it is best it should not be done. It is not that physical force is
+respected less, but that mental force is respected more."
+
+I reply that both these things have been attempted over and over again,
+and the agreement of all the wise and good people that it is best that it
+should not be done cannot prevent it. Behind the burly brakemen who have
+seized the train, and the stockholders to whom it lawfully belongs, there
+lies a power greater than all the brakemen and stockholders together. We
+call it the power of law. It is, in fact, the power of a sovereign people,
+who, having made that law, are able to enforce it against the breakers of
+it. It is necessary, in the discussion of this point, to have clearly in
+mind the difference between sovereign power and delegated power. When a
+member of a stock company attends the annual meeting and casts one vote
+for every share that he holds, he is exercising delegated power. The
+sovereign people, acting through their representatives in the legislature,
+have delegated to the company the power to regulate its affairs in this
+way, and guaranteed to each shareholder this privilege. Should a
+combination of some of the shareholders attempt to prevent one from
+exercising it, he would appeal to the court, and behind the court stands
+the power of the people, many times larger than any stock company that
+exists. On the other hand, when men go to the polls on election day, they
+exercise, not delegated, but sovereign, power. There is no greater power,
+above and beyond themselves, to regulate their actions. The enfranchised
+classes in England do drop their fists into the balance, and, as a result,
+we have seen the extensions of suffrage that marked the years 1832 and
+1848, and the reason some classes are still unfranchised is, that the
+monarchy that wills their unfranchisement has, as yet, more power at
+command than those who would enfranchise them. Mental and moral force is
+more respected with every rolling year, because those who respect it have
+been able to obtain control of the physical power that can force its
+decrees upon those who do not respect it.
+
+The third count in the indictment is: "Having deprived her of the 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." As, in securing the exact number of grievances mentioned by the
+Fathers, the Mothers were compelled to string out their distresses
+somewhat, I will quote the next count in the indictment, and consider
+these two together. "After depriving her of all rights as a married woman,
+if single, and the owner of property, he has taxed her to support a
+government which recognized her only when her property could be made
+profitable to it."
+
+The many-sided oppression, and the deprivation as a married woman, belong
+in other chapters. The remaining portions of the two counts may be summed
+up under the familiar cry: "No taxation without representation." What did
+that just accusation mean when our fathers uttered it in regard to English
+tyranny? Did they mean that their property was taxed, and they had no
+redress? The phrase originated with Patrick Henry, who read to the
+Virginia House of Burgesses the decision gleaned from a study of "Coke
+upon Lyttleton," that "Englishmen living in America had all the rights of
+Englishmen living in England, the chief of which was, that they could only
+be taxed by their own representatives," and on that was founded the
+resolution adopted by them that the colonies could not be lawfully taxed
+in a body in which they were not represented; for the colonies, as well as
+individuals, had no vote in Parliament. They meant that their property
+could not be so taxed, and they meant far more. The more that they meant
+was embodied by Jefferson in the first draft of the Declaration of
+Independence, when he said: "Can any one reason be assigned why a hundred
+and sixty thousand _electors_ in the island of Great Britain should give
+law to four million in the States of America?" John Hancock meant that and
+more when he said: "Burn Boston and make John Hancock a beggar, if the
+public good requires it." He was offering his taxed property to defend the
+liberties of the four millions against the hundred and sixty thousand
+electors. The refusal of the majority to be ruled longer by the minority
+was the main motive of determination not to submit. But at that time all
+voting was connected with a tax on property, and so was the suffrage
+established by these men. And under those property-tax laws women who held
+property could vote. It was when taxation ceased to go with
+representation, that the women ceased to vote. There is now no connection
+between taxation of property and representation. When people were allowed
+votes in proportion to the amount of property they held, and could vote in
+different counties and States, there was a connection, and that law gave
+the rich man more voting power than the poor man. But all aristocratic
+qualification was done away with, and the government came to rely solely
+on the strength of individual men for its defence, instead of upon men and
+women with money enough to raise soldiery. There is a money tax levied on
+the property of men and women alike; and in return for the payment of this
+tax the property of both men and women is made secure against unlawful
+injury. In order to make it secure, the state lays, upon men alone, a
+service tax, and with that tax goes representation, or the vote. This
+service tax does not fall upon woman, and it cannot be demanded of her; so
+it is not true that "Man has taxed her to support a government which
+recognizes her only when her property can be made profitable to it." He
+has, in return for the money tax, so guarded her property through the
+service tax on men that it is of profit to her, which without that guard
+it could not be.
+
+The tax on property is collected from that of minors and unnaturalized
+citizens, resident or non-resident, and to all these classes, as well as
+to non-voting women, is given the right of petition and legal redress of
+whatever sort. The men do not have "equal rights" in regard to public
+control of their taxable property, if equal rights means that each man
+shall be able to say what shall be done to, or with, or about, the
+property on which he pays taxes. The penniless voter can have as much to
+say as to whether a railroad shall cross the lands of a millionaire as the
+millionaire himself. At every town election the minority are unheeded, so
+far as the vote goes, and women with property interests would be no better
+off if they secured votes in the only way they can be secured--one voice,
+one vote.
+
+Lydia Maria Child said, in a letter reprinted in the Woman's edition of
+"The Rochester Post-Express" in 1896: "I reduce the argument to very
+simple elements. I pay taxes for property of my own earning and saving,
+and I do not believe in taxation without representation. As for
+representation by proxy, that savors too much of the plantation system,
+however kind the master may be. I am a human being, and every human being
+has a right to a voice in the laws which claim authority to tax him, to
+imprison him, or to hang him."
+
+Not only has every human being in the United States a right to a voice in
+the laws that claim authority to tax him, imprison him, or hang him, but
+he can exercise that right in all portions of the United States where the
+laws that claim this authority are able to enlist sufficient physical
+force to execute the authority claimed. Where they have not that power,
+neither the voter nor the non-voter has any redress against violence
+offered to property or limb or life. Gerrymanders and lynchings in many
+parts of our land prove the truth of this. The mastery of men who abide by
+and execute law is not a mastery over women for the sake of the spoils of
+taxation or the disposal of life, but the mastery over lawlessness
+everywhere in order that tax-payers of either sex, native or alien, voters
+or non-voters, may be enabled to have that voice in the laws which, as
+human beings, is their right. As to the "vote by proxy," if Mrs. Child
+could not trust her husband, her son, her brother, or best friend to look
+after her interests, she certainly could not trust the carrying out of her
+wish, as expressed in her vote, to the men who cast in their ballots by
+her side.
+
+In return for the taxes paid, women get just what men get, namely, roads,
+gas, water, schools, etc. The women who have refused to pay their taxes
+because they did not vote, have been treated with a leniency that proves
+the courtesy of the law-enforcers. They would have made short work with
+men who were non-voters, who had tried the same tactics. When a man's vote
+is challenged and refused, he does not dream of saying: "I shall not pay
+my tax," and the assessor never inquires whether he votes or desires to
+vote. The men in the District of Columbia do not find their unfranchised
+condition assuaged by the smallness of their account with the assessor.
+Neither do they realize or believe that they are governed without their
+consent, or exempt from police or military duty. This is a striking proof
+that the vote is not a reward for service. They are male American
+citizens, over twenty-one years old, and they must contribute service
+simply and solely for that reason. This is the price they pay for
+established order.
+
+For, after all, what is government, and what are taxation and
+representation? When and how did society consent to be governed? When did
+it agree to be taxed and to be represented? The awful story of history,
+from the slaying of Abel to the slaughter of half a million men in the War
+of Secession, is the answer. It never did agree, it has not yet agreed.
+The struggle of civilization is the effort to make it agree. Implanted in
+the bosom of man by his Maker is the belief in his individual freedom, of
+worship as concerns that Maker, of protection as concerns man. Side by
+side with that, was implanted the principle of surrender of a part of that
+freedom for just cause. There came a time when men said: "Let us use
+arguments instead of force in these decisions," and some form of vote was
+instituted. With this they fought and voted by turns, as they set up or
+knocked down emperors, kings, popes, and presidents. War has been changed
+by progress because man has changed; but main strength to drive home the
+truths gained on the moral battlefield is still the power behind the
+throne of the National conscience, even in this enlightened land.
+
+Though the Mothers of the Rebellion did not ask, and apparently did not
+think of asking, to share the military duties incident to suffrage, we
+must discuss it, if we are to consider the subject thoroughly. To be a
+voting citizen, is to be a possible soldier citizen. There is no way of
+fulfilling the moral part of the duty, and leaving unfulfilled the
+physical, and it is cowardly to attempt it. So the question comes, could
+American women be soldiers? They could, for a few in disguise were in
+service during the War of Secession. Titled women of Europe are honorary
+officers; but this playing soldier is a relic of Middle-Age chivalry.
+Women can be seriously destructive; but no one will claim that organized
+military duty is really practicable for them. And the suffrage proposition
+does not look to anything of the kind. The Suffragists demand equal vote
+in sending their fathers, brothers, sons, husbands, and lovers to the
+military field of action, and propose to be absolutely exempt from equal
+share in the duty that that vote now lays upon male voters. Before the law
+there could be no distinction of duty on account of race, sex, or previous
+condition of servitude. The "emancipated" woman would be emancipated into
+that which the Declaration of Independence expressly called for, "the
+right and privilege of the people to bear arms."
+
+The constitution of Utah says that the State militia is to consist of
+"able-bodied males," and I have not yet heard that the women who vote
+there have insisted that the word "male" be struck out of that clause of
+the Constitution. By no means, every woman expects to be exempt. After
+women had succeeded in getting the framers of the constitution of every
+State to strike out the word "male," from its voting qualification, they
+would expect them to insert the word "male" in mentioning the service
+qualification. O Equality, where is thine equal for granting privilege!
+Such chivalry, it would seem, is an insult to the power and intelligence
+of the women of Utah, who celebrated their "enfranchisement" by a
+convention to favor the free coinage of silver, 16 to 1, and whose
+behavior on that occasion was, to say the least, boyish. The tax upon time
+and strength, and the money loss of citizen service, Suffrage leaders did
+not once allude to. They did not, and do not, propose to pay even a double
+money tax on account of expected exemption. Little as this would have
+availed to meet the actual situation, it would have shown their good will,
+and some comprehension of justice, while they talked of an absurd and
+intangible "right."
+
+But, it might be said, "Utah did insert such a clause into her
+constitution, and so could other States. It is, after all, common sense
+that rules, and men can legislate what they please." The law passed by
+Utah, which provided that "male voters must be tax-payers, while female
+voters need not be," was decided to be unconstitutional, and this one also
+may well be. At the end of Utah's Constitution, as of every other, and of
+every bill that is passed, occurs or is understood something like this
+sentence from the United States Constitution: "The Congress shall have
+power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation." Is it the
+"appropriate legislation" that gives to Congress, or to any other body,
+the power to enforce the article decided upon by a majority? We know that
+it is not. It is the men who can enforce it if it is disobeyed. Every day
+we see that some laws are "dead letters," not because the legislation
+appropriate to their enforcement was not perfect, but because they are not
+enforced. When Mr. Roosevelt became Chairman of the Police Commission
+there had been for some time a bill, duly legislated, for the enforcement
+of the Sunday closing of liquor saloons in New York city. But the saloons
+had not been closed. Mr. Roosevelt summoned the police, and proceeded to
+enforce the law. If they had refused, the militia stood behind them. Do
+you say, "Very well, if Miss Willard had been Chairman of the
+Commissioners she could have done the same." There would have been this
+great difference. Mr. Roosevelt himself was as much subject to serve at
+the call of the law, as were the policemen. He was not a dictator merely,
+he was part and parcel of the strength that he invoked. The reason for
+obedience rested on the same ground in each case--service in which each
+stood equal. It is a specious form of mistake to suppose that "men can
+legislate just what they wish to." They can legislate only what the
+majority decrees, and they can legislate effectively only what they have
+power to enforce. Had the saloon-keepers refused to obey Miss Willard, not
+she, but Mr. Roosevelt and other men would have had to enforce the law.
+
+It is absurd in itself, and annoying to Suffrage advocates, to talk about
+military duty for woman. Her very nature forbids it. So it is, and so it
+does, and therefore it is equally absurd to talk about her attempting to
+assume duties whose very nature forbids their being done by her. Were
+voting only a matter of obtaining the _opinion_ of women on matters that
+concern the country, or concern them (and all matters that concern the
+country concern them), all precedent gathered from the treatment of
+American women by American men goes to prove that no urging would have
+been required to secure for them as large a measure of suffrage as was
+consistent with their duties and their desires.
+
+In 1879 an earnest discussion on Woman Suffrage was held in the
+legislature of Massachusetts. Four propositions were pending. The first
+was that a constitutional amendment should be submitted to the people,
+which, if accepted, would decree to women full suffrage. Thomas Wentworth
+Higginson, Lucy Stone and William Lloyd Garrison argued the case for the
+women. Col. Higginson said that if ability to fight were made the test of
+voting "a large proportion of men, especially of professional men, would
+be disfranchised. The report of the Surgeon-General of the United States
+showed that of the thousand clergymen who volunteered or were drafted
+during the war, 945 were declared to be unfit for service. Of the lawyers
+who volunteered or were drafted, 650 were rejected, and of the physicians,
+745." He added, "You must go down to the mechanics and laborers before you
+can find a class of men a majority of whom will fulfil this requirement.
+Of the clergymen who preach that woman suffrage is wrong because women can
+do no military duty, only one twentieth would themselves be accepted for
+such service. There is but one class of men better fitted than mechanics
+for military service, and that is the prize-fighting class, and therefore
+the constituency which sent John Morrissey to Congress was the only
+constituency that ever carried out this idea to the end." Col. Higginson,
+who played a gallant part in the Civil War, should have remembered what
+poor fighting material the country found in such men as formed the
+constituency of John Morrissey. The regiment of Zouaves raised in New York
+City by Billy Wilson, the pugilist, was found to be so mischievous, as
+well as worthless, that it was shipped to the Dry Tortugas in order to rid
+the army of a pest. On the other hand, many of the most gallant as well as
+most orderly soldiers came from dry-goods stores and apothecary shops. The
+pugilists and roughs are the very ones that are good for nothing as
+soldiers; they belong to the class that makes soldiery necessary.
+
+When Col. Higginson can use such logic, it is no wonder that women have
+repeated the argument. The question was not whether, because certain men
+who were naturally looked upon by the Government as its defenders, and as
+such were called upon to fight, proved physically unable, but whether the
+Government had a right, because of its very existence, to call upon those
+men, and in case of need, to say to them "Put yourself into physical
+condition for this service." If it had such a right, by what law under the
+constitution of the United States could Lucy Stone ask to vote and not
+expect to have her military fitness inquired into, and be asked to put
+herself into physical condition for it?
+
+Recalling the action of her grandfather, she, better than some other
+women, might have realized the necessity of force for government. Her
+defiant spirit might well have descended from that ancestor who led four
+hundred men in Shays's Rebellion, when, in the State before whose tribunal
+she was speaking, he assisted in preventing court sessions, and swelled
+the ranks of the rioters who were decrying taxes and calling for fiat
+money, in a land that was impoverished and was struggling for a sound
+financial standing after a war that had been waged to guarantee the
+blessings of freedom to her and to her children.
+
+As a matter of fact, many of those men whom Col. Higginson referred to as
+deemed unfit, did go into immediate training, and "muscular Christianity"
+would now present to the Surgeon-General a different showing. It was one
+of the surprising things, in a statistical way, to find that city-bred
+boys stood the marching and exposure of the Civil War campaigns better
+than their country brothers, and that the yard-stick turned into as
+effective a sword as the pruning-hook. Garrison, who maintained for so
+many years that men should not vote because the government was founded on
+force, had the grace not to speak on this phase of the question, but he
+said it was cruel that women should be disfranchised and classed with
+paupers, idiots, and criminals. Senator Hayes asked him if there was no
+"difference between a person who was disfranchised and one who never had
+been enfranchised?" and added that "he could see no argument for woman
+suffrage in the proposition that certain classes of men were not permitted
+to vote." Neither can I.
+
+The argument for woman suffrage which bases it upon a fancied grouping of
+women with the vile and brainless element in the country, appears to me to
+be at once the weakest and the meanest of all. When the United States
+Government invited its woman citizens to share in making the Columbian
+Exposition the most wondrous pageant of any age, they responded from every
+town and hamlet by sending of their best. But the national Suffrage
+Association, as its official exhibit, gave a picture of the expressive
+face of Miss Willard surrounded by ideal heads of a pauper, an idiot, and
+a criminal, with a legend recording their belief that it was with these
+that American men placed American women. So false a picture must have
+taught the thoughtful gazers the opposite lesson from the one intended. It
+could have told them that the United States Government had at least
+guarded one trust with sacred care. The pauper was excluded from the
+ballot as not being worthy to share with freemen the honor of its defence.
+The unfortunate was excluded by an inscrutable decree of Providence. The
+criminal was excluded as being dangerous to society. The women were exempt
+from the ballot because it was for their special safety that a free ballot
+was to be exercised, from which the pauper and the criminal must be
+excluded. They were the ones who have given to social life its meaning and
+its moral, the ones who give to civic life its highest value.
+
+The authors of the "History" so often referred to, in answer to the claim
+that "government needs force behind it, and those who make the laws must
+execute them, and a woman could not be a sheriff or policeman," say:
+"Woman might not fill these offices as men do, but might far more
+effectively guard the morals of society and the sanitary conditions of our
+cities." A "moral guard" might be an excellent thing to ward off the
+ghosts in a country burying-ground, but would hardly prove effective
+against the riot of a Tammany mob on the night of an exciting election. It
+is absurd to speak in such fashion of work that is needed every hour. The
+crust of our civilization is very thin--how thin, the nation learned
+during the campaign just passed. Like a tempest from a clear sky, or one
+of their own cyclones, burst an influence from a portion of the West and
+South, that would have overturned the Government. Men struck fanatically
+and misguidedly at the integrity of the Supreme Court, at the power of the
+United States to hold jurisdiction over its own public affairs where they
+conflicted with State right, at the currency that gave the country ability
+to be honest at home and abroad, at the prosperity and honor of every
+citizen.
+
+Fifteen years ago Suffrage leaders wrote in view of the wonderful advance
+of woman: "The broader demand for political rights has not commanded the
+thought its merits and dignity should have secured." If this was true, it
+had not been for lack of having the demand pressed home upon Congress and
+upon every State and Territorial legislature (save in most of the South),
+in season and out of season, by every device known to politics, as well as
+by a steady and impetuous flow of literature and petitions. How have these
+bodies answered this long appeal? It would take too much time and space,
+even were it of value, to follow the course of its ups and downs through
+all these years, but I mention first the fact that no State in New England
+has ever granted constitutional, or even municipal suffrage, although in
+some of the old thirteen it could have been done by an act of the
+legislature, a constitutional amendment not being needed. These are some
+of the figures for the past few years:
+
+In Vermont, in 1892, the House passed a municipal suffrage bill--yeas 149,
+nays 83. In 1894 the House defeated a similar bill by a vote of 108 to
+106, and refused reconsideration by a vote of 124 to 96. Thus a favorable
+majority of 66 in 1892 was changed to an adverse majority of 28 in 1894.
+
+In Massachusetts, in 1894, the House passed a municipal suffrage bill by a
+vote of 119 to 107. In 1895 it defeated a similar bill, the vote standing,
+yeas 97, nays 137, on the question of carrying the bill to a third
+reading. In the same year an act was passed permitting all persons
+qualified to vote for school committee to express their opinion at the
+state election by voting "Yes" or "No," to the question: "Is it expedient
+that municipal suffrage be granted to women?" Not one woman in four voted
+in favor of the proposition, although if suffrage has any traditionary
+power outside of New York State, that power should have been felt in
+Massachusetts.
+
+In Maine, in 1893, the Senate passed a municipal suffrage bill, which was
+defeated in the House. In 1895 the House passed a municipal suffrage bill,
+which was defeated in the Senate.
+
+In New Hampshire, in 1895, the House refused a third reading to a
+municipal suffrage bill, by a vote of 185 to 108.
+
+In Connecticut, in 1895, the Senate rejected a House municipal suffrage
+bill, while a presidential suffrage bill did not reach a vote. And in
+Rhode Island a proposition for a suffrage Constitutional amendment was
+referred to the next legislature.
+
+All these States had granted school suffrage and could grant municipal
+suffrage by act of the legislature. In 1893 municipal suffrage bills were
+defeated in Minnesota, Missouri, North Dakota, and South Dakota. Full
+suffrage bills were defeated in Arizona and New Mexico. A township
+suffrage bill was defeated in Illinois, a license suffrage bill in
+Connecticut, and a village suffrage bill in New York. In that year, also,
+the Supreme Courts gave decisions adverse to suffrage laws. In 1893 a bill
+was defeated in the United States Senate which proposed to give women the
+municipal vote in the Cherokee Outlet. The vote stood 40 to 9.
+
+In Washington Territory the Legislature passed a law conferring suffrage
+on woman in 1883; but this was declared invalid by the courts in 1887,
+because its nature was not sufficiently defined in its title. It was re-
+enacted in 1888, and again declared invalid by the United States
+Territorial Court, on the ground that the Act of Congress which organized
+the Territorial legislature did not empower it to extend the suffrage to
+women. In 1889 the people, in forming their State constitution, decided
+against suffrage.
+
+In 1894, in the election of November 6, Kansas defeated a constitutional
+amendment granting full suffrage, by a majority of 34,827.
+
+In Iowa, in the same year, the Senate defeated a proposition to submit a
+suffrage constitutional amendment to the people. In 1895, bills for full
+suffrage and for municipal suffrage again failed to pass, and the question
+was submitted to the people in 1896, and resulted in defeat.
+
+In 1895, also, a township suffrage bill was twice defeated in Illinois.
+
+In Indiana a proposition to strike the word "male" out of the
+Constitution, was not even reported from the committee to which it was
+referred.
+
+In the same year, in Kansas, a bill passed the Senate which proposed to
+confer upon nine specified women the full suffrage in response to their
+petition. The Senate also passed a bill conferring upon women the vote for
+presidential electors; but neither ever reached a vote in the House. In
+Michigan, the same year, a proposition to submit a constitutional
+amendment was defeated, and a similar resolution in Missouri was also
+defeated. Montana, North Dakota, South Dakota, Washington, Wisconsin, and
+South Carolina also defeated propositions to submit the question to the
+people in 1895.
+
+Since January, 1897, Nova Scotia, two Territories, and ten States have
+dealt with the suffrage proposal, and all but one of these have rendered
+adverse decisions. In Nova Scotia an old bill was reconsidered, and a
+larger majority was obtained against it. The territories are Arizona and
+Oklahoma. The states in which it was defeated are Iowa, Nevada, Nebraska,
+Kansas, Delaware, Maine, Massachusetts, and California. The last two had
+given it heavy defeats but a few months previously. Indiana's Supreme
+Court handed down an adverse decision. The favorable state was Washington,
+where the Legislature voted to submit an amendment to the people next
+year.
+
+Certainly, the question cannot be said not to have received the attention
+that any vital subject might have claimed, and the answers show that, as
+comprehension of the meaning of democracy has grown, and as liberty of
+thought and action for men and women has increased, the proposition to
+cast an unequal burden, not upon a disfranchised class, but upon an
+unfranchised sex which in every class has its own correlative and equal
+duties, rights, and privileges, is losing ground.
+
+But, it is answered, look at the suffrage triumphs in Utah State and
+Idaho. Let us look at them more closely. It is my opinion that a few more
+such triumphs would end in its utter overthrow. Utah introduced suffrage
+by a simple legislative act. Woman suffrage was abolished in Utah
+Territory by Federal statute, because it was found to be sustaining the
+Mormon Church and the institution of polygamy. The Suffragists profess to
+hold in abhorrence churchly and polygamous rule. Here was an opportunity
+for them to say to the Government: "This is not what we meant by suffrage,
+nor what we desire suffrage to be used for. We approve this real
+disfranchisement." Did they do anything of the kind? Far from it. In 1876
+they passed the following: "Resolved, That, the right of suffrage being
+vested in the women of Utah by their constitutional and lawful
+enfranchisement, and by six years of use, we denounce the proposition
+about to be again presented to Congress for the disfranchisement of the
+women of that Territory, as an outrage on the freedom of thousands of
+legal voters and a gross innovation of vested rights; we demand the
+abolition of the system of numbering the ballots, in order that the women
+may be thoroughly free to vote as they choose, without supervision or
+dictation; and that the chair appoint a committee of three persons, with
+power to add to their number, to memorialize Congress, and otherwise watch
+over the rights of women of Utah in this regard during the next
+twelvemonth."
+
+In 1878 the report of Utah's governor contained the following: "All voters
+must be over twenty-one years of age, and must have resided in the
+Territory six months, and in the precinct one month. If males, they must
+be native born or naturalized citizens of the United States, and tax-
+payers in the Territory. A female voter need not be a tax-payer, and if
+the wife, widow or daughter of a native or naturalized citizen, need not
+herself be native or naturalized!" In 1892 the Utah Commission made to the
+Secretary of the Interior a report which gave it as their opinion that the
+sanction of the Church had been withdrawn only temporarily in regard to
+polygamous practices, and would be restored after a political purpose had
+been served. That same year a party was formed calling itself the "Liberal
+Party," and it carried Salt Lake City in the first election in which
+National party lines were drawn. This was one plank of its platform:
+"Anxious as every Liberal is to see every difference adjusted, as anxious
+as they are to exercise the utmost privileges accorded to the most favored
+Americans, they remember what first caused clashing here was the presence
+and control of an unyielding Theocracy and an _imperium in imperio_, and
+they cannot fail to note that at the last conference of this theocratic
+organization the old assumptions were all renewed." They therefore
+deprecated immediate Statehood. The bill granting it passed Congress in
+1894. The Republican, Democratic and Populist parties in Utah all favored
+Statehood, and at the election following the Constitutional Convention
+these parties all inserted planks favoring free coinage of silver 16 to 1,
+demanding the return by government of "real estate belonging to the Mormon
+Church," and favoring the retention of woman suffrage.
+
+The women of Utah were greatly in evidence during the late presidential
+election. Several of them were candidates for office; but it is a
+significant fact that, even in Utah, and even on the Republico-Demo-
+Populist ticket, the women's vote ran far behind that for the men. "The
+Salt Lake Herald" for November 13, 1896, records the fact that "Woman
+suffrage gave Utah to Bryan," and in another place it says: "The women on
+both tickets polled a small number of votes." Martha Cannon, who was
+elected State Senator, obtained 8,167 votes. The men on the same ticket,
+elected to the same office, polled, respectively, 9,875, 9,355, 9,244,
+9,036 votes. Mrs. Cannon was on the free silver ticket against her
+husband, who was nominated for the same office on the Republican ticket.
+Of the other candidates for the senatorships on that ticket, four were men
+and one a woman. The men's vote stood: 6,405, 6,197, 6,129, 5,961. The
+woman's was 4,692. The only woman put up for State Representative ran
+2,000 votes behind her ticket. One man only, "the ex-dog-catcher" of the
+county, fell below her. The woman's vote was 4,879, the dog-catcher's
+4,325.
+
+I copy from the "Salt Lake Herald" a few sentences taken from an interview
+with Mrs. Cannon, State Senator elect. When asked if she was a strong
+believer in woman suffrage, she answered: "Of course I am. It will help
+women, and it will purify politics. Women are better than men. Slaves are
+always better than their masters." "Do you refer to polygamy?" was asked.
+"Indeed I do not," she answered. "I believe in polygamy. My father and
+mother were Mormons, and I am a Mormon.... A plural wife isn't half as
+much of a slave as a single wife. If her husband has four wives, she has
+three weeks of freedom every single month.... Of course it is all at an
+end now, but I think the women of Utah think, with me, that we were better
+off in polygamy.... Sixty per cent. of the voters of this State are women.
+We control the State.... What am I going to do with my children while I am
+making the laws for the State? The same thing I have done with them when I
+have been practicing medicine. They have been left to themselves a good
+deal.... Some day there will be a law compelling people to have no more
+than a certain amount of children, and the mothers of the land can live as
+they ought to live." This is the character and opinion presented by the
+highest State official that woman suffrage has as yet given to the United
+States. Comment upon it seems unnecessary, so far as it would be needed to
+express the disgust of the majority of American women at such sentiments
+and such a situation. But has any Suffrage speaker or meeting denounced
+them, or deprecated the result of the election? I have heard of none. The
+National Suffrage Convention, which was held in Iowa, in January, 1897,
+had the newly-elected Populist women as guests of honor, and held a
+jubilation over the two new Suffrage States--Utah and Idaho. Idaho has
+elected a Populist woman or two. The vote in that State in favor of the
+gold standard and that against woman suffrage tally within forty-two
+votes.
+
+The instinctive alliance of the Woman Suffrage movement with the uncertain
+and dangerous elements in our political life is well exemplified by the
+campaign in California in connection with the late presidential election.
+Mrs. Barclay Hazard, who was almost the sole woman to express publicly the
+opposition which the majority of women felt, to the Suffrage idea, has
+given me the following clear account of the conditions and result. She
+says: "If the advocates of Woman Suffrage give a really frank and truthful
+answer to the question, 'What caused the defeat of the movement in the
+late campaign in California?' they must reply, 'Public sentiment was
+against it.' In all fairness, there is no other reason. Let us consider
+the conditions under which the campaign was carried on. In the first
+place, the Suffragists were most fortunate in choosing a time when the
+whole country, as well as the State of California, was torn by a question
+of such vital importance to continued life and well-being that all other
+matters were in danger of going by default.
+
+"Second: They were extremely well organized and had command of a campaign
+fund of no mean magnitude, which enabled them to keep in the field such
+able and experienced agitators as Miss Susan B. Anthony and the Rev. Anna
+Shaw, to say nothing of numerous lesser lights.
+
+"Third: There was absolutely no organized opposition to the movement. The
+women who disapproved were as a rule entirely unaccustomed to public
+speaking and were averse to coming forward in any way. They remonstrated
+in private but would not express their views openly.
+
+"Fourth: Last but by no means least, our Suffrage friends may be said to
+have had the press of the State with them. The 'Los Angeles Times' (the
+most influential paper in the southern part of the State) cannot be said
+to have aided the movement, neither did it actively antagonize it beyond
+admitting to its columns occasionally letters from the 'Antis.' Yet for
+this small opposition I heard an ardent advocate propose that the
+Suffragists should boycott the paper!
+
+"Now, was ever a cause fought for under conditions more conducive to
+success? 'Every thing,' to use a current slang phrase, 'seemed to be going
+their way.' They fully expected to win, and those of us most opposed to
+their ideas in private sadly conceded their probable victory. The result
+when it came was all the more a surprise and blow to the Suffragists and a
+welcome reassurance to the friends of stability and conservatism. The
+figures show us that while the stronghold of Populism, the South, went for
+the measure, Alameda County turned the scale. One must know California to
+realize what that means. Alameda County contains the city of Oakland,
+which is admittedly the most respectable and moral city in California; it
+also contains the town of Berkeley, which is the home of the University of
+California with its large faculty of clever men, most of them from the
+East. Yes, it was here in the stronghold of morals and intellect that the
+Woman Suffrage movement in California met its fate."
+
+A question constantly and properly asked is: "How does woman suffrage work
+where it is exercised?" So far as I can obtain information, where it has
+worked at all, it has been detrimental to women and to the State.
+
+Of Wyoming there is much testimony to the fact that during the Territorial
+period (1868-'89) women did little voting, and played no appreciable part
+in political life. Populism and Free Coinage had begun to play a prominent
+part in the whole section when Wyoming was admitted to Statehood in 1890.
+At the election that followed its admission there was a fusion that
+resulted in the election of a Populist Governor, and such was the riotous
+state of feeling that the Governor was obliged to enter the State House
+through a broken window. A year later this same Governor, in his annual
+message, proclaimed woman suffrage to be a notable success. As a proof, he
+pointed to the fact that there were no criminals in the State, and that
+the jails were empty. A little research into official documents showed
+that there might be other reasons, because the criminals and those guilty
+of small offences were at that time lodged in other States, and a year
+later, when the authorities took possession of Laramie Prison, given by
+the Government, and brought home their evil-doers, they outnumbered, in
+proportion to population, those of New Mexico, which certainly should be a
+fair place for comparison.
+
+For a time, women served on juries, and there is testimony to the fact
+that in many respects they served well. But the practice of calling them
+was soon suspended, and never has been renewed. The only public office of
+consequence held by them was bestowed by the Republicans but a year or two
+ago, when Miss Reel was made State Superintendent of Schools. In our late
+crucial election, Wyoming and its woman suffrage gave their voices for
+Populism and Free Coinage. The scale hung in the balance. Why, if woman is
+a greater political power for good than man, did she not turn it for the
+principles which the State had held were best? The true test of the
+working of woman suffrage lies in a study of the legislation connected
+with it, and this will be presented under its appropriate heading.
+
+The scenes of shameful defiance of law and order in the midst of which
+Colorado admitted woman to the ballot are of more recent occurrence and
+are fresh in memory. Populism never has played in Colorado the part that
+it has in Kansas, but "anything for free coinage" has been the motto, and
+in abiding by it the State brought in, and afterward turned out, Gov.
+Waite, of disgraceful memory. Again, last year, there was Republican-
+Democratic-Populist fusion to beat the gold standard, and much Populist
+rule was again the result. One good authority writes me that women "have
+introduced an element of order and respectability upon election day that
+was never observed before." He says he thinks that, "as a whole, the
+people are very much satisfied with woman suffrage and believe that it has
+resulted beneficially in so far as it has made politics a little better
+than they were." Another says that "the influence of woman in politics did
+not prevent the last Republican caucus of Arapahoe Co. from being the most
+disgraceful in the history of the State. The Convention, though presided
+over by a woman, was completely in the power of the 'gang,' and sent to
+Pueblo the most unworthy delegate ever sent." This gentleman also says he
+has "heard numbers of intelligent women state that they were sorry the
+ballot had ever been given to them." Orderliness at the ordinary elections
+is expected here, without calling upon women to act as "moral police" at
+the polls. So quiet are they that it has been found practicable to place
+coffee-stands in charge of women near some of the booths, when women have
+requested it in the hope of preventing drunkenness. A friend said to me
+some time ago: "You know that I have been a Suffragist. I am most
+thoroughly converted. I have been three months in Colorado. It is enough
+to cure any one."
+
+A Denver correspondent of the "Chicago Record," says: "The women of
+Colorado took no active part in the recent campaign, but they did not
+forget to vote.... The experiment of having women in the State Assembly
+did not prove satisfactory, at the last session, and it was quite
+generally conceded that there would be no more women sent to that body;
+but the Populists won in this county, and on their ticket were three woman
+candidates, so the coming session will again have three women as members."
+
+Of course the effect of suffrage in new States is not a criterion of its
+effect elsewhere. And whether the effect could be shown to be good or bad,
+the main argument would not be touched. The interesting thing to trace is
+the affiliations of the movement.
+
+
+In addition to those that have been mentioned we recall the fact that in
+our recent political campaign, four parties that nominated candidates for
+President and Vice-President of the United States, had in their
+conventions women as delegates and members of committees. They were the
+Populist, the Free-Silver, the Prohibition, and the Socialist-Labor
+parties. The woman-suffragists of the Prohibition party left the rock-
+ribbed champion that had put a Suffrage plank in every platform for years,
+in order to go with Free Silver and Populism of the most extravagant type.
+These parties also had Suffrage planks. Altgeld and Debs, Coxey and
+Tillman were only men, but Mary Ellen Lease furnished to the campaign that
+strain of exalted fanaticism that at once points out woman's glory and
+woman's danger.
+
+The Suffrage indictment we have been considering is summed up as follows:
+"Now, in view of this entire disfranchisement of one half of the people of
+this country, their social and religious degradation--in view of the
+unjust laws above mentioned, and because women do feel themselves
+aggrieved, oppressed, and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred
+rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and
+privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States."
+
+Dr. Jacobi in "Common Sense" says: "To this very day the survivors of that
+group of pioneer women have an abstract way of stating their claim which,
+to modern ears, sounds somewhat archaic."
+
+She is not archaic when she says: "During the long ages of class rule,
+which are just beginning to cease, only one form of sovereignty has been
+assigned to all men--that, namely, over all women. Upon these feeble and
+inferior companions all men were permitted to avenge the indignities they
+suffered from so many men to whom they were forced to submit."
+
+Mary A. Livermore is not archaic when in the "North American Review" for
+February, 1896, she says: "Her physical weakness, and not alone her mental
+inferiority, has made her the subject of man. Toiling patiently for him,
+cheerfully sharing with him all his perils and hardships, the
+unappreciated mother of his children, she has been bought and sold, petted
+and tortured, according to the whims of her brutal owner, the victim
+everywhere of pillage, lust, war, and servitude. And this statement
+includes all races and peoples of the earth from the date of their
+historic existence."
+
+I deny the truthfulness of the archaic accusation, and denounce as an
+absurdity the bombastic demand. I resent, as an unwarranted insult to
+woman and to man, the still more bitter modern representations of woman's
+condition and woman's rights in this world, and especially in this
+Republic. They are simply false.
+
+Archaic or modern, the dictums of the Suffrage pioneers have been repeated
+at their every convention. Overlaid with sentiment as much of the Suffrage
+idea has become, contradictory as it is in argument and in statement of
+fact, blended as are its sophisms with the real progress of the time,
+sincere and well-meaning as are many of its advocates, sex antagonism is
+the corner-stone of its foundation. The Woman's Rebellion is a more
+complex affair than the American Revolution. The latter was the natural
+result of the earnest and united protest, by a large majority of men and
+women of the American Colonies, against the tyranny of a monarchical
+government. The former was a protest by a small band of women and men
+against what they claimed to be universal tyranny. They attacked law and
+custom all along the line, and the weapon forever kept in order for the
+service was the demand for woman's possession of the ballot. Where she
+does not possess it, and has not asked it, her influence is mightiest. The
+relation of woman to the Republic is a study worthy the most exalted
+patriotism. In it is involved the broader question of her relation to man
+and to the destiny of the race. When told of her son's heroism in crossing
+the Delaware, Mary Washington said, "George will not forget the lessons I
+have taught him." Through the mother's devoted faith and the son's
+obedient power, the foundations were laid of a government whose sole
+reliance must still be on woman's inspiration and man's willing strength.
+These are evidently God's instruments for our Nation's upbuilding.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IV.
+
+
+WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND PHILANTHROPY.
+
+
+The extinction of human bondage, more perhaps than any other one event,
+has emphasized the progress of the century about to close. Our generation
+has witnessed the destruction of serfdom in Russia, and of slavery in
+Brazil and the United States. Freedom was gained; but of the enlightened
+rulers through whom it was won, two were assassinated and one was exiled
+to die. Sacrifice is still the price of liberty.
+
+Much stress has been laid by Suffragists upon the supposed fact that the
+Woman-suffrage movement grew up as a logical conclusion from the Anti-
+slavery movement. It grew out of it in the sense of having been born in
+its midst; but I believe that the truth will be found to be that it was
+the most prolific source of the dissensions that marred that noble cause,
+and was identified with the small element that adopted wild notions or
+used the notoriety gained by opposition to slavery in order to propagate
+mischief. The conduct of those who later entered the Suffrage movement
+hindered the public work of women from the time of organized effort for
+the slave until slavery fell pierced to death amid the horrors of a
+fratricidal war. I will take a brief survey of the Anti-slavery struggle
+as it blended itself with the doctrines of those abolitionists who were
+the earliest and staunchest friends of the Suffrage movement, and compare
+it with the statements and claims of the women themselves.
+
+I first refer to the "Life of James G. Birney," by his son, General
+William Birney. James G. Birney was an early friend of Henry B. Stanton,
+husband of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, and with him helped to lay the
+foundations of the Free-Soil Party, and later the Republican Party.
+General Birney says of his father: "In his visit to New York and New
+England, in May and June, 1837, Mr. Birney's chief object had been to
+restore harmony among Anti-slavery leaders on doctrines and measures, and
+especially to check a tendency, already marked in Massachusetts, to burden
+the cause with irrelevant reforms, real or supposed. With this view he had
+attended the New England Anti-slavery Convention held at Boston, May 30 to
+June 2 inclusive, accepted the position of one of its vice-presidents, and
+acted as a member of its committee on business. Rev. Henry C. Wright, the
+leader of the No-Human-Government, Woman's-Rights, and Moral-Reform
+factions, was a member of the Convention, but received no appointment on
+any committee. On June 23, in the 'Liberator' [his newspaper], Mr.
+Garrison denounced human governments. July 4, he spoke at Providence, as
+if approvingly, of the overthrow of the Nation, the dismemberment of the
+Union, and the dashing in pieces of the Church. July 15, an association,
+of Congregational ministers issued a 'pastoral letter' against the new
+doctrines. August 2, five clergymen, claiming to represent nine tenths of
+the abolitionists of Massachusetts, published an 'appeal' which was
+directed more especially against the course of the 'Liberator.' August 3,
+the abolitionists of Andover Theological Seminary issued a similar appeal.
+Among the complaints were some against 'speculations that lead inevitably
+to disorganization, anarchy, unsettling the domestic economy, removing the
+landmarks of society, and unhinging the machinery of government.' A new
+Anti-slavery society in Bangor passed the following resolution: 'That,
+while we admit the right of full and free discussion of all subjects, yet,
+in our judgment, individuals rejecting the authority of civil and parental
+governments ought not to be employed as agents and lecturers in promoting
+the cause of emancipation.'"
+
+In his Autobiography, speaking of this time, Frederick Douglass says: "I
+believe my first offence against our Anti-slavery Israel was committed
+during these Syracuse meetings. It was in this wise: Our general agent,
+John A. Collins, had recently returned from England full of communistic
+ideas, which ideas would do away with individual property and have all
+things in common. He had arranged a corps of speakers of his communistic
+persuasion, consisting of John O. Wattles, Nathaniel Whiting, and John
+Orvis, to follow our Anti-slavery conventions, and while our meeting was
+in progress in Syracuse Mr. Collins came in with his new friends and
+doctrines and proposed to adjourn our Anti-slavery discussions and take up
+the subject of communism. To this I ventured to object. I held that it was
+imposing an additional burden of unpopularity on our cause, and an act of
+bad faith with the people who paid the salary of Mr. Collins and were
+responsible for these hundred conventions. Strange to say, my course in
+this matter did not meet the approval of Mrs. Maria W. Chapman, an
+influential member of the board of managers of the Massachusetts Anti-
+slavery society, and called out a sharp reprimand from her, for
+insubordination to my superiors." John O. Wattles labored hard to
+introduce Woman Suffrage into the State Constitution of Kansas. Mr.
+Collins worked for it in California in the early days. Mrs. Chapman, who
+had embraced Mr. Collins's doctrines, was one of the first pillars of the
+Suffrage movement.
+
+Later, when Mr. Douglass determined to establish a newspaper and become
+its editor, he was obliged to leave New England, "for the sake of peace,"
+he says, as his Anti-slavery friends opposed it, saying that it was absurd
+to think of a wood-sawyer offering himself as an editor. In Rochester, N.
+Y., he established "The North Star." He says, "I was then a faithful
+disciple of William L. Garrison, and fully committed to his doctrine
+touching the pro-slavery character of the Constitution of the United
+States, also the non-voting principle, of which he was the known and
+distinguished advocate. With him, I held it to be the first duty of the
+non-slaveholding States to dissolve the union with the slaveholding
+States, and hence my cry, like his, was 'No union with slaveholders.'
+After a time, a careful reconsideration of the subject convinced me that
+there was no necessity for 'dissolving the union between the northern and
+southern States;' that to seek this dissolution was no part of my duty as
+an abolitionist; that to abstain from voting was to refuse to exercise a
+legitimate and powerful means for abolishing slavery; and that the
+Constitution of the United States not only contained no guarantees in
+favor of slavery, but, on the contrary, was in its letter and spirit an
+Anti-slavery instrument, demanding the abolition of slavery as a condition
+of its own existence as the supreme law of the land. This radical change
+in my opinions produced a corresponding change in my action. Those who
+could not see any honest reasons for changing their views, as I had done,
+could not easily see any such reasons for my change, and the common
+punishment of apostates was mine. ... Among friends who had been devoted
+to my cause were Isaac and Amy Post, William and Mary Hallowell, Asa and
+Hulda Anthony, and indeed all the committee of the Western New York Anti-
+Slavery Society. They held festivals and fairs to raise money, and
+assisted me in every other possible way to keep my paper in circulation
+while I was a non-voting abolitionist, but withdrew from me when I became
+a voting abolitionist."
+
+The Posts, the Hallowells, and the Anthonys were among the first to attach
+themselves to the Suffrage movement.
+
+The Grimké sisters, who were intensely interested in the abolition
+agitation, followed Garrison to the extreme, and adopted the socialistic
+ideas with which his wing became to a large extent identified. They were
+also early in the Suffrage cause. In August, 1837, Whittier wrote to them
+as follows: "I am anxious to hold a long conversation with you on the
+subject of war, human government, and church and family government. The
+more I reflect upon the subject the more difficulty I find, and the more
+decidedly am I of opinion that we ought to hold all these matters aloof
+from the cause of abolition. Our good friend, H. C. Wright, with the best
+intentions in the world, is doing great injury by a different course. He
+is making the Anti-slavery party responsible in a great degree for his, to
+say the least, startling opinions.... But let him keep them distinct from
+the cause of emancipation. To employ an agent who devotes half his time
+and talents to the propagation of 'no-human or no-family government'
+doctrines in connection, _intimate_ connection, with the doctrines of
+abolition, is a fraud upon the patrons of the cause. Brother Garrison
+errs, I think, in this respect. He takes the 'no-church and no-government'
+ground."
+
+Mr. Garrison wrote to the American Anti-slavery Society of his desire to
+crush the "dissenters," and Maria W. Chapman wrote: "Why will they think
+they can cut away from Garrison without becoming an abomination? ... If
+this defection should drink the cup and end all, we of Massachusetts will
+turn and abolish them as readily as we would the colonization society."
+Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell: "I am glad to see that you have
+criticised Brother H. C. Wright. I have just returned from a few months'
+tour in eastern Massachusetts, and he has done immense hurt there." A. A.
+Phelps, agent of the Massachusetts Anti-Slavery society, wrote: "I write
+you this in great grief, and yet I feel constrained to do it. The cause of
+abolition here was never in so dangerous and critical a position before.
+Mutual jealousies on the part of the laity and clergy are rampant; indeed,
+so much so that, let a clerical brother do what he will, it is resolved as
+a matter of course into a sinister motive! ... Of this stamp, more than
+ever before, is friend Garrison. And Mrs. Chapman remarked to me the other
+day that she sometimes doubted which needed abolition most, slavery or the
+black-hearted ministry. For this cause alone we are on the brink of a
+general split in our ranks.... And as if to make a bad matter worse,
+Garrison insists on yoking perfectionism, no-governmentism, and woman-
+preaching with abolition, as part and parcel of the same lump."
+
+In 1840, Emerson, in his Amory Hall lecture, said: "The Church or
+religious party is falling from the Church nominal, and is appearing in
+Temperance and non-resistant societies, in movements of abolitionists and
+socialists, and in very significant assemblies called Sabbath and Bible
+conventions, composed of ultraists, of seekers, of all the soul and
+soldiery of dissent, and meeting to call in question the authority of the
+Sabbath, of the priesthood, of the Church. In these movements nothing was
+more remarkable than the discontent they begot in the movers.... They
+defied each other like a congress of kings, each of whom had a realm to
+rule, and a way of his own that made concert unprofitable."
+
+These ideas blossomed, in due course of time, into Socialistic
+communities. There was a distinctly Anti-slavery one at Hopedale,
+Massachusetts. The founder, Adin Ballou, published a tract setting forth
+the objects of the community, from which I make the following extracts:
+"No precise theological dogmas, ordinances, or ceremonies are prescribed
+or prohibited. In such matters all the members are free, with mutual love
+and toleration, to follow their own highest convictions of truth and
+religious duty, answerable only to the great Head of the Church Universal.
+It enjoins total abstinence from all God-contemning words and deeds; all
+unchastity; all intoxicating beverages; all oath-taking; all slave-holding
+and pro-slavery compromises; all war and preparations for war; all capital
+and other vindictive punishments; all insurrectionary, seditious,
+mobocratic, and personal violence against any government, society, family,
+or individual; all voluntary participation in any anti-Christian
+government, under promise of unqualified support, whether by doing
+military service, commencing actions at law, holding office, voting,
+petitioning for penal laws, or asking public interference for protection
+which can only be given by such force. It is the seedling of the true
+democratic and social Republic, wherein neither caste, color, sex, nor age
+stands prescribed. It is a moral-suasion temperance society on the
+teetotal basis. It is a moral-power Anti-slavery society, radical and
+without compromise. It is a peace society on the only impregnable
+foundation, that of Christian non-resistance. It is a sound theoretical
+and practical Woman's Rights Association." Among other Suffragists, Abby
+Kelly Foster was resident at Hopedale. Another community, at Northampton,
+was sometimes described as "Nothingarian."
+
+Of the state of things at this time in the Anti-slavery societies, General
+Birney says, "The no-government men made up in activity what they lacked
+in numbers. While refusing for themselves to vote at the ballot-box, they
+voted in conventions and formed coalitions with women who wished to vote
+at the ballot-box." Mr. Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell: "An
+effort was made at the annual meeting of the Massachusetts society, which
+adjourned today, to make its annual report and its action subservient to
+the non-resistant movement, and through the votes of the women of Lynn and
+Boston it succeeded." A little later, January, 1839, Mr. Stanton wrote
+again to Mr. Goodell, as follows: "I have taken the liberty to show your
+letter to brothers Phelps, George Allen, George Russell, O. Scott, N.
+Colver, and a large number of others, and they highly approve its
+sentiments. They, with you, are fully of the opinion that it is high time
+to take a firm stand against the no-government doctrine. They are far from
+regarding it merely as a humbug." John A. Collins, the Anti-slavery agent
+referred to, founded a community at Skaneateles, N. Y., based upon the
+following dictums: A disbelief in any special revelation of God to Man, in
+any form of worship, in any special regard for the Sabbath, in any church,
+disbelief in all governments based on physical force, because they are
+"organized bands of banditti," whose authority is to be disregarded, a
+disbelief in voting, in petitioning, in doing military duty, paying
+personal or property taxes, serving on juries, testifying in "so-called"
+courts of justice. A disbelief in any individual property. A belief that
+as marriage is designed for the happiness of the parties to it, when such
+parties have outlived their affections, the sooner the separation takes
+place the better, and that such separation shall not be a barrier to their
+again uniting with any one. The community lived two and a half years, and
+broke up with a debt of ten thousand dollars. John O. Wattles, who was
+associated with Collins in the disturbance referred to by Frederick
+Douglass, founded a community in Logan County, Ohio, which was called "The
+Prairie Home." They had no laws, no government, no opinions, no
+principles, no form of society, no test of admission. They professed to
+take for their creed the dictum "Do as you would be done by." The
+association broke up in anarchy within a few months. Mr. Collins and Mr.
+Wattles were always promoters of the Woman-Suffrage movement.
+
+Mr. Garrison said: "We cannot acknowledge allegiance to any human
+government. We can allow no appeal to patriotism to revenge any national
+insult or injury." Again he said: "If a nation has no right to defend
+itself against foreign enemies, no individual possesses that right in his
+own case.... As every human government is upheld by physical strength, and
+its laws are enforced at the point of the bayonet, we cannot hold office.
+We therefore exclude ourselves from every legislative and judicial body,
+and repudiate all human politics, worldly honors, and stations of
+authority."
+
+Ralph Waldo Emerson says: "They withdraw themselves from the common labors
+and competitions of the market and the caucus.... They are striking work,
+and calling out for something worthy to do.... They are not good citizens,
+not good members of society; unwilling to bear their part of the public
+burdens. They do not even like to vote. They filled the world with long
+beards and long words. They began in words, and ended in words."
+
+Charles Sumner said: "An omnibus-load of Boston abolitionists has done
+more harm to the Anti-slavery cause than all its enemies."
+
+Angelina Grimké, writing at this time to Mr. Weld, said: "What wouldst
+thou think of the 'Liberator' abandoning abolitionism as a primary object,
+and becoming the vehicle of all these grand principles?"
+
+In his published volume "Anti-slavery Days," James Freeman Clarke says of
+the first Garrison Anti-slavery society: "There was no such excitement to
+be had anywhere else as at these meetings. There was a little of
+everything going on in them. Sometimes crazy people would come in and
+insist on taking up the time; sometimes mobs would interrupt the smooth
+tenor of their way; but amid all disturbance each meeting gave us an
+interesting and impressive hour. I think that some of the Garrisonian
+orators had the keenest tongues ever given to man. Stephen S. Foster and
+Henry C. Wright, for example, said the sharpest things that were ever
+uttered. Their belief was, that people were asleep, and the only thing to
+be done was to rouse them; and to do this it was necessary to cut deep and
+spare not. The more angry people were made, the better." Again, in the
+same volume, he says, after describing the political Anti-slavery party:
+"While these political anti-slavery movements were going on, the old
+abolitionists, under the lead of Garrison, Phillips, and others, had
+decided to oppose all voting and all political efforts under the
+Constitution. They adopted as their motto, 'No union with slaveholders.'
+Their hope for abolishing slavery was in inducing the North to dissolve
+the Union. Edmund Quincy said the Union was 'a confederacy with crime,'
+that 'the experiment of a great nation with popular institutions had
+signally failed,' that 'the Republic was not a model but a warning to the
+nations;' that 'the whole people must be either slaveholders or slaves;'
+that the only escape for 'the slave from his bondage was over the ruins of
+the American Church and the American State:' and it was the unalterable
+purpose of the Garrisonians to labor for the dissolution of the Union."
+Freeman Clarke goes on to say: "Wendell Phillips said on one occasion,
+'Thank God, I am not a citizen of the United States.' As late as 1861 he
+declared the Union a failure, and argued for the dissolution of the Union
+as 'the best possible method of abolishing slavery.' If the North had
+agreed to disunion and had followed the advice of Phillips, 'To build a
+bridge of gold to take the slave States out of the Union,' slavery would
+probably be still existing in all the Southern States. At all events, it
+was not abolished by those who wished for disunion, but by those who were
+determined at all hazards and by every sacrifice to maintain the Union."
+
+On April 8, 1839, Henry B. Stanton wrote to William Goodell as follows:
+"At this very time, and mainly, too, in that part of the country where
+political action has been most successful, and whence, from its promise of
+soon being triumphant, great encouragement was derived by abolitionists
+everywhere, a sect has arisen in our midst whose members regard it as of
+religious obligation in no case to exercise the elective franchise. This
+persuasion is part and parcel of the tenet which it is believed they have
+embraced, that as Christians have the precepts of the gospel of Christ,
+and the spirit of God to guide them, all human governments, as necessarily
+including the idea of force to secure obedience, are not only superfluous,
+but unlawful encroachments on the Divine government as ascertained from
+the sources above mentioned. Therefore they refuse to do anything
+voluntarily that would be considered as acknowledging the lawful existence
+of human governments. Denying to civil governments the right to use force,
+they easily deduce that family governments have no such right. They carry
+out the 'non-resistant' theory. To the first ruffian who would demand our
+purse or oust us from our house, they are to be unconditionally
+surrendered unless moral suasion be found sufficient to induce him to
+desist from his purpose. Our wives, our daughters, our sisters, our
+mothers, we are to see set upon by the most brutal, without any effort on
+our part except argument to defend them! And even they themselves are
+forbidden to use in defence of their purity such powers as God has endowed
+them with for its protection, if resistance should be attended with injury
+or destruction to the assailant. In short, the 'no-government' doctrines,
+as they are believed now to be embraced, seem to strike at the root of the
+social structure, and tend, so far as I am able to judge of their
+tendency, to throw society into entire confusion and to renew, under the
+sanction of religion, scenes of anarchy and license that have generally
+hitherto been the offspring of the rankest infidelity and irreligion."
+
+Again, he wrote: "The non-government doctrine, stripped of its disguise,
+is worse than Fanny-Wrightism, and, under a Gospel garb, it is Fanny-
+Wrightism with a white frock on. It goes to the utter overthrow of all
+order, yea, of all purity. When carried out, it goes not only for a
+community of goods, but a community of wives. Strange that such an infidel
+theory should find votaries in New England!"
+
+The editors of the "History of Woman Suffrage" say in their opening
+chapter: "Among the immediate causes that led to the demand for the equal
+political rights of women, in this country, we may note these: First, the
+discussion in several of the State legislatures of the property rights of
+married women; Second, the great educational work that was accomplished by
+the able lectures of Frances Wright, on political, religious, and social
+questions. Ernestine L. Rose, following in her wake, equally liberal in
+her religious opinions, and equally well-informed on the science of
+government, helped to deepen and perpetuate the impression Frances Wright
+had made on the minds of unprejudiced hearers. Third, and above all other
+causes of the Woman-Suffrage movement, was the Anti-slavery struggle in
+this country." By referring to the columns of the secular and religious
+press of that period, we find that most of the respectable and
+representative opinion of the country was "prejudiced." Halls and assembly
+rooms in all the cities were closed against Fanny Wright, not only because
+her doctrines were absolutely infidel and materialistic, but because they
+were deemed subversive of law, order, and decency. The better portion of
+society in the United States was of one mind in its estimate of "The
+Pioneer Woman in the Cause of Woman's Eights," as she was called. In the
+columns of "The Free Inquirer," a newspaper which she and Robert Dale Owen
+established and edited in New York City in 1829, she attacked religion in
+every form, marriage, the family, and the State. She pretended to no basis
+of scientific investigation, but in a brilliant flood of words endeavored
+to sweep away faith in the Bible, the home, the Republic, in favor of
+negation, communism, free love. I have place for but a single quotation
+from one of her "Fables," published in the "Free Inquirer." It will show
+the drift of her work in one direction:
+
+"'Is my errand sped, and am I a master on earth?' said the infernal king
+(Pluto). 'Even as I promised,' said the Fury. 'Love hath forsaken the
+earth. Under the form of religion I aroused the fears and commanded the
+submission of mortals; and our imp now reigns on earth in the place of
+Love, under the form of Hymen.' Pluto smiled grimly, and smote his thigh
+in triumph. 'Well conceited, well executed, daughter of Night. Our empire
+shall not lack recruits, now that innocence is exchanged for superstition,
+and the true affection of congenial and confiding hearts is replaced by
+mock ceremonies and compulsory oaths!'"
+
+Frances Wright had founded, in 1825, at Nashoba, Tennessee, a community
+that had for its professed aim the elevation and education of the Southern
+negroes. In describing her object, Miss Wright said: "No difference will
+be made in the schools between the white children and the children of
+color, whether in education or in any other advantage. This establishment
+is founded on the principle of community of property and labor: these
+fellow-creatures, that is, the blacks, admitted here, requiting these
+services by services equal or greater, by filling occupations which their
+habits render easy, and which to their guides and assistants might be
+difficult or unpleasing." This form of helotism flourished but three years
+on American soil. It is doubly interesting as containing the germs of
+communism and anti-slavery that blended themselves in the beginnings of a
+movement for suffrage which was directly inspired by Frances Wright.
+
+The editors of the "Suffrage History" say that "above all other causes of
+the suffrage movement, was the Anti-slavery struggle in this country."
+They add: "In the early Anti-slavery conventions, the broad principles of
+human rights were so exhaustively discussed, justice, liberty, and
+equality so clearly taught, that the women who crowded to listen, readily
+learned the lesson of freedom for themselves, and early began to take part
+in the debates and business affairs of all associations. And before the
+public were aroused to the dangerous innovation, women were speaking in
+crowded promiscuous assemblies. The clergy opposed to the Abolition
+movement first took alarm, and issued a pastoral letter, warning their
+congregations against the influence of such women. The clergy identified
+with Anti-slavery associations took alarm also, and the initiative steps
+to silence women, and to deprive them of the right to vote in the business
+meetings, were soon taken. This action culminated in a division in the
+Anti-slavery Association. The question of woman's right to speak, vote,
+and serve on committee, not only precipitated the division in the ranks of
+the American Anti-slavery society, in 1840, but it disturbed the peace of
+the World's Anti-slavery Convention, held that same year in London. In
+summoning the friends of the slave from all parts of the two hemispheres
+to meet in London, John Bull never dreamed that woman, too, would answer
+to his call. Imagine, then, the commotion in the conservative Anti-slavery
+circles in England when it was known that half a dozen of those terrible
+women who had spoken to promiscuous assemblies, voted on men and measures,
+prayed and petitioned against slavery, women who had been mobbed,
+ridiculed by the press, and denounced by the pulpit, who had been the
+cause of setting all the American Abolitionists by the ears, and split
+their ranks asunder, were on their way to England."
+
+These quarrels, stirred up through the unseemly conduct of men and women,
+as we have seen, they were willing to precipitate upon a convention in a
+foreign land, a convention, too, which had declared its desire not to
+receive them as delegates. Upon the calling of the roll, the meeting was
+thrown into excitement and confusion on a subject foreign to that which
+brought them together. Wendell Phillips eloquently pleaded for the
+admission of the women. The English officers, while showing their personal
+courtesy, begged to remind them that the Queen, and many ladies in various
+stations, were represented by male delegates, and that to admit the
+American ladies would be to cast a slight upon their own active members,
+many of whom were present. During the heated discussion Mr. James Fuller
+said: "One friend has stated that this question should have been settled
+on the other side of the Atlantic. Why, it _was_ so settled, and in favor
+of the women." Mr. James G. Birney answered: "The right of the women to
+sit and act in all respects as men in our Anti-slavery associations was so
+decided in the Society in May, 1839, but not by a large majority, which
+majority was swelled by the votes of the women themselves. I have just
+received a letter from a gentleman in New York (Lewis Tappan)
+communicating the fact that the persistence of the friends of promiscuous
+female representation in pressing that practice on the American Anti-
+Slavery society, at its annual meeting on the 12th of last month, had
+caused such disagreement that he, and others who viewed the subject as he
+did, were deliberating the question of seceding from the old
+organization."
+
+Lewis Tappan, a founder of the American Missionary Society, was intimately
+connected with his brother Arthur in all anti-slavery work. Arthur was a
+founder of the American Tract Society, and of Oberlin College, and a
+benefactor of Lane Seminary. He established "The Emancipator," and was
+president of the American Anti-Slavery Society until compelled, with his
+brother Lewis, to withdraw on account of the conduct of the no-government
+men and women, and take nearly all the Society with him.
+
+When the vote was taken in the London meeting the women were excluded on
+the ground that "it being contrary to English usage, it would subject them
+to ridicule and prejudice their cause."
+
+George Thompson then said: "I hope, as this question is now decided, that
+Mr. Phillips will give us the assurance that we shall proceed with one
+heart and one mind." Mr. Phillips replied, "I have no doubt of it. There
+is no unpleasant feeling on our part. All we asked was an expression of
+opinion; we shall now act with the utmost cordiality."
+
+But Mr. Phillips had reckoned without his host and hostesses. Mr. Garrison
+had not been present at the discussion, but he arrived at this juncture
+and took his seat with the excluded delegates. During a twelve-days'
+discussion of the momentous cause that had called them together, which he
+had professed especially to champion, he took not the slightest part. Such
+was his mistaken zeal that he was willing so to stultify himself, and the
+women were willing to applaud him in so doing. The spirit that looked upon
+the American Constitution as "a covenant with death and an agreement with
+hell" was there. The spirit that defied all authority and could confound
+liberty of conscience with the formal acts of courtesy between man and
+man, was there. The spirit that took for its motto "You cannot shut up
+discord" was there. And out of these combined elements, trained in the
+school of thought that had treated as tyranny the religious and civil
+liberty of the United States, grew directly the Woman-Suffrage movement.
+Elizabeth Cady Stanton was not a delegate. The delegates were Abby Kelly,
+Esther Moore, and Lucretia Mott. Mrs. Stanton was a bride, and in the
+immediate party on this, their wedding trip, was Mr. Birney, her husband's
+special friend. The writers of the "History" say: "As the ladies were not
+allowed to speak in the Convention, they kept up a brisk fire, morning,
+noon, and night, on the unfortunate gentlemen who were domiciled at the
+same house." Mrs. Stanton had not been identified with any of these
+abolition quarrels; but she records that now she took her full share of
+the "firing," notwithstanding her husband's "gentle nudges under the
+table" and Mr. Birney's ominous frowns across it. In the volume entitled
+"Woman's Work in America," in a contribution called "Woman in the State,"
+written by Mrs. Mary A. Livermore, she says: "The leaders in the new
+[suffrage] movement, Lucretia Mott and Mrs. Stanton, with their husbands,"
+did thus and so in originating it. Lucretia Mott's husband was with her as
+a silent member of the conventions, but Elizabeth Cady Stanton's husband
+is conspicuous for his absence from every list of officers or attendants,
+from the inception of the Suffrage movement until his death. He may have
+been in perfect sympathy with his wife; but since the names of all the men
+already mentioned in connection with the mad "no-civil, no-family, no-
+personal government" movement, do appear, and his does not, it is
+impossible not to challenge Mrs. Livermore's statement. The last reference
+to him in the "History" was as voting on the occasion of the London
+meeting, in favor of the women's admission to the World's Convention. No
+mention is made of any speech, or of reasons given. Certain it is, that
+while Mr. Garrison became the conspicuous standard-bearer for the Woman's
+Rights movement, Mr. Stanton became one of the conspicuous bearers of the
+standard of the Free Soil and Republican parties, which included some of
+Anti-slavery's staunchest friends, who were denounced by Garrison as its
+foes.
+
+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 résumé 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."
+
+Women are equal with men legally and wages have not adjusted themselves,
+and the law has had no control over the feelings and opinions of men and
+women. Those who were large-minded enough to respect labor asked no
+warrant from legislation, and those who were small-minded enough to
+undervalue woman's work because it was woman's, do so still despite the
+statutes, and would if women voted at every election. Men were equal with
+each other before the law, but that did not compel the respect of foolish
+men, nor did their wages adjust themselves to equality on that account. If
+there were more men working in a trade in a given place than the demand
+for their products required, the wage would fall, and so it must with
+women. But reasons entered into the market value of woman's work that did
+not enter into that of men. Mrs. Dall mentions but one trade in which the
+wages were lower for women, and there they competed with men. Those seven
+women working with the seventy men in New Haven were not expected to be
+called upon to support a family by their earnings. If they were girls, in
+the natural course of things they were expected to leave the work whenever
+they were ready to marry. If one of them married one of the seventy men,
+the firm of employers would lose her services entirely; but the man who
+married her would be depended upon to work more steadily than before, and
+he would also have more incentive to do better work in order to command
+still higher wages. The long cry of Suffrage has not been able to bring
+about "equal pay for equal work," even where legislation to that effect
+has been introduced into Trades Unions and State laws. This has still
+rested, and must rest, with the employer, and his action must be governed
+by quality and demand and supply. The attempt to secure "equal wages"
+among men has resulted in bringing down the wages of all to the point of
+the poorer workers. The general laws of trade, like those of government,
+are based on principles of universal equity, and however strenuously
+temporary deviations may be pressed, they return at last to the natural
+position. This is not saying that there is not great injustice toward
+labor by capital, and toward capital by labor, but that the foundation
+principles tend to govern the mutual relations, and forcing that is
+contrary to these cannot be permanently successful. If the work of women
+for any reason is unequal, the wages will be, and the mere fact that some
+particular women work for some particular time the same number of hours,
+and as well as do the men in the same establishments, does not do away
+with the fact that women's work in general is not as steady as men's, and
+is not expected to meet the same emergency of family support. No one can
+believe more fully than I in equal wages for work that is really equal;
+but it seems to me that private contract, and not public action, must
+regulate the matter of special wage.
+
+Government reports show that the average age of the working-girl in this
+country is but twenty-two years, and that after twenty the number falls
+off rapidly. Unskilled labor must forever take the place of that which is
+withdrawn, which is another and most valid reason for lower wages. That
+lower wages are the result of natural causes, and not of unnatural
+feeling, is shown in many ways. Woman teachers at the West, where
+teachers were needed, received as good pay as did men. In New York I heard
+Superintendent Jasper, I think it was, say: "I am in favor of equal pay
+for equal work, for the two sexes; but we cannot give it here. We can get
+twice as many good women teachers as men teachers, and when we need men we
+must pay at a higher rate." This does not extend to the highest grade of
+teachers, superintendents, and professors in colleges, where men compete
+with one another. There the compensation is the same for equal work. In
+the highest forms of work women compete on equal terms. In literature
+women are paid, for books or articles, the same prices that men receive.
+In art this is true. It is the picture or statue or musical ability that
+counts. Singers receive as much for the soprano as for the tenor voice.
+Actresses are paid according to "drawing" power, and woman dancers and
+acrobats, alas! command the highest price.
+
+There is, among others, this fundamental difference between the business
+life of men and women. For men who pursue occupations outside the home,
+there are women to manage that home. For women who pursue occupations
+outside the home, there are, not men, but other women, to manage the home.
+The final domestic care of the world must come upon women. The final
+attention to social life must come upon women. In behalf of the women who
+are constrained, or who choose, to sacrifice their share in this part of
+the world's necessary work, some other women must do double duty. That
+this rule has seeming exceptions does not make it less the universal rule.
+
+Nothing, not even "industrial emancipation," is gotten for nothing.
+
+When the count cited above from the Suffrage indictment was written, the
+factory system had been established in this country twenty-six years. From
+the Revolution down to 1822, the women of the land had been busy in the
+homes making the household and personal wear. Sixteen years after the
+introduction of machinery into Lowell, Mass., 12,507 operatives were at
+work there, the majority of whom were women, American women and girls. New
+York State also had its mills. "Fanny Forester" (afterward Mrs. Judson)
+worked in a mill near her home in that State. She went there, as did hosts
+of New England girls, Lucy Larcom and Harriet Robinson among the number,
+to relieve the home, but especially to gain the means of education, for
+themselves and for their brothers and sisters. The towns afforded better
+libraries, and there were evening classes that they could attend, things
+not to be had in the farming districts. In 1850, in twenty-five States,
+the factory census reported 32,295 men and 62,661 women workers. In 1860
+there were 46,859 men and 75,169 women. Hosiery machinery at this time was
+giving employment to three times as many women as men. But the emigrant,
+and not the American man, had been the means of turning out the native
+woman worker; it was the foreign-born woman who worked for "unequal pay."
+In 1846, the sewing-machine had been invented. Previous to that time,
+61,500 women were employed making boys' clothing by hand for the market,
+which was twice the number of men so employed, while the woman tailor was
+as familiar a figure as the dress-maker in every village, where she went
+from house to house.
+
+In 1861 came our Civil War, with its awful sacrifice of young men. With
+that also came the heavy money loss, and consequent inability of many men,
+even where life and limb had been spared, to support their families in the
+homes. That great conflict, with its stern necessities, its lessons of
+mutual helpfulness, its military discipline, which taught the value of
+organization, did more than could ten thousand conventions, even had they
+been working with knowledge and system, to instruct women in love for work
+for others. It nerved them to labor for self-support and for the support
+of those who were now dependent upon them' because the strong arm had
+fallen and the willing heart had ceased to beat. Before the year 1861 had
+closed, there were a million women in this country earning their daily
+bread by honorable labor. As time went on, and the slaughter continued,
+and the nation's debt piled up, and prices became almost fabulous, more
+and more women asked through blinding tears, "What can I do?" Every trade
+was thrown open to women, and the laws had placed the married woman where
+she could compete on equal terms with her unmarried sister, even though
+she still had the advantage of a husband's support.
+
+A great pother has lately been made by Suffrage workers in New York
+because a bill was proposed prohibiting married women from teaching in the
+public schools. This has been the unwritten law in many places for years.
+The practice was adopted to offset the maintenance of married women.
+Teachers should receive more pay, but so should poets and artists, and we
+all hope the time will come when brain work will have more tangible market
+value.
+
+The sewing-machine had thrown women out of employment, as with it one
+woman could do the work of many. The number of work-seekers was enlarged
+by the influx, from the desolated South, of women whose entire living had
+been swept away. This army of uneducated workers from all sections were
+compelled not only to compete with men but with themselves as well. They
+sought, and could seek, only the lighter employments. Suffragists had
+their wish in regard to man's relinquishment of the "profitable
+employments," but not in the way they intended. The women for whose sake
+those profitable employments had been "monopolized" were now not only
+allowed by law but compelled by circumstance to toil from sun to sun at
+the best they could find to do; their frailer organizations were forced to
+bear "the double curse of work and pain." A nobler army of martyrs never
+turned their sorrows into blessings by the spirit in which they met them,
+than the American women who put their shoulders to the wheels of business
+that were moving in a hundred ways.
+
+In 1843 a humble beginning at industrial education for girls had been made
+by the Female Guardian Society. In 1854 Peter Cooper established the
+Cooper Union with its generous facilities for women in industry and the
+arts. The Young Women's Christian Association was founded in Normal,
+Illinois, in 1872, and its work in the industrial branch spread, before
+many years, to every city and town in the land. Men originated for women
+the first "Woman's Protective Union." In twenty-five years it had reported
+legal suits won for 12,000 women, and $41,000 collected. In 1869 the great
+organization of the Knights of Labor was founded, and in its body of rules
+was one "to secure for both sexes equal pay for equal work." Failure
+proves that labor cannot, any more than paper, be coined into money by the
+mere fiat of a government or an organization.
+
+But the great impulse to industrial education came through the Centennial
+Exposition held at Philadelphia in 1876. While the land was filled with
+the hum of preparation, as their contribution to that indication of
+peaceful progress, the Suffrage Associations were rolling up another
+petition in which to set forth their wrongs. After General Hawley, manager
+of the Exposition, had courteously refused to receive it in a public
+meeting, it was "pressed upon the Nation's heart" by delegates who pushed
+their way into Independence Hall. Outside that historic building, under
+the broiling sun, with Matilda Joslyn Gage to hold an umbrella over her,
+Miss Anthony read aloud a "Declaration of Independence" that re-echoed the
+sentiments of their first Declaration. It began by saying: "While the
+nation is buoyant with patriotism, and all hearts are attuned to praise,
+it is with sorrow we come to strike the one discordant note"--a typical
+and prophetic sentence.
+
+From 1876 girls, as well as boys, received manual training in the public
+schools, and when that proved impracticable, the way was found to open
+industrial schools that should include classes for girls. Every State, and
+almost every city and town of any size, had them. It was not long ere
+multitudes of societies and organizations furnished means for women's
+education in business and mechanic arts. The growth of the philanthropy of
+self-help is one of the wonders of the past twenty-five years, and women,
+without the ballot, have largely assisted in developing it.
+
+John Graham Brooks, in a lecture delivered in New York in the winter of
+1895-6, on "Some Economic Aspects of the Woman Question," said: "Woman who
+used to do her work in the house now does it in the factory, and the same
+work, doing her work under absolutely new and different conditions, a
+change so great that it closes finally one argument that I hear again and
+again by those opposed to woman suffrage--namely, that the place for woman
+is in the home."
+
+One condition under which she works that is not "absolutely new and
+different" is that of sex. Whatever as a woman she could not do in the
+home she cannot do abroad as a working-woman. She is in business as a
+business woman, not as a business man. Economic equality in such things as
+she can do is as unlike to a similarity in work which ignores sex
+conditions as a business corporation is to the government under whose laws
+it exists and by which its rights are defended. But even the external
+conditions are not so changed as might at first appear. The statistical
+proof of the youth of the majority of workers, the comparatively small
+number out of the whole population who go into business, and the fact that
+the domestic work for these very workers must be done by women, all show
+this.
+
+The United States Census of 1890 shows that not quite four million women
+are "engaged in gainful occupations." Of these more than one and a half
+million are in domestic service, and nearly half a million in professional
+service, mainly as teachers. The most striking gain has been made in the
+lighter forms of profitable labor--by stenographers, typewriters,
+telegraph and telephone operators, cashiers, bookkeepers, etc. In 1870
+there were 19,828 of these; in 1890, there were 228,421. The invention of
+the type-writing machine appears to be the ballot that has mainly produced
+this result. Carrol D. Wright says that in twenty cities examined in the
+United States he found, among 17,000 working-women, that 15,887 were
+single, 1,038 were widows, and 745 were married. This tells the same
+story. The mass of these women, like the mass of men, are working, not for
+public influence or station, but for the owning and holding of a home. The
+latest effort in self-help for the working class is the wise one of
+building them good homes. The best renting property has been found to be
+that which gives privacy and those distinctions that mark the family.
+
+The latest report of the New York Bureau of Statistics of Labor shows that
+of 8,040 persons who registered for employment in New York city, 6,458
+were men, and 1,582 were women. Of these, the foreign-born numbered 4,804,
+of whom 3,674 were men and 1,140 were women. The native-born numbered
+3,234, of whom 2,796 were men, and 442 were women. The list included every
+trade and profession, from that of day laborer to that of clergyman, from
+that of school teacher to that of domestic servant, and showed that in the
+city where more women are employed than in any other place, the proportion
+of women to men was less than one fifth, and of native American to
+foreign-born women two fifths.
+
+Mr. Brooks would favor suffrage because "in this new career there are
+reasons for every whit of protection." He mentions, as proof of woman's
+changed attitude as an industrial unit, that the Supreme Courts of
+Illinois and California have decided against special legislation for
+women. They did so on the ground that "they were now earning their
+livelihood under men's conditions, and should not have special legislation
+in business relations." If Mr. Brooks thinks that women wish the ballot to
+restore the special legislation, he does not know the Suffrage demand for
+equality. In England, when the laws were under discussion that forbid the
+employment of women more than a certain number of hours, and of children
+under certain ages, the Woman Suffrage leaders protested against the
+former as an infringement of personal rights and the ability to make
+contracts. But the special legislation for business women goes on,
+because, after all, the State knows that they are business women, and not
+business men, and the Suffrage quarrel in regard to privilege _versus_
+right goes on also.
+
+Before the Committee of the Constitutional Convention, Mrs. Ecob, of
+Albany, said: "You speak of chivalry. We scorn the word! What has your
+chivalry done for the weaker sex? Women are the unpaid laborers of the
+world--outcasts in government." Mrs. Hood, of Brooklyn, on the same
+occasion said: "Who dares insult our American manhood by declaring that
+men will be less courteous to mother, wife, and sister, because they are
+political equals? Woman's equality in the industrial world has to-day
+produced a nobler, better chivalry than was ever conceived by the knights
+of old."
+
+These two Suffrage leaders will have to settle between themselves the
+question which they have placed in dispute. It serves to point the moral
+of dilemma that attends an attempted adjustment of unnatural claims.
+Meantime government is caring for the weak, and chivalry is doing justice.
+The Labor Law that went into effect in this State on September 1st
+provided that children be classified so that those under fourteen years
+should not be employed in mercantile pursuits. Children between the ages
+of twelve and fourteen will be permitted to work in vacation, if they can
+show that they have attended school through the year. The girls between
+fourteen and twenty-one are not to be allowed to work more than ten hours
+a day. Their employment before 7 A.M. and after 10 P.M. is forbidden.
+Women and children are not allowed to work in basements, without permits
+from the Health Board as to the condition of the basement. Seats are to be
+provided for woman employees, forty-five minutes given them for luncheon,
+and proper lunch and toilet rooms to be secured. Penalties, ranging from a
+fine of $20 for the first offence to imprisonment, are prescribed for
+violation of the law. In his last report, published in January 1897, the
+New York Commissioner of Labor considers the low wages and petty wrongs of
+working women and girls in New York City. He advises the formation of
+unions among themselves for their better protection.
+
+Mr. Brooks does not agree with those who claim that possession of the
+ballot would raise wages. Mrs. Ames and Dr. Jacobi think it would only
+raise them through the indirect influence of the greater respect in which
+the worker would be held. This is safe ground again, because it is
+debatable; but the domestic servants of those who hold the former opinion
+might give them an object-lesson. Unfranchised as the servants are, they
+have only to make a threat of leaving to secure better wages.
+
+Harriette A. Keyser, who was the special Suffrage champion of the working-
+woman before the Committee of the Constitutional Convention, gave not one
+fact or figure to show that the working-woman, where she had the ballot,
+had already been helped by it, or that it was likely to help her, or how
+and why it might help her. Among the generalities she uttered was the
+following; "But the greatest value of the working-woman, to my mind, is
+that without her economic value this present demand for equal suffrage
+could never be made. Indeed, the suffrage of the world is due to her. Do I
+mean by this that every working-woman in the country sees her own value so
+clearly that she demands enfranchisement? I could not say this with truth.
+I make this statement irrespective of what any individual working-woman
+may think. It is based upon what she is. As through the last half century
+the contention for equal rights has continued, the working-woman has been
+the great object-lesson. It was not from women of leisure, having all the
+rights they want, that inspiration has been received. It has been caught
+from the patient worker, healing the sick, writing the book, painting the
+picture, teaching the children, tilling the soil, working in the factory,
+serving in the household. Every stroke of these workers has been a protest
+against a disfranchised individuality." Miss Keyser has mentioned most of
+the classes in this country, for, so far as my experience goes, there is
+no such thing as a leisure class, in the sense of an idle class, of women.
+Women are almost universally industrious, and it is a mistake to suppose
+that their early industry in the house was not as much appreciated and
+counted in the general fund of work as their more public activity now. It
+is well for Miss Keyser to make her estimate of the Suffrage value of the
+working-woman one that shall have no reference to the expressed views of
+the working-woman herself; because the working-woman seems almost
+universally not only unconscious of but indifferent to her attitude as a
+great object-lesson in favor of the ballot. But here is something new.
+Suffragists have first claimed that there could be no working-woman unless
+there was a ballot in woman's hand; then they claimed that, although there
+was a working-woman despite the fact that she had not been enfranchised,
+she was made by the agitation for the ballot; and now comes Miss Keyser to
+say that, not only is the working-woman not due to the ballot, or to
+ballot-seeking, but "the suffrage of the world is due to her," for
+"without her economic value this present demand for equal suffrage could
+never have been made!" Tar baby ain't sayin' nuthin'.
+
+Dr. Jacobi, in "Common Sense," says: "Whatever may be the personal
+privileges of their lot, whatever the legal protection accorded to their
+earnings, the public status of such a class remains strictly that of
+aliens. At the present moment this vast and constantly growing army of
+women industrials constitutes an alien class. The privation for that class
+of political right to defend its interests is only masked, but not
+compensated, by its numerous inter-relations with those who have rights."
+So they are conceded to have personal privileges, and legal protection for
+earnings. The alienism is then purely political, and works no hardship but
+what Suffragists conceive to be in the mental attitude of the worker.
+
+Foreign capitalists who own land or plant in the United States are
+unfranchised. We have large numbers of men working in trades and
+professions who never have been naturalized, but we do not dream that all
+these constitute an alien class of industrials. No distinction is made in
+business opportunity between the voter and non-voter. Neither is any
+social distinction made regarding worker or employer on account of the
+relations of either to the ballot. Market value is not measured by
+suffrage, except in dishonorable transactions, and the women "with ballots
+in their hands" are not the Government's preferred creditors. The men in
+the District of Columbia are not conscious of lower wages and industrial
+ostracism. Again, Dr. Jacobi says: "The share of women in political rights
+and life--imperfect and deferred during the predominance of militarism--
+has become natural, has become inevitable, with the advent of
+industrialism, in which they so largely share."
+
+Industrialism has no more power to change the basis of government than the
+abolition movement had when certain advocates of it shouted that it was
+"sinful to vote or hold office, because the government was founded upon
+physical force and maintained itself by muskets." Industrialism is
+bringing into this country some of the gravest problems it has ever met.
+The sympathy of the people is on the side of labor that uses honorable
+means; but Cleveland and Leadville are among the places that suggest
+afresh the fact that industrialism must be kept in order for its own sake,
+for the sake of general peace, and for the sake of its increasing ranks of
+"alien" women who look to it for "every whit of protection," save that
+which their own self-respect and that of public opinion can win them.
+
+Again, Dr. Jacobi says: "Notwithstanding the repression of women's civil
+rights, and their absolute exclusion from even the dream of a political
+sphere, the women of France engage more freely than anywhere else in
+business and industry." There is a moral here deeper than can be read at a
+glance. The first thought suggested is, that industrial success for woman
+is not in the least dependent upon the vote. The second is, that
+industrial progress does not command the vote. The third is, that American
+freedom has worked in the opposite direction from French unstable
+republicanism. And the fourth is, that industrious France stands appalled
+at the lack of increase of its population. There are many forces that sap
+its national life, but perhaps the most conspicuous is the socialistic and
+anarchistic tendency of its labor organizations. The woman-suffrage idea
+was first openly proclaimed during the French Revolution. In 1851 the
+annual Suffrage Convention in this country was called by Paulina Wright
+Davis, to meet in Worcester, Mass. Ernestine Rose read to the convention
+two letters addressed to that body through her, written by Jeanne Deroine
+and Pauline Roland, from a Paris prison. During the revolutionary
+movements of 1848, these women had played conspicuous roles. One of them
+had attempted to nominate the mayor in her native city, the other to be a
+candidate for the Legislative Assembly. They wrote: "Sisters of America!
+Your socialist sisters of France are united with you in the vindication of
+the right of woman to civil and political equality. We have, moreover, the
+profound conviction that only by the power of association based on
+solidarity--by the union of the working-classes of both sexes in organized
+labor, can be acquired, completely and pacifically, the civil and
+political equality of woman, and the social right for all."
+
+I know the feud, and the grounds for it, between socialism and anarchy.
+But both are enemies of the social order, and both are favorers of woman
+suffrage. How "pacifically" the labor movement that originated in France
+in 1848, and spread throughout Europe, was likely to proceed, we may judge
+by its constant outbreaks kindred to the recent bomb-throwing in Paris. In
+the German Working-man's Union, Hasenclever, for many years the leading
+socialist in the German Reichstag, said: "The Woman Question would be
+taken by the developed, or, more correctly speaking, the communistic
+state, under its own control, for in this state" (which was to consist of
+men and women with equal vote) "when the community bears the obligation of
+maintaining the children, and no private capital exists, the woman need no
+longer be chained to one man. The bond between the sexes will be merely a
+moral one, and if the characters do not harmonize could be dissolved." The
+"Social Democrat" of Copenhagen has for mottoes: "All men and women over
+twenty-one should vote." "There should be institutions for the proper
+bringing up of children." All the communistic and anarchistic labor
+organizations in Germany, France, Switzerland, Denmark, and England
+proclaim woman suffrage as a prime factor, and the disruption of the
+family as its corollary.
+
+There are many who remember the visit to this country of the socialist,
+Dr. Aveling, and his (so-called) wife, the daughter of Karl Marx. His
+legal wife had been left in England. Miss Marx said, in reply to the
+question of a Chicago lady, that love was the only recognized marriage in
+Socialism, consequently no bonds of any kind would be required. Divorces
+would be impossible; for when love ceased, separation would naturally
+ensue.
+
+At a meeting of the Woman's Council held in Washington, in 1888, Mrs.
+Stanton said: "I have often said to men of the present day that the next
+generation of women will not stand arguing with you as patiently as we
+have for half a century. The organizations of labor all over the country
+are holding out their hands to women. The time is not far distant when, if
+men do not do justice to women, the women will strike hands with labor,
+with socialists, with anarchists, and you will have the scenes of the
+Revolution of France acted over again in this republic."
+
+Mrs. Stanton Blatch, daughter of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, in her lecture in
+this country two years ago on "The Economic Emancipation of Woman," said
+that she rejoiced in every co-operative working-woman's dwelling, because
+it was a blow aimed at the isolated home, and she has just repeated in New
+York her proposition for the institutional care of children. Alice Hyneman
+Rhine, in her article on "Woman's Work in America," says of socialistic
+labor, "It aims to benefit woman by recognizing her as a perfect equal of
+man, politically and socially; by fixing woman's means of support by the
+state so as to render her independent of man." "Freedom," a radical
+socialistic newspaper published in Chicago, where Emma Goldman and her ilk
+have revealed the true inwardness of such movements, recommends as the
+first step "equal rights for all, without distinction of race or sex," and
+the abolition of "class rule." Our most radical socialistic Labor National
+Convention in New York, this year, had four woman delegates.
+
+The Knights of Labor who first put "equal pay for equal work" into their
+platform, appeared in their late convention, under the lead of Sovereign,
+who declared that Gov. Altgeld "was one of the finest types of American
+manhood to-day." They seem to be drifting toward that phase of Socialism
+to which Alice Hyneman Rhine referred. There are no greater tyrants than
+some of the Labor organizations, and one evidence of this is the fact that
+they prevent the colored man from doing any work outside of a few of the
+least noble occupations.
+
+With such edged tools as these are our American women playing when they
+demand, in the name of democracy, in the name of the family, in the name
+of the working-woman, that the word "sex" shall be inserted in the United
+States Constitution, and the word "male" be stricken from every State
+constitution that now contains it.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VII.
+
+
+WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE PROFESSIONS.
+
+
+The sixth count in the Declaration of Sentiments reads: "He closes against
+her all the avenues to wealth and distinction which he considers most
+honorable to himself. As a teacher of theology, medicine, or law, she is
+not known."
+
+That statement contains another evidence of the untruthfulness of a half
+truth. First, it is an unwarrantable assumption, of which no proof is
+offered, that man had closed against woman any avenue to wealth and
+distinction, or that he felt toward woman the selfish and monopolizing
+spirit implied in such accusation. Second, but three of the avenues, all
+of which he was said to have closed against her, are mentioned. Whatever
+may be the truth about those three, the no less honorable, although less
+arduous, avenues to wealth and distinction were as open to her as to him.
+As educator, author, artist, in painting, music, and sculpture, she could
+freely attain to the same coveted end. The Suffragists did not decry man's
+"monopoly" of the honorable and profitable but severe professions of civil
+engineering, seamanship, mining engineering, lighthouse keeping and
+inspecting, signal service, military and naval duty, and the like. These,
+and the drudgery of the world's business and commerce, man was welcome to
+keep.
+
+But, most of all, this Suffrage indictment contains, as do all the rest,
+another tacit untruth when it assumes that woman's work has not in the
+past been as honorable to herself and as profitable to the world as has
+that of man. By setting up a false standard for achievement, and
+attempting to make everything conform to it, the Suffrage movement has
+done incalculable harm. It is not progressing to push into an unwonted
+place merely because it is unwonted, and because you can push in. It is
+progress to enter it in response both to an inward and an outward need.
+
+When the first Suffrage convention had adopted the Declaration of
+Sentiments, Lucretia Mott offered a resolution, which was also adopted,
+declaring that "the speedy success of our cause depends upon the zealous
+and untiring efforts of men and women for the overthrow of the monopoly of
+the pulpit, and for the securing to woman an equal participation with men
+in the various trades, professions, and commerce."
+
+The most remarkable thing about this resolution is, that it was
+promulgated by a woman who was at that very time a gifted and eloquent
+preacher, so that to her, who cared for it so highly, man had not closed
+that avenue to wealth and distinction. As she had a husband to support her
+and her children, she was much more free to attain those desirable ends
+than most of the ministers who were preaching for humanity's sake and the
+gospel's, at salaries ranging from five hundred to two thousand dollars a
+year, and who had families to support out of their slender pittance. If
+any woman was in a position to "overthrow the monopoly of the pulpit,"
+surely she was. Stately and beautiful of mien, fervent in spirit, eloquent
+in language, one who had learned the Hebrew and Greek that she might read
+the Scriptures in the original tongues, what did she lack? Not only was no
+pulpit of another faith than hers ever opened to her, but more than half
+those of her own form of worship were closed against hearing the inner
+voice as interpreted by her. In that schism that rent the Society of
+Friends as no other religious body has ever been rent, she threw in her
+fortunes, or led others to throw in their fortunes (for she had been
+preaching nine years when the division occurred), with that portion that
+placed the "inner light" above all Scripture. When the Friends came from
+the London meeting to testify against the teachings of the schismatics,
+they besought Lucretia Mott to return to the faith of her childhood, but
+she resisted from conviction that she was right. Elias Hicks, her leader,
+had instigated the members of his congregation to refuse to pay their
+taxes to the Government during and following the war of 1812, on the
+ground that they represented an encroachment of the secular power on
+Christian liberty, and were used to support war, which was sin. Lucretia
+Mott preached that "no Christian can consistently uphold a government
+based on the sword, or relying on that as an ultimate resort." The country
+has always suffered from this doctrine. The Tory Quakers of the Revolution
+called publicly upon Friends "to withstand and refuse to submit" "to
+instructions and ordinances" not warranted by "that happy Constitution
+under which we have long enjoyed tranquillity and peace." Thomas Paine,
+whose parents were Friends, in "The Crisis," says: "The common phrase of
+these people is, 'Our principles are peace.' To which it may be replied,
+'and your practices are the reverse.'" Another striking instance of this
+disagreement between principle and practice is seen in Lucretia Mott's
+behavior. From the platform where she demanded the ballot for woman, she
+proclaimed that all voting was sinful. That bodies of people who so held
+should continue to enjoy the Government's protection of themselves and
+their property, through the sacrifices made by those who carried on
+government by giving willingly their money and their strength, is a proof
+of our wonderful freedom.
+
+Elizabeth Fry and most of the English Friends would not mention the name
+of Mrs. Mott. Mrs. Stanton once asked her what she would have done after
+the Hicksite faction had been voted out of meeting at the World's
+Conventicle of Friends in London, if the spirit had moved her to speak
+when the chairman and members had moved that she be silent, and she
+answered, "Where the spirit of God is, there is liberty." This is the
+liberty of anarchy, and it had its due weight in the Suffrage movement.
+Mrs. Stanton, in the course of a eulogy pronounced at Mrs. Mott's funeral,
+said: "The 'vagaries' of the Anti-slavery struggle, in which Lucretia Mott
+took a leading part, have been coined into law; and the 'wild fantasies'
+of the Abolitionists are now the Thirteenth, Fourteenth, and Fifteenth
+amendments to the National Constitution.... The 'infidel' Hicksite
+principles that shocked Christendom are now the cornerstones of the
+liberal religious movement in this country." The vagaries of the Anti-
+slavery struggle are exactly those that were _not_ coined into law. The
+wild fantasies of the Abolitionists were rejected by those whose sober
+judgment and steady courage made possible the last constitutional
+amendments. And no truer is it that the "infidel" Hicksite principles are
+the corner-stones of any genuine movement of Christian liberality. While
+the Friends mourn that infidelity and Roman Catholicism have made inroads
+upon their progress in some places, they have steadily advanced in the
+other direction from that pointed out by Lucretia Mott. Their educated and
+paid ministry, their First-day schools, their missions, home and foreign,
+their music, and simple but set forms, their reports to London of
+"conversion and profession of faith," and their rapid growth where these
+things have taken place, all indicate the truth of this. The large meeting
+at Swartmore College, in the summer of 1896, is another evidence.
+
+The proportion of woman preachers to the different denominations is as
+follows: The Hicksite-Quakers (as against the orthodox) have the most. So
+have the German Methodists (United Brethren) as against the orthodox
+Methodists. The Free-Will Baptists, as against the orthodox Baptists,
+ordain more woman preachers. The Universalist preceded the Unitarian
+church in so doing. The Presbyterian and Congregational churches, as a
+body, have taken no steps in that direction. In the Congregational
+denomination any separate body of worshippers can ordain whom it sees fit.
+The Roman Catholic and Episcopal churches have orders which band women as
+religious workers and remove them more or less from the ordinary life of
+the world, but they have taken no steps toward ordaining women for the
+ministry.
+
+We may note that the denominations that have been foremost in building
+colleges for woman, and in promoting her general advancement in
+professions and trades, as well as in social and philanthropic matters,
+are the ones whose pulpits she has not entered. They are also those by
+which she is most cordially welcomed to speak on all Christian and
+philanthropic themes. Where her influence is most broadly felt, she has
+not been taken out of the ordinary life that she was meant to share and to
+sway. It was from the great denominations that she first crossed the
+threshold of home to carry home love and principle to foreign countries.
+In missions she has served in every conceivable form of public
+benevolence, side by side with man. Real reforms work from within. If the
+time comes when the other branches of the Christian Church feel as do a
+few at present, that the exercise of the ministerial office is consistent
+and appropriate for woman, one that compels no sacrifice of the life and
+work that are, and must be, peculiarly her own, the ballot will not be
+needed to place her or to keep her in their pulpits. Whatever may be
+thought of the profession of the ministry for woman, it must certainly be
+acknowledged that it is the one farthest removed from political thought
+and action. If any class of women should be glad to be exempted from the
+vote, it is the woman preachers.
+
+In her book, "Common Sense," Dr. Jacobi says: "The profession of medicine
+was thrown open to women when, in 1849, the year following the Revolution,
+and the passage of the Married Woman's Property Rights Bill, New York
+State for the first time, at Geneva, conferred a medical diploma on a
+woman, Elizabeth Blackwell. She was, or rather she became, the sister-in-
+law of Lucy Stone; and the work of these two women, the one in medicine,
+the other for equal suffrage, constituted the two necessary halves of one
+idea."
+
+In 1848, when the first Suffrage convention was held, twelve women were
+studying medicine in different parts of the country. Dr. Elizabeth
+Blackwell was studying that year in Geneva, and when members of the
+convention wrote to congratulate her, she said, in the course of her
+reply: "Much has been said of the oppression that woman suffers; man is
+reproached with being unjust, tyrannical, jealous. I do not so read human
+life." Dr. Blackwell estimates that within ten years of that time three
+hundred women had been graduated in medicine. In an address delivered in
+1889 before the London Medical School for women in London, Dr. Blackwell
+said: "I believe that the department of medicine in which the great and
+beneficent influence of women may be specially exerted is that of the
+family physician. Not as specialists, but as the trusted guides and wise
+counsellors in all that concerns the physical welfare of the family, they
+will find their most congenial field of labor." All this was the exact
+opposite of the spirit that prevailed in the Association with which Lucy
+Stone was identified. She declaimed against man's injustice; and when it
+was proposed, after the civil war had taught the power of organization, to
+have a constitution and by-laws for the Suffrage movement, Lucy Stone said
+that she had felt the "thumb-screws and the soul-screws," and did not wish
+to be placed under them again. "Our duty is merely agitation." After a
+stormy quarrel, she left to form a new association in New England.
+Elizabeth Blackwell's name is conspicuous for its absence from Suffrage
+annals. In the letter referred to she wrote: "The exclusion and constraint
+woman suffers is not the result of purposed injury or premeditated insult.
+It has arisen naturally, without violence, because woman has desired
+nothing more, has not felt the soul too large for the body. But when
+woman, with matured strength, with steady purpose, presents her lofty
+claim, all barriers will give way, and man will welcome, with a thrill of
+joy, the new birth of his sister spirit."
+
+The way in which barriers have fallen, and have been removed by men, in
+order that woman may enter the noble profession of medicine, is one of the
+strange stories of this half century. The Civil War, which taught us so
+much, helped greatly in this. There were some genuine obstacles in the way
+of woman's education in medicine, and that they were genuine is proved by
+the fact that, as rapidly as arrangements can be made so that woman can
+have thorough training by and with her own sex, this is being done. This
+trend is in opposition to Suffrage action. Dr. Clemence Lozier, who was so
+long at the head of the Suffrage association in New York City, was the
+most persistent urger of mixed clinics, and marched in to them at
+Bellevue, at the head of her classes, defying the delicate instincts of
+both men and women.
+
+The struggle of the "new" school, which was really as old as Hippocrates,
+who said four hundred years before Christ that some remedies acted by the
+rule of "contraries," and some by the rule of "similarity," was long and
+hard compared with that of the entrance of woman upon the practice of
+medicine, although the latter involved sex questions and the former only
+forms, and professional prejudice did not die with woman's adoption of it.
+
+Dr. Jacobi says: "We are perfectly well aware that industrial and
+professional competition are entirely different matters from popular
+sovereignty. But when we find the same instincts aroused, the same
+opposition excited, the same arguments advanced, and the same
+determination manifested, by trades unions, to exclude women from trades,
+by learned societies to exclude them from professions, by universities to
+exclude them from learning, and by voters to exclude them from the polls,
+we cannot avoid asking whether the difference in the cases is not balanced
+by the identity in the mental attitude of the opponents." The best trades
+unions have admitted women to their protective and wage associations, or,
+better still, have helped them to form their own; the worst trades unions,
+the socialistic and anarchistic, have claimed for them the right to vote.
+The learned societies are admitting them professionally as fast as they
+make themselves worthy. The men who hold out against their admission to
+men's universities are precisely the class of men who have been most
+active in assisting to found for them equal colleges of their own, and
+they are also the men who are most strenuous against their admission to
+the polls. In medicine, while co-education is deemed better than
+ignorance, the tendency is to separate the sexes in study as fast as
+facilities can be made equal. The opponents of woman's progress and those
+of woman suffrage are of opposite classes, and their mental attitudes are
+entirely different. How much harm the struggle for "popular sovereignty"
+for women has done in hindering the progress of industrial and
+professional competition, can be judged somewhat by the success of the
+latter and the failure of the former in the highest fields. It is a
+significant fact that women do not avail themselves of opportunities open
+to them in the professions to the extent that it has been claimed they
+would. The medical examination advertised in January, 1896, by the New
+York State Civil Service Commission for woman candidates, failed for lack
+of applicants, although the salaries of women in the State hospitals range
+from $1,000 to $1,500 a year.
+
+The entrance of woman upon the legal profession raised constitutional
+questions as to the enactment of law; and so here, as in the matter of the
+school suffrage, we see how carefully republicanism guarded the post at
+which must stand the sentinels of liberty. If it might involve law-
+enforcement, woman could not practise law or vote on the school question;
+but the Supreme Court of the United States decided that "the practising of
+any profession violates no law of the Federal Constitution."
+
+The study of law must prove of great benefit to woman, though here again
+it has already been shown that it is possible that the greatest practical
+advantage she will derive from entrance into this noble profession will be
+from acquiring knowledge of her country's laws, and how to take care of
+her own property. Widows and unmarried women have almost invariably placed
+their moneyed interests in the hands of a man, when it would have been
+better for all concerned that they should have spent some patient thought
+on the details of their own affairs. The first woman who was admitted to
+the bar in this State (New York) was a teacher in the Albany Normal
+College, and she still remains there, and the women's classes for legal
+study in New York City have been largely composed of those who had no
+intention of claiming admittance to the bar. That women can and do enter
+all these professions with credit to themselves, and that they thus
+enhance the feeling of pride in their sex, which is a strong impulse with
+women, is matter for profound congratulation, and is evidence that the
+animus of the Suffrage movement is not that which stirs society.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER VIII.
+
+
+WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND EDUCATION.
+
+
+The seventh count in the Suffrage indictment declared: "He has denied her
+facilities for obtaining a thorough education, all colleges being closed
+against her."
+
+Among the resolutions passed in the first Suffrage convention was one
+demanding: "Equal rights in the universities," and the first petition
+presented by Suffrage advocates contained a clause asking that entrance to
+men's colleges be obtained for women by legal enactment. We note that this
+is far from being a demand for education for women equal to that given to
+men in the universities. Men have founded colleges for women, men and
+women have worked together in securing for woman every facility and
+opportunity for education of the highest grade; but the "barrier of sex"
+is not broken down in education. But few of the older colleges for men
+admit women, and those few, so far as I have learned from conversation
+with members of their faculties, speak of the arrangement as an
+experiment, and give the need for economy, combined with a desire to
+assist women, as a reason for making that experiment. Meantime the
+knocking at men's literary portals by Suffrage advocates has gone on as
+vigorously as if women could obtain education in no other way.
+
+In the first Suffrage convention ever held in Massachusetts these two
+resolutions were adopted: "That political rights acknowledge no sex, and
+therefore the word 'male' should be stricken from every State
+constitution;" and "That every effort to educate woman, until you accord
+to her her rights, and arouse her conscience by the weight of her
+responsibilities, is futile, and a waste of labor."
+
+The State in which these sentiments were uttered abounded in fine schools
+for girls, among which were Mount Holyoke and Wheaton seminaries.
+
+A rapid survey of some of the educational conditions that led to the state
+of things existing when Suffrage associations were formed, will be in
+place. Learning seemed incompatible with worship early in the Christian
+era. The faith that worked by love was "to the Jews a stumbling-block, and
+to the Greeks foolishness." That great battle between the felt and the
+comprehended, which in this era we have named the conflict between science
+and religion, was decided in the mind of the apostle to the Gentiles when
+he wrote: "We know in part, and we prophesy in part; when that which is
+perfect is come, that which is in part shall be done away." He recalled
+the accusation, "Thou art beside thyself, much learning hath made thee
+mad," and he hastened to assure the unlettered fishermen and the simple
+and devout women who were followers of Christ, that "all knowledge" was
+naught if they had not love; that even faith was vain if it led to the
+rejection of the diviner wisdom that a little child could understand.
+
+The great learning of Augustine and the Fathers brought into the Church
+pagan speculations of God and morality, as well as pagan knowledge in art,
+science, and literature. The Church became corrupted, and a great outcry
+was made against the learning itself, which was falsely supposed to be the
+cause of the degeneration of faith. Symonds says that during the Dark Ages
+that followed upon this first battle between faith and sight, the meaning
+of Latin words derived from the Greek was lost; that Homer and Virgil were
+believed to be contemporaries, and "Orestes Tragedia" was supposed to be
+the name of an author. Milman says that "at the Council of Florence in
+1438, the Pope of Rome and the Patriarch of Constantinople, being
+ignorant, the one of Greek, and the other of Latin, discoursed through an
+interpreter." It was near the time of the Reformation that a German monk
+announced in his convent that "a new language, called Greek, had been
+invented, and a book had been written in it, called the New Testament."
+"Beware of it," he added, "It is full of daggers and poison."
+
+But the tradition of the love that book revealed had crept into the heart
+of the world, and now awoke. Through what struggles the "spirit of all
+truth" promised by Christ was leading, and would lead the world, the
+history of civilization can tell. Women shared in some degree the outward
+benefits of the Revival of Learning. They became in not a few instances
+Doctors of Law and professors of the great universities that sprang up, as
+well as teachers, transcribers, and illuminators in the great nunneries. I
+could give a long and honorable list of names of woman writers and
+artists, in many lands, from Mediaeval to modern times; and one of the
+interesting things revealed by such a record would be the number who were
+working with, or were directly inspired and helped by, a father or a
+brother. The Court contained some women who, like Lady Jane Grey, upheld
+the model of purity while acquiring the learning that naturally
+accompanied wealth. But elegant letters had again become the associate of
+moral and religious corruption in the courts, and the "ignorance of
+preaching" arose to combat it, in Cromwell, the Roundheads, the
+Dissenters, the Covenanters.
+
+Yet sound learning was not to die that Christian truth might live. Of the
+band of Pilgrims and Puritans that came first to our shores, about one in
+thirty was college-bred. While subordinating book-knowledge to piety,
+they had learned scarcely less the dangers of ignorance. Their first
+college was founded because of "the dread of having an illiterate ministry
+to the churches when our ministers shall lie in dust." Charles Francis
+Adams says, in regard to the establishment of Harvard College: "The
+records of Harvard University show that, of all the presiding officers
+during the century and a half of colonial days, but two were laymen, and
+not ministers of the prevailing denomination." He further says that "of
+all who in early times availed themselves of such advantages as this
+institution could offer, nearly half the number did so for the sake of
+devoting themselves to the gospel. The prevailing notion of the purpose of
+education was attended with one remarkable consequence--the cultivation of
+the female mind was regarded with utter indifference."
+
+It was attended with still another remarkable consequence, the effect of
+which is felt up to this hour. Only men who were fitted for a profession
+were given a college education. It is well within my memory when it began
+to be seriously said: "A college education is good for a boy, whether he
+intends to follow a profession or not; it will make him a better business
+man, or even a better farmer." The country girl is now, as a rule, better
+educated than her brother. It also happened in those earlier days, that
+the artist and the musician were expected to attain knowledge by
+intuition, save in technical branches.
+
+The minister was, almost of necessity, like a magistrate in these semi-
+religious colonies. The fact of the breaking up into various sects, which
+we sometimes incline to look upon with regret as defeating Christian
+unity, really saved the essentials of that unity by preventing the
+clerical magistrate from establishing a church resting upon state
+authority. It was obligatory that the civil rulers should be learned, even
+at the expense of those who carried on the business and the home.
+
+During the first two hundred years of our existence it would have been
+almost absurd to expect that women would be extensively educated outside
+the home. The country was poor, and struggling with new conditions, and
+great financial crises swept over it. There were wars and rumors of wars.
+Until after 1812-15 American independence was not an assured fact.
+Whatever may be said of the present, woman's place in America then was in
+the home, and nobly did she fill that place. That she had not been wholly
+uninstructed in even elegant learning, is evidenced by the share she took
+in literature and in the discussion of religious and public matters, and
+in such personal records as that of Elder Faunce, who eulogized Alice
+Southworth Bradford for "her exertions in promoting the literary
+improvement and the deportment of the rising generation." Dame schools
+were early established for girls, and here were often found the sons of
+the farmer and the mechanic. These were established in Massachusetts in
+1635. Late in 1700, girls were admitted through the summer to "Latin
+schools" where boys were taught in winter, and in 1789 women began to be
+associated with men as teachers. In 1771 Connecticut founded a system of
+free schools in which boys and girls were taught. In 1794 the Moravians
+founded a school for girls at Bethlehem, Pennsylvania. Here were educated
+the sisters of Peter Cooper, the mother of President Arthur, and many
+women who became exponents of culture.
+
+New England began before this to have fine private schools for girls, but
+no great step was taken until Miss Hart (afterward Mrs. Willard) had
+become so successful with her academy teaching in her native town of
+Berlin, Connecticut, and in Hartford, that three States simultaneously
+invited her to establish schools within their borders. She went to
+Massachusetts, but afterward, at the solicitation of Governor Clinton, of
+New York, she removed her school to Troy, in 1821. It was a new departure,
+and there was ignorant prejudice to overcome. Governor Clinton, in an
+appeal to the legislature for aid, said: "I trust you will not be deterred
+by commonplace ridicule from extending your munificence to this
+meritorious institution." They were not deterred. An act was passed for
+the incorporation of the proposed institute, and another which gave to
+female academies a share of the literary fund. The citizens of Troy
+contributed liberally, and the success of an effort in woman's high
+education was assured.
+
+As early as 1697 the Penn Charter School was founded, and it has lived
+until to-day. Provision was made "at the cost of the people called
+Quakers," for "all children and servants, male and female, the rich to be
+instructed at reasonable rates, the poor to be maintained and schooled for
+nothing." They also provided for "instruction for both sexes in reading,
+writing, work, languages, arts and sciences." The boys and girls have been
+taught separately, the girls' school being much behind the boys', neither
+Latin nor other ancient language forming a part of their curriculum.
+Friends are just beginning to discuss giving higher education to girls.
+This is a fact especially significant in our discussion, because it has
+always been claimed that the Quaker doctrine that "souls have no sex" led
+them to place woman on an "equality" with man before other sects had
+thought of allowing that they were equals. Lucretia Mott, Susan Anthony,
+Abby Kelley, and a great body of the women who adopted the resolution that
+set forth the uselessness of educating woman until she could vote, and who
+clamored for her entrance to men's institutions, were all of this sect
+that has kept its women generally far behind in the acquisition of
+knowledge.
+
+In 1845 Mrs. Willard was invited to address the Teachers' Convention that
+met in Syracuse. She prepared a paper in which she set forth the idea
+that, "women, now sufficiently educated, should be employed and furnished
+by the men as committees, charged with the minute cares and supervision of
+the public schools," but declined the honor tendered her of delivering it
+in person. Sixty gentlemen from the convention visited her at the hotel,
+and, at their earnest request, she read the essay, which met with their
+emphatic approval of the plan she proposed. The employment of women in the
+common schools, and the system of normal schools, were projected by her.
+
+A Teachers' Convention was held in Rochester in 1852. Miss Anthony, though
+a teacher, was not in attendance upon it, but she records that she went in
+and listened for a few hours to a discussion of the causes that led to
+their profession being held in less esteem than those of the doctor,
+lawyer, and minister. In her judgment, the kernel of the matter was not
+alluded to, so she arose and said: "Mr. President." She records that "at
+length President Davies stepped to the front and said in a tremulous,
+mocking tone," "What will the lady have?" "I wish, sir," she said, "to
+speak to the question." "What is the pleasure of the convention?" asked
+Mr. Davies. A gentleman moved that she be heard; another seconded the
+motion; whereupon, she records, "a discussion, pro and con, followed,
+lasting full half an hour, when a vote was taken of the men only, and
+permission was granted by a small majority." She adds that it was lucky
+for her that the thousand women crowding that hall could not vote on the
+question, for they would have given a solid "No." The president then
+announced "The lady can speak." "It seems to me, gentlemen," said she,
+"that none of you quite comprehend the cause of the disrespect of which
+you complain. Do you not see that, so long as society says a woman is
+incompetent to be a lawyer, minister, or doctor, but has ample ability to
+be a teacher, every man of you who chooses this profession tacitly
+acknowledges that he has no more brains than a woman? Would you exalt your
+profession, exalt those who labor with you. Would you make it more
+lucrative, increase the salaries of the women engaged in the noble work of
+educating our future Presidents, Senators, and Congressmen."
+
+Several thoughts arise in regard to this scene, which was so strongly in
+contrast with the conduct of Mrs. Willard or any of the great educators.
+Miss Anthony gave no reason for her belief that the entrance of woman upon
+the other professions would raise either the status or the wages of those
+engaged in the teacher's profession, and as a matter of fact they have not
+done so. It was not the society that cast scorn at woman's "lack of
+brains" which assisted to remove the natural prejudice against her
+assuming duties that had been deemed unsuited to her physique and her
+necessary work.
+
+Meantime, one year before the Rochester meeting was held, the first
+college for women had been chartered at Auburn, New York, under the name
+of "Auburn Female University." In 1853 it was transferred to Elmira, and
+it was formally opened in 1855. It was placed under the care of the
+Congregational Church, but its charter required that it should have
+representative trustees from five other denominations. Its course of study
+for the degree of A. B. was essentially the same that was then pursued in
+the men's colleges of the State. It was expected to rely upon endowment,
+which put woman's education upon a new and more secure footing.
+
+Suffrage leaders lose no opportunity to represent the Church as an enemy
+to woman's advancement. Nothing can be further from the truth; and in
+striking evidence stand the colleges, which, while unsectarian in spirit
+and in method, have been established and cared for by special religious
+denominations. Dr. Jacobi, in her book "Common Sense," takes up the tale
+and says: "The Mount Holyoke Seminary, the immediate successor of that at
+Troy, was opened in 1837 by Miss Lyon, in spite of the opposition of the
+clergy." Many besides the clergy were opposed to the plan for which Miss
+Lyon was endeavoring to raise money. Her idea that the entire domestic
+work of the establishment could be done by pupils and teachers, was
+thought unwise and hopeless. In that noble school, where thousands of
+women have been educated, a great number have become missionaries. When a
+Suffrage convention in session in Worcester wrote to Miss Lyon, asking her
+to interest herself in the wrongs of her sex, she answered, "I cannot
+leave my work." Neither was Vassar College founded from any impulse or
+suggestion of Suffrage agitators, but in a spirit exactly the opposite.
+The real impetus to its founding came from Milo Parker Jewett, who was
+born in Vermont in 1808, and was graduated at Dartmouth College and at
+Andover Theological Seminary. He was active in the formation of the
+common-school system of Ohio, and in 1839 he founded The Judson Female
+Institute in Marion, Alabama. He established a seminary for girls in
+Poughkeepsie in 1855. He had studied law, and became the friend and legal
+adviser of Matthew Vassar, who, being unmarried, was casting about for a
+method of disposing of his fortune. He suggested to Mr. Vassar an endowed
+college for women, and visited the universities and libraries of Europe
+with a plan of organization in mind. Mr. Vassar gladly accepted this great
+enlargement upon an idea that had lain dormant in his own mind, and Vassar
+College was founded, Dr. Jewett becoming its first president in 1862.
+
+I may claim to have been beside the cradle of Vassar College; for when Dr.
+Jewett resigned the presidency in 1864, my father named the successor who
+was appointed, Dr. John H. Raymond, his life-long friend. Dr. Raymond came
+to Rochester to discuss a plan of work, and, knowing my father's interest,
+I was on tiptoe to hear about the new college. At my earnest solicitation,
+he and Dr. Raymond and Prest. Anderson permitted me to be present at their
+discussions. I learned to comprehend the value of womanliness to the world
+by the estimate that those noble educators put upon it. It was evident
+that they were arranging for those for whose minds they felt respect. They
+made no foolish remarks about the superiority, inferiority, or equality of
+the sexes, and had no contempt to throw upon the old education of tutor,
+and library, and young ladies' seminary. They did not sneer at the "female
+mind," but they did talk of the feminine mind as of something as distinct
+in its essence from the masculine mind as the feminine form is distinct in
+its outlines. To "preserve womanliness" was a task they felt they must
+fulfil, or the women for whose good they labored would one day call them
+to account. The dictum so frequently in the mouths of Suffrage leaders,
+"There is no sex in brain," would have been abhorrent to them. In their
+view, there was as much sex in brain as in hand; and the education that
+did not, through cultivation, emphasize that fact, would be a lower and
+not a higher product. They laid that intellectual corner-stone in love,
+and in the faith that the same womanly spirit which, when there was not
+college education enough to go round, had said, "Give it to the boys,
+because their work must be public," would find, through the glad return
+the boys were making, a way to teach the world still higher lessons of
+womanly character and influence. Since that time, college after college
+has arisen without a dream on the part of the founders, faculties, or
+students that "every effort to educate woman, until you accord to her the
+right to vote, is futile and a waste of labor," and it may well be that
+the women educated in these colleges will decide that, because political
+rights do acknowledge sex, therefore the word "male" should not be
+stricken from any State constitution.
+
+Before the committee of the New York State Constitutional Convention in
+1894, Mr. Edward Lauterbach, who was arguing in favor of woman suffrage,
+said: "It was only after the establishment of the Willard School at Troy,
+only after its noble founder, believing that women and men were formed in
+the same mould, successfully tried the experiment of educating women in
+the higher branches, that steps for higher education became generally
+taken." If Mr. Lauterbach imagines that Mrs. Willard was in the most
+distant way an advocate of woman's doing the same work as man in the same
+way, he is unfamiliar with her life and work. Mrs. Willard, in setting
+forth her ideal of woman's education, said "Education should be adapted to
+female character and duties. To do this would raise the character of
+man.... Why may not housewifery be reduced to a system as well as the
+other arts? If women were properly fitted for instruction, they would be
+likely to teach children better than the other sex; they could afford to
+do it cheaper; and men might be at liberty to add to the wealth of the
+nation by any of the thousand occupations from which women are necessarily
+debarred." Old-fashioned wisdom, but choicely good. Mr. Lauterbach further
+said: "What wonder that, being so fully equipped in every mental
+attribute, in every intellectual qualification, they will be able not only
+to cast a vote but to take practical part in the administration of the
+government?"
+
+A female Solon would be a woman still, and in a democracy the intellectual
+is not the only qualification needed. This certainly was the belief of
+Mrs. Willard, and in 1868, when the Suffrage leaders were holding a
+convention in Washington, and were urging that Congress should pass a
+sixteenth amendment admitting women to suffrage, Almira Lincoln Phelps,
+sister of Mrs. Willard, herself an educator and an author of text-books,
+wrote to Isabella Beecher Hooker: "Hoping you will receive kindly what I
+am about to write, I will proceed without apologies. I have confidence in
+your nobleness of soul, and that you know enough of me to believe in my
+devotion to the best interests of woman. I can scarcely realize that you
+are giving your name and influence to a cause which, with some good, but,
+as I think, misguided women, numbers among its advocates others with loose
+morals.... If we could with propriety petition the Almighty to change the
+condition of the sexes, and let men take a turn in bearing children and in
+suffering the physical ailments peculiar to women, which render them unfit
+for certain positions and business, why, in this case, if we really wish
+to be men, and thought God would change the established order, we might
+make our petition; but why ask Congress to make us men? Circumstances drew
+me from the quiet domestic life while I was yet young, but success in
+labors which involved publicity, and which may have been of advantage to
+society, was never considered as an equivalent to my own heart for such a
+loss of retirement. In the name of my sainted sister, Emma Willard, and of
+my friend Lydia Sigourney, and, I think I might say, in the name of the
+women of the past generation who have been prominent as writers and
+educators (the exception may be made of Mary Wollstonecraft, Frances
+Wright, and a few licentious French writers) in our own country and in
+Europe, let me urge the high-souled and honorable of our sex to turn their
+energies into that channel which will enable them to act for the true
+interests of their sex."
+
+In a woman's club, last winter, a New York teacher, Miss Helen Dawes
+Brown, a graduate of Vassar College, founder of the Woman's University
+Club and also one of the founders of Barnard College, in a speech said in
+part: "The young girl who doesn't dance, who doesn't play games, who can't
+skate and can't row, is a girl to be pitied. She is losing a large part of
+what Chesterfield calls the 'joy and titivation of youth.' If our young
+girl has learned to be good, teach her not to disregard the externals of
+goodness. Let our girls, in college and out, learn to be agreeable. A
+girl's education should, first of all, be directed to fitting her for the
+things of home. We talk of woman as if the only domestic relations were
+those of wife and mother. Let us not forget that she is also a
+granddaughter, a daughter, a sister, an aunt. I should like to see her
+made her best in all these characters, before she undertakes public
+duties. The best organization in the world is the home. Whatever in the
+education of girls draws them away from that, is an injury to
+civilization."
+
+At the close of an article in the "Outlook," written by Elizabeth Fisher
+Read, of Smith College, she said, speaking of their last adaptation of
+athletics: "From the beginning, the policy of Smith College has been, not
+to duplicate the means of development offered in men's colleges, but to
+provide courses and methods of study that should do for women what the
+men's courses did for them. Emphasis has been put, not on the resemblances
+between men and women, but rather on the differences. The effort has not
+been to turn out new women, capable of doing anything man can do, from
+walking thirty miles to solving the problems of higher mathematics.
+Instead of this, the college has tried to develop its students along
+natural womanly lines, not along the lines that would naturally be
+followed in training men."
+
+This sounds strangely like Mrs. Willard, who would be the first to rejoice
+in the new education and in the old spirit that it can develop. Of course
+Suffrage claims to have the same end in view. Every college woman must
+decide for herself where she will stand on the question. So far, there
+never has been any open affiliation between the colleges and the Suffrage
+movement. We wait to hear a final verdict.
+
+A contributor to the Suffrage department of the Woman's Edition of the
+Rochester "Post-Express," March 26, 1896, said: "Will Rochester give to
+its daughters the same advantages as to its sons, or will it say to the
+girls who have no money to leave home and seek in Smith and Wellesley the
+culture they cannot procure here: 'You cannot be thoroughly educated; you
+have no money; you can have no education; sit and spin; bake and brew--but
+don't bother about higher education,' or will the University of Rochester
+recognize the one splendid opportunity that awaits it, the one last chance
+to take its proper place and become all that the highest American
+standards demand for a University?"
+
+The time has not yet fully come when these same sentimentalists shall say
+to the faculty and trustees of Vassar, Wellesley and Smith: "Will you not
+give to the boys of Poughkeepsie, Northhampton, and Wellesley the same
+advantages as to the girls? Or will you say to them: 'You cannot be
+thoroughly educated; you have no money; you can have no education; work in
+the shop or on the farm, but don't bother about higher education.'" This
+is Suffrage logic, and there is no more reason why the educational
+institutions in which men study from the age of eighteen to twenty-two
+should be invaded by women of that age, than why women's institutions
+should be invaded by men. Yet this would be the destruction of our women's
+colleges. When Miss Anthony headed a delegation that went bodily to force
+co-education on Rochester University, she was told that classes open to
+women had been connected with the college for years.
+
+The kind of education best suited to the idea of Suffrage is a training in
+political history and present political issues; but the women who have
+talked loudly and vaguely of the right of suffrage for years have been the
+last to present such knowledge. I have read their "History," attended
+their conventions, glanced at their magazines, but never have come upon
+the discussion of a single public issue. I think those most familiar with
+it will bear me out if I make the statement that their principal
+periodical, "The Woman's Journal," edited by Mary A. Livermore, Julia Ward
+Howe, Mr. Blackwell, and Alice Stone Blackwell, has not contained any
+presentations of questions of public policy in the past ten years.
+
+Those whose names are signed to the Suffrage Woman's Bible, and who are
+therefore responsible for that disgraceful effusion, have little right to
+claim to be intelligent instructors of their sex. With an ignorance that
+is monumental, Frances Ellen Burr glories in the fact that "the Revising
+Committee refer to a woman's translation of the Bible as their ultimate
+authority for the Greek, Latin, and Hebrew text," and they add that "Julia
+Smith, this distinguished scholar," is the only person, man or woman, who
+ever made a translation of the Bible without help. They say: "Wycliff made
+a translation from the Vulgate assisted by Nicholas of Hereford. He was
+not sufficiently familiar with Hebrew and Greek to translate from those
+tongues. Coverdale's translation was not done alone. Tyndale, in his
+translation, had the assistance of Frye, of William Roye, and also of
+Miles Coverdale. Julia Smith translated the whole Bible absolutely alone,
+without consultation with any one"! Again they say, "King James appointed
+fifty-four men of learning to translate the Bible. Seven of them died, and
+forty-seven carried the work on. Compare this corps of workers with one
+little woman performing the Herculean task without one suggestion or word
+of advice from mortal man "! Yes, compare it! Uncultured Julia Smith,
+stirred by the Millerite prophecies, did the best she could to enlighten
+her own mind, and should be honored for so doing; but what is to be said
+of the women who in this day, in cool print, are willing to show that they
+have no comprehension of her grotesque errors or of the difficulties that
+beset a real scholar in his noble task? Protest at woman's educational
+deprivation comes with ill-grace from those who have thus revealed their
+own lack of knowledge of the oldest literature in the world, the model of
+poetry and prose, the guardian of the purity of our English speech.
+
+Educated women desire that woman should do all that strength and time
+allow in the care of the public schools. The school suffrage ought to be a
+boon for them. But it does not, so far, look as if women could make it so.
+The figures of the school vote of women in Connecticut, for three years,
+occasion serious question whether the use of the ballot is the way in
+which woman is to effect anything. In Staten Island, ignorance in women
+voted out education, and a tremendous effort had to be made to vote it in
+again. The number of men who voted at the last general election in
+Connecticut was about 164,000. The women outnumber the men, but the
+following table represents the school vote in the State of Emma Willard.
+It certainly does not represent the amount of interest taken in education,
+nor in the common schools:
+
+  COUNTIES.   1893. 1894. 1895.
+
+  Hartford.   1293  1186   689
+  New Haven.   973   949   570
+  New London.  364   873   185
+  Fairneld.    273   198   126
+  Windham      176   182   148
+  Litchfield   159    85    50
+  Middlesex     60   136   101
+  Tolland      372   137    37
+
+This gives the results from all but three or four towns in the State.
+Aside from any other considerations, the uncertainty attending the vote of
+an element whose first call is elsewhere than at the polls, is a menace to
+the welfare of the schools as well as of republican institutions.
+
+One of the grievances of the Suffrage leaders lay in the fact that the
+literary women of the country would express no sympathy with their
+efforts. Poets and authors in general were denounced. Gail Hamilton, who
+had the good of woman in her heart, who was better informed on public
+affairs than perhaps any woman in the United States, and whose trenchant
+pen cut deep and spared not, always reprobated the cause. Mrs. Stowe stood
+aloof, and so did Catherine Beecher, though urged to the contrary course
+by Henry Ward Beecher and Isabella Beecher Hooker. In a letter to Mrs.
+Cutler, Catherine Beecher said: "I am not opposed to women's speaking in
+public to any who are willing to hear, nor am I opposed to women's
+preaching, sanctioned as it is by a prophetic apostle--as one of the
+millennial results. Nor am I opposed to a woman's earning her own
+independence in any lawful calling, and wish many more were open to her
+which are now closed. Nor am I opposed to the organization and agitation
+of women, as women, to set forth the wrongs suffered by great multitudes
+of our sex, which are multiform and most humiliating. Nor am I opposed to
+women's undertaking to govern boys and men--they always have, and they
+always will. Nor am I opposed to the claim that women have equal rights
+with men. I rather claim that they have the sacred superior rights that
+God and good men accord to the weak and defenceless, by which they have
+the easiest work, the most safe and comfortable places, and the largest
+share of all the most agreeable and desirable enjoyments of this life. My
+main objection to the Woman-Suffrage organization is this, that a wrong
+mode is employed to gain a right object. The right object sought is, to
+remedy the wrongs and relieve the sufferings of great multitudes of our
+sex; the wrong mode is that which aims to enforce by law, instead of by
+love. It is one which assumes that man is the author and abettor of all
+these wrongs, and that he must be restrained and regulated by
+constitutions and laws, as the chief and most trustworthy methods. I hold
+that the fault is as much, or more, with women than with men, inasmuch as
+we have all the power we need to remedy the wrongs complained of, and yet
+we do not use it for that end. It is my deep conviction that all
+reasonable and conscientious men of our age, and especially of our
+country, are not only willing but anxious to provide for the good of our
+sex. They will gladly bestow all that is just, reasonable, and kind,
+whenever we unite in asking in the proper spirit and manner. In the half a
+century since I began to work for the education and relief of my sex, I
+have succeeded so largely by first convincing intelligent and benevolent
+women that what I aimed at was right and desirable, and then securing
+their influence with their fathers, brothers, and husbands, and always
+with success. Why not take the shorter course, and ask to have the men do
+for us what we might do for ourselves if we had the ballot? Now if women
+are all made voters, it will be their duty to vote, and also to qualify
+themselves for that duty. But already women have more than they can do
+well in all that appropriately belongs to them, and, to add the civil and
+political duties of men, would be deemed a measure of injustice and
+oppression by those who are opposed."
+
+Miss Beecher, like Mrs. Willard and Mrs. Phelps, made text-books for the
+use of her own seminaries, and her Arithmetic, and Mental and Moral
+Philosophy, and Applied Theology, were among the educational forces of her
+day. It is one of the significant signs of the times that science and
+education, as well as philanthropy, are occupying themselves just now with
+childhood and motherhood and housewifery. Mrs. Willard's high ideal of
+womanliness is beginning to be set forth by the electric light of modern
+thought.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER IX.
+
+
+WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE CHURCH.
+
+
+The eighth count in the Suffrage indictment reads: "He allows her in
+Church, as well as in State, but a subordinate position, claiming
+Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry, and, with some
+exceptions, from any public participation in the affairs of the Church."
+
+More than thirty years later than this, Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, and
+Mrs. Gage wrote in the preface to their "History of Woman Suffrage:"
+"American men may quiet their consciences with the delusion that no such
+injustice exists in this country as in Eastern nations. Though, with the
+general improvement in our institutions, woman's condition must inevitably
+have improved also, yet the same principle that degrades her in Turkey
+insults her here. Custom forbids a woman there to enter a mosque, or call
+the hour for prayers; here it forbids her a voice in Church councils or
+State legislatures.... The Church, too, took alarm, knowing that with the
+freedom and education acquired in becoming a component part of the
+Government, woman would not only outgrow the power of the priesthood, and
+religious superstitions, but would also invade the pulpit, interpret the
+Bible anew from her own standpoint, and claim an equal voice in all
+ecclesiastical councils. With fierce warnings and denunciations from the
+pulpit, and false interpretations of Scripture, women have been
+intimidated and misled, and their religious feelings have been played upon
+for their more complete subjugation. While the general principles of the
+Bible are in favor of the most enlarged freedom and equality of the race,
+isolated texts have been used to block the wheels of progress in all
+periods; thus bigots have defended capital punishment, intemperance,
+slavery, polygamy, and the subjection of woman. The creeds of all nations
+make obedience to man the corner-stone of her religious character.
+Fortunately, however, more liberal minds are now giving us higher and
+purer expositions of the Scriptures."
+
+It is fifteen years since these statements were made, and we have now the
+first instalment of "the Bible interpreted anew from her own standpoint,"
+which presumably issues, in their view, from more liberal minds, and is
+higher and purer than the old one. In the Introduction to that Suffrage
+Woman's Bible (which is as yet only a commentary on the Pentateuch), Mrs.
+Stanton says: "From the inauguration of the movement for woman's
+emancipation the Bible has been used to hold her in her' divinely
+appointed sphere' prescribed by the Old and New Testaments. The canon and
+civil law, Church and State, priests and legislators, all political
+parties and religious denominations, have alike taught that woman was made
+after man, of man, and for man,--an inferior being, subject to man.
+Creeds, codes, Scriptures, and statutes are all based on this idea. The
+fashions, forms, ceremonies, and customs of society, church ordinances,
+and discipline, all grow out of this idea.... So perverted is the
+religious element in her nature, that with faith and works she is the
+chief support of the Church and Clergy,--the very powers that make her
+emancipation impossible."
+
+I know that many believers in Suffrage are also believers in the Bible and
+in denominational Christianity. Mrs. Helen Montgomery says, in the Woman's
+edition of the Rochester "Post-Express," that one reason for her favorable
+consideration of it is, that "Two-thirds of the membership of the
+Christian church cannot express their conviction at the polls, since women
+may not vote." "Much of the callousness of politicians to church opinion,"
+she adds, "comes from the knowledge that that opinion is backed by few
+votes." I also know that many of those who disbelieve in Suffrage may also
+disbelieve in the Bible, the clergy, and the Church. I further recognize
+the fact that the church and religion are not synonymous terms. I have no
+attacks to make, and no special pleading to do. I am discussing the
+question of Suffrage as I find it in the writing and the speech of its
+proposers and its present conspicuous advocates. Each American woman has
+this mighty problem before her, and she must settle it according to her
+own conscience and best enlightenment.
+
+Mrs. Stanton admits with shame that woman is one of the chief supporters
+of the Church. Mrs. Montgomery says with delight that she forms two-thirds
+of the Christian Church. Individual members of Suffrage organizations may
+be in sympathy with Christianity, or against it; but the movement itself
+cannot be on both sides of this question. What is its record? I will
+endeavor to trace it, and will then, as best I may, attempt to say a few
+words upon the general subject of the "subordination of woman."
+
+In the course of the first clause of their accusation, the women say:
+"Claiming Apostolic authority for her exclusion from the ministry." In
+view of the fact that Paul frequently alludes to the teaching and
+ministrations of women, it has come to be generally thought among
+Christian scholars, I believe, that this injunction that they "keep
+silence in the churches," referred to the propriety of their conduct in
+the moral,--or rather the immoral,--atmosphere by which the Church at
+Corinth was surrounded. This seems reasonable, because it may be observed
+that, in writing to Timothy, who was in Macedonia, to Titus, who was in
+Crete, and to the Church at Ephesus, while he repeats his general
+injunctions of woman's submission to man, and especially to her husband,
+he says nothing relative to her public work in the church. But if Paul had
+been writing to the church in New England, in 1634, and in New York in
+1774, his injunction to silence might well have been applied to the first
+woman preachers to whom Americans were called upon to listen. When Anne
+Hutchinson, in Boston, preached that "the power of the Holy Spirit
+dwelleth perfectly in every believer, and the inward revelations of her
+own spirit, and the conscious judgment of her own mind are of authority
+paramount to any word of God," she shook the young colony to its
+foundation, as no man had shaken it. The militia that had been ordered to
+the Pequot war refused to march, because she had proclaimed their chaplain
+to be "under a covenant of works, and not under a covenant of grace." Her
+influence, and not her ballot, if she had one, threatened anarchy in the
+state, and caused a schism in the church such as might have crushed out
+the life from the infant body to which Paul was writing.
+
+In 1774 appeared the next public woman preacher, Ann Lee. She proclaimed
+that God was revealed a dual being, male and female, to the Jews; that
+Jesus revealed to the world God as a Father; and that she,--Ann Lee,
+"Mother Ann,"--was God's revelation of the Mother, "the bearing spirit of
+the creation of God." She founded the sect of Shakers, whose main articles
+of belief, besides the one above mentioned, were: community of goods; non-
+resistance to force, even in self-defence; the sinfulness of all human
+authority, and consequently the sinfulness of participation in any form of
+government; absolute separation of the sexes, and consequently no marriage
+institution. Her mission as "the Christ of the Second Appearing," began
+with her announcement of God's, wrath upon all marriage, and the public
+renunciation of her own. In New York, as in New England, her proclamations
+against government and war tended directly to anarchy, and in the
+momentous year 1776 she was for that reason imprisoned in Poughkeepsie,
+whence she was released by Governor Clinton's pardon.
+
+The next pulpitless preacher, in the succession we are considering,
+appeared in this country in 1828. Her name was Frances Wright. She was a
+person of totally different mind and methods from Anne Hutchinson and Ann
+Lee. She was professedly an enemy of religion. Anne Hutchinson attacked
+church and state in the name of Christian human perfection. Ann Lee
+attacked church and state in the name of woman; she preached communism and
+separation of the sexes in the name of Christ; she taught the abolition of
+marriage. Frances Wright preached communism and sex license in the name of
+irreligion. In opening the columns of the "Free Inquirer" to discussion,
+in New York, in 1828, she said: "Religion is true--and in that case the
+conviction of its truth should dictate every human word and govern every
+sublunary action,--or it is a deception. If it is a deception, it is not
+useless only, it is mischievous; it is mischievous by its idle terrors; it
+is mischievous by its false morality; it is mischievous by its hypocrisy;
+by its fanaticism; by its dogmatism; by its threats; by its hopes; by its
+promises; and last, though not least, by its waste of public time and
+public money." While deciding that it was a deception, she revealed the
+evil results to which abandonment of all faith can lead a woman with a
+clever brain and a fearless tongue. She constantly denounced religion as
+the source of all injustice and bigotry and of the "enslavement of women."
+
+The editors of the "Suffrage History" say: "As early as 1828 the standard
+of the Christian party in politics was openly unfurled. Frances Wright had
+long been aware of its insidious efforts, and its reliance upon women for
+its support. Ignorant, superstitious, devout, woman's general lack of
+education made her a fitting instrument for the work of thus undermining
+the republic. Having deprived her of her just rights, the country was now
+to find in woman its most dangerous foe. Frances Wright lectured that
+winter in the large cities of the western and middle States, striving to
+rouse the nation to the new danger which threatened it. The clergy at
+once, became her most bitter opponents. The cry of 'infidel' was started
+on every side, though her work was of vital importance to the country and
+undertaken from the purest philanthropy."
+
+It was high time that a Christian and a non-Christian party in politics
+should unfurl a banner; for to the dauntless courage of the land from
+which she came--Scotland--she added the polished manner of the country
+from which came D'Arusmont, the husband from whom she was soon parted. To
+the zeal of the Covenanter, the moral blackness of the infidel, and the
+political creed of the Commune, she united the doctrine of Free Love. As
+she set these forth with blandishments of speech and manner, the country
+did indeed find in this woman a most dangerous foe. When "Fanny Wright
+societies" sprang up in New York and the West, horror might well be felt
+by lovers of the Republic.
+
+Lucretia Mott was the next public preacher in this succession. Pure in
+personal character, lofty in spirit, winning in address, she took for her
+motto, "Truth for Authority, not Authority for Truth." As authority for
+that truth, she took Elias Hicks.
+
+Dr. Jacobi, in "Common Sense," says: "The abolitionists were declared to
+have set aside the laws of God when they allowed women to speak in public:
+and, by a pastoral letter, the Congregational churches of Massachusetts
+were directed to defend themselves against heresy, by closing their doors
+to the innovators. The Methodists denounced the Garrisonian societies as
+no-government, no-Sabbath, no-church, no-Bible, no-marriage, women's
+rights societies." Not the Methodists alone, but the Congregationalists,
+the Presbyterians, the Episcopalians, the Baptists, the Unitarians, the
+Universalists, and the Quakers so denounced that faction of them in which
+culminated many of the doctrines of Anne Hutchinson, Ann Lee, Frances
+Wright, and Lucretia Mott.
+
+In an appeal to the women of New York, in 1860, signed by Elizabeth Cady
+Stanton, Lydia Mott, Ernestine Rose, Martha C. Wright, and Susan B.
+Anthony, we read: "The religion of our day teaches that, in the most
+sacred relations of the race, the woman must ever be subject to the man;
+that in the husband centres all power and learning; that the difference in
+position between husband and wife is as vast as that between Christ and
+the Church; and woman struggles to hold the noble impulses of her nature
+in abeyance to opinions uttered by a Jewish teacher, which, alas! the mass
+believe to be the will of God."
+
+In 1895, among the names of those responsible for the Suffrage Woman's
+Bible, we find three to which the title "Rev." is prefixed. The opening
+commentary on the first verses of Genesis, where the creation of man is
+described, says: "Instead of three male personages, as generally
+represented, a Heavenly Father, Mother, and Son would seem more rational.
+The first step in the elevation of woman to her true position, as an equal
+factor in human progress, is the cultivation of the religious sentiment in
+regard to her dignity and equality, the recognition by the rising
+generation of an ideal Heavenly Mother, to whom their prayers should be
+addressed, as well as to a Father." Here is Ann Lee's doctrine revived
+with a mocking suggestion that savors more of Frances Wright than of its
+poor, half-crazed author. The soul-sufficiency of Ann Hutchinson, the
+spiritual anarchy of Lucretia Mott, the infidelity and the veiled
+coarseness of Frances Wright, have all found fit setting in this
+commentary on the Pentateuch. I know that Miss Anthony repudiates the
+Suffrage Woman's Bible in the name of the Association of which she is
+President. It certainly does not represent the faith or the culture or the
+doctrines of many who belong to that body; but she cannot really repudiate
+it for herself or for them. It was promised in the History of which she is
+co-editor, it was foreshadowed in her circular quoted above, as well as in
+innumerable speeches of hers in convention. Those Christian and
+philanthropic bodies that have attached themselves to the Suffrage
+movement have this book to account for and with. Whatever they may
+personally decide to think or say of it, it is the consummate blossom of
+the spirit of the Suffrage movement, and the names it bears upon its
+title-page represent the varied classes that have worked for the political
+enfranchisement of woman. By the world outside it will so be dealt with.
+
+Few movements have been started, especially among women, that did not
+professedly stand upon high moral and religious ground. Fourierism was
+superhuman in its intention,--in this country, at least. Free-thinking
+hopes to deliver the soul from the bondage of superstition in all
+religion. Mormonism was founded as "the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-
+Day Saints." Communism at Oneida was professedly built upon the doctrine
+of human perfection in Christian love. The disaster to the soul is in
+proportion to the amount of perversion of a living faith. Every movement
+must be judged, not by what its advocates suppose themselves to believe,
+but by that which time proves they do believe.
+
+But to return to the Suffrage charge. "American men may quiet their
+consciences with the delusion that no such injustice exists in this
+country as in Eastern nations. Though, with the general improvement in our
+institutions, woman's condition must inevitably have improved also, yet
+the same principle that degrades her in Turkey insults her here." American
+men _may_ quiet their consciences, while striving to enlighten them
+further. The answer to Mohammedanism is Turkey. The answer to Christianity
+is America. Ceremonial uncleanness is absolutely unlike religious and
+social orderliness in the distribution of duties. How came there to be
+"general improvement in our institutions?" There has been no improvement
+in Turkey, in China, in India, or in Japan, except such as is creeping
+back from the Christendom of which these Suffragists speak with a sneer.
+Freedom and education have not been appreciably advanced by "woman's
+becoming a component part of the government" in any land. The lands where
+she has the most apparent governmental control are the ones that are least
+educated and least free among those of modern civilization.
+
+The church is an ever-growing body, and its clergy hold widely differing
+beliefs. The Egyptian priesthood guarded the sacred mysteries and ruled
+the state. Through the utmost that natural religion can do for man, they
+had gleaned the secret of a Supreme Maker and Ruler of the universe.
+Moses, who was "learned in all their wisdom," led the first exiles across
+the sea to find "freedom to worship God," and, from that day to this, the
+ministers of religion have stood as public guard over the mysteries of
+faith and, in the beginnings of each civilization, have ruled the state.
+Whenever they have forgotten the lesson that Moses taught, the lesson that
+Paul more clearly taught, that to God alone is any soul responsible, they
+have proved stumbling-blocks to progress. It is true that religious
+bigots, as Suffrage writers say, have "defended capital punishment,
+intemperance, slavery, polygamy, and the subjection of woman." But capital
+punishment is defended by many besides bigots. Intemperance finds not only
+its strongest but its most effective foes in the Christian ministry and
+the Christian church. Slavery in our country rent in twain several great
+religious bodies. James G. Birney says that "probably nine-tenths of the
+Abolitionists were church-members." With polygamy came woman's subjection
+and woman suffrage into our free States. And the bigots outside the
+Christian ministry and church must share the same condemnation with any
+who, professing freedom, have yet forgotten the injunction of the Bible
+and the Christ.
+
+"She would invade the pulpit." Invasion seems a strange word to use in
+regard to woman's entrance upon one of the highest of human duties. A
+pulpitless teacher she is and always has been. Missionary women have
+taught multitudes of beings. The Salvation lassie has no thought of
+invasion, or of self-exaltation, when she leads the service of a thousand
+souls; and I am not willing to believe that a single woman who has entered
+the regular ministry has any more. It is the spirit of Suffrage that looks
+upon woman's advance as an attack.
+
+But times have changed, say Suffrage leaders. Mrs. Cornelia K. Hood, in
+her report of the King's County Suffrage work for 1895, says: "A circular
+letter was addressed to all the clergymen known to be friends, asking them
+that a sermon might be preached by them in favor of woman suffrage. This
+request met with a liberal response, and many able addresses were made on
+the Sunday morning set for that purpose." In her report of the Suffrage
+campaign in New York city in the winter of 1895-96, Dr. Jacobi says,
+speaking of the parlor meetings: "Several prominent clergymen joined us--
+Mr. Rainsford, the Rev. Arthur Brooks, Mr. Percy Grant, Mr. Eaton, Mr.
+Leighton Williams." In referring to the last regular meeting of the County
+Suffrage Association held that winter in Cooper Union, she says: "The
+meeting was addressed by Samuel Gompers, President of the Federation of
+Labor, by Dr. Peters, an Episcopal clergyman, by Father Ducey, the
+Catholic priest, Dr. Saunders, a Baptist minister, and Henry George, the
+advocate of single tax." In her address before the Constitutional
+Convention, she said: "The Church, which fifty years ago was a unit in
+denouncing the public work of woman--even for the slave--is now divided in
+its councils." The church never was a unit in denouncing the public work
+of woman, and much of her noblest public work has been done under its
+auspices. The behavior of Suffrage women in slavery times caused scandal
+to church and state. The right of private judgment, claimed always by
+Protestant Christianity, has divided the clergy on all questions; and "a
+clergyman, a priest, and a minister" were as free to believe, and to speak
+what they believed, on suffrage, as were Samuel Gompers, who lately
+offended the Labor organization by inviting two anarchists to address it,
+and Henry George, whose single-tax theories have lately turned law and
+order upside down in Delaware.
+
+"Interpret the Bible anew from her own standpoint." The volume in which a
+beginning has been made in this work is a thick pamphlet bearing a motto
+from Cousin on one cover, and the picture of a piano as an advertisement
+on the other. It is with a profound sense of sadness and disgust that any
+woman who honors God and loves her own sex turns its pages. Behold the
+first dilemma in which the commentators find themselves involved. Mrs.
+Stanton opens the comments on the Creation as follows: "In the great work
+of the creation, the crowning glory was realized when man and woman were
+evolved on the sixth day, the masculine and feminine forces in the image
+of God, that must have existed eternally, in all forms of matter and
+mind.... How then is it possible to make woman an afterthought?... All
+those theories based on the assumption that man was prior in the creation,
+have no foundation in Scripture. As to woman's subjection, on which both
+the canon and civil law delight to dwell, it is important to note that
+equal dominion is given to woman over every living thing, but not a word
+is said giving man dominion over woman. No lesson of woman's subjection
+can be fairly drawn from the first chapter of the Old Testament."
+
+In commenting on the second account of the Creation, Ellen Battelle
+Dietrick says: "It is now generally conceded that some one (nobody
+pretends to know who) at some time (nobody pretends to know exactly when)
+copied two creation myths on the same leather roll, one immediately
+following the other. Modern theologians have, for convenience sake,
+entitled these two fables, respectively, the Elohistic and the Jahoistic
+stories. They differ not only in the point I have mentioned above, but in
+the order of the 'creative acts,' in regard to the mutual attitude of man
+and woman, and in regard to human freedom from prohibitions imposed by
+deity. Now, it is manifest that both of these stories cannot be true;
+intelligent women who feel bound to give the preference to either, may
+decide according to their own judgment which is more worthy of an
+intelligent woman's acceptance. My own opinion is, that the second story
+was manipulated by some wily Jew, in an endeavor to give 'heavenly
+authority' for requiring a woman to obey the man she married." Lillie
+Devereux Blake takes still another horn of the dilemma. She says: "In the
+detailed description of creation we find a gradually ascending series.
+'Creeping things,' 'great sea-monsters,' every bird of wing,' 'cattle and
+living things of the earth,' the 'fish of the sea and the birds of the
+heavens;' then man, and, last and crowning glory of the whole, woman. It
+cannot be maintained that woman was inferior to man, even if, as asserted
+in chapter ii., she was created after him, without at once admitting that
+man is inferior to the creeping things because created after them."
+
+These commentators, on the whole, agree that the first account of creation
+does not teach woman's subjection to man; that, although "some wily Jew"
+inserted the second account in an endeavor to give "heavenly authority for
+requiring a woman to obey the man she married," he has been outwitted
+after all, for the ascending series of creation really teaches the same
+lesson as the first account, and from it woman's inferiority cannot be
+maintained. And yet it would seem that she must be an "afterthought" if
+she is to be superior.
+
+Mrs. Stanton, in summing up the concensus of opinion on a matter which is
+not of the slightest importance to any of them, except that they feel an
+interest, for the cause of Suffrage, in endeavoring to release woman from
+the long bondage of superstition, says: "The first account dignifies woman
+as an important factor in the creation, equal in power and glory with man.
+The second makes her a mere afterthought. The world in good running order
+without her, the only reason for her advent being the solitude of man.
+There is something sublime in bringing order out of chaos; light out of
+darkness; giving each planet its place in the solar system; oceans and
+lands their limits,--wholly inconsistent with a petty surgical operation
+to find material for the mother of the race. It is in this allegory that
+all the enemies of woman rest their battering-rams, to prove her
+inferiority. Accepting the view that man was prior in the creation, some
+Scriptural writers say that, as the woman was of the man, therefore her
+position should be one of subjection. Grant it. Then, as the historical
+fact is reversed in our day, and the man is now of the woman, shall his
+place be one of subjection? The equal position declared in the first
+account must prove more satisfactory to both sexes; created alike in the
+image of God--the heavenly Mother and Father. Thus, the Old Testament,' in
+the beginning,' proclaims the simultaneous creation of man and woman, the
+eternity and equality of sex; and the New Testament echoes back through
+the centuries the individual sovereignty of woman growing out of this
+natural fact. Paul, in speaking of equality as the very soul and essence
+of Christianity, said, 'There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither
+bond nor free, there is neither male nor female; for ye are all one in
+Christ Jesus.' With this recognition of the feminine element in the
+Godhead in the Old Testament, and this declaration of the equality of the
+sexes in the New, we may well wonder at the contemptible status woman
+occupies in the Christian Church to-day."
+
+So the woman who spurns the Bible as the book that is responsible for
+woman's degradation, who denies that it is the word of God, who pours out
+upon Paul the vials of her wrath, finds in them both her highest warrant
+for believing in the "equal position" of woman, "the perfect equality of
+the sexes." When the wrath of woman thus praises God, the one who believes
+that through woman's status in the Bible and in the Christian Church this
+perfect equality is being worked out day by day need not take up
+controversial cudgels. Ribaldry in woman seems more gross than in man, and
+this is woman's ribaldry. It is profane to speak of the "feminine element
+in the Godhead." God is a spirit. There is no more a feminine than a
+masculine element in the Godhead. Sex belongs to mortal life and its
+conditions. It begins and ends with this earth. Christ has told us so:
+There will be in another world "no marrying, nor giving in marriage, but
+we all shall be as the angels in heaven." The equality of which Paul spoke
+as "the very soul and essence of Christianity" is the equality of the
+essence and soul of male and female humanity, and the oneness of the
+believer's soul with that of the Christ in whom his soul believes. The
+soul of humanity, as well as its body, is bound by sex conditions as long
+as it draws the breath of this transitory life. Every thought and every
+act reveal the governing power of the sex mould in which its form is cast
+for this world's uses. The use of this world is to give preparation for
+another and a better one; final spiritual triumph is the end to be
+attained. Humanity is now in the image of God only in the essential sense
+in which the full corn in the ear may be said to be wrapped up in its
+kernel, and it can unfold only according to the laws of its being. The
+first account of Creation sets forth, with the beautiful imagery of the
+Orient, the general and ultimate truth. The second account, with the same
+grand simplicity, foreshadows the method and the long, slow process by
+which this ultimate end is to be attained.
+
+In continuing their comments, the editors say: "In chapter v., verse 23,
+Adam proclaims the eternal oneness of the happy pair, 'This is now bone of
+my bone and flesh of my flesh;' no hint of her subordination. How could
+men, admitting these words to be divine revelation, ever have preached the
+subjection of woman? Next comes the naming of the mother of the race. 'She
+shall be called woman,' in the ancient form of the word, 'womb-man.' She
+was man and more than man, because of her maternity. The assertion of the
+supremacy of the woman in the marriage relation is contained in chapter
+v., 24: 'Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother and cleave
+unto his wife.' Nothing is said of the headship of man, but he is
+commanded to make her the head of the household, the home, a rule followed
+for centuries under the Matriarchate."
+
+A rule that has been followed rudely through all centuries, and is
+followed to-day with far greater approach to perfect obedience. Maternity
+was to be God's method of working out the problem of changing the
+innocence of ignorant savagery to the holiness of enlightened
+civilization. To this end, the more delicate and complex organism of the
+womb-man must be cared for by the strength and steadiness that could find
+full play because that subtler task was not demanded of it.
+
+In commenting on chapter iii., which contains the account of the Garden of
+Eden and the eating of the apple, they say: "As out of this allegory grow
+the doctrines of original sin, the fall of man and of woman the author of
+all our woes, and the curses on the serpent, the woman and the man, the
+Darwinian theory of the gradual growth of the race from a lower to a
+higher type of animal life is more hopeful and encouraging."
+
+The Christian doctrine is more hopeful and encouraging still. It reveals
+the growth of the race from a low type of animal life to the perfect life
+of the soul.
+
+We do not need to go back to the garden where our first parents dwelt, to
+look for the substantiation of the eternal truth of this whole wondrous
+story. Amid the landscape of the civilization of the noblest country that
+the world possesses, we have the drama repeated. In the work of Anne
+Hutchinson, Ann Lee, Frances Wright, Lucretia Mott, Elizabeth Stanton,
+Susan Anthony, Ellen Dietrick, Lillie Blake, and their fellow-
+commentators, we have re-enacted the Temptress and the Fall. Woman first
+aspired. She stretched forth her eager hand to seize the good, and in so
+doing snatched the evil that grew beside it. The woman in Eden had not
+learned what maternity taught her later--that she could point the path,
+but could not lead in entering it. Wherever woman has forgotten this hard-
+won but glorious lesson, she has been the most dangerous of guides. The
+conscience, that intellect of the soul, woke first in woman. By her
+obedience to its voice, the faith that worketh by love had its perfected
+work, and the promise that was given to her was fulfilled in the birth of
+Christ. A Creation story without a gospel is chaos without gravitation,
+primal darkness without the sun. Forward to divinity in human form woman
+was able, through obedience, to point mankind. Backward to divinity in
+human form she points again, until humanity itself shall become divine. If
+she loses the final vision, or substitutes her own, she can neither point
+nor guide. No wonder woman has been a mystery to the church. No wonder a
+witch was not allowed to live, while a wizard might; she was more
+dangerous. No wonder Paul was perplexed by the woman question. No wonder
+monks fled to the desert. Christ has spoken the final words of woman, "Thy
+faith hath saved thee." From the anguish of His cross he said: "Woman,
+behold thy son!" "Behold thy mother," and the beloved disciple "took her
+to his own home from that hour."
+
+In the Suffrage appeal of 1860, the writers said: "The difference between
+husband and wife is as vast as the difference between Christ and his
+Church." Christ himself says that the difference between him and his
+Church is that of degree, not of kind, and that the resemblance is that of
+essential oneness. He says: "I am the vine, ye are the branches." Could
+union be more completely pictured? The fruit-bearing branch cannot say to
+the strength-giving vine, "I have no need of thee." The vine cannot say,
+"I have no need of thee." Man in his imperious folly has pictured the
+relationship as that of oak and vine which have no organic union; but,
+despite imperiousness and folly, both men and women, through mutual
+obedience to God, have thus far worked out, and are still working out, the
+nobler destiny for both.
+
+In summing up their opinion of the Pentateuch, the editors of the Suffrage
+Woman's Bible say: "This utter contempt for all the decencies of life, and
+all the natural personal rights of women, as set forth in these pages,
+should destroy, in the minds of women at least, all authority to
+superhuman origin, and stamp the Pentateuch at least as emanating from the
+most obscene minds of a barbarous age." So low can woman fall in ignorance
+and shameless audacity when the faith that works by love is lost. As the
+spirit of the Commandments comes to prevail, the decencies of life and the
+natural personal rights of woman become more secure. Here again Christ has
+spoken the ultimate word. He says: "Ye have heard by them of old time'
+Thou shalt not commit adultery,' but I say unto you whosoever looketh on a
+woman to lust after her hath committed adultery with her already in his
+heart." This is the standard of chastity to which mankind must come. When
+the Hebrew mother in living faith cast the bread of her own life's being
+upon the Nile, she was to find it after many days in the great law-giver
+of her people. The Commandments received through him were the
+foreshadowing of those greater oracles in which Christ summed up the whole
+duty of man. The individual liberty which Moses was the first to proclaim
+to a whole people, in the Pentateuch, Christ, his anti-type, proclaimed to
+a whole world, and on his proclamation rests to-day the freedom of woman
+and of the American Republic. The Bread of Life, again cast on the
+troubled waters of this world, by woman's faith, through Mary the Virgin
+Mother, is returning after many days.
+
+Strange that we should forever turn back, as if the application of any
+essential truth were finished. The child walks by faith. The childhood of
+the world walked by faith, and left in the Bible the evidence of things
+that are not seen but are eternal. The Suffrage movement has a quarrel
+with the Bible because the Creator is there represented, for the reverence
+of the race, under the guise of a Heavenly Father, and not a Heavenly
+Mother, or rather, not as a human pair, equal in dignity and power. If the
+first impulsion of love toward God had come into this world through the
+mind of man, he would have represented the divine love that his soul
+conceived under the guise of that being on earth whom he most loved. But
+love was born with the "disabilities" of woman; it was evolved through
+motherhood; and the same impulse that gave it, exalted, not itself, but
+what it loved and trusted. "I have gotten a man from the Lord" said the
+first recorded mother, who had learned to know the Lord through
+motherhood; and the boy she bore was taught to look up with confidence to
+the strength and protection of his father. She told him that the pity of
+his father, which made him bring food and raiment, and which guarded his
+home, was an image of the feeling that was felt for him by the divine
+being. Could man have learned the lesson first, we can see that the story
+would have been different, because man has named every beautiful and
+gracious thing for woman. Virtue, temperance, truth, purity, love, faith,
+hope, liberty, grace, beauty, charity, the inspirers of art and science,
+of music and literature, of justice and of religion, all are feminine.
+When man says: "Our Father which art in heaven," he prays as his mother
+taught him. Through the self-abnegation that was unconscious of its
+sacrifice, woman was to be the instrument for bringing human life up, on,
+to the God who, being spirit, could act upon a clay-bound mind only
+through the highest human thing that love could know. Men, as well as
+women, have misunderstood and misinterpreted this. The love that "is not
+puffed up," "doth not behave itself unseemly," cannot proclaim its own
+virtue--to arrogate it is to lose it. But the secret of the Lord has been
+with those who feared Him, and it has led the world aright in spite of
+blunder and of sin.
+
+If man, in his ignorant conceit, has fancied that this was the subjection
+of woman, it has been a part of his mother's lesson to correct that
+impression. If woman, in her folly, has allowed herself to make the same
+mistake, that, too, is working out its cure through the love that so
+arranged human nature that "a man should leave father and mother and
+cleave unto his wife, and they twain should be one flesh," and that "_her
+desire_ should be to her husband" in those matters wherein the mutual
+interest required that he should bear sway. If there is a minister of
+religion who holds to the perverted notion that, because woman ate the
+original apple in disobedience to God's command, she was the bringer of
+original sin into the world, and for that was and is punished by arbitrary
+subjection to the authority of man, that minister does not deserve the
+support of women. The fact that he would have few listeners, and fewer
+followers, if women were not the bringers and the maintainers of religious
+faith is sufficient proof against such an exposition of scripture. As a
+matter of fact, while the dogmatism of belief, like the dogmatism of
+unbelief, has made assertions that have dishonored both divine and human
+nature, the practical working of formulated faiths of all names has been
+to approach the standard laid down in the Old and the New Testament. The
+model of being set by Christ is that of a little child. "Except ye become
+as little children, ye shall in no wise enter the kingdom of heaven." The
+natural characteristics of the child are faith, and hope, and love--the
+virtues that abide. When the virile apostle to the Gentiles "put away
+childish things," he kept these childlike qualities. If woman first
+attains them in perfection, she is superior; if man, he is superior. In
+the race toward the final goal, to be equal in accomplishment it is
+needful to be equal in obedience. The keynote of Paul's preaching was
+obedience--the obedience of all human beings to God in Christ, the
+obedience of all men and women to lawful civil authority for the sake of
+Christ and the promotion of his kingdom,--the obedience of men to one
+another in the churchly offices, for the sake of that "decency" that he
+loved and enjoined--the obedience of the equal wife to the husband who was
+the external representative of family life.
+
+With Eastern nations the veil was the sign of retirement, of domestic
+life, and it was assumed by wives when they were in the street or in a
+public assembly. In heathen and barbarous countries it was also deemed a
+sign of woman's subjection and inferiority. The Hebrews were the first
+people to attain any truly spiritual conceptions, and they began to have a
+commensurately higher idea of the possibilities of woman's nature and
+work. When Christian women, in their new-found freedom, would have thrown
+aside the veil, just as Christian men, in their new-found reverence for
+God, would have repudiated the heathen wife, Paul said to them both that
+Christian liberty was individual,--it changed the character, not the sex
+relations. In arranging for church discipline, he advised that men should
+uncover the head, and women should wear the veil. But he said, in
+reference to that veil, that "woman should have _power_ on her head,
+because of the angels." The angels are spoken of in the New Testament as
+veiling their faces in the very presence of the Creator. In that truer
+symbolism of Christianity, man was to uncover his head in token of
+reverence to God and acceptance of the responsibility of the guardianship
+of the earth. Woman was to cover her head in token of her acceptance of
+man's guardianship and of her dominion over his heart, to which she had
+revealed God's will.
+
+Paul adds: "For as the woman is of the man, so is the man also of the
+woman; but all things are of God." This relation was one of the mysteries
+that Paul said he did not comprehend, nor could he, till the lessons he
+taught should work out their results, and might serve as commentary.
+
+Life itself, as well as all that life could come to mean, depended upon
+woman's consenting. The word "obey" in some marriage services seems, like
+what it really is, a survival. Obedience has brought its reward, and the
+consent of the heart is more than the consent of the lips. But if there is
+no consent of the heart to wifehood and motherhood, in time there will be
+no chivalry, no progress, no final emancipation for the race. Consenting
+is also commanding, and woman loses her life in order to find it in the
+fulfillment of her wish. It was consent to her own teaching. The
+chivalrous and tender-hearted Paul, who spoke of women with reverent
+affection, who adopted as his own the mother of Rufus, was repeating the
+lesson of every Jewish mother from Sarah to Deborah, and from Deborah to
+the women who were last at Christ's cross and first beside his tomb.
+Deborah, who was the judge, prophetess and poet, but first of all "a
+mother in Israel," under whom her degenerate people had peace for forty
+years, rebuked Barak and said, to their humiliation: "This day shall the
+Lord deliver Israel by the hand of a woman." From this teaching Paul
+uttered his rebuke to the wayward church at Corinth: "It is a shame for a
+man to cover his head, inasmuch as he is the image and glory of God; but
+the woman is the glory of the man." And he added, in speaking of the
+wearing of the veil, "For this cause ought the woman to have power"
+"because of the angels." In the Epistle to the Ephesians Paul admonishes
+the Church to be "imitators of God, as beloved children, and walk in love,
+even as Christ also loved you, and gave himself for you, an offering and a
+sacrifice to God for a sweet-smelling savour." Again, he says: "Therefore,
+as the Church is subject unto Christ, so let the wives be to their own
+husbands in everything." And as if to make doubly certain that no one
+should think that such submission implied bondage or inequality, he adds
+"Husbands, love your wives even as Christ also loved the Church and _gave
+himself for it_." Again, he says: "So ought men to love their wives, as
+their own bodies.... Even as the Lord the Church," adding with almost
+strained Oriental vehemence, "for we are members of his body, of his flesh
+and of his bones. For this cause shall a man leave his father and his
+mother, and shall be joined unto his wife, and they twain shall be one
+flesh."
+
+The comment most readily suggested is, that through this teaching the use
+of the veil has now no such significance. The uncovering of the head is a
+token of respect, largely to woman. The retention of the bonnet is not
+dreamed of in connection with woman's relation to man, nor does it suggest
+woman's power in the moral world. The obedience through which love
+"constrained" a mind that had been bred to forms, was free. If anybody now
+holds that woman was intended to glorify God indirectly, through man, or
+to serve God by serving man, he makes an assumption long discredited, and
+not in accord with the spirit of Christ and of Paul. Man is as much the
+glory of woman as woman is the glory of man, and they reveal equally the
+glory of God.
+
+In speaking of the proprieties of life, Paul said: "Does not nature
+herself teach you?" "If a man have long hair, it is a shame to him." "If a
+woman have long hair, it is a glory to her." The badge of womanhood is a
+glory, and the "short-haired women and long-haired men" of the early
+Suffrage movement transformed the symbols of dignity and honor into those
+of contempt and disgrace.
+
+Canon law grew up during the Middle Ages, when came the great
+
+  "Death-grapple in the darkness, 'twixt old systems and the Word."
+
+The wondrous church that rose on the ruins of Roman militarism, and
+overthrew Norman feudalism, gave evidence, in its code, of the bitterness
+of the conflict and the rudeness of the time. The legal fiction that, in
+acknowledging the oneness of husband and wife, yet made the husband that
+one, was a perversion of Scripture.
+
+It has been publicly said by Suffragists from the first, that the tenets
+of the Church of Rome, in which Canon law had its origin, were inimical to
+woman suffrage; and they have further said that those who canonize women
+and worship the Virgin Mother, should naturally have been friendly to the
+Suffrage idea. I suppose no one will deny that the spirit of the Roman
+body is that of a state church. I have no more to say in criticism of it
+as a Christian denomination than I have of others; but that organization
+which has held temporal and spiritual power to be co-ordinate and
+interdependent in government, presents a political phase that has direct
+bearing on my theme, and I make my few comments as a historian. The Church
+that inculcates Mariolatry would have far more ignorant women to add to
+our body of voters than any other. It has done less for woman's education
+and general advancement than any other, but its claims are not therefore
+modest. The school elections in Staten Island last year gave an object-
+lesson in regard to its intention to use the suffrage. In Connecticut, the
+school election presented another evidence of the intense interest felt by
+the Catholic clergy in public-school matters. In California, in the late
+canvass for woman suffrage, that Church assisted largely in carrying on
+the work to secure the amendment. While many of its individual members are
+among the noblest friends that civil and religious freedom have in our
+country, this church, by its traditions, and by its latest
+pronunciamentos, shows itself as a force that, for its own selfish
+reasons, may be reckoned on the side of woman suffrage in its conflict
+with woman's progress.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER X.
+
+
+WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND SEX.
+
+
+The ninth count of the Suffrage Declaration says: "He has created a false
+sentiment by giving to the world a different code of morals for men and
+women, by which moral delinquencies which exclude woman from society, are
+not only tolerated, but deemed of little account in men." And the list of
+grievances is summed up as follows: "Because women do feel themselves
+aggrieved, oppressed and fraudulently deprived of their most sacred
+rights, we insist that they have immediate admission to all the rights and
+privileges which belong to them as citizens of the United States."
+
+The writers do not say whether the code of morals referred to is a code of
+law or an unwritten code of public sentiment. If they mean the former,
+their statement is not true; for whatever laws affect moral delinquencies
+visit their penalties equally upon men and women. If they mean public
+sentiment alone, the answer is, that both men and women are responsible
+for its creation. It is folly to deny that there is, in the nature of
+things, more excuse for men than for women. A mother realizes that her son
+has a natural temptation of which her daughter knows nothing. But this
+fact, while it accounts in part for the different standard, by no means
+exonerates man. One of the strangest anomalies of human experience exists
+in connection with this matter. Man reposes his deepest faith in the
+existence of goodness at its vital point, in the virtue of woman; and yet
+when he tramples upon that virtue he screens himself behind the excuse
+that her nature is as vulnerable as his own, while his temptation is
+greater. The main reason, as it seems to me, why women often appear more
+cruel to their fallen sisters than do men, lies in the fact that pure
+women abhor this vice as they abhor no other. Besides bestowing upon woman
+a loftier moral sense, her Creator has hedged about her virtue with a
+feeling of physical repulsion that is distinct from the moral question
+involved. The social life of the world is to a large extent in woman's
+hands. When she says to men "You cannot bring your impurity into my home,"
+"You must be the ones to guard our sons and daughters," the reform will be
+begun in earnest. Woman's faith, and her abstract way of looking at moral
+questions, prevent her from fastening her thought, as men naturally do, on
+any special culprit, in her severe but vague sense of wrong in this
+matter. The Suffragists have taken fewer steps in the direction of
+removing the social plague-spot than in the direction of bringing about a
+system of easier divorce--a thing that strikes a blow directly against,
+instead of for, the virtue of their sex. Social opinion is causing a
+change in some of the laws concerning social vice. Nearly every State
+legislature has raised the age of consent. So far as Suffrage associations
+have assisted in this, it proves their ability and their good will; but
+much more is due to our educated physicians and philanthropists.
+
+It seems at first thought as if there were no direct connection between
+voting and social questions of sex; but I am following the lead of my
+Suffrage texts. Others who attempt the discussion are led to the same
+themes. Dr. Jacobi, in her book, says: "The problem is, to show why, in a
+representative system based on the double principle that all the
+intelligence in the state shall be enlisted for its welfare, and all the
+weakness in the state represented for its own defence, women, being often
+intelligent, and often weak, and always persons in the community, should
+not also be represented." In replying to the anti-suffrage arguments of
+Prof. Goldwin Smith, she says: "Do sex relations depend upon acts of
+Parliament or constitutional amendments? Can women marry a ballot, or
+embrace the franchise, otherwise than by a questionable figure of speech?
+Must adultery and infanticide necessarily be favored by the decisions of
+female jurors? Is divorce legislation, as arranged by the exclusive wisdom
+of men, now so satisfactory that women--who must perforce be involved in
+every case--should always modestly refrain from attempting amendment? This
+entire class of considerations, however irrelevant to the issue, may be
+grouped together and considered together, because, to a large class of
+minds--the rudest, quite as much as those of Mr. Smith's cultivation--they
+are the considerations that do come to the front whenever equal rights are
+suggested." She adds that the reason they come to the front is, "that men,
+accustomed to think of men as possessing sex attributes and other things
+besides, are accustomed to think of women as having sex and nothing else."
+
+Is there a ruder mind anywhere than one that could not only think but
+write a sentiment so revolting and so false? And yet the statement admits
+that, whatever the reason, the sex issue does underlie the whole Suffrage
+question.
+
+In their "History," the leaders not only set forth all the specific
+charges in their Declaration of Sentiments, but of this "rebellion such as
+the world has never seen" they say: "Men saw that with political equality
+for woman, she could no longer be kept in social subjection. The fear of a
+social revolution thus complicated the discussion."
+
+In the Introduction to the Suffrage Woman's Bible, the commentators say:
+"How can woman's position be changed from that of a subordinate to an
+equal, without opposition?--without the broadest discussion of all the
+questions involved in her present degradation? For so far-reaching and
+momentous a reform as her complete independence, an entire revolution in
+all existing institutions is inevitable."
+
+Dr. Jacobi says: "To-day, when all men rule, and diffused self-government
+has abolished the old divisions between the governing classes and the
+governed, only one class remains over whom all men can exercise
+sovereignty--namely, the women. Hence a shuddering dread runs through
+society at the proposal to also abolish this last refuge of facile
+domination."
+
+Here, then, all these Suffragists present a problem far more momentous
+than appears when it is proposed "to show why, in a representative system
+based on the double principle that all the intelligence in the state shall
+be enlisted for its welfare, and all the weakness in the state represented
+for its defence, women, being often intelligent, and often weak, and
+always persons, should not also be represented." It is the sex battle that
+has been waged from the beginning. In the Suffrage Woman's Bible Mrs.
+Stanton says: "The correction of this [the misinterpretation of the Bible
+as concerns woman] will restore her, and deprive her enemy, man, of a
+reason for his oppression and a weapon of attack." Disguise it as they
+may, to themselves and to others, the Suffrage idea is compelled to claim
+that man is woman's enemy, that the ballot is the engine of his power, and
+that therefore she must vote. The reason that "these considerations come
+to the front whenever equal rights is mentioned" is because the women of
+that movement brought them there, and keep them there, and because no one
+can seriously consider the matter without seeing that they belong there.
+
+In discussing them, Dr. Jacobi says: "What is imagined, claimed, and very
+seriously demanded, is, that women be recognized as human beings, with a
+range of faculties and activities co-extensive with that of men, whatever
+may be the difference in the powers within that range."
+
+In another place she admits that "women are really recognized as
+individuals, the same as men," and the fact that they are so recognized is
+made the basis of an argument for their voting. Suppose men demanded that
+they be given a "range of faculties and activities co-extensive with that
+of women, whatever may be the difference in the powers within that range,"
+if they demanded it "seriously" they would probably become laughing-
+stocks.
+
+She says: "The sex relations of women as lovers, as wives, as mothers, as
+daughters, remain untouched, certainly unimpaired, by the demand to extend
+beyond these. What is impaired is not the sex relation, nor sex condition,
+but the social disabilities, the personal and social subordination, the
+condition of political non-existence, which have been foisted upon that
+sex condition."
+
+The repeated demand to "extend beyond" the sex relations of either sex
+_is_ a demand to touch those relations, and whether it is a demand to
+impair them depends upon the question whether it is true that disabilities
+and subordination have been foisted upon the sex conditions. In olden
+times they were. Men were subject to social disabilities, personal and
+social subordination, and political non-existence. It followed that women
+were also in the same subjection. As men threw off the yoke, the sex
+relations began to assume their natural position. Man was the protector,
+woman the protected. In the natural relations, the protector is at the
+service of the protected, and that is the state of things to-day. In order
+to be preserved in bodily, mental, and spiritual freedom, woman must yield
+with grace to the hand that serves her. In order to protect, man must see
+to it that this freedom he has won is kept sacred and inviolable. He
+cannot be at once a tyrant and a guard. This freedom removes from woman
+all disabilities save those of sex. The question then is, can all the
+intelligence and all the weakness of women be represented for their own
+welfare and their own defence, by the same methods as those by which men
+attain that end, and yet leave these fundamental sex relations untouched
+and unimpaired?
+
+The Suffrage leaders did not expect or intend to leave them untouched, or
+unimpaired, if complete change was impairment. In the "History" they say:
+"It is often asked if political equality--would not arouse antagonism
+between the sexes? If it could be proved that men and women had been
+harmonious in all ages and countries, and that women were happy and
+satisfied in their slavery, we might hesitate in proposing any change
+whatever; but the apathy, the helpless, hopeless resignation of a subject
+class, cannot be called happiness. A woman growing up under American ideas
+of liberty in government and religion cannot brook any disability based on
+sex alone, without a deep feeling of antagonism with the power that
+creates it."
+
+Dr. Jacobi says: "Manhood Suffrage in America may seem to result,
+historically, from the general average equality of social conditions among
+the inhabitants of the Thirteen States. But it may also be deduced as a
+philosophical necessity from the Idea of Individualism, which became the
+core of the Federal Union. This idea, at first suggested only for men,
+has, little by little, spread to women also."
+
+Individualism, in the sense of personal moral responsibility, became the
+core, first of the Hebrew Theocracy, and last of the American National
+life. But that republicanism which has come to rest on sex distinction is
+the combined result of Individualism and Authority. Suffrage discussion
+for years has turned upon the idea of Individualism _versus_ Authority.
+
+In a government like ours, where all the intelligence and all the weakness
+_are_ represented for their own welfare and defence, authority must to a
+certain extent hold a stern hand over individualism, because freedom for
+all means license for not a single one, be it man or woman. Mrs. Fanny
+Ames says: "Any argument [against Suffrage] worth anything at all, comes
+down to this--an argument against American democracy--and must rest
+there." Many arguments have been adduced against Woman Suffrage that were
+also arguments against democracy; because there are always people, and
+wise people too, who fear the test of the ultimate experiment. To this
+fear the Suffragists catered when, in contradiction to their own dictum of
+universal suffrage, they asked Congress for a sixteenth amendment that
+should require an educational qualification for all, both men and women.
+But, guided by the statesmanship that seeks to form a true and enduring
+democracy, this Republic has come to the sex basis.
+
+Dr. Jacobi says: "The complex contradictions in the present distributions
+of sovereign power are further intensified by the vulgarization of the
+general ideal. It is one thing to say, 'Some men shall rule,' quite
+another to declare, 'All men shall rule,' and that in virtue of the most
+primitive and rudimentary attribute they possess,--that, namely, of sex.
+If the original contempt for masses of men has ever diminished, and the
+conception of mankind been ennobled, it is because, upon the primitive
+animal foundation, human imagination has built a fair structure of mental
+and moral attribute and possibility, and habitually deals with that. This
+indeed is no new thing to do; for it was to this moral man that Pericles
+addressed his funeral oration, and of whom Lincoln thought in his speech
+at Gettysburg. Of this moral man, women--the sex hitherto so despised--are
+now recognized to constitute an integral part. It is useless, therefore,
+to attempt to throw them out by an appeal to the primitive conditions of a
+physical force to which no one appeals for any other purpose."
+
+The immortal orator at Gettysburg was commander-in-chief of an army and
+navy whose physical power was then in the very act of saving the nation
+and redeeming it from the sin of slavery. The soldier-statesman of Greece,
+in his funeral oration, was addressing an army. The fair structure of
+mental and moral attribute and possibility has not been built by human
+imagination. The conception of the moral man that has ennobled mankind is
+older than any man who has embodied it. It is as old as mankind itself,
+upon whose primitive animal foundation God implanted side by side the
+conception of the moral man, woman--and of the governing man, man.
+
+That no inequality should be possible when this idea should really rest
+upon the most primitive, rudimentary and yet continuing and controlling
+attribute, instead of upon complex contradictions in regard to the
+distribution of sovereign human power, God, speaking through the ideal
+which the moral man had grasped, said: "Therefore shall a man leave his
+father and his mother, and shall cleave unto his wife, and they twain
+shall be one flesh."
+
+Man is not the hereditary sovereign in a republic. He is an actual,
+present, continuing sovereign, and he is that only so long as he obeys the
+law of his being and constitutes himself, by reason of his manhood
+strength, the defence of the republic's laws for all. In woman suffrage
+democracy has met a most dangerous foe. It has been asked "If it would be
+best for man to make over half his sovereignty to woman?" I cannot imagine
+how he could do this, whatever might be his wish. Sovereignty in a
+republic is only divisible among those who are equals as to sovereign
+power; and any effort to divide with those who lack the essential
+attribute must result in despotism or anarchy. Men are as subject to the
+restrictions and requirements of sex as are women, and when they try an
+experiment contrary to those conditions, the end must be destruction of
+government itself.
+
+Prof. Goldwin Smith says: "One of the features of a revolutionary era is
+the prevalence of a feeble facility of abdication. The holders of power,
+however natural and legitimate it may be, are too ready to resign it on
+the first demand.... The nerves of authority are shaken by the failure of
+conviction."
+
+This is true, and it is what makes the present situation portentous. From
+the very tenderheartedness of the men of our time comes the danger to the
+women of this nation. So far from desiring to hold the slightest
+restriction over the women of the Republic, they may rush into an attempt
+at abdication of a sovereignty that did not originate in their will but in
+their environment, in order to prove the sincerity of their desire that
+woman should not even appear to be compelled to obey.
+
+This movement is a feature of the revolutionary era that seems suddenly to
+have extended to the men with whose theories it belongs. Not at once, nor
+everywhere equally, but finally and completely would this change come.
+Man, as well as woman, must "consent to be governed" by the laws of being.
+If man really could "share his sovereignty," there might be some show of
+reason in the Suffrage claim that he should do so. But unless he can
+abdicate the very essentials of his sex condition, he cannot abdicate his
+sovereignty. His laws are dead letters whenever more men than those who
+passed them and approve them choose that they shall be dead. He would have
+no material outside the men in this country, with which to execute the
+wishes of the woman voters whom it is proposed to introduce to make laws
+which they know they cannot themselves enforce.
+
+And this leads us right round again to consider the "disabilities foisted
+upon sex conditions." The first thing demanded of a voter is that, in the
+ordinary state of things, he should be able to vote. A body of citizens is
+asking that a sex be admitted to franchise when it is known to all that a
+large part of that sex would at every election find it physically
+impossible, or improper, to go to the polls. Suffragists say: "No women
+need vote who do not wish to; but they have no right to hinder us." Is
+this the Individualism of Democracy? It is the Individualism of Anarchy.
+It is not the rule of the majority. It is class rule with a vengeance; and
+as for "consenting to be governed," there never was a man or a government
+that so coolly assumed to govern without their consent such a body, as do
+the Suffragists. The disabilities "foisted upon sex" would be felt first
+of all by the wives and mothers who are most interested in the laws.
+
+The next duty of citizenship is jury service. The leaders said: "We
+demand, in criminal cases, that most sacred of all rights, trial by jury
+of our own peers." In regard to jury duty Suffragists are not agreed;
+which fact alone shows that that service would be felt to be an impairment
+of sex conditions. So impossible has jury duty been found, even in small
+communities, that in Wyoming the jury service of women ceased with the
+first judge who admitted them to serve at all; and in Colorado but one or
+two women have ever served. The judges there do not allow them to be
+called. It was found to be expensive, and not promotive of the ends of
+justice. Whether this is held to be man's cruel withholding of woman's
+rights or not, it shows that either the sex condition or the co-
+extensiveness of woman's work with man's must be impaired. Dr. Jacobi says
+in regard to jury service: "The numerous cases for exemption now admitted
+for men would be certainly paralleled for women, but they would not always
+be identical. Men are now more often excused for business; women would be
+excused on the plea of ill-health. Of course the special plea of family
+cares with young children would rule out thousands of women during a
+number of years of their lives."
+
+Who would establish the "special plea" for so large a proportion of the
+voting population? No law of justice on which a solid government can rest
+could do it; and that it would be asked, and needed, shows that sex
+conditions would interfere with voting conditions. A criminal case often
+lasts weeks, even months, during which time the jury are kept together and
+alone, locked up at night, and walked out by day. This second duty cannot
+be, and is not, performed; not because many women would not make good
+jurors, not because they should not try delicate cases, and might not
+serve well at certain times, and in special ways, but because jury duty,
+like military service, cannot take account of sex conditions when they are
+the rule and not the exception.
+
+Office-holding is the next necessary concomitant of the ballot. Of course
+it can be said at once: "Why, multitudes of men never hold office, why
+should women?" It may be answered that multitudes of men do hold office,
+that no American would think of extending the ballot without expecting
+that, as an accompaniment, the duty, or the privilege, of office-holding
+should follow.
+
+Not only is it true that if more than half the population were added to
+the voting list multitudes among them would attempt to rush into office,
+but it was mainly for office that a majority of those who have been
+pressing the demand cared for the vote. The authors of the "History" say:
+"As to offices, it is not be supposed that the class of men now elected
+will resign to women their chances, and, if they should to any extent, the
+necessary number of women to fill the offices would make no apparent
+change in our social circles. If, for example, the Senate of the United
+States should be entirely composed of women, but two in each State would
+be withdrawn from the pursuit of domestic happiness."
+
+How could "the class of men now elected" help resigning, if women enough
+chose to put up a woman and give her a majority of votes,--provided, as
+Suffragists say, that the vote secures the office and retains it by a mere
+mandate? But it is not one office, or set of offices, which we have to
+consider. It is the entrance upon political life, permanently, of a large
+body of women. What that means to the social life that "would not miss
+them," we well know. There could be no domestic ties; no hindering child.
+The time would be short before this unnatural position would breed a race
+of Aspasias--without the intellect that ruled "the ruler of the land, when
+Athens was the land of fame."
+
+The "History" says: "An honest fear is sometimes expressed 'that women
+would degrade politics, and politics would degrade women,'" and the
+writers answer: "As the influence of woman has been uniformly elevating in
+new civilizations, in missionary work in heathen lands, in schools,
+colleges, literature, and general society, it is fair to suppose that
+politics would prove no exception." We do not need to depend upon forecast
+or inference. The influence of women upon politics, and the influence of
+politics upon women, have already been degrading. This is true of
+political intrigue in the old world, and of the "Female Lobby" in
+Washington. It is astonishing to what an extent it is true in our new
+country, with our fresh and sweet traditions.
+
+In 1851, Mrs. Stanton, writing to a convention at Akron, Ohio, said: "The
+great work before us is the education of those just coming on the stage of
+action. Begin with the girls of to-day, and in twenty years we can
+revolutionize this nation. Teach the girl to go alone by night and day, if
+need be, on the lonely highway, or through the busy streets of the crowded
+metropolis. Better for her to suffer occasional insults, or die outright,
+than live the life of a coward, or never move without a protector....
+Teach her that it is no part of life to cater to the prejudices of those
+around her. Make her independent of public sentiment, by showing her how
+worthless and rotten a thing it is.... Think you, women thus educated
+would long remain the weak, dependent beings we now find them? They would
+soon settle for themselves this whole question of Woman's Rights."
+
+Fifty years of such teaching has had its effect. The fine bloom has too
+often been brushed from our girls' delicacy of thought. They can strut
+through the street in the daytime wearing a shirt-front, a cravat, a
+choker, a vest, and a man's hat, and carrying a cane. A few can flaunt
+themselves in bloomers and knickerbockers, and ride astride a bicycle.
+They ape men in everything except courtesy to women. But the result is not
+what was expected. These customs have introduced the chaperone, and have
+put an end to simple freedom between boys and girls. The Puritan maiden in
+her modesty could let John Alden speak for himself, because the John who
+could summon courage to speak of love to such a girl would not dare to
+breathe impurity. When the young woman requires a social spy, the young
+man is apt to forget that her innocent dignity is her own best guardian.
+With the passing of the "lady," American women may fail to remember that a
+gentlewoman need pretend to no aristocracy but that of the _noblesse
+oblige_ of her own femininity. In the paragraph quoted above, women are
+spoken of as those who are "uniformly elevating" and as "weak and
+dependent" to a contemptuous degree. They cannot be both at once, and it
+seems to me that in fact they are neither. Woman is not an angel nor a
+demon, not a conqueror nor a slave. But the seed from which any of these
+conflicting natures may develop lies in more fertile soil, within her
+impassioned and impressible soil, than in man's. The Suffrage movement
+will leave her much better or worse than it found her. The phrase "the new
+woman," with the instinctive explanation that she "is as refined, or as
+good a wife, mother, sister, daughter, housekeeper," as the old, is
+ominous.
+
+Suffrage writers seem to hold two views in regard to sex. One is, that it
+is so pervasive that it cannot be affected by any line of conduct. The
+other is, that, so far as mind is concerned, it is purely a fanciful
+barrier, and the less there appears of external distinction the better
+will this be realized. The Suffrage "History" says: "Sex pervades all
+matter. Whatever it is, it requires no special watchfulness on our part to
+see that it is maintained." At the same time the dictum "There is no sex
+in mind," has been a Suffrage war-cry. It seems to me that both views are
+unscientific and dangerous to social morals. Sex integrity is pervasive of
+the whole nature only when men and women are true to the ideal of the
+essential distinctions in each. The true environment of woman is
+womanliness; not to fit her nature to the utmost that womanliness can mean
+to the world, is to fail of womanly attainment. But making herself a
+distorted woman cannot make her even an imperfect man. The mere act of
+going to the polls is not unwomanly; it might be as proper as going to the
+post-office; but attempting to encroach upon duty that is laid upon man in
+her behalf is neither womanly nor manly.
+
+In demanding equality, Suffragists assume that there is not and has not
+been equality. In asserting that "there is no sex in mind," they really
+have had to maintain that there is one sex in mind, and that the
+masculine, to which woman must conform. If man wanted clinching arguments
+to prove his superiority, could he find another to match this one which
+suffrage has furnished him? The quaint wit of the Yankee put it neatly
+when he gave the toast, "Woman--once our superior, now our equal!" Man has
+said: "The hand that rocks the cradle rules the world." He has also said,
+with Martin: "Whatever may be the customs and laws of a country, the women
+of it decide the morals." The civilization of no nation has risen higher
+than the carrying out of the religious ideals of its best womanhood. If
+man has the outward framing of church and state, woman has the framing of
+the character of man. There is no schism in the body of human duties as
+the Lord established them. The issues have become more distinctly and
+openly moral issues; and in so far as woman can make it consist with that
+inner life of the home and the child, which alone can make the family and
+fix the state on any sure foundation, she is welcomed by man to meet the
+common foe. Such new avenues to wealth and distinction as she can enter
+with womanly dignity and grace will open to her as fast as man can make
+them places where she can walk with security and comfort to herself and
+advantage to them both. And they will open no faster.
+
+The woman Suffragist has had to wage as bitter a warfare against physical
+science as against religion. Eliza Burt Gamble, in her volume which
+discusses "The Evolution of Woman," takes up the cudgels against both the
+Bible and man's scientific classification of woman, or rather his failure
+to classify her properly at all. She says: "When we bear in mind the past
+experience of the human race, it is not perhaps surprising that, during an
+era of physical force and the predominance of the animal instincts in man,
+the doctrine of male superiority should have become firmly grounded. But
+with the dawn of scientific investigation it might have been hoped that
+the prejudices resulting from a lower condition of human society would
+disappear. When, however, we turn to the most advanced scientific writers
+of the present century, we find that the prejudices which throughout
+thousands of years have been gathering strength are by no means
+eradicated. Mr. Darwin, whenever he had occasion to touch on the mental
+capacities of women, or, more particularly, the relative capacities of the
+sexes, manifested the same spirit which characterizes an earlier age."
+
+Herbert Spencer, in his essay on "Justice," says that he once favored
+woman suffrage "from the point of view of a general principle of
+individual rights." Later he finds that this cannot be maintained, because
+he "discovers mental and emotional differences between the sexes which
+disqualify women from the burden of government and the exercise of its
+functions." He also considers it absurd for women to claim the vote and
+military exemption in the name of equality.
+
+Science has told us of the active, as well as the passive, part that the
+mother plays in the growth of the embryo, and at the same time has told us
+that the sex of that embryo is determined by the nourishing power of the
+mother. The commonplace statistics of the census come in with their
+verifying word, and we find that in rude times and hard conditions more
+boys are born. Gentle conditions and abundance are favorable to the birth
+of girls. Here is the same story we have learned so often. Man the
+protector, woman the protected. Woman the inspiring force, man the
+organizing and physical power.
+
+So the Bible, Science, and Republican government, according to Suffragist
+and Anti-suffragist, have planted themselves squarely on the sex issue. It
+is solid standing-ground, and neither apparent irrelevancy nor real
+antagonism will dislodge the argument.
+
+
+Dr. Jacobi, in her address before the Constitutional Convention, said:
+"Still, all women do not demand the suffrage. We are sometimes told that
+the thousands of women who do want the suffrage must wait until those who
+are now indifferent, or even hostile, can be converted from their
+position. Gentlemen, we declare that theory is preposterous. It is true
+that the exercise of an independent sovereignty necessitates the
+demonstration of a very considerable amount of independence. A rebel state
+that cannot break its own blockade may not call upon a foreign power to
+move from its neutrality to do so. But the demand for equal suffrage is in
+nowise analogous to a claim for independent sovereignty. It is rather
+analogous to the claim to the protection of existing laws, which any group
+of people, or even a single person, may make."
+
+Under a democratic government a claim for equal suffrage is a claim to
+share the independent sovereignty that protects, and therefore it cannot
+be analogous to a claim for protection, individual or otherwise, under
+that sovereignty. Does Dr. Jacobi mean that in asking for suffrage she
+does not ask to be as much an independent sovereign as any masculine voter
+of them all? The comparison of woman's claims to suffrage to the
+protection afforded by existing laws, suggests a narrowing of the demand
+to fit the requirements of an apparently hopeless struggle for a majority
+vote of women.
+
+The Government is spoken of by Suffragists as if it were something
+exterior to and apart from the individual voters--a code of laws that had
+been set going and would run of itself, the laws being changed by more or
+fewer votes, but the power to execute being automatic and continuous. As
+this is the opposite of the actual situation, these rebels will have to
+"break their own blockade" like any others.
+
+The "pacific blocade" that is enforced by the Quaker guns of this movement
+has its peaceful war-cries. One of the most exultant is an allusion to the
+expression "We the people" in the preamble of our national Constitution,
+with the question whether "people" does not include women. A reading of
+the entire preamble shows that, of the six achievements there specified as
+the purpose of the Constitution, every one is a thing that only men can
+do--with the possible exception of the fifth, which proposes rather
+vaguely to "promote the general welfare."
+
+As to the thousands of women who want the vote, there are some figures as
+to the majority that "are indifferent or even hostile." I see by the
+pamphlet published by the New York State Suffrage Association, that they
+have but 1,600 paying members, which is not one in a thousand of the women
+in the State over twenty years of age. As Mrs. Winslow Crannell has made a
+careful computation from figures published in the "Woman's Journal,"
+edited by Henry B. Blackwell and his daughter Alice Stone Blackwell, I
+quote her results: In Maine there are but 12 Suffragists to every 100,000
+of the people; in New Hampshire, but 5 to every 100,000; in Massachusetts,
+but 51 to every 100,000; in Connecticut, but 23 to every 100,000.
+Pennsylvania has but 14 in 100,000; Kentucky has 32 to 100,000; Michigan,
+but 6 to 100,000; Illinois has 13 to 100,000; Ohio has 11 to 100,000; Iowa
+has 6 to 100,000; Virginia, but 1 to 100,000; New Jersey, 8 to 100,000;
+Arkansas, 3 to 100,000; South Carolina, 3 to 100,000. California has 33 in
+every 100,000, and Maryland has 6 in 100,000. If the suffrage is claimed
+for tax-paying women, it can be shown that there are, in New York State,
+for instance, at least 1,500,000 women who do not pay taxes. But, as a
+matter of fact, the tax-paying women of this State were among the first
+signers of Anti-suffrage petitions.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XI.
+
+
+WOMAN SUFFRAGE AND THE HOME.
+
+
+The tenth count in the Suffrage Declaration is: "He has usurped the
+prerogative of Jehovah himself, claiming it as his right to assign for her
+a sphere of action, when that belongs to her conscience and to her God."
+
+In the "History of Woman Suffrage," the editors say: "Quite as many false
+ideas prevail as to woman's true position in the home as elsewhere.
+Womanhood is the great fact of her life; wifehood and motherhood are but
+incidental relations."
+
+The first legislation demanded by the Suffragists was that which called
+for a change of the marriage laws, so as to admit of divorce, first for
+drunkenness, and later for several other causes. In discussing the matter
+in convention, Mrs. Stanton presented resolutions that declared, among
+other things, "That any constitution, compact, or covenant between human
+beings that failed to produce or promote human happiness, could not, in
+the nature of things, be of any force or authority; and it would be not
+only a right, but a duty, to abolish it. That though marriage be in itself
+divinely founded, and is fortified as an institution by innumerable
+analogies in the whole kingdom of universal nature, still a true marriage
+is only known by its results; and like the fountain, if pure, will reveal
+only pure manifestations. That observation and experience daily show how
+incompetent are men, as individuals, or as governments, to select partners
+in business, teachers for their children, ministers of their religion, or
+makers, adjudicators or administrators of their laws; and as the same
+weakness and blindness must attend in the selection of matrimonial
+partners, the dictates of humanity and common-sense alike show that the
+latter and most important contract should no more be perpetual than either
+or all of the former."
+
+In supporting these resolutions, Mrs. Stanton said, "I place man above all
+governments, ecclesiastical and civil--all constitutions and laws." "In
+the settlement of any question, we must simply consider the highest good
+of the individual." Antoinette Brown Blackwell followed Mrs. Stanton with
+a series of resolutions in which she opposed her, and defended the
+sanctity of marriage. Wendell Phillips moved that neither series of
+resolutions be entered on the journal. Mr. Garrison said they did not come
+together to settle the question of marriage, but he should be sorry to
+rule out Mrs. Stanton's resolutions and speeches. Miss Anthony said: "I
+hope Mr. Phillips will withdraw his motion.... I totally dissent from the
+idea that this question does not belong on this platform. Marriage has
+ever been a one-sided matter. By it, man gains all, woman loses all.
+Tyrant law and lust reign supreme with him; meek submission and ready
+obedience alone befit her.... By law, public sentiment, and religion, from
+the time of Moses down to the present day, woman has never been thought of
+other than as a piece of property, to be disposed of at the will and
+pleasure of man.... She must accept marriage as man proffers it, or not at
+all."
+
+The resolutions were carried and recorded, and are published to this day,
+with added testimony to the same effect from a hundred Suffrage sources.
+We turn back to trace one of the lines through which this teaching has
+come down. The Suffrage leaders mention as special inspirers of their
+movement besides Ernestine Rose (who seconded Mrs. Stanton's resolutions)
+and Frances Wright, Margaret Fuller and Mary Wollstonecraft. In the
+writings of those women we find the same sentiments set forth with
+delicacy or vulgarity, according to the nature of the writer. Margaret
+Fuller, in her Dial essay, published in 1843, "The Great Lawsuit--Man
+Versus Woman, Woman Versus Man," says: "It is the fault of marriage, and
+of the present relation between the sexes, that the woman belongs to the
+man, instead of forming a whole with him. It is a vulgar error to suppose
+that love--a love--is to woman her whole existence. She is also born for
+Truth and Love in their universal energy. Would she but assume her
+inheritance, Mary would not be the only virgin mother." Mary
+Wollstonecraft believed that marriage consisted solely of mutual
+affection, and that there should be no outward promise or tie to bind. If
+love were to die, the heart should seek other affinity. The licentious
+words of Frances Wright need not be repeated. With Mephistophelian
+promptings, Ernestine Rose stood forever a-tip-toe, whispering in the ear
+of the purer American feeling that would often have faltered. At the time
+of the passing of Mrs. Stanton's resolutions she said: "But what is
+marriage? A human institution, called out by the needs of the social,
+affectional human nature for human purposes.... If it is demonstrated that
+the real objects are frustrated, I ask, in the name of individual
+happiness and social morality and well-being, why should such a marriage
+be binding for life?... I ask that personal cruelty to the wife may be
+made a State's-prison offence, for which divorce shall be granted. Wilful
+desertion for one year should be a sufficient cause for divorce....
+Habitual intemperance, or any other vice which makes the husband or wife
+intolerable and abhorrent to the other, ought to be sufficient cause for
+divorce." Essentially the same idea was repeated by Dr. Hulda Gunn in a
+recent Suffrage meeting.
+
+In asking for laws that carried out these claims, or some of them, Mrs.
+Stanton said, in addressing the New York Legislature in 1854: "If you take
+the highest view of marriage as a Divine relation, which love alone can
+constitute and sanctify, then of course human legislation can only
+recognize it.... But if you regard marriage as a civil contract, then let
+it be subject to the same laws that control all other contracts. Do not
+make it a kind of half-human, half-divine institution, which you may build
+up but cannot regulate."
+
+These doctrines--from those of Frances Wright to those of Mrs. Stanton and
+Miss Anthony--were put forth in the name of social purity and true
+marriage. A great body of Suffragists never have accepted them. They were
+repugnant, in this form, to a majority who were demanding "equal rights."
+In January, 1871, Mr. Hooker (husband of Isabella Beecher Hooker), said in
+the New York Evening Post: "The persons who advocate easy divorce would
+advocate it just as strongly if there was no Suffrage movement. The two
+have no necessary connection. Indeed, one of the strongest arguments in
+favor of Woman Suffrage is, that the marriage relation will be safer with
+women to vote and legislate upon it than where the voting and legislation
+are left wholly to men. Women will always be wives and mothers, above all
+things else. This law of nature cannot be changed, and I know of nobody
+who desires to change it." As he had just been referring to "persons who
+advocated easy divorce," and who originated the Suffrage movement, his
+statement that he knew of nobody who desired to change marriage seems
+funny.
+
+It was one of the matters remarked upon with satisfaction by Suffrage
+leaders during our Constitutional Convention Suffrage campaign, that such
+a large number of speakers advocated Suffrage because of its advantage to
+the home. Mrs. Cora Seabury said: "Where woman is, homes naturally exist,
+and not without her. The 'divine veracity in nature,' which in her case
+has survived the chaos of ages and the varying civilization of six
+thousand years, is not now to be disproved by an incident comparatively so
+trivial as that of taking the ballot." Dr. Jacobi puts the idea in this
+way: "Mr. Goldwin Smith declares that woman suffrage aims at such a
+'sexual revolution' as must cause the 'dissolution of the family.' The
+Suffrage claim does not aim at this; it seeks only to formulate,
+recognize, and define the revolution already effected, yet which leaves
+the family intact. The _Patria Potestas_ is gone. A man has lost, first,
+the right to kill his own son, then the right to order the marriage of his
+daughter, then the right to absorb the property of his wife. Nevertheless,
+he survives, and the family, shorn of its portentous rights, bids fair in
+America to remain the happiest of all conceivable natural institutions;
+more profound than society, so immeasurably deeper than politics that the
+fortunate wife, daughter, or sister is puzzled when the two are mentioned
+in the same breath."
+
+All these writers agree in demanding the ballot in order to make some
+essential change in woman's condition. Some of them hold that this change
+cannot be made unless the relations of wife and mother can be set aside
+when the individual considers them detrimental; others hold that it can be
+made and leave the relations intact; and one believes that this change is
+already so far made, while the relations are still intact, that nothing
+need be feared from further change. It reduces itself to matter of opinion
+and prophecy on the part of those who agree with the early leaders that
+essential change is needed, but do not agree with them as to the steps
+necessary. The appeal must be to facts.
+
+The originators of the movement ought to know what the movement meant. The
+marriage laws were the first attacked, and are still being hammered at in
+favor of divorce, although legislation has outrun their demand in changing
+the outgrown laws in regard to property and contracts. Mr. Hooker said:
+"The persons who advocate easy divorce would advocate it just as strongly
+if there was no Suffrage movement." How can that be, when the women who
+inspired the Suffrage movement, and who began it and still carry it on,
+proclaimed this as a necessary part? But, this question aside, it may be
+said that the marriage relation has been the most unsafe in the hands of
+the women whose idea of equality either repudiates it outright or inveighs
+against its present status. From the revolutionary and infidel portion of
+France, from which it sprang, to the recently dead Oneida Community, who
+but women who imbibed the doctrine that marriage was bondage, have
+sustained the various forms of license which called itself freedom?
+Transcendentalism and Libertinism worked together, and both found women
+who could be fitted to the task of destroying the home.
+
+Mrs. Seabury avers that where woman is, homes will naturally exist. Homes
+have not existed "naturally." There was a long, long time in human history
+when not a dream of a home existed. From lawless individualism to tribal
+life, from tribe to clan, from the clan, at last, through mighty
+struggles, the family was evolved--the final grouping of the race--the
+social unit. That point was not reached until man the savage, man the
+rover, had consented to be bound, and bound for life, to one woman. It has
+been one object of Christian civilization to hold man to this saving
+compact. First to hold his spirit by affection for wife and child, and
+next to hold his material interests for the sake of society. The work has
+so well progressed that to-day the man's family is dearer to him than his
+own life. He will live for them, and fight for them; and the women who
+proclaim that man is woman's enemy, are the assassins of their own peace
+and of the growing peace of home.
+
+A proof that "women will not always be wives and mothers above all things
+else," is to be found in the story of the women who have engaged in
+intrigue from the days of ancient Egypt. A woman State senator-elect says:
+"I am a Mormon, and believe in polygamy." The organizations that are first
+to proclaim the so-called freedom of woman from the marriage bond, are the
+same that would repudiate all government, human and divine.
+
+But man has no more set the bounds of woman's life than woman has set
+those of man's. It is false to say that man has "usurped the prerogative
+of Jehovah," in assigning her a sphere of action. He has assigned neither
+her sphere nor his own. Their spheres have been worked out from the
+conditions that made them male and female. The ideal that faith could
+picture was presented in the Old Testament, and when Christ said, "For the
+hardness of your hearts Moses commanded to write a bill of divorcement,
+but in the beginning it was not so," he spoke the ultimate word. Save for
+adultery, the family was not to be broken, and the laws of modern life,
+which grow freer in every other respect, are approaching nearer to this
+model as society progresses, and most rapidly so in the most progressive
+states.
+
+There is a fine bit of unconscious humor in Miss Anthony's remark that
+"Woman must accept marriage as man proffers it, or not at all." Man is at
+present blinded by the belief that he must proffer marriage as woman will
+accept it, or not at all. Society has lodged with her what Mrs. Stanton
+calls "only the veto power." Miss Anthony and Mrs. Stanton apparently wish
+the women to do the proffering, the accepting, and the rejecting. With so
+insignificant a part assigned him, it would seem a pity that there should
+be a sort of necessity for man to play in the marriage role at all. When
+Suffrage leaders have so arranged matters that the bride retains her
+maiden name, she can spend her summers in Europe and her winters in
+Florida, while her husband works all the year round in New York to support
+her, without her being subjected to the mortification of seeming to desert
+the man whose name she bears.
+
+You cannot teach this untruth to the girl without teaching it to the boy.
+The struggle of civilization has been to teach that manhood was not the
+great fact of man's life, and he has learned it through the chivalry and
+tenderness that appealed to and developed his higher nature. But if once
+he understands that woman does not hold herself in need of his chivalry
+and tenderness, the husbandhood and fatherhood that now bind him to one
+sacred vow of married love, and tame the savage within him, will not long
+prevent him from seeing his own advantage in the new order.
+
+Wifehood and motherhood 'incidental relations.' They are incidental!
+Incidental not only to the continuance of the race in civilization, but to
+all that is best and holiest in that continuance. The mothers of the
+Rebellion say: "The love of offspring, common to all orders of women and
+all forms of animal life, tender and beautiful as it is, cannot as a
+sentiment rank with conjugal love. The one calls out only the negative
+virtues that belong to the apathetic classes, such as patience, endurance,
+self-sacrifice, exhausting the brain forces, ever giving, asking nothing
+in return; the other, the outgrowth of the two supreme powers in nature,
+the positive and negative magnetism, the centrifugal and centripetal
+forces, the masculine and feminine elements, possessing the divine power
+of creation in the universe of thought and action. Two pure souls fused
+into one by an impassioned love. This is marriage, and this is the only
+corner-stone of an enduring home."
+
+The "homes" built solely upon this cornerstone have not endured in this
+country. The children born under such principles are taken care of by the
+"Community" in a building apart from that occupied by the "pure souls."
+The "institutional" bringing up of children was lately advocated in this
+city by Mrs. Stanton Blatch at Suffrage meetings.
+
+The virtues that the Suffrage leaders denounce as "apathetic" are those
+that Christ signalized as the heavenly virtues, and are those which heroes
+emulate, whether they be women or men.
+
+Dr. Jacobi says the Suffrage movement, "aims only to regulate and define
+the revolution already effected, and which leaves the family intact." I
+think it has been proven from words and acts that it does aim at just such
+a "sexual revolution" as threatens the family with dissolution. It aimed
+to accomplish this by every means in its power, by an industrialism which
+it desired should make woman independent of man, by divorce laws, and by
+the use of the ballot. Who has shorn man of all his portentous rights? Man
+himself, through the influence of woman. Is it likely, then, that he was
+taking steps in the direction of the destruction of his own home? He was
+endeavoring to build it on those sure foundations that make it what it is.
+He can build if woman occupies, but he cannot both fight for the home and
+against it. Circumstances, and not Suffrage cries, have forced or enticed
+woman into the trades and professions. She has gone farther afield for her
+work, partly because the Aegis of home is more broadly spread than it
+formerly could be on account of the very strength of the marriage tie,
+which makes honor, home, and woman more secure. So far as she has gone to
+help the home, and because of love of it, such causes have not hurt the
+family life, and will not. But when we come to Suffrage we have met a
+different matter. The vote is not an affair of feeling or opinion, like
+religious belief. The fact that the men of the family are the natural
+defenders of law, and the women are not, is seen at close quarters in the
+home, and in case of opposite votes and any serious resulting action, the
+father and son must stand in the attitude of actual physical as well as
+political antagonism to the mother and daughter. If it came to an issue,
+man would have to decide whether he would defend his own opinion,
+expressed in his ballot, or the opposite opinion expressed by his wife in
+her ballot. And the mere suggestion of difference in family opinion, final
+action upon which could only be taken by a resort to that in which the men
+must always be superior, would not only endanger family life and peace,
+but would develop a fatal inequality between the sexes. If the women of
+the family vote with the men, they only double the vote and the expense,
+without changing the result; if they vote against the men, they stand in
+the ridiculous attitude of opposing them where they cannot do more than
+pull hair, or inviting a revolution which they cannot stay.
+
+As to the possibility of this, there are a few striking and suggestive
+facts at hand. The sound judgment and law-abiding element of this country
+expressed itself in no uncertain tones at the late election. After the
+defeat of Mr. Bryan, he was given a tremendous demonstration of approval
+at Denver, in which the women played a conspicuous part. Mrs. Bradford
+said: "The women tried to welcome you to the White House. When a few more
+stars have been added to the Equal Suffrage banner, the women _will_
+welcome you to the White House." Mrs. Patterson, President of the Equal
+Suffrage League, said in seconding the address of welcome: "Women of
+Colorado, I present to you the first president of the twentieth century--
+William Jennings Bryan." An invalid of whom I know, travelled from
+California to her home in Colorado in order to cast her vote for Bryan,
+while her husband cast his for McKinley in California. Mrs. Cannon, of
+Utah, was elected on the Free-Silver ticket, against her husband on the
+Gold-Standard ticket. Mrs. Cronine, a Populist member of the legislature
+of Colorado, is reported as saying: "It hurt my husband, a lifelong
+Republican, to see me vote against his party and carry both our children
+with me." Should there be political disturbance in Colorado and Utah, in
+1900, here are three husbands on record who might be called upon by the
+United States authorities to put down by force, perhaps to kill, those
+whose lawlessness their wives had instigated and abetted. In one instance
+the man's own sons may fight against him, impelled to do so by the lessons
+taught by their mother. It requires no stretch of fancy to see the
+possibility of civil war brought to the doors of every home, when women
+vote. And the occasion that would bring it would not be the saving of the
+Nation's life, but its overthrow; not freedom for an oppressed class, but
+mingled bondage and license for a sex now free; not the preservation of
+home, but its destruction. The Suffrage women who here among us are
+talking so foolishly about arbitration and universal peace, seem to have
+no conception that with their next breath they are endeavoring to
+establish the conditions for the most horrible of conflicts--that of Sex.
+So far from the "taking of the ballot" being "trivial," it is the most
+serious and dangerous business in which a woman can engage.
+
+The home is not a natural institution unless it is maintained by natural
+means, and woman suffrage and the home are incompatible. John Bright, in
+reply to Mr. Theodore Stanton's question why he opposed suffrage, said, "I
+cannot give you all the reasons for the view I take, but I act from the
+belief that to introduce women into the strife of political life would be
+a great evil to them, and that to our own sex no possible good could
+arise. When women are not safe under the charge or care of fathers,
+husbands, brothers, and sons, it is the fault of our non-civilization, and
+not of our laws. As civilization founded on Christian principles advances,
+women will gain all that is right for them to have, though they are not
+seen contending in the strife of political parties. In my experience I
+have observed evil results to many women who have entered hotly into
+political conflict and discussion. I would save them from it."
+
+How true this is, and how wise are the fears expressed by Mr. Bright, we
+realize afresh at every study of the exciting campaign of November, 1896.
+The Woman's Journal, the Suffrage organ, published a letter from its
+California correspondent descriptive of the work of their women in
+watching the count on the Suffrage amendment. One woman who felt "terribly
+blue" says that a man patted her on the shoulder and told her to keep up
+her courage, and she says: "It broke me up, I can tell you, for I never
+could stand sympathy. If people will let me alone, I can grit my teeth and
+stand it, but when they say kind things to me I go to pieces. However, as
+I was bound I would not show those men how badly I felt, and give them a
+chance to say women were hysterical, I smiled weakly--very weakly, I'm
+afraid--but still it was a smile and passed as such. Then I began to get
+sick--ye gods! how sick! The excitement in the booth stopped, but there
+was an excitement in my head that had not been there before! Everything
+got black and began to go round. They could have counted us out a dozen
+times, and I should never have known the difference." Again the
+correspondent says: "Mrs. W. was so tired that she broke down." "Mrs.
+Babcock waxed eloquent, and had the meeting in tears. Miss Shaw said she
+wanted to speak of one who had been forgotten, because she came here
+before any of the rest, and worked so hard that she had ruined her health,
+and lay pale and white on her couch at home. She stood there, and the
+tears rolled down her cheeks, and she didn't try to wipe them away. Every
+one was crying. Mrs. Blinn said, 'I cannot speak. I feel too much to say
+anything,' and then she broke down and cried. Mrs. McCann soon had
+everybody crying about Miss Hay, and when Miss Hay got up she was crying
+too. So we had a very weepy morning, you see." In describing the departure
+of Miss Anthony and Rev. Anna Shaw for the East she says: "Oh, it was
+awful! awful! The whole thing was like a funeral."
+
+With the steady improvement in machinery and in education, the wife and
+mother can be more and more relieved of work. But the home depends as much
+as ever upon her love, her skill, her care. She now has means, which
+science has just taught the world, of learning how to provide, on proper
+principles, for children, how to dress sensibly, cook wholesomely, make
+the home sanitary. Nursing is a fine art now, and comforts can be placed
+within the reach of every invalid, if the mother knows how to do it. If
+home is to be hospitable, and a centre of social influence, all the
+artistic and homely powers are demanded. If the family is to be well-
+dressed, the mother must attend to it. If home is to be beautiful, the
+mother and daughter must make it so. In these days, there is little need
+of slaving; and there is a glimpse ahead of leisure for thought and self-
+culture such as men would find it hard to make. The long and enforced
+retirement of maternity may prove a time for most valuable improvement. In
+our social life there is too little culture that is the result of
+absorption by a quiet process of mental assimilation. The place where this
+can be best achieved is in the home. The danger of our fascinating modern
+life, with its endless calls and opportunities outside, lies in the strain
+it puts upon systems that are far more delicately organized than man's.
+Nature meant that women should have periods of quiet. Let us honor our own
+natures, exalt our own opportunities, love and lead our own lives, and so
+bless the world and the Republic through perfected homes.
+
+I have considered this question mainly from the view-point of the wife and
+mother; but the home relations are vastly broader. In regard to their
+whole scope, some of the Suffrage leaders have uttered this dictum: "The
+isolated household is responsible for a large share of woman's ignorance
+and degradation." If this declaration does not mean that the Suffrage
+movement aims to tear down the individual home, it means nothing. The
+world must judge which system is responsible for the larger share of
+woman's ignorance and degradation.
+
+
+
+
+CHAPTER XII.
+
+
+CONCLUSION.
+
+
+In the opening of this volume I have given it as my opinion that the
+movement to obtain the elective franchise for woman is not in harmony with
+those through which woman and government have made progress. I have spoken
+of the marvellous forward impulse that has marked the passage of the last
+half-century, and have mentioned the growth of religious liberty, the
+founding of foreign and home missions, the extinction of slavery, the
+temperance movement, the settlement of the West, the opening of the
+professions and trades to women, the progress of mechanical invention, the
+sudden advance of science, the civil war, and the natural play of free
+conditions, as among the causes of this impulse. I have pointed out the
+fact that the Suffrage movement has nearly reached its semi-centennial
+year, and has made a record by which its relation to these progressive
+forces can be judged, and I have appealed from the repetition of its
+claims to the verdict of its accomplishment.
+
+In the second chapter I have considered the growth of republican forms the
+world over, and endeavored to show that the dogma of Woman Suffrage is
+fundamentally at war with true democratic principles, and that,
+practically, woman suffrage has been allied with despotism, monarchy, and
+ecclesiastical oppression on the one hand, and with the powers of license
+and misrule that assail republican government on the other.
+
+In the third chapter I attempt to prove this further by a study of the
+origin of the Suffrage movement, and by its relation to the Government of
+the United States. I try to refute the two propositions which it has put
+forth as solid resting-ground for woman's claim to the elective franchise
+in this land--"Taxation without representation is tyranny," and "There is
+no just government without the consent of the governed." I have also set
+forth the difference between municipal and constitutional suffrage, and
+shown that the extension of school suffrage, so far from being a stepping-
+stone to full suffrage, affords another evidence that such full suffrage
+is unprogressive and undemocratic. It is held that regulated, universal
+manhood suffrage is the natural and only safe basis of government.
+
+In the fourth chapter I consider the early relation of the Suffrage
+movement to the causes of anti-slavery and temperance. I also discuss the
+attitude of the Suffrage leaders during the civil war, and indicate that
+the Suffrage movement was not patriotic, and was a hindrance to
+emancipation and reform.
+
+The fifth chapter treats of the connection of the Suffrage movement with
+the change that has taken place in the laws, and it contains a synopsis of
+the present laws of New York regarding women. From this study it appears
+that the Suffrage movement did not originate the change in the laws; that
+many changes most vigorously urged by its associations never have been
+enacted; and that change of laws has not been so much sought as a voice
+upon change of laws--the fact being, that the vote _per se_ has been urged
+as the panacea for all woman's wrongs.
+
+The sixth chapter deals with Woman Suffrage and the trades. It shows that
+this movement was not instrumental in opening the trades to women; that
+the conditions of industrial life are not changed in such essentials as
+would involve a change of sex relation to Government; and that, so far
+from altering the basis of government, industrialism has introduced new
+problems of such grave import that security in the enforcement of law is
+doubly necessary. It shows, furthermore, that socialistic labor has been
+naturally the friend of Woman Suffrage, while the safer and sounder
+organizations have extended sympathetic help to woman.
+
+The seventh chapter discusses the connection of Woman Suffrage with the
+professions. It aims to show that here, too, suffrage has not been
+necessary to gain, for women who were fitted to hold it, an honorable
+place; and, in regard to the places they have not yet entered, it is held
+that the impulse must come from within. It is argued that, in the
+professions, as in the trades, Suffrage effort has hindered more than it
+has helped, and that in the West its practical working is the most
+damaging thing that has attended woman's real progress.
+
+The eighth chapter considers the connection of Woman Suffrage with
+education. Its conclusions are, that not education, but coeducation, was
+the persistent demand of Suffragists, and that woman's advancement in
+college and university was wrought out by the impulse gained from women
+who opposed the Suffrage idea, and made practical by men to whom also that
+idea was repugnant. It is suggested that women who could prepare and
+defend the ignorant Suffrage Woman's Bible have no right to utter a
+syllable in protest of the educational ideas of men and women who are
+competent to speak on the subject, and whose verdict has been, on the
+whole, for separate study during collegiate age, wherever such could be
+afforded, while it is not disputed that coeducation has its place and its
+uses.
+
+The ninth chapter presents Woman Suffrage in its relation to the church.
+It first discusses, briefly, a few points in the Suffrage Woman's Bible,
+published in New York in 1895. This is a commentary on such passages in
+the Pentateuch as relate to women, and the title "Rev." is prefixed to
+four names of editors on its title-page. This book, or rather a book of
+which this is the first instalment, was promised by Suffrage writers and
+speakers from the beginning. It is considered to contain the consummate
+blossom of the mind that first expounded the Suffrage theory--the mind
+that grasped it as a whole, in its full meaning and intent, and never has
+wavered in expression as to its ultimate object and the means by which
+that object is to be sought. This chapter sets forth, in few words, the
+present writer's view of woman in the creation, and of St. Paul's attitude
+toward woman. The chapter further discusses woman's early preaching in
+this country, and shows that it has not been such as to build up religion
+or the state, but has been such as to suggest that, while the
+possibilities of her nature tend to make her supreme in capacity to point
+the way to higher regions, it also contains qualities that may render her
+peculiarly dangerous as a public leader.
+
+The tenth chapter, entitled "Woman Suffrage and Sex," alludes briefly to
+the social evil, and then discusses the Suffrage ideas in regard to sex as
+explained by both their older and more recent writers. It discusses the
+disabilities of sex in relation to the suffrage--the difficulties in the
+way of jury duty, police duty, and office-holding--and draws the
+conclusion that the fulfilment of such necessary work of the voting
+citizen is practically an impossibility for woman, and has been found to
+be so in the Western States.
+
+The eleventh chapter has for its title "Woman Suffrage and the Home." It
+sets forth the belief that the Suffrage movement strikes a blow squarely
+at the home and the marriage relation, and that the ballot is demanded by
+its most representative leaders for the purpose of making woman
+independent of the present social order. It argues that communism is the
+natural ally of Suffrage, and that, as homes did not spring out of the
+ground, they will not remain where men and women alter the mutual
+relations out of which the institution of home has slowly grown.
+
+The general conclusion of the book is, that woman's relation to the
+Republic is as important as man's. Woman deals with the beginnings of
+life; man, with the product made from those beginnings; and this fact
+marks the difference in their spheres, and reveals woman's immense
+advantage in moral opportunity. It also suggests the incalculable loss in
+case her work is not done or ill done. In a ruder age the evident value of
+power that could deal with developed force was most appreciated; but such
+is not now the case. It lies with us to prove that education, instead of
+causing us to attempt work that belongs even less to the cultivated woman
+than to the ignorant, is fitting us to train up statesmen who will be the
+first to do us honor. The American Republic depends finally for its
+existence and its greatness upon the virtue and ability of American
+womanhood. If our ideals are mistaken or unworthy, then there will be
+ultimately no republic for men to govern or defend. When women are
+Buddhists, the men build up an empire of India. When women are
+Mohammedans, the men construct an Empire of Turkey. When women are
+Christians, men can conceive and bring into being a Republic like the
+United States. Woman is to implant the faith, man is to cause the Nation's
+faith to show itself in works. More and more these duties overlap, but
+they cannot become interchangeable while sex continues to divide the race
+into the two halves of what should become a perfect whole. Woman Suffrage
+aims to sweep away this natural distinction, and make humanity a mass of
+individuals with an indiscriminate sphere. The attack is now bold and now
+subtle, now malicious and now mistaken; but it is at all times an attack.
+The greatest danger with which this land is threatened comes from the
+ignorant and persistent zeal of some of its women. They abuse the freedom
+under which they live, and to gain an impossible power would fain destroy
+the Government that alone can protect them. The majority of women have no
+sympathy with this movement; and in their enlightenment, and in the
+consistent wisdom of our men, lies our hope of defeating this unpatriotic,
+unintelligent, and unjustifiable assault upon the integrity of the
+American Republic.
+
+NEW YORK, _March, 1897_.
+
+THE END.
+
+
+
+
+
+End of Project Gutenberg's Woman and the Republic, by Helen Kendrick Johnson
+
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