\ 
 
 48th Congress, ) SENATE. 
 1st Sessio7i, } 
 
 IX THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 March 28, 1884.— Ordered to be printed. 
 
 Mr. Palmer, from the Committee on Woman Suffrage, submitte 1 the 
 
 l'ollowiD<i' 
 
 REPORT: 
 
 [To accompany S. R. 19.] 
 
 The Committee on Woman Suffrage submit the following report, to accom- 
 pany Senate joint resolution 19, proposing an amendment to the Con- 
 stitution of the United States : 
 
 All persons born or natnralized in the United States and snbject to the jnrisdiction 
 thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. (XIV 
 Amendment, section 1.) 
 
 "Women are persons born or natnralized in the United States, and are 
 therefore citizens of the United States and of the States in which they 
 reside. 
 
 Xo State shall make or enforce any law that sliall abridge the privileges or immuni- 
 ties of citizens of the United States ; nor shall any State dei^rive any person of life, 
 liberty, or property without due process of law, nor deny to any ])erson within its 
 Jnrisdiction the equal i)rotection of the laws. 
 
 The privileges and immunities of ^Yomen citizens are abridged by the 
 several States in many ways. The fundamental privilege — "the right 
 of citizens to vote " — is not only abridged, but in most of the States totally 
 denied. 
 
 It is to be considered that in adopting this resolution Congress b}' no 
 means imposes woman suffrage upon the country; nor does it necessarily, 
 even, declare in its favor. But in view of the extent of the agitation 
 upon the subject, and of the number and respectability of the petitioners 
 in its favor. Congress simply takes the initiative to submit the(iuestion 
 to the i)eoi)le of the several States through their respective legislatnres. 
 
 The Constitution is wisely conservative in the provisions for its own 
 amendment. And your committee deem it eminently j^roper in view of 
 the rajndly increasing numbers who have for the last eighteen years so 
 earnestly, persistently, and patiently indicated a desire for an amend- 
 ment, that the amending power, the State legislatures, should be con- 
 sulted. 
 
 We, therefore, report back the i)roposed resolution for the considera- 
 tion of the Senate, and recommend its passage. 
 
 The committee api)end hereto the remarks made before this committee, 
 of March 7, 1881, and also the remarks made before the Senate Judiciary 
 Committee, printed in Senate Mis. Doc. Xo. 74, Forty-seventh Congress, 
 lirst session, as a part of this report. 
 
 T. W. PALMEK. 
 H. W. BLAIIJ. 
 E. G. LAPUAM. 
 
 Report 
 No. 399. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 My view of the subject is embodied in my qualified assent to tbe re- 
 port lioretofore made. 
 
 n. B. ANTHONY. 
 
 The followiu^i* is tbe assent of Senator Antbony to tbe report of tbe 
 Committee on AVoniau Suffrage in tbe Forty-seventb Congress, above 
 referred to : 
 
 The Constitution is wisely conservative in tbe provision for its own aniendnient. It 
 is eminently proper that whenever a hirj^e number of tbe ]>eople have indicated a de- 
 sire for an aniendnient tbe jud<>ment of the amendin<i- ])o\Yer sbouhi be consulted. In 
 view of the extensive agitation of the (juestion of woman sutfia<;e, and the numerous 
 and respectalile petitions that have been presented to Congress in its support, I unite 
 witli the committee in recommending that the proposed an endmeut be submitted to 
 the States. 
 
 H. B. ANTHONY. 
 
 ARGUMENTS BEFORE THE SELECT COMMITTEE ON WOMAN 
 SUFFRAGE. UNITED STATES SENATE, MARCH 7, 1884, 
 
 BY 
 
 A committee of the Sixteenth Animal Washiuf/ton Convention of the Xa- 
 tional Woman Suffrage Association in favor of a sixteenth amendment 
 to the Constitution of the United States^ that shall protect the right of 
 tvomen citizens to vote in the several States of the Union. 
 
 ORDER OF PROCEEDING. 
 
 The Chairman. (Senator Cockrell.) We have allotted the time to be divided as 
 the speakers may desire among themselves. We are now ready to hear the Ladies. 
 
 Miss SiTSAX B, Anthony. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the select committee : 
 This is the sixteenth time that we have come before Congress in person, and the nine- 
 teenth annually by petitions. Ever since the war, from the winter of IriGo-'dO, we 
 have reguhirly sent up i)etitions asking for the national protection of the citizen's 
 ri'^ht to^vote \vhen the citizen liappens to be a woman. We are here again for the 
 sanie purpose. I do not propose to speak now, but to introduce the other speakers, 
 and at the close ])erhaps will state to the committee the reasons why we come to 
 Congress. The other s|)eaker8 will give their thought from the stand-point of their 
 respective States. I will tirst introduce to the committee Mrs. Harriet R. Shattuck, 
 of Boston, Mass. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. HARRIET R. SHATTUCK. 
 
 Mrs. Shattuck. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen : It seems as if it were almost unnec- 
 essary for us to come here at this meeting, because I feel that all we have to say and 
 all we liave to claim is known to you, and we cannot add anything to what has been 
 said in tbe past sixtetn years. 
 
 But I should like to say one thing, and that is, that in my work it has seemed that 
 if we could eoiivince everybody of the violhrs of the sutVragists we woubl go far to- 
 wards removing jirejudices, 1 know that those motives are very much misunderstood. 
 I'crsons think of us as ambitious women, who are desirous for fame, and who merely 
 come forwanl to make s])eeches and get befon^ the public, or else they think that we 
 are unfortunate beings with no homes, or unhappy wives, who are get! ing ()ur liveli- 
 hood in Ibis sort of way. If we could conviiuie every man who has a vote in this Re- 
 public that this is not the case, I helic^ve we could go far towards removing the i)reju- 
 dice. against us. If we could make them sec that we are working here merely because 
 we know that the cause is right, and we feel that we must work for it, that there is a 
 ]>ower <)utsi<le of ours(dves wliicli impels us onward, which sa.vs to us go forward and 
 H])eak to the pe(»ple and try to bring them uj) to a sense of their duty and of our right. 
 This istlu' l»eli«'f that I have in reganl to our position on this (luestion. It is a mat- 
 ter of duty with us, and that is all. 
 
 In Massachusetts 1 rejnesent a very much larger number of women than issujiposed. 
 It has always been said that vi'ry few women wish to vote. Believing that this ob- 
 iectiou, although it has nothing to do with the rights of the cause, ought to be lyet, 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 3 
 
 the association of wliicli I am piesidoiit inaugurated last yoar a sort of canvass, wliicli 
 1 believe never had been attempted before, wliereby we obtained tiie jjroportion of 
 -women in favor and o])j)osed to sutfraue in differiMit localities of our State. We took 
 four localities in the city of Boston, two in smaller citirs, and two in thecountry dis- 
 tricts, and one also of school teacluMs in nine schools of ouo, town. Those school 
 teachiTs wcn^ unanimously in favor of sulfra<;-e, and in the ninc^ localities we found 
 that the ju-oportion of women in favor was very lar«;<» as a^^ainst those opposed. The 
 total of wouH'U canvassed was 814. Those in favor were 4U5> those opposed 41, indif- 
 ferent, ItUi; refused to sign, IGO ; not seen, 3D. This, you see, is a very lar«;e i)ropor- 
 tion in favor. Those indirterent and tho.se who were not seen were not included, 
 because we claim that nobody < an yet say that they are opi)osed or in favor until 
 they declare themselves; but the 40.') in favor against the 44 opposed were as i) to 1. 
 These canvasses were made by women who were of perfect respectability and respon- 
 sibility, and they swore before a justice of the peace as to the truth of their state- 
 ments. 
 
 So we have in Massachusetts this reliable canvass of the number of women in favor 
 as to those opi)osed, and we find that it is 9 to 1. 
 
 These women, then, are the class whom I represent here, and they are women who 
 cannot come here themselves. Vei'y few women in the country can come here and do 
 this work, or do the work in their States, because they are in their homes attending 
 to their duties, but none the h^ss are they believers in this cause. We would not any 
 more than any man in the country ask a wonuiu to leave her home duties to go into 
 this work, bi^t a lew of us are so situated that we can do it, and we come here and we 
 go to the State legislatures representing all the women of the country in this work. 
 
 What we ask is] not that we may have the ballot to obtain any particular thing, al- 
 though we know that better things will come about from it, but merely because it is 
 our right, and as a matter of justice we claim it as human b(!ii)gs and as citizens, and 
 as nu)ral, responsible, and spiritual beings, whose voice ought to be heard in the Gov- 
 ernment, and who ought to take hand with nwn and help the world to become better. 
 
 Gentlemen, you have kejjt women just a little ste]) below you. It is only a short 
 step. You shower down favors upon us it is true, still we remain below you, the re- 
 cipients of favors without the right to take w^hat is our own. We ask that this shall 
 be changed ; that you shall take us by the hand and lift us up to the same political 
 level with you, where we shall have rights with you, and stand equal with you be- 
 fore the law. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. :MAY WRIGHT SEWALL. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I will now introduce to the committee Mrs. May Wright Sewall, of 
 In(liana])olis, who is the chairman of our executive committee. 
 
 Mrs. Sewall. Gentlemen of the committee : Genth'inen, I believe, differ somewhat 
 in their political opinions. It will not then be surprising, I sup})ose, that I should 
 dilfer somewhat from my friend in regard to the knowledge that you prooably ])ossess 
 upon our question. I do not believe that you know all that we know about the wo- 
 men of this country, for I believe that if yon did know even all that I know, and my 
 knowledge is much more limited than that of many of my sisters, long ago the six- 
 teenth amendment, for which we ask, would have been passed through your influ- 
 ence. 
 
 I remember that when I was here two years ago and had the honor of a])pearing 
 before the committee, who granted us, on that occasion, what you are'so kind and 
 courteous to grant on this occasion, an opi)ortunity to s[)eak before you, I told you 
 that I represented at least seventy thousand wcmen who had asked for the ballot in 
 my State, and I tried then to remind the members of the committee that had seventy 
 thousand Indiana men asked for any measure from the Congress that then occupied 
 this Capitol, that measure would have secured the most deliberate cousideratiDU from 
 their hands, and, in all probability, its passage by the Congress. Of that there can be 
 no doubt. 
 
 I do not wi.sh to exaggerate my constituency, but during the last two years, and 
 since I had the honor of addressing the committee, the work of woman suifrage has 
 progressed very rapidly in my State. The number of women who have tound them- 
 selves in circumstances to work openly and whose spirit has been drawn into it has 
 largely increased, and as the workers have multiplied the results have increased. 
 While we have not t iken the careful canvass that has l)een so wisely and judiciously 
 taken in Massachusetts, so that I can present to you the exact number of wouu-n who 
 wodld to-day ajjpeal for ;->utlrage, I know that I can, far within the bounds of possible 
 truth, state that while I represented seventy thousand wouumi in my State two years 
 ago, who desired the adoption of the sixteenth amendment, I represent ro-day twice 
 that number. 
 
 Should any one come up from Indiana, pivotal State as it has been long called in 
 national elections, saying that he rei)resented the wish of one hundred and forty 
 
4 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 thousand Indiana men, gentleuien, would you scorn liis appeal ? Would you treat it 
 lightly ? Not at all. Vou know that it would receive the most candid considera- 
 tion. You know that it wouhl receive not niendy respectful consideration, but im- 
 nu'diate aiul prompt and just action upon your part. 
 
 I have been told since I have reached Washinijton that of all women in the country 
 Indiana wonuni have the least to com[)lain of, and the least reason for coming to the 
 Ignited States Capitol with their petitions and the statement of their needs, because we 
 have received from onr own legislature such amendnu^nt .and amelioration of the old 
 unjust laws. In one sense it is true that we are the reci])ients in our own State of many 
 civil rights and of a very large degree of civil e(iuality. It is true that as respects 
 property rights, and as respects iiulustrial rights, the women of my own State may 
 perhaps be the envy of all other wonuni in the land, l)ut, gentlemen, you have always 
 told men that the greater their rights and the more numerous their ])rivileges the 
 greater their responsibilities. That is equally true of woman, and simply because our 
 property rights are enlarged, because our industrial field is enlarged, because we have 
 more women who are producers in the industrial world, recognized as such, who own 
 property in their own nanu'S, and consequently pay taxes upon that proi)erty, and 
 thereby have greater linancial and larger social, as well as industrial and business in- 
 terests at stake in our own conmionwealth, and in the manner in which the adminis- 
 tration of national affairs is conducted — because of all of these privileges we the more 
 need the power which shall emi)hasize our influence upon political actions. 
 
 You know that industrial and property rights are in the hands of the law-makers 
 and the executors of the laws. Therefore, because of our advanced position in that 
 matter we the more need the recognition of our pcditical e(iuality. 1 say the recog- 
 nition of our political equality, because I believe the equality lilready exists. I be- 
 lieve it waits simply for your recognition ; that were the Constitution now justly con- 
 strued, and the word " citizens," as used in your Constitution, justly applied it would 
 include us, the women of this country. So I ask for the recognition of an equality 
 that we already possess. 
 
 Further, l)ecause of what we have we ask for more. Because of the duties that we 
 are commanded to do, we ask for more. My friend has said, and it is true in some re- 
 spects, that men have always kept us just a little bidow them where they could shower 
 upon us favors, and they have alwj'iys done that generously. So they have, but, 
 gentlemen, has your sex been more generous in its favors to women than Avomenhave 
 l)een generous towar<l your sex in their favors ? Neither one can do without the other ; 
 neither can disj)ens«? with the service of the other; lu'ither can dispense with t^'e rev- 
 erence of the other, with the aid of the other in domestic life, in social life. The men 
 of this nation are rapidly finding that they cannot dispense with the service of wo- 
 men in business lift;. I know that they are also feeling the need of what they call the 
 moral support of wouumi in their public life, and in their ])olilical life. 
 
 I always feel that it is not for wonuMi aione that I appeal. As men have long rep- 
 r(!sented me, or assumed to do so, and as the men of my own family always have done 
 so justly and most chivalrously, I feel that in my ai)peal for political recognition I 
 represent them ; that I represent my husband and my brother and the interests of 
 the sex to which they belong, for you, gentlemen, by lifting the women of the nation 
 into political e(iualily would simply jdace us where we could lift you where you never 
 yet have stood, ui>on a moral e([uality with us. (ientlon)en, that is true. You know 
 it as well as 1. I do not sjx-ak to yon as individuals; I speak to you as the re])re- 
 senfatives of your sex, as I staml here the re^jresentative of mine, and never unfil we 
 are your cijAals politically will the moral standard for men be what it now is for 
 w^omen, and it is none too high Let it grow the more elevated l)y our growth in 
 spirituality, by every aspiration which we nu-eive from the God whence we draw our 
 life and whence we draw (»ur impulses of life. Let our standard remain where it is 
 and be more elevated. Yours must come up to match it, and never will it until we 
 an; your equals p(ditically. So it is for men, as well as for women, that I make my 
 a])peal. 
 
 I know that there are some gentlemen u)H)n this committee who, when we were 
 here two years ago, had sometliing to say al)out the rights of the States and of their 
 disinclination to interfere with the rights of the States iji this nuittcr. I have great 
 symimthy with the genth'ineu from theS(Mitii, who, I hope, do not forget that they are 
 rejucsenting tlui women of the South in their work here at the national cajntal. Al- 
 ready some Xorlhern States are making rapid strides towards the enfranchisement of 
 their women. The men of souie oi" liu- Northern States see that they can no longtT 
 accomplish tlu' purj)oses ]K)litically whi<"h they desire to accoujplish without tht^ aid 
 of the wr)men of their resp(M-tivt? States. WjKshington is tlu^ thir«l Territory that has 
 added wom»'n to its vot ing force, and <'ons<'(piently to its political i)ower to its political 
 power at the national capital, as well as its own cai)ital. Oregon will undoubtedly, 
 as her re})resentative will t«'ll you to <lay, soon add its women to its voting force. 
 The men who believe that each State must be left to do tliis for itself will soon find 
 I hat tlie lialance of power b(?tween North and South is destroyed, unless the women 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 5 
 
 of the South arc l)rou<Tht forwarrt to add to tlic political force of the South an the 
 Avomcu of the North arc being brouijlit forw ard to add to the political force ot the 
 Nortli. 
 
 This should not b(^ acted upon as a i>artisan nu'asure. "We do not aj)pt^al to you as 
 Re]>ublicans or as Democrats. We liave auu)n<^ us Uepublicans and I)eniocrats ; we 
 have our jiarty athliations. We, of course, were n'nrt'd with our brothers under the 
 political belii'f and faith of our fathers, and probably as much inliuiniced by that 
 rearin<if as our brothers were. We shall j^o to streno thdi both the ]>(ilitical i»arties, 
 neither one nor the other the more, [jrobably. So that it is not as a ])artisan meaaure ; it 
 is as a just measure, which is our due, not because of what we are, {gentlemen, but be- 
 cause of what you are, and because of what we are throu«rh you, of what you shall 
 be throutjh us; of what we, men and women, both are by virtue of our herita<^e and 
 our one Father, our one mother eternal, the spirit created and i)ro<j;ressive, that has 
 thus far sustained us, and that will carry us and you forward to the action which we 
 demand of you to take, and to the results which we anticipate will attend upon that 
 action. 
 
 REMAKKS BY MRS. HELEN M. GOUGAR. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I think I will call upon the other rei)re8entative of the State of In- 
 diana to speak now, Mrs. Helen M. Gou<rar, of Lafayette, Ind. 
 
 Mrs. Goi'dAK. Gentlemen, we are here on behalf of the women citizens of this Re- 
 public, askin<x for political freedom. I maintain that there is no political (juestion 
 paramount to that of woman suffrage before the ]>eople of America to-day. Poli- 
 tical jiarties would fain have ns believe that taritf is the "jreat (juestion of the 
 hour. Political parties know better. It is an insult to the intelligence of the present 
 hour to say that when one-half the citizens of this Republic are denied a direct voice 
 in making the laws under which they shall live that taritf, or that the civil rights of 
 the negro, or any other question that can be brought no is ecjualto the one of giving 
 political freedom to women. So I come to ask you, as representative men, nuiking 
 laws to govern the women the same as the men of this country (and there is not a law 
 that you make in the United States Congress in which woman has not an equal in- 
 terest with man), to take the word ''male" out of the constitutions of the United 
 States and the several States, as you have taken the word ''white" out, and give to 
 us women a voice in the laws under which we live. 
 
 You ask me why I am inclined to be practical in my view of this question. In the 
 first ])lace, s])eaking from my own stan<l-point, I ask you to let me have a voice in the 
 laws under which I shall live because the older empires of the earth are sending in 
 upon our American shores a population drawn very largely fro'u the asylums, yes, 
 from the penitentiaries, the jails, and the poor-houses of the old world. They are 
 emptying those men upon our shores, and within a few months they are intrusted 
 "With the ballot, the law-making power in this Republic, and they and their repre- 
 sentatives are seated in ofhcial and legislative positions. I, as an American-born 
 woman, to-day enter my protest at being compelled to live under laws made by this 
 class of men very largely, and myself being rendered utterly incapable of the jjrotec- 
 tiou that can only come from the ballot. While I would not have you take this right 
 or privilege from those men whom we invite to our shores, I do ask you, in the face of 
 this immense foreign immigration, to enfranchise the tax-paying, intelligent, moral, 
 native-born women of America. 
 
 Miss Anthony. And foreign women too. 
 
 Mrs. GouGAK. Miss Anthony suggests an amendment, and I indorse it most heartily, 
 and foreign women too, because if we let a foreign man vote I say let the foreign 
 "wouian vote. I am in favor of universal suffrage. 
 
 Gentlemen, I ask this as a matter of justice : I ask it because it is an insult to the 
 intelligence of the present to draw the sex line upon any right whatever. I know 
 there are many objections urged, and I am sure that you have considered this (jues- 
 tiou; but I only make the demand from the stand-point, not of sex, but of humanity. 
 
 As a Northern woman, as a woman from Indiana, I know that we have the intelli- 
 gent, thinkiin;, cultured, pure, patriotic nu-n and wouicn with us We have the 
 women who are engaged in philanthropic enterprises. We have in our own Stat*- the 
 signatures of over 5,000 of the school teachers asking for woman's ballot. I ask you 
 if the United States Government does not need the voice of those 5,000 educated 
 school teachers as much as it needs the voice of the 240 male criminals who are, on an 
 average, sent out of the penitentiary of Indiana every year, who go to the ballot-box 
 upon every question whatever, and make laws under which those schoolteachers must 
 live, and under which the mothers of our State must keep their homes and rear their 
 children ? 
 
 On behalf of the mothers of this country I demand that their hands shall be loosened 
 before the ballot-box, and that they shail have the privilege of throwing the mother 
 heart into the laws that shall follow their sons not only to the age of majority that 
 
6 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 only has l)ccn made lejj;al, but is never reeo^^nized, and m I ask you to let the mothers 
 carry their influeiu e in prote(;tin«j; laws around the fbot-stei»s ot those boys, even after 
 their hair has turned ^ray and they have seats in the United States Congress. I ask 
 you to give theni the ])Ower to throAv ])rotecting laws around tliose boys to the very 
 coniiues (»f eternity. This can be done in no indirect way; ir cannot be done by the 
 silent iniiuence ; it cannot be done by prayer. While I <lo not und'>restiinate tlie power 
 of i)rayer, I say give me my ballot on election day that shall send ])ure men. g;>od men, 
 inteliigent men, statesmen instead of the modern ])olitician into our legislative halls. 
 1 would rather have that ballot on election day than the prayers of all the disfran- 
 chised women in the universe. 
 
 So I ask you to loosen our hands. I ask yon to let us join with you in developing 
 tliis science of human government. What is ])olitics after all but the scii'uce of 
 governn'.ent ? We are interested in these questions, and we are investigating them 
 already. We have our opinions. Kect-ntly an able man has said that we have been 
 grandly developed physically and mentally, but as a nation we are a i)olitical infant. 
 So we are, gentlemen; we are to-day in America politically simply an infant. Why is 
 it? It is because we laave not recognized God's family plan m government — man and 
 woman together. He created the male and f* male, and gave them dominion together. 
 We have dominion in every other interest in society, and why shall we not stand 
 shoulder to shoulder and have dominion in the science in government, in making the 
 laws under which we shall live? 
 
 We are taxed to sui)port this Government — this immense Capitol building is built 
 largely from the industries of the tax-paying women of this country — and yet we are 
 denied the slightest voice in distributing our taxes. Our forepareuts did not ol)Ject 
 to taxation, but they did object to taxation without representation, and we, as think- 
 ing, industrious, active American women, object to taxation without representation. 
 We are willing to contribute our share to the support of this Government, as we al- 
 ways have done; but we have a right to ask for our little yes and no in tlie form of 
 the ballot so that we shall have a direct inlluence in distributing the taxes. 
 
 Genth inen, I am amenable to the gallows and the penitentiary, and it is no more 
 than right that I shall have a voice in framing the laws under Avhich I shall be re- 
 warded or punishc^d. Am I asking too nnich of you a« representative men of this 
 great Government when I ask you to let n.-^c have a voice in making the laws under 
 which I shall be rewarded or puuislied ? It is written in the law of every State in 
 this Unn)n that a person in the courts shall have a jury of his ])eers, yet so long as 
 the word "male" stands as it docs in tin; Constitutions of the United States and the 
 States no woman in any State of this Union can have a jury of her peers. I protest 
 in the name of justice against going into the court-room and b<'ing compelled to run 
 the gantlet of tlie gutter and of the saloon — yes, even of the police court and of the 
 jail— as we are compelled to do to select a male jury to try the interests of women, 
 whether relating to life, ])roperty, or reputation. So long as the word " male" is in 
 our constitutions just so long we caunot have a jury of our peers in any State in the 
 Union. 
 
 I ask that the women shall have the right of the ballot that they may go into our 
 legislative halls and there; provide for the prevention rather thau the cure of crime. 
 I ask you on behalf of the twelv<! hundred children under twelve years of age, who 
 are in the poor-houses of Indiana, of the sixteen hundred in the ])»)or-houses of Illi- 
 nois, and on that average in every State in the Union, that you shall take the word 
 "male" out of the constitutions and allow the women of this country to sit in legis- 
 lative halls and ]>rovide homes for and look after the little waifs of society. There 
 are hundreds of moral (juestions to-day rciiuiring the assistance of the moral element 
 of womanhood to liel]) makethe laws under which we shall live. 
 
 Gentlemen, the ])olitical ])arty that lives in the future must light the moral battles 
 of humanity. The day of blood is passed ; the <iay of brain and heart is upon us ; and 
 I ask .you to let the moral constituency that resides in woman's nature be represented. 
 Let nie say right here that I <lo not belit»ve that there is morality in sex, but the 
 social customs have becMi such that woman has been liehl to a higher slandartl. May 
 the day hasten when tlie social custom shall hold man to as high a moral standard as 
 it to-day holds woman. 
 
 This is the condition of things. The jiolilical i)arty'that presumes to light the 
 moral battles of the future must have the woukmi in its ranks. We are non-])artisan, 
 as has been wvU sjiid by my friend from Imliana (Mrs. Sewall). We comi' Democrats, 
 Kepublirans, ami (Jreenbackers, and I expect ifth<>re were half a d(»zen other jxditical 
 parti«'ssome of us would belong to them. W«' ask this bendiceut action upon your 
 ])art, b(>cause w<^ l)eli(^ve that the intellig<Mice a ^l the justice of the hour is demand- 
 ing it. We d() not want a jjolilical party action. Wt; want you tokeei)this (juestion 
 out of the can vans, W»' ask you in the name of justice and humanity alone, and not 
 on the part of i)arty. 
 
 I hold in my haml a pc^tition sent from one district in the State of Illinois with the 
 re<iu<'Ht that i bc.ii- it to you. Out of tluee huudied electors the names of two huu- 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 7 
 
 dred stand in this petition that I shall leave in your hands. In this list stand nottho 
 wife-whippers, not the drunkards, not the dissolnte, hnt every minister in that town, 
 every editor in that town, eveiy ])rot\'ssion;il man in that town, every banker, and 
 every prominent Imsiness man in that town of three hundred electors. I helievethat 
 petitions could be r(dled n]> in this Avay in every town in the Northern and in many 
 of the Southern States. I leave this petition with yon for your coiisifU-ration. 
 
 l^pou no (piestion whatever has such a lar<jje number of petitions been sent as upon 
 this <leniand for woman sutiVaj^e. You have the petitions iu your hands, and I ask you 
 in the name of justice and hun)anity not to let this Conj;ress adjourn without action. 
 
 Yon ask us if we are imi)atient. Yes; we are impatient. Some of us nuiy die. and 
 I want our jjrand old standard-hearer, Susan B. Anthony, whose nanu; will fjo down 
 to history beside that of (Jeorge Washinj^ton, Abraliam Lincoln, and Wendell Phil- 
 lips— I want that woman to <50 to Heaven a free anj^el from this Kepnidic. The power 
 lies in your hands to make us all free. May tln^ blessing of (iod be upon tin? heartsof 
 every one of you, ojentlenien ; may the scales of i)r('judice fall from your eyes, aiul may 
 you, representin«>- the Senate of the United States, have the ;^rand honor of telegraph- 
 ing to us, to the millions of waiting women from one end of this country to the other, 
 that the sixteenth amendment has been submitted to the ratification of the several 
 legislatures of our States striking the word " male " out of the constitutions ; and that 
 this shall be, as we promise it to be, a Government of the people, for the people, and 
 by the i)eople. 
 
 KEMAKKS BY MRS. ABIGAIL SCOTT DUXIWAY. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I now, gentlemen of the committee, introduce to you Mrs. Abigail 
 Scott Duniway, from the extreme Northwest; and before she speaks, I wish to say 
 that she has been the one canvasser in the great State of Oregon and Washington 
 Territory, and that it is to Mrs. Duniway that the women of Washington Territory 
 are niore in»lebted than to all other intluences for their enfranchisement. 
 
 Mrs. Duniway. Gentlemen of the committee, do you think it possible that an agi- 
 tation liki' this can go on and on forever without a victory ? Do you nor see that the 
 golden moni 'ut has come for this grand committee to achieve immortality upon the 
 grandest idea that has ever stirred the heart-beats of American citizens, and will you 
 not in the magnanimity of nol)le purposes rise to meet the situation and accede to our 
 demand, which in your hearts you must know is just '! 
 
 I do not come before you, gentlemen, with the expectation to instruct you in regard 
 to the laws of our country. The women around us are law-abiding women. They 
 are the mothers, many of them, of true and nobh; men, the wives, many of them, of 
 grand, free husbands, who are listening, watching, waiting eagerly for successful 
 tidings of this great experiment. 
 
 There never was a grander theory of government than that of these L^nited States. 
 Never were grander priucii)les «Miunciated upon any platform, never so grand before 
 and never can be grander again, than the declaration that all men," including of 
 course all women, since wonien are amenable to the laws, " are created equal ; that 
 they are endowed by their Creator with certain inalienable rights * * * that 
 to secure these; rights governments are instituted among men, deriving their just 
 powers from the consent of the governed." 
 
 Gentlemen, are we allowed the opportunity of consent ? These women who are here 
 from Maine to Oregon, from the Straits of Fuca to the reefs of Florida, wlio, iu their 
 representative capacity, have come up here so often, augmented in their numbers year 
 by year, looking with (\ves of ho])e and hearts of laith, but oftentimes with hopes de- 
 ferred u])on the linal solution of this great problem, wlii( h it is so mu< h in your hands 
 to hasten in its solution — these women are in earnest. My State is far away beyond 
 the continesof the Rocky Mountains, away over beside the singing Pacific sea, but the 
 spirit of liberty is among us there, and the public heart has been stirred. The hearts 
 of our men have been moved to listen to our demands, and in Washingtou Territory, 
 as one speaker has informed you, women to-day are endowed with full ami free enfran- 
 chisement, and the rejoicing throughout that Territory is universal. 
 
 In Oregon men have also listened to our demand, and tiie legislature has in two suc- 
 cessive sessions agreed upon a proposition to amend our State constit ution, a ])ropo8i- 
 tion which will be submitted for ratification to our voters at the coming June election. 
 It is sim]>ly a ])ro])osition declaring that the right of sutirage shall not hereafter bo 
 prohibited in the State of Oregon on account of sex. Your action in the Senat«'of the 
 United States will greatly determine the action of the voters <.f Oregon on our, or 
 rather on their, election day, for we stand before the public in the am)m:ily of peti- 
 tioners upon a great question in which we in its tinal decision are ailowt'd no voice, 
 and we can only stand with expectant hearts and almost bated breath awaiting the 
 action of men who are to make this decision. 
 
 We have great hope for our victory, because the men of the broad free West are 
 grand, and chivalrous, and free. They have gone across the mighty continent with 
 
8 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 free steps; tln'v have raised the standard of a new Pacilic empire; they have imbibed 
 tlie spirit of liberty with tlieir very breatli, and they have listened to ns far in ad- 
 vance of many of the men of the older States who have not had their opportunity 
 amon^ the jjjrand tree wilds of nature for expansion. 
 
 So all olOur leaders are with ns to-day. Yon may <?o to either member of the Sen- 
 ate of the United States from Ore<^on, and wliile I cannot speak so j)ositively for the 
 senior member, as he came over liere some years a<;() Itefore the ])nblic were so well 
 educated as now, I can and do i)rondly vouch lor the late Senator-elect l)oli)h, who now 
 has a sent ujton the lloor of the Senate, who is, lieart and soul and hand and ])urse, in 
 sympathy with this j;reat movement for the enfranchisement of the women of Oregon. 
 I would also be unjust to our worthy Representative in the lower House, Hon. M. C. 
 George, did I not ])roudly speak his name in this great connection. Men of this class 
 are with us, and without regard to i)arty alhliations we know that they are upon our 
 side. Our governor, our associate supn.'me j udge for the district of the I'acitic, all of 
 these men, are leading in the grand tree way that characterizes the men of the West 
 in assisting in this work. But we have— alas, that I should be compelled to say it — a 
 great many men who pay no heed whatever to this question. Men will be entitled to 
 a voice in this decision who are not, like members of Congress, the ])icked men of the 
 nation or the State, bnt men, many of wliom cannot read, who will have an o})por- 
 tnnity to decide this tinestion as far as their ballots can go. These are they to whom 
 the enlightened, educated motherhood of the State of Oregon must look largely for 
 the decision. 
 
 This brings me to the grand point of our coming to Congress. Some of you say to 
 ns, "Why not leave this matter for settlement in the different States?" When 
 we leave it for settlement in the different States we leave it just as I have told you, 
 because of the constitutional provisions of our organic law we cannot do otnerwise ; 
 but if the ([uestion were to be settled by the legislature of Oregon alone it would be 
 settled now ; and I, as a representative of that. State only, would have no need of 
 coming here ; it would be settled just as it has been settled in Washington Territory ; 
 bnt when we come here to Congress it is the great nation asking you to take such 
 legislative aciton in submitting an amendment to the Constitution of the United 
 States as shall recognize the equality of these women who are here ; these women 
 who have come here from all parts of the cfnintry, whose constituents are looking on 
 while we are here before yon. As we reflect that our feeblest words littered before 
 this committee will go to the confines of this nation and be cabled across the great 
 Atlantic and around the globe, we realize that more and more i)rominently our cause 
 is growing into public favor, and the time is just upon us when some decision must 
 be made. 
 
 Gentlemen of the committee, will you not recognize the importance of the move- 
 ment ? Who among you will be our standard-bearer? Who among you will achieve 
 immortality by standing up in these halls in which we are forbidden to speak, and in 
 the magnanimity of your own free wills and noble hearts champion the woman's 
 cause and make us before the law, as we of right ought now to be, free and inde- 
 pendent ? 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. CAROLINE GILKEY ROGERS. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I now call ni)oii Mrs. Caroline Gilkey Rogers, of Lansingburg, N. 
 Y.. to address the committee. 
 
 Mrs. RoGKHS. Mr. Chairma and gentlemen of the committee, in our efforts to se- 
 cnri! the right of citizenshi]) w appeal only to your sense of justice and love of fair 
 dealing. 
 
 We ask for the ballot because it is the syml>ol of equality. There is no other rec- 
 ognized symbol of e<inality in this country. We ask for the ballot that we may be 
 C([ual to man befon^ the law. We urge a two-lold right — our right to the republic, 
 the rei>ul)lic's right to ns. We believe the interests of the country are identical with 
 the interests of all its citizens, including women, ami that the (Jovernment can no 
 long(!r afford to slink women out from the affairs of the State and nation, and wise 
 nu'ii are beginning to know thai' they are needed in the GovernmenI ; that they are 
 needed wher(! our laws are nuub' as well as where tlu'y are violated. 
 
 Many admit the justic<M)f our claim, but will say, Is' it safe? Is it expedient? 
 It is always safe to do right; it is always expedient to be just. Justice can never 
 luing evil in its train. 
 
 The <iu<'stion is asked how and what would the women do in the State and nation ? 
 We <lo not ple<lge ourselves to anything. I claim that we cannot have a better gov- 
 ernment tlian lhat of the j)eople. The i)re.seut (Jovernment is of only a part of the 
 ]»eoi»le. We have not yet i'utered ui)on the system of higher arbitration, because the 
 ('ox eriiment is of man only. If W(> had been marching along with you all this time I 
 trust we should Imve readied a higher plane of ci vilizat u>n. 
 
 We believe that all the virt ue of the W(uld can take care of all the evil, and all the 
 intelligence can take care of all the ignorance. l..et us have all the virtue confront 
 all the vice. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 9 
 
 Theiv is no noed to do battle in tliis matter. In all kindness and gentleness we nrge 
 our claims. There is no need to declare war upon men for the best of men in this 
 country are with us heart and soul. 
 
 It is a common remark that unless sonu." new element is infused into our jiolitical 
 life our nation is doomed to destruction. What more tittiug element than the noble 
 tj'pe of American womanhood, who have taught our Presidents, Senators, and Con- 
 gressmen tlu' rndiments of all they know. 
 
 Think of all the foreigners and all our own native-born ignorant men who cannot 
 write their own nauu's or read the Declaration of Independence making laws for 
 such women as Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Susan B. Anthony. Think of jurors 
 drawn from these ranks to watch and try young girls for crimes often committed 
 against them when the male criminal goes free. Think of a single one of these votes 
 on election day outweighing all the women in the country. Is it not humiliating for 
 me to sit, a i)oiiltical cii)her, and see the colored man in my employ, to whom 1 have 
 taught the alphabet, go out on election day and say by his vote what shall be done 
 with my tax money. How would you like it ? 
 
 When we think of the wives trampled on by husbands whom the law has taught 
 them to regard as inferior beings, and of the mothers whose children are torn from 
 their arms by the direct behest of the law at the bidding of a dead or living father, 
 when we think of these things, our hearts ache with i)ity and indignation. 
 
 If mothers could only realize how the laws which they have no voice in making 
 and no power to change atlects them at every point, how they enter every door, 
 whether palace or hovel, touch, limit, and bind, every article and inmate from the 
 smallest chihl up, no woman, however shrinking and delicate, can escape it, they would 
 
 fet beyond the meaningless cry, "I have all the rights I want." Do these women 
 now that in most States of the Union the shameful fact that no woman has any legal 
 right to her own child, excei)t it is born out of wedlock! In these States there is not 
 a line of ])ositive law to protect the mother; the father is the legal protector and 
 guardian of the children. 
 
 Under the laws of most of the States to-day a husband may by his last will bequeath 
 his child away from its mother, so that she might, if the guardian chose, never see it 
 again. 
 
 The husband nuiy have been a very bad man, and in a moment of anger made the 
 will. The guardian he has appointed nuiy turn out a malicious man, and take pleasure 
 in tormenting the mother, or he may bring up the children in a way that the mother 
 thinks ruinous to them, and she has no redress in law. Why do not all the fortunate 
 mothers in the laud cry out against such a law? Why do not all women say, "Inas- 
 much as the law has done this wrong unto the least of these my sisters it has done it 
 unto It is true that men are alnu)st always better than their laws, but while a 
 
 bad law remains on the statute books it gives to any unscrupulous man a right to be 
 as bad as the law. 
 
 It is often said to us when all the women ask for the ballot it will be granted. Did 
 all the married women petition the legislatures of their States to secure to them the 
 right to hold in their own name the property that belonged to them ? To secure to 
 the ])oor forsaken wife the right to her earnings .' 
 
 All the women did not ask for these rights, but all accepted them with joy and glad- 
 ness when they were obtained, and so it will be with the franchise. But wonian's 
 rights to self-government does not depend u})on the numbers that demand it, but upon 
 precisely the same principles that man claims it for himself. 
 
 Where did man get the authority that he now claims to govern one-half of hunuinity, 
 from what power the right to place woman, his hel])meet in life, in an inferior i)osition ? 
 Came it from nature? Nature made woman his su]^erior when she made her his 
 mother — his equal when she lifted her to hold the sacred position of wife. Did 
 woman meet in council and voluntarily give up all their claim to be their own law- 
 makers ? 
 
 The power of the strong over the weak makes man the master. Yes, then, and then 
 only, does he gain the authority. 
 
 It is all very well to say "Convert the women." While we most heartily wish 
 they could all feel as we do, yet when it comes to the decision of this gr»'ar (juestion 
 they are mere ciphers, for if this question is settled by the States it will be left to 
 the voters, not to the women to decide. Or if suffrage comes to women through a 
 sixteenth amendment to the national Constitution, it will be decided by legislatures 
 elected by men. In neither case will women have an oi)i»ortuuity of ])assing upon 
 the question. So reason tells us we must devote our best efforts to converting those 
 to whom we must look for the removal of our disabilities, which now prevent our ex- 
 ercising the right of suffrage. 
 
 The arguments in favor of the enfianchisenumt of women are triiths strong and un- 
 answerable, and as old as the free institutions of our (iovernnu'Ut. The priiu iple of 
 " taxation without representation is tyranny," applies to women as well s\s men, an<l 
 is as true to-day as it was a hundred years ago. 
 
10 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 » 
 
 Our (loniand for the ballot is the great onward stop of the century, and not, as some 
 claim, the idiosyncracies of a few unbalanced minds. 
 
 Every argnment that has been urgtMl against this (piestion of woman's sutfrage has 
 been urged against every reform. Yet the reforms liave fought their way onward and 
 became a part of the glorious history of hun)anity. 
 
 So it will be with sutfrage. " You can stop the crowing of the cock, but you can- 
 not stop the dawn of the morning." And now, gentlemen, you are responsible, not 
 for the laws yon find on the statute books, but for those you leave there. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. MARY SEYMOI R HOWELL. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I now introduce to the committee Mrs. Mary Seymour Howell, the 
 president of the Albany. N. Y., State society. 
 
 Mrs. Howell. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee: Miss Anthony gives 
 me tive minutes. I shall have to talk very rapidly. I ask you for the ballot because 
 of the v«'ry tirst princi]>le that is often repeated to you, that ''taxation without rep- 
 resentation is tyranny." I come froin the city of Albany, where many of my sisters 
 are taxed for millions of dollars. Theie are three or four women in the city of Albany 
 who are worth their millions, and yet they have no voice in the laws that govern and 
 control them. One of our great State senators has said that you cannot argue live 
 minutes against Avoman suffrage without repudiating every principle that this great 
 Republic is founded upon. 
 
 I ask you also for the ballot for the large class of women who are not taxe<l. They 
 need it more than the women who are taxed. I have found in every work that I have 
 conducted that because I am a woman I am not paid for that work as a man is paid 
 for similar work. 
 
 You have heard, and perhaps some of you are thinking — I ho])e not — that women 
 should be at home. I wish to say to you that there are millions of women in the 
 United States who have no homes. There are millions of women who are trying to 
 earn their bread and hold their purity sacred. For that class of women I ap]>eal to 
 you. In the city of Albany there are hundreds of women in our fa(;tories making the 
 shirts that you can buy for $L50 and S2, and all those women are ])ai(l for making the 
 shirts is four cents apiece. There are in the State of New York 18,000 teachers. 
 When I was a teacher and taught with gentlemen in our academies, I received al)out 
 one-fourth of the pay because I happened to be a woman. I consider it an insult that 
 forever burns in my sonl, that I am to be handed a mere pittance in comi)arisjon with 
 Avhat man receives for same quality of work. When I was sent out by our superin- 
 tendent of public instruction to hold conventions of teachers, as I have often done in 
 our State of New York, and when I did one-third more work than the men teachers so 
 sent out, but because I was a woman and had not the ballot I was only paid about 
 half as much as the man; and saying that once to our su]>erintendent of public in- 
 struction in Albany he said, "Mrs. Howell, just as soon as you get the ballot and have 
 a political intluence in the work you will have the sam*^ pay as a man." 
 
 We ask for the ballot for that great army of fallen women who walk our streetsand 
 who break up our homes and ruin our husbands and our dear boys. W«' ask it for 
 those women. The ballot will lift tluMU u]i. Hundreds an«l thousands of wonuMi give 
 up their ])nrity for the sak<' of starving children and families. There is many a wo- 
 nuiu who goes to a life of (U'gradation and ])ollntion shedding burning tears over her 
 4-cent shirts 
 
 We ask for the ballot for the good of the ravo. Huxley says, admitting for the 
 sake of argument that woman is the weaker, mentally, and ])hysically, for that very 
 reason she should have the ballot and should have every help tliat the world can give 
 h<>r." When you <lebar from your councils and legislative halls the purity, the spir- 
 ituality, and th(^ love of woman vhen those legislative halls and those conncils are apt 
 to ])ec()nu; coarse and hriital. (Jod gave us to you to help yon in this litt le journey to 
 a better laud, and by our love and our intellect to help to make our country pure and 
 noble, an<l if you would have statesmen you must have statrKiromen to l)ear them. 
 
 I ask you also for the ballot that I may decide what I am. I stand before you, but 
 I do not know to-day whetln'r I am legally a "person " according to the law. It has 
 ])een decided in sonu' St.ites that we are not " jiersons." 'In the State of New Y(uk, in 
 one village it was decided that women are not inhabitants. S(» I should like to know 
 whether I am a ])erson. whether I am an inhabitant, and above all I ask you for the 
 ballot that I nuiy become a citizen of this great I\e])ublie. 
 
 (jlentlemcn, you s«m> before you this great con vent ion of women from the Atlantic 
 slopes to the Pacific Ocean, from the North to the South. We are in d(>:Ml earnest. A 
 reform never goes backward. This is a (lucstion that is b«'fore the Ann'rican nation. 
 Will you do your duty and give us our liberty, or will yon leav«> it for braver hearts 
 to do what nuKst be done f For, like our forefathers, we will ask until we have 
 gained it. 
 
 Kver tlir worUl ^ocs round and round : 
 
 Ever the truth conie.s upiu-rmost ; and over is justirt^ done. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 11 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. LILLIE DEVEREUX BLAKE. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I now have thp])loasuro ofintrodnciii'jf to the coininittee Mrs. EilHo 
 Devereux lilake, of Now York. New York is a j^rcat State, ami therefore it has three 
 rei)reseiitatives here to-chvy. 
 
 Mrs. Blake. Mr. Chainiian and <;entlenien of tlie coniniittee : A recent writer in an 
 English magazine, in s})eaking of the great a(lvanta<?e which to-day Hows to the hihor- 
 ing chisses of that nation from having received the right of snffrage, made the state- 
 ment that disfranchised classes are oi)i)ressed, not becanse tlu're is any desire what- 
 ever to do injnslice to them, bnt becanse they are forgotten. We have year alter year 
 and session atter session of oiir h>gishitnres and of onr Congresses })roved the correct- 
 ness of this statement. While we have nothing to complain of in tin; courtesy which 
 we receive in i)ri vate life ; still when we st'e masses of men assemble togct licr for i)()liti- 
 cal action, whether it be of the nation or of the State, we find that thi^ women are 
 totally forgotten. 
 
 In the limited time that is mine I cannot go into any lengthy exposition npon this 
 point. I will simjdy call yonr attention to the total forget fn In ess of the Congress of 
 the United States to the debt owed to the women of this nation during the war. You 
 have passed a pension bill ui>on which there has betMi much connnent throughout the 
 nation, and yet, when an old army nurse a])plies for a p«uision, a woman who is broken 
 down by her devotion to the nation in hospitals and upon the battle-lield, she is met 
 at the door of the Pension Bureau by tliis statement, " the Government has made no 
 appropriation for the services of women in the war." One of these women is an old 
 nurse, whom some of you may remember. Mother Bickerdyke, \v\ro went out on to many 
 a battle-tield, when she was in the prime of life, twenty years ago, and at the risk of 
 her life lifted men who were wounded, in her arms, and carried them to a place of safe- 
 ty. She is an old woman now, and where is she ? What reward has the nation be- 
 stowed to her faithful services ? The nation has a pension for every man who has 
 served this nation, even down to the boy recruit who was out but three months ; but 
 Mother Bickerdyke, though her health lias never been good since her service then, is 
 earning her living at the wash-tub, a monument to the ingratitude of a Kepnljlic as 
 great as was that when Belisarius begged in the streets of Rome. 
 
 I bring up this illustration alone out of innumerable others that are possible, to try 
 to impress upon your minds that we are forgotten. It is not from any unkindiiess on 
 your ])art. AVho would think for one moment, looking upon the kindly faces of this 
 committee, that any man on it would do an injustice to women, especially if sh«; were 
 old and feeble, but because we have no right to vote, as I said, our interests are over- 
 looked and forgotten. 
 
 It is often said that we have too many voters ; that the aggregate of vice and igno- 
 rance among us should not be increased by giving women the light of sutfrage. I 
 wish to remind you of the fact that in the eu(uniou8 immigration that pours to our 
 shores every year, uuml)ering somewhere in the neighborhood of half a million, there 
 come twice as many men as women. Tlie tigures for the last year were two hundred 
 and twenty-three thousand men and one hundred and thirteen thousand women. 
 What does this mean ? It means a steady influx of this foreign element ; it means a 
 constant preponderance of the masculine over the feminine ; and it means also, of 
 course, a preponderance of the voting iiower of the foreigner as compared to the 
 native born. To those who fear that our American institutions are threatened by 
 this gigantic inroad of foreigners I commend the rellection that the best safeguard 
 against any such ])rc])on<lerance of foreign nations or of foreign iulluence is to put 
 the ballot in the hands of the American born wonu'u, and of all other women also, so 
 that if tlie tVn-eign born man overbalances us in numi)eis we shall be always in a pre- 
 ponderance on the side of the liberty which is secured by our institutions. 
 
 It is becanse, as many of my predecessors have said, of the dilVereut elements repre- 
 sented by the two sexes, that we are asking for tliis liberty. When I was recently in 
 the capitol of my own State of New York, I was reminded there of the dilterence of 
 temperament between the sexes by seeing how children act when coming to the doors 
 of the cai)itol which have been constru(;ted so that they are v«M-y hard to open. Whether 
 that is because they want to keep us women out or not I am not able to say : but for 
 some reason the doors are so constructed that it is nearly impossilde to open them. 
 I saw a number of little girls coming in through those <loors — every rliild hehl the 
 door for those who were to follow. A number of little boys followed just after, and 
 every boy rushed through and let the door shut in tli«' face of the one who was coming 
 behind liim. That is a good illustration of the dilVcrent ([ualities of the sexes. Those 
 boys were not unkind, they simidy repres»Mited that onward push which is one of the 
 grandest characteristics of your sex ; and, the lit t le girls on the other haiul. repre- 
 sented that gentleness and thoughtfulness of others which is etninently a character- 
 istic of women. 
 
 This woman element is needed in every branch of the (ioveiiiuKMit. I^ook at the 
 wholesale destruction of the forests throughout our nation, wJiirh has gone on until 
 
12 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 it brin^rs direct dcstructiou to the, laiul on the lines of the jjjreat rivers of tlie West, 
 and threatens us even in New York, with (U'stroyinj; at once the beauty and the nse- 
 fnhiess of our far-famed Hudson. If wolnen were in tlie Government do you uot think 
 tlicy wonhl jjiotect the eeononiic interests of the nation ? They are the born and 
 trained ('conomis'ts of the worhl, and when you call them to your assistaTice yon will 
 tiud an element that has not heretofore been felt with the weii^ht which it (leserves. 
 
 As we walk throu«>h the Cai>itol we are struck with the si<;niticance of the symbolism 
 on every side ; we view the adornments in the beautiful room, aud we tind liere every- 
 wh(;re emblematically woman's tif^ure. Here is woman re])resentin<ij even war, and 
 there are women re})resentin<; gi ace and loveliness and the fullness of the harvest : and, 
 above all, they are extendinj^ their protecting arms over the little children. Gentle- 
 men, I leave you under this symbolism, hoping that you will see in it the type of a 
 connng (hiy when we shall have women and men united together in the national coun- 
 cils in this great building. 
 
 REMARKS BY DR. CLEMENCE S. LOZIER. 
 
 Miss Antiioxy. I meant to have said, as I introduced Mrs. Blake, that sitting on the 
 sofa is Dr. Clemence S. Lozier, who declines to speak, but I want her to stand up, be- 
 cause she represents New York City. 
 
 Dr. LoziKR. I thank you. I am very happy to be here, but I am not a fluent 
 speaker, I feel in my heart that I know what justice means; that I know what mercy 
 means, and in all my rounds of duty in my profession I am happy to extend not only 
 food but slndter to many poor ones. The need of the ballot ior working girls and 
 those who pay no taxes is not understood. The Savior said, seeing the poor widow 
 cast her two mites, which make a farthing, into the i)ublic treasury " This poor widow 
 hath cast more in, than all they which have cast into the treasury." I see this among 
 the poor working girls of the city of New York, sick, in a little garret bedroom, per- 
 hai)s, and although needing medical care and needing food, they will say to me, 
 ''above all things else, if I could only pay the rent." The rent of their little rooms 
 goes into the cotters of their landlords and pays taxes. The poor women of the city 
 of New York aud everywhere are the grandest upholders of this Governnunit. I be- 
 lieve they pay indirectly more taxes than the monopoly kings of our country. It is 
 for them that I want the ballot. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. ELIZABETH BOYNTON HARBERT. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I now introduce to the committee Mrs. Elizabeth Boynton Harbert, 
 of Illinois, and before Mrs. Harbert s])eaks I wish to say that for the last six years 
 she has edited a department of the Chicago Inter-Ocean called the "Women's King- 
 dom." 
 
 Mrs. Harbert. Mr. Chairman and honorable gentlemen of the committee, after the 
 eloquent rhetoric to which you have listened I men^'y come in these five minutes with 
 a plain statement of facts. Some friends have said, "Here is the same company of 
 women that year after year besi<;ge you with their petitions.*' We are here to-day in 
 a representative ca])acity. From the great State of Illinois 1 come, representing 200,000 
 men and women of that State who have recorded their written petitions for woman's 
 ballot, 90,000 of these being (;itizens under the law, male voters ; those 90.000 having 
 8igne«l i>etitions for the right of women to vote on the temperance <iuestion ; 90,000 
 women also signed those i)etitions ; 50,000 men and wouumi signed the ])ctitions for 
 the school vote, and nearly (50,000 more have signed petitions that the right of suti'rage 
 might be accorded to woman. 
 
 This growth of i)ublic sentiment has been occasioned l)y the needs of the children and 
 the working wonuMi of that great State. I come here to ask you to make a niche in 
 the statesmanship and legislation of tlu; nation for tlu^ domestic interests of the i)eo- 
 ple. You recogni/(^ that tlu; masculine thought is more often turned to the material 
 and political int«'rests of the nation. I claim that the motlu'r thought, the woman 
 clement needed, is to supi)lement the concurrent statesinanshi]) of Auu-rican men on 
 political and industrial affairs with the domestic legislation of the nation. 
 
 There are good men and women who believe that women should use their inlluence 
 merely through their social sphere. I believe both of the great i)artieH are r<'pre- 
 sentcid by us. You remember that a few weeks ago when there came across the country 
 the news of the decision of tlu; Supreme Court as regards tlu' negro race, the politi- 
 cians sprang to the ])latform, and our editors hastened t() their sanctums to ])roi laim 
 to the i)eoi»le that that did not intiufere with the, civil rights of the negro, that only 
 their social rights were affected, and that the civil rights of man, those rights worth 
 dying for. wvni not alfccted. Gentlemen, we who are trying to ludp the men in our 
 municipal governments, who are trying to .save the children from our ixxu-houses, be- 
 gin to realize that whatever is good and essential for the liberty of tlie black man is 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 13 
 
 good tor the white womiin and for all women. Wo are liere to claim that whatever 
 liberty has done for yim it shonld allowed to do for uh. Take a single glance 
 throngh the past ; recognize the j^osition of American nia n hood before the world to-day, 
 and whatever liberty has done for you, liberty will unrely do for the mother.s of the 
 race. 
 
 MRS. SARAH E. WALL. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Clentlemen of the (iommittee, here is another woman I wish to show 
 you, Sarah K. Wall, of Worcester, Mass., who, for the last twenty-live years, has re- 
 sisted the tax-gatherer when became around. I want you to look at her. She looks 
 very harndess. but she will not pay a dollar of tax. She says when the Commonwealth 
 of Massachusetis will give her the right of representation she will pay her taxes, I 
 do not know exactly how it is now, but the assessor has left her name off the tax-list, 
 and passed her by rather thau have a lawsuit with her. 
 
 REMARKS BY MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I wish I could state the avocations and professions of the various 
 women who have spoken in our convention during the last three days. I do not 
 wish to speak disparagingly in regard to the men in Congress, but I doubt if a n>an oii 
 the door of either house could have made a better speech than some of those which 
 have been made by women during this convention. Twenty-six States and Terri- 
 tories are represented with live women, traveling all the way from Kansas, Arkansas, 
 Oregon, and Washington Territory. It does seem to me that after ail these years of 
 coming up to this Capitol an impression shonld bo made ujjon the minds of legislators 
 that we are never to be silenced nutil we gain the demand. We have never had in 
 the whole thirty years of our agitation so many States represented in any convention 
 as we have had this year. 
 
 This fact shows the growth of public sentiment. Mrs. Dnniway is here, all the 
 way from Oregon, and you say, when Mrs. Duniway is doing so well nj) there, and is 
 so hopeful of cariying the State of Oregon, why do not you all rest satisfied with 
 that plan of gaining the suffrage ? My answer is that I do not wish to see the w omeu 
 of the thirty-eight States of this Union compelled to leave their homes and canvass 
 each State, school district by school district. It is asking too much of a moneyless 
 class of people, disfranchised by the constirution of every State in the Union. The 
 joint earnings of the marriage copartuershii) in all the States belong legally to the 
 husband. If the wift; goes outside the home to work, the law in most of the States 
 permits her to own and control the money thus earned. We have not a single State in 
 the Union where the wife's earnings inside the marriage copartnership are owned by 
 her. Therefore, to ask the vast majority of women who are thus situated, without 
 an independent dollar of their own. to make a canvass of the States is asking too 
 much. 
 
 Mrs. GoUGAU. Why did they not ask the negro to do that ? 
 
 Miss Anthony. Of course the negro was not asked to go begging the white man 
 from school district to school district to get his ballot. If it was known that we 
 could be driven to the ballot-box like a flock oi' sheep, and all vote for one jiarty, 
 there would be a bid made for us; but that is not done, because we cannot promise 
 you any such thing; because we stand before you and honestly tell you that the 
 women of this nation are educated equally with the men, and that they, too, have 
 political opinions. There is not a woman on our platform, there is scarcely a woman 
 in this city of Washington, whether the wife of a Senator or a Congressman — I do not 
 believe you can find a score of women in the whole nation — who have not opinu)n8 on 
 the pending Presidential election. We all have opinions ; we all have parties. Some 
 of us lik(i one party and one candidate and some another. 
 
 Therefore we cannot promise you that women will vote as a unit when they are en- 
 franchised. Suppose the Democrats shall put a woman-suffrage i>lank in their plat- 
 form in their Presidential convention, and nominate an open and avowed friend of 
 woman suffrage to stand ux)on that platform ; we cannot pledge you that all the 
 women of this nation will work for the success of that ])arty, Jibr can I pledge you 
 that they will all vote for the K<'publican party if it shouhl be the one to take the 
 lead in their enfranchisement. Our women won't toe a mark anywhere : tlu'v will 
 think atul act for themselves, and when they are enfranchised they wiil divide upon 
 all political (inestions, as do intelligent, educated men. 
 
 I have tried the experiment of canvassing four States prior to Oregon, and in each 
 State with the best canvass that it was i)ossible for us to make we obtained a vote of 
 one-third. One man out of every three men voted for the enfranchisement of the 
 women of their households, while two voted against it. P>ut we are proud to say that 
 our splendid minority is always composed of the very best men of the State, and I 
 think Senator Palmer will agree with me that the forty thousand men of Michigan 
 
14 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 who voted for the eiifranchisenient of tlie women of his State were really the picked 
 men in intelligence, in cnltnre, in morals, in standing, and in every direction. 
 
 It is too nuu-ii to say that the majority of the voters in any State are snperior, edu- 
 cated, and capable, or that they in vest iijjate every (juestion thorou<;hly and cast the 
 ballot thereon intelligently. AVe all know that the majority of the voters of any 
 Slate are not of that stainj). The vast masses of the peoi)le, the lahoi ini^ classes, have 
 all they can <lo in tlnnr strngi^le to <;et food and shelter for their families. They have 
 very little time or opportunity to study great (piestions of constitutional law. 
 
 Because of this imv)ossibility for women to canvass the States over and over to edu- 
 cate the rank and tile of the voters we conu; to you to ask you to make it possible for 
 the legislatures of the thirty-eight States to settle the question, where we shall have 
 a few representative men assembled before whom we can make our appeals and argu- 
 ments. 
 
 This method of settling the question by the legislatures is just as much in the line of 
 States' rights as is that of the popular vote. The one question before you is, will you 
 insist that a majority of the individual voters of every State must be converted before 
 its wonu'U shall have the right to vote, or will you allow the matter to be settled by 
 the representative men in the legislatures of the several States? You need not fear 
 that we shall get suffrage too (luickly if Congress shall submit the proposition, for even 
 then we shall have a hard time in going from legislature to legislature to secure the 
 two-thirds vote of three-fourths of the States necessary to ratify the amendment. It 
 ma}- take twenty years after Congress has taken the initiative step to make action by 
 the State legislatures possible. 
 
 I pray you, gentlemen, that you will make your refjort to the Senate sj)eedily. I 
 know \ou are ready to make a favorable one. Some of our speakers may not have 
 known this as well as I. I ask you to make a report and to bring it to a discusaion 
 and a vote on the lloor of the Senate. 
 
 You ask me if we want you to press this question to a vote, provided there is not a 
 majority to carry it. I say yes, l)ecause we want the reflex influence of the discussion 
 and of the oi)inions of Senators to go back into the States to help us to educate the 
 peoi)le of the States. 
 
 Senati)r Lapiiam. It would re(iuire a two-thirds vote in both the House and the 
 Senate to submit the amendment to the State legislatures for ratification. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I know that it re<iuires a two-thirds vote of both Houses. But still, 
 I re]>eat, ev«'n if you cannot get the two-thirds vote, we ask you to report the bill 
 and bring it to a discussion and a vote at the earliest day possible. We feel that this 
 question should be brought before Congress at every session. We ask this little at- 
 tention from Congressmen whose salaries are paid from the taxes, women do their 
 share for the support of this great Government. We think we are entitled to two or 
 three days of each session of Congrcfss in both the Senate and House. Therefore I ask 
 of you to hel}) us to a discussion in the Senate this session. There is no reason why 
 the Senate, composed of seventy-six of the most intelligent aiul liberty-loving men of 
 the nation, shall not pass the resolution by a two-thirds vote. I really believe it will 
 do so if the friends on this committee and on the floor of the Senate will champion 
 the measure as earnestly as if it were to benefit themselves instead of their mothers 
 and sisters. 
 
 Gentlemen, I thank you for this hearing granted, and I hope the telegraph wires 
 will soon tell us that your report is presented, and that a discussion is inaugurated on 
 the floor of the Senate. 
 
 [Senate, Mis. Doc. No. 74. Forty-80ve;ith Congress, first sessiou.] 
 
 ARGUMENTS OF THE WOMAN-SUFFRAGE DELEGATES BEFORE THE COM- 
 MITTEE ON THE JUDICIARY OF THE UNITED STATES SENATE, JAN- 
 UARY 23, 1880. 
 
 Makcu .'JO, 1882. — lioportod from tlio Conimitteo on the .Tudit iarv. ordered to bo printed for the use of 
 
 the committee, and recommitted. 
 
 TiiK Committee on the Judiciary, 
 
 United States Senate, 
 ^Friday, January 23, 1880. 
 
 The committee assembled at half-jjast 10 o'clock a. m. 
 
 Tresent, Mr. 'IMuirman, chairman, Mr. McDonald, Mr. Bayard, Mr. Davis of Illi- 
 nois, Mr. Kdmumls. 
 
 Al.so Mrs. ZenddaG. Wallace, of Indiana; Mrs. Elizabeth L. Saxon, of Louisiana; 
 Mrs. Maiy A. Stewart, of Delaware; Mrs. Lucinda B. ChandU'r, of 1 Vnusylvauia ; 
 Mrs. Julia Smith Parker, of (ilastonbury, Conn. ; Mrs. Nancy K. Allen, of Iowa; Miss 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 15 
 
 Susan B. Anthony, of Now York; Mrs. Sara A. S]mmi(( r, of iho city of WaHliiiif^ton, 
 and others, (U'h^<j;ates to tliotwolfrh Washington conNcntiou ()f the National Wonian- 
 Sutfraj^e Association, hchl .lannary 21 and IMSO. 
 
 The CiiAiK.MAN. Several nicnihers cd" tlie eoiniu ittec are nnahle to 1m- here. Mr. 
 Lamar is detained at his home in Mississinpi by sickness; Mr. Cari)ent»'r is confined 
 to his room by sic kness; Mr. Conklin*^ lias been nnwell ; I do not know how he in 
 this mornino- ; and Mr. Garland is chairman of the Connnittee on Territories, which 
 has a meeting this mornin<;- that he could not omit to attend. 1 do not think we are 
 likely to have any more members of the committee than are here now, and we will 
 bear you, ladies. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. ZERELDA G. WALLACE, OF INDIANA. 
 
 Mrs. Wallace. Mr. Chairman and jjentlemen of the committee: It is scarcely 
 necessary to recite that there is not an effect without a cause. Therefore it would be 
 well for the statesmen of this nation to ask themselves the (juestion. What has brought 
 the women from all ])aits of this nation to th<' capital at this time ; the wives, and 
 mothers, and sisters; the home-lo\ in<;, law-abiding women? What has been the 
 stronu' motivi; that has taken us away from the quiet and comfort of our own homes and 
 brought us before you to-day? As an answer partly to that question, I will read an 
 extract from a sptiech made by one of Indiana's statesmen, and probably if 1 tell you 
 his name his sentiments nnty have some weight with you. He found out by ex})eri- 
 ence and gave us the benefit of his experience, and it is what we are lapidly learning : 
 
 "You can goto meetings; you can vote resolutions; you can attend great dem- 
 onstrationso n the street; but, after all, the only occasion where the American citi- 
 zen expresses his acts, his opinions, and his power is at the ballot-box ; and that little 
 ballot that he drons in there is the written sentiment of the times, audit is the power 
 that he has as a citizen of this great Republic." 
 
 That is the reason why we are here ; that is the reason why we want to vote. We 
 are no seditious women, clamoring for any peculiar rights, but we are ])atient wo- 
 men. It is not the woman question that brings us before you to-day; it is the human 
 (juestion that underlies this movement among the women of this nation ; it is for 
 God, and home, and native land, ^^'e love and ajjpreciate our country; we value 
 the institutions of our country. We realize that we owe great obligations to the men 
 of this nation for what they have done. We realize that to their strength we owe 
 the subjugation of all the material forces of the universe which give us comfort and 
 luxury in our homes. We realize that to their brains we owe the machinery that 
 gives US leisure for intellectual culture and achievement. We realize that it is to 
 their education we owe the opening of our colleges and the establishment of our public 
 schools, which give us these great and glorious privileges. 
 
 This movement is the legitimate result of this development, of this enlightenment, 
 and of the suffering that woman has undergone in the ages i)ast. W^e find ourselves 
 hedged in at every effort we make as mothers for the amelioration of society, as phi- 
 lanthrojjists, as Christians. 
 
 Ashoit time ago I went before the legislature of Indiana with a petition signed 
 by 25,000 women, the best women in the State. I appeal to the memory of Judge 
 McDonald to substantiate the truth of what I say. Judge McDonald knows that I 
 am a home losing, law-abiding, tax-paying woman of Indiana, and have been for fifty 
 years. When I went before our legislature and found that one hundred of the vilest 
 men in our State, merely by the possession of the ballot, had more influence with the 
 law-makers of our land than the wives and mothers of the nation, it was a levela- 
 tion that was i)erfectly startling. 
 
 You must admit that in popular government the ballot is the most potent means of 
 all moral and social reforms. As n!end>ers of society, as those who are deeply in- 
 terested in the promotion of good morals, of virtue, and of the proper ])rotection of 
 men from the consequences of their own vices, and of the i)rotection of women too, 
 ■we are deeply interested in all the social problems with which you have grai)pled so 
 long unsuccessliilly. We <lo not intend to depreciate your efforts, but you have at- 
 tempted to do an iinpossible thing. You have attempted to re])resent the whole by 
 one-half; and we come to you to-day for a recognition of the fact that humanity is 
 not a unit ; that it is a unity ; and because we are one-half that go to make up that 
 grand unity we come before you to-day and ask you to recognize ourrights as citizens 
 of this Republic. 
 
 We know that many of us lay ourselves liable to contumely and ridicule. We. have 
 to meet sneers ; but we are determined that in the defense of right we will ignore 
 everything but what we feel to be our duty. 
 
 We do not come here as agitators, or aimless, dissatisfied, unhappj' wonnMi by any 
 means; but we come as human beings, recognizing our responsil)iliry to God for the 
 advantages that have come to us in the development of the ages. We wish to discharge 
 that responsibility faithfully, effectually, and conscientiously, and we cannot do it 
 
16 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 undor our form of _«;ovorninont, hcd^red in as wo aro by the lack of a ])Ower wliich i» 
 siK-li a mighty ('n<;ine in our form of ;j;overnment for every means of work. 
 
 1 say to yon, then, we come as one-half of tlie <;reat whole. There is an essential 
 (litVereiice in the sexes, ^ir. Parknum lal)ore(l very liard to prove what no one would 
 deny, that there is an essential ditf(!rence in the sexes, and it is l)eeause of that very 
 ditlerentiation, the union of which in home, the recoj;nition of which in society, hrinj^s 
 tin; «;reatest happiness, the reco<i;nition of whicli in the churcli brings the "greatest 
 power and inilueuce for good, and the recognition of which in tlie government would 
 enable us finally, as near as it is possible for humanity, to perfect our form of govern- 
 ment. IMobal)ly Ave CrtU never have a perfect forn\ of government, but the nearer we 
 api>roxiuiate to tlie divine the nearer will we attain to jierfection ; and the divine 
 government recognizes ntuther caste, (dass, sex, nor nationality. The nearer we ap- 
 proach to that divine ideal the nearer we will come to realizing our hopes of finally 
 securing at least the most perfect form of human government that it is possible for us 
 to secure. 
 
 I do not wish to trespass upon your time, but I have felt that this movement is not 
 understood by a great majority of peojjle. They think that we are nnhapi)y, that we 
 are dissatisfied, that w(i are r(\stive. That is not the case. When we look over tin- 
 statistics of our State and tind that CO per cent, of all the crime is the result of drunk- 
 enness; when we find that (50 per cent, of the orphan children that till our pauper 
 homes are the children of drunken i)arents ; when we find that after a certain age the 
 daughters of those fathers who were ma de paupers and drunkards by the approbation 
 and sanction and under the seal oCthe Government, go to supply our houses of ])ros- 
 titution, and when we tind that the .sons of these fathers go to till up our jails and our 
 penitentiaries, and that the sober, law-abiding men, the pains-taking, economical, and 
 many of them widowed wives of this nation have to pay taxes and bear the expenses 
 incurred by such legislation, do you wonder, gentlemen, that we at least want to try 
 our hand and see what we can do ? We may not be able to bring about that Utopian 
 form of government which we all desire, but we can at least make an efltbrt. Under 
 our form of government the ballot is our right ; it is just and proper. When you de- 
 bate about the expediency of any niatter you have no right to say that it is inexpedi- 
 ent to do right. Do right and leave the result to (iod. You will have to decide be- 
 tween one of two tilings : either you have no claijii under our form of Constitution for 
 the privileges which you enjoy, or you will have to say that we are neither citizens 
 nor persons. 
 
 Realizing this fact, and the deep interest that we take in the successful issue of this 
 experiment that humanity is making for self-government, and realizing the fact that 
 the ballot never can be given to us under more favorable circumstances, and believing 
 
 at here on this continent is to be wrought out the great problem of man's ability to 
 govern himself — and when I say man I use the word in the generic sense — that human- 
 ity hen' is to wcu'k out for the great problems of self-government and develennieiit, 
 and recognizing, as I said a few minutes ago, that wc; are one-half of the great whole, 
 we feel that we ought to be Inward when we come bidore you and make the plea that 
 we make to-da3\ 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. JULIA SMITH PARKER, OF (iLASTONBUR Y, CONX. 
 
 Mrs. pAJiKEii. Gentlemen : You may be surprised, and not so much surprised as I 
 am, to see a woman of over four-score years of age api)ear before you at this time. 
 She came into the world and reached years of maturity and discretion before any per- 
 son in this room was born. She now conies before you to plead that slie can vote and 
 have all tin; i)rivileges that men have. She has sutfered so niiu li individually that 
 she thought when slu; was young she had no right to speak before the men; but still 
 slui had courage to get an education ecjnal to that of any man at the college, and she 
 had to suffer a great deal on that account. She went to New Haven to school, and it 
 was noised that she had studied tin; languages. It was such an astonishing thing for 
 girls at that time to have the advantages of education, that I had absolutely to go to 
 cotillon parties to let pt'o))le see that I had comuKUi sense. [Laughter.] 
 
 She has suffered, she had to pay money. She has had to pay s->W a year in taxes 
 without tin; least ])rivilege of knowing what becomes of it. She does not know but 
 tliat it goes tosupi)ort grog-shops. She knows nothing about it. She has had to suf- 
 fer her cows to b(^ sold at the sign post six tinn's. She suffered her meadow land to 
 be sohl, worth iii'2,0()0, for a tax of h;ss than $50. If she <M)uld \otv as the men do she 
 would not have suffered this insult; and so much would'not have been said against 
 her as has Ixmmi said if men did not hav(^ the whole ]>ower. I was told that tliey had 
 the power to take anything that I owned if I would not exert myself to jiay the 
 money. I felt that I ought to have sonu' little voice in determining what should be 
 done, with what I )»ai<l. I f» lt that I ought to own my own projierry ; that it ought 
 not to be in these men's hands; and I now come to plead fliat 1 may have the same 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 17 
 
 privile<;o.s btjfort' the law that men have. I have soon what a ditVorencc tht if is, w lieu 
 I have had my cowssohl. hy liavin^ a voti r to take my part. 
 
 I have come iVoni an obsi iue town (I cannot say tliat it is ohscnro t'xactly) on tho 
 banks of tho Connect icnt, whore I was born. I was bron<i,ht np on a farm. I never 
 had an i(U'a that it coiihl be possibh' that I shonld ever come all tlu^ way to Wash in j;- 
 ton to speak before those who had not come into existence when I was born. \o\v, 
 1 i»lead that tliere u\ay Ix' a sixteenth aniendnient, and that wonwii may be allowed 
 the i)rivile<>;»5 of owning their own property. That is what I have taken ])ainsto ac- 
 complish. I have suiVe rod so much myself that I fidt it might have some elfect to 
 plead bt;fore this honorable committee. 1 thank yon, gentk'men, for hearing me so 
 kindly. 
 
 REMAlx'KH BY MKS. ELIZABETH E. SAXON, OF LOUISIANA. 
 
 Mrs. Saxon. Gentlemen : I almost feel that after Mrs. Wallace's plea there is scarcely 
 a ne(!e8sity for me to say anything, she echoed my own feelings so entirely. I come 
 from th»' extreme Sonth, she from the West. In this delegation, and in I he conscn- 
 tion which iias jnst been Indd in this city, women have come together who never met 
 before. People have asked me why I came. I care nothing for sn If rage so far as to 
 stand beside men, or rnsh to the polls, or take any privilege outside of my home, 
 only, as Mrs. Wallace says, for hnmauity. Years ago, when a little child, I lost my 
 mother, and I was brought np by a man. If I have not a man's brain I had at least 
 a man's instruction. He taught me that to work in the cause of reform for women 
 was just as great as to work in the cause of reform for men. But iji <'very etibrt I 
 made in the cause of reform I was combated in one direction or another. I never 
 took part with the suffragists, I never realized the importance of their cause, until 
 we were beaten back on every side in the work of reform. If we attem])ted to put 
 women in charge of prisons, believing that wherever woman sins and sutlers women 
 shonld be there to teach, help, and guide, every ])lace was in the hands of men. If 
 we made an effort to get wom(ni on the school boards we were combated and could do 
 nothing. Every place seemed to be changed, when there were good men in those 
 places, by changes in politics, and the mothers of the land, having had to prostrate 
 themselv«^s as b(>ggars, if not in fact, really in sentiment and feeling, have become at 
 last almost desperate. 
 
 In the State of Texas I had a niece living whose father was an inmate of a lunatic 
 asylum. She exerted as wide an influence in the State of Texas as any woman there. 
 I allude to Miss Mollie Moore, who was the ward of Mr. Gushing. I give this illus- 
 tration as a reason why Southern women are taking part in this movement. Mr. Wal- 
 lace had charge of that lunatic asylum for years. He was a good, hon'»ral)'e. able 
 man. Every one was endeared to him ; everyone appreciated him ; the Srate appre- 
 ciated him as superintendent of this asylum. 
 
 When a political change was made and Governor Robinson came in. Dr. Wallace 
 was ousted for ])olitical purposes. It almost broke the hearts of some of the wouieu 
 who had sons, daughters, or husbands there. Tliey determined at once to try to seek 
 some redress and have him reinstated. It was impossible. He was out, and what could 
 we do ? I do not know that we could reach a case like that; but such cases have 
 stirred the women of the whole land, for the reason that when they try, to do good, or 
 want to help in the cause of humanity, they are (jombated so bitterly and persistently. 
 
 I leave it to older and abler women, who have labored in this cause so long, to prove 
 whether it is or is not constitutional to give the ballot to women. 
 
 A gentleman said to me a few days ago, " These women want to marry." I am mar- 
 ried ; I am a mother ; .and in our home the sons and l)rother8 are all standing like a 
 wall of steel at my back. I have cast aside every prejudice of the past. They lie lik^ 
 rotted hulks behind me. 
 
 After the fever of 1S78, when our constitutional convention was going to convene, I 
 broke the agony and grief of my own heart, for one of my children died, and took i)art in 
 the suffrage movement in liouisiana, with the wife of Chief-Justice Merrick. Mrs. Sarah 
 A. Dorsey, and Mrs. Harri(!t Kcatinge, of New York, the niece of Mr. Lo/,icr. These 
 three ladies aided me faithfully and ably, when they found we would l»c received. I 
 went before the convention. I went to Lieutenant-Governor Wiltz, and asked him if 
 he would present or consider a petition whicdi I wished to bring betbre the convention- 
 He read the petition. One clause of our State law is that no woman can sign a will, 
 W^e will have that (luestion decided before the meeting of tho next legislature. Sonie 
 ladies donated pro]>erty to an asylum. They wrote the will and signed it themselves, 
 and it was null and void, because the signers w(M'e women. They n()t knowiuir the 
 law, believed that they wei*e human being.s, and signed it. That clause, porh.aps 
 will be wiped out. Many gentlemen signed tho petition on that account. I took the 
 paper around myself. Governor Wilt/, tlnui lieutenant-governor, tohl me he would 
 present the petition. He was elected president of the convention. I i)ro.sented niy 
 first petition, signed by the best names in the city of Now (Orleans and in rho State 
 
 S. Kep. 399 2 
 
18 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 I liafl the names of st'veu of tlic most prominent physicians there, leading with the 
 iianic of Dr. Lo<iaii, and many njen seeing- the name of Dr. Saninel Logan, also signed 
 it. I went to all the different physiei;ins and ministers. Three ])roniinent ministers 
 signed it lor moral pnrposes alone. When Mrs Dorsey was on her dying bed the last 
 time she ever signed her name was to a hotter to go liefore that eonveution. No one 
 beUeved she wonld die. Mrs. Merri(d<: and mystdl went ht fore the convention. I was 
 in\ ited before the committee on the judiciary. 1 made an impression favorable enough 
 there to be invited befoie the convention with these ladies. I addressed the conven- 
 ti()n. We made the ])etition then that w(! make here; that we, the mothers of the 
 land, are bancd on every side in the cause of reform. I havestrived hard in the work 
 of relorm for women. 1 i)]e<lg< (l my father on his dying bed that 1 wouhl ifever cease 
 that work until woman stood with man equal before (he law, so far as my etforts conh^ 
 accomi)lish it. I'indmg myself l)a111ed in that work, I could only take thecourst; which 
 we have adoi)ted, and urge tin; proposition of the sixteenth amendment. 
 
 I beg of you, gt'ntlemen, to consider this (juestion apart from the manner in which 
 it was formerly considered. We, as the women of the nation, as the mothers, as the 
 wives, have a right to be heard, it seems to me, before the nation. We represent 
 precisely the position of the colonitis when they ])lea(l, and, in the words of Patrick 
 Henry, they were "spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne." We have 
 been jeere<l and langhed at, and ridiculed; bni this (jnestion has i)assed out of the 
 region of ridicule. 
 
 The moral force inheres in woman and in man alike, and unless we use all the moral 
 power of the Government we certainly cannot exist as a Government. 
 
 We talk of centralization, we talk of division ; we have the seeds of decay in our 
 Government, and nuless light soon we use the moral force and bring it forward in all 
 its strength and bearing, we certainly cannot exist as a hapi)y nation. We do not exist 
 as a hai)i)y nation now. This clamor for woman's suffrage, for womair*» rights, for 
 equal je]>resentation. is extending all over the land. 
 
 I plead because my work has been combated in the canse of reform everywhere that 
 I have tried to accomplish anything. The children that till the houses of prostitution 
 are not of foreign blood and race. They come from sweet American homes, and for 
 every woman tliat went down some mother's heart broke. I plead by the power of 
 the ballot to be allowed to help reform women and benetit mankind. 
 
 liEMARKS OF MRS. MARY A. STEWART, OF DELAWARE. 
 
 Mrs Stewart. I come from a small Stfvfce, but one that is represented in this-Con- 
 gress 1 consider, bv some of the ablest men in the land. Our State, though small, 
 has heretofore ])ossesse<l and to-day possesses brains. Our sons have no more right 
 to brains than our daughters, vet we are tied down by every chain that could bind 
 the (Jeor-ian slave before the war. Aye, we are worse slaves, because the Georgian 
 slave coiUd go to the sale block and there be sold. The woman ot Delaware must 
 submit to h(^- chains, as there is no sale for her ; she is of no account. 
 
 Woman from all time has occupied the highest positions in the world. She is just 
 as competent to-day as she was hundreds of years ago. We are taxed without rej.re- 
 sentation ; there isuo mistake about that. The colonies screamed that to Lngland ; 
 P'lrlia I ent s-ream«Ml back, " Be still ; long live the King, and we will help you 
 Did the c(donies submit ? They did not. Will the women of this country submit? 
 Thev will not. Mark me, we are the sisters of those lighting revolutionary men ; we 
 are the daughters of the fathers who sang back to England that they would not sub- 
 mit. Then,*'if the same l)lood courses in our veins that courses in yours, dare you ex- 
 pect us to submit ? 
 
 The white men of this country have thrown out u\nm us, the women, a race in- 
 ferior von must admit, to your d'augliteis, and yet that race has the ballot, and why? 
 He has a ri<-ht to it ; he earned and paid lor it with his blood. Whose blood ])aid for 
 yours? No*? your blood; it was the blood of ymir forefathers; and were they not 
 our forefathers? Does a man earn a hundred thousand dollars and lie down and die, 
 sayin.-- " It is all my bovs' f " Not a bit of it. H.; dies saying, '* Let my children, bo 
 they cripides. be they idiots, be they boys, or be they girls, inherit all my property 
 alike " riieii let us inherit the sweet boon of the ballot alike. 
 
 Wlien our fathers were driving the great ship of state we were willing to ride as 
 deck or cabin passengers, just as we IVlt dispos.d ; we had nothing to say : but to-day 
 the boys are alxuit to run the ship agr(Hind, and it is high time that the mothers 
 Bhould" be asking, "What do you mean to do?" It itj high time that the mothers- 
 should be dcniaiHling what they should long since have had. 
 
 In our own little State the laws have been very mucli modified m regard to women. 
 Mv father was the first man to blot out the old Knglish law allowing the eldest son 
 the ri'-^ht of inheritance to tiie real estate. He UnAi the first step, and like all those 
 w ho take first steps in improvement and relorm he received a mouutain of curses 
 from the oldest male heirs; but it did not matter to him. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 19 
 
 Since I'^OH I liavc, by my own iiulividnal t tVints, by tlio nso of har<l-<>arno(l money, 
 gone to our lr<ri.sliituiv tinui aft<'r time and have liad this law ami tliat law ])asse<l for 
 the benefit of the women; and the same little ship of stat*^ has sailed on. To-day our 
 men are jnst as well satistie<l with the laws of onr Statci for the benefit of women in 
 force as they were years ajjo. In our State a woman has a ri^ht to make a will. In 
 our Stat she can hold bonds and moi t«ra<ies as her own. In our 8tat(* she has a ri^^ht 
 to her t)wn i>roperty. She cannot sell it, thouj»h, if it is real estate, simply i>ecause 
 the moment she marries lier husband has u lifci-time n<j;]if. The woman does not 
 grumbl<> at that ; but still when he dies owninj; real estate, she ^ets only the rental 
 value of ont'-thiid, wliich is called the widow's dower. Now I think the man on<;ht 
 to have the rental value of one-third of tln^ wonmn's maiden property «»r real estate, 
 and it ou<;lit to be called the widower's dower. It^ would be just as fair for one as for 
 the other. All that I want is etjuality. 
 
 The women of our State, as I said before, are taxed w ithout representation. The 
 tax-<2[atherer comes every year aud demands taxes. F'or twenty years have I ])aid 
 tax under protest, and if I live twenty years longer I shall pay it under prot<'st every 
 time. The tax-gJitherer came to my place not lon<r since. "Well," said I, "«;ood 
 morninir. sir." Said he, " Gcod morninjjc." He smiled and said, " I have (Mune botli- 
 erini; you." Said I, "I know your face well. You have come to get a right nici- lit- 
 tle woman's tongue-lashing." Said he, sui)pose so, but if you will just i>ay your 
 tax I will leave." I ])aid the tax, **But," said I, "remember I j>ay it under ]»rofest, 
 and if I ever pay another tax I intend to have the protest written and make the tax- 
 gatherer sign it before I i)ay the tax, and if he will not sign that protest then I shall 
 not pay the tax, ami there will be a tight at once." Said he, " Why do you keep all 
 the time ]>rotesting against })aying this small tax ?" Said I, "Why do you pay your 
 tax?" "Well," said he. "I wouhl not pay it if 1 did not vote." Said I, "That is 
 the very reason why I do not want to pay it. I cannot vote and I do not want to 
 pay it." Now the women have no right when election day coines around. Who stay 
 at home from the election ? The women and the black and white men who have been 
 to the whipping-post. Nice company to put your wives and daughters in. 
 
 It is .said that the women do not want to vote. Here is an array of women. Every 
 ■woman sitting here wants to vote, and must we be del)arred the privilege of voting 
 because some luxurious woman, rolling ai"oun<l in her carriage and pair in her little 
 downy nest that some good, benevolent man has provided tor her, does not want to 
 vote '.' 
 
 There was a society that existed up in the State of New^ York called the Cove- 
 nanters that never voted. A man who belonged to that sect or society, a man whiter 
 haired than any of you, said to me, "I never voted. I never intended to vote. I 
 never felt that I could conscientiously sup])ort a Government that had its Constitu- 
 tion blotted and blackened with the word 'slave,' ami I never did vote until after 
 the al)olition of slavery." Now, were all you men disfranchised because that class 
 or sect u]) in New York would not vote ? Did you all pay your taxes and stay at 
 home and refrain from voting because the Covenanters did not vote ? Not a bit of it. 
 You went to the election and told them to stay at home if they wanted to, but that 
 yon, as citizens, were going to take care of yourselves. That was right. We, as 
 citizens, want to take care of ourselves. 
 
 One more thought, and I will be through. The fourteenth aud fifteenth amend- 
 ments give the right of sutfrage to women, so far as I know, ahhongh you learned 
 men perhaps see a little ditt'erently. I see through the glass dimly: you may see 
 through it after it is polished up. The fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, in my 
 opinion, and in the oi)inion of a great many smart men in the country, and snuirt 
 women, too, give the right to women to vote without any "its" or "ands" about it, 
 aud the United States protects ns in it; but there are a few who construe the law to 
 suit themselves, and say that those amendments do not mean that, becau!*' the Con- 
 gress that passed the fourteenth and tifteenth ami-ndn)enf s did not nu'an to do that. 
 Well, the Congress that passed them w ere mean enough for anything if they did not 
 mean to do that. Let the wise Congress of to-day take the eighth chapter and the 
 fourth verse of the Psalms, which says, "What is man, that Thou art mindfnl of 
 him t " and amend it by adding, " What is woman, that they never thonght of her 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. LUCINDA B. CHANDLER, OF PENNSYLVANIA. 
 
 Mrs. Chandler. Gentlemen, it will be conceded that the progress of civilization, 
 all that lifts humanity above a groveling, sensual, depraved state is nK>rke<l by the 
 position, intelligence, and culture of women. Perhaps you think that American 
 women have no rightful claim to ])resent; but Anu>rican women and mothers do claim 
 that they shouhl have the power to X)rotect their children, not only at the hearth- 
 stone, hut to supervise their education. It is neither j>resuming nor unwomanly for 
 the mothers an(l wom^n of the land to claim that they are competent an<l best htted, 
 and that it rightfully belongs to them to take part in the management and control 
 
20 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 of the scliools, and the instruc tion, botli intellectual and moral, of their ehil»lreu, and 
 that in i)enal. eleemosynary, or reformatory institutions, that women should have a 
 position as inspeetors of piisons, physicians, directors, and sui>erintendents. 
 
 I have here a hvief re]ioit IVoni an association Avhich sent me as a dele;fate to the 
 National Woman Su'il'raj;e Convention, in which it is stati'd that women in Pennsyl- 
 vania can he electe<l as directors on school boards or su])erintend<'nts of schools, but 
 cannot help to elect those; oflicers. It must very readily occur to your minds that 
 when women take such interest in the schools as mothers must needs take they must 
 feel many a wish to control the election of the othcers, superintendents, and managers 
 of the schools. The la<U<'S here from New York City could, if they had time, f^ive 
 you much testimony in ic'iard to the manai^ement of schools in X(!w York City, and 
 the need there of womaiTs love an«i woman's ))o\ver in the schools and on thii school 
 boards. I am also authorized by the association which sent me here to rcjiort that 
 the woman-sutira Joists and some other woman orj^anizations of the city of Philadelphia 
 have condenmed in resolution the action of the governor a year ago, I think, in veto- 
 ing a bill which passed largely both houses of the legislature to ap])oint woujeu in- 
 spectors of prisons. On such questions woman feels tln^ need of the ballot. 
 
 The mothers of this land, having breathed the air of freedom and received the ben- 
 etits of education, have come to see the necessity of better conditions to fulfill their 
 divinely ap})ointed and universally recognized office. The mothers of this land claim 
 that they have a right to assist in making the laws which control the social relations. 
 We are under the laws inherited from barbarism. Thej^ are not the conditions suited 
 to the best exercise of the office of w^oman, and the women desire the ballot to ])urge 
 society of the vices that arc sure to disintegrate the home, the State, the nation. 
 
 I shall not occupy your time further this morning. I only present brietly the 
 mother's claim, as it is so universally conceded. We now have in our schools a very 
 large majority of women teachers, and it seems to me no one can but recognize the 
 fact that mothers, through their experience in the family, mothers who are at all com- 
 petent and lit to fulfill tlieir position as mothers in the family, are best fitted to under- 
 stand the needs and at least should have an equal voice in directing the management 
 of the schools, and also the management of penal and reformatcny institutions. 
 
 I was in hopes that Mrs. Wallace would give you the testimony she gave us in the 
 convention of the w^onderful, annizing good that was accomplished in a reformatory 
 institution where an incorrigible woman was taken from the men's prison and became 
 not only very tractable, but very helpful in an institution under the indueuce and 
 management of women. That reformatory institution is numaged wholly by women. 
 There is not a n an, Mrs. Wallace says, in the building, except the engineer, who con- 
 trols the fire department. Under a management wiiolly by women, the institution is 
 a very great success. We feel sure that in many ways the indueuce and power that 
 the mothers bring would tend to convert many conditions that are now tending to 
 destruction through vices, would tend to elevate us morally, ])urify us, bring u.-, still 
 higher in the standard of humanity, and make us what we ought to be, a holy as well 
 an a hap])y nation. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. SARA A. SPENCER, OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 Mrs. SrENCEH. Miss Susan B. Anthony was chosen to present the constitutional 
 argument in our case before the connnittee. Unless there is more important business 
 for the individual members of the conniiittee than the ])rotection of one-half of our 
 population, I trust that the limit fixed for our hearing will be extended. 
 
 The Chaiuman. Miss Anthony is entitled to an hour. 
 
 Mrs. Si'KNCEi'v. Good. Miss Antlnmy is from the United States; the whole United 
 States claim her. 
 
 Mrs. Allkx. I have made arrangements Avith Miss Anthony to say all that I feel it 
 necessary for me to say at this time. 
 
 Mrs. Spkncek. I have be<>n so informed. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. NANCY R. ALLEN, OF IOWA. 
 
 Mrs. Allen. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee: I am not 
 a State representaf i ve, but I am a representative of a large class of women, citizens 
 of losva, who are heavy lax-payers. That is a subject wliich we are very seriously 
 contem])lating at this time. Tliert; is now a jjctition beingcirculate:<l throughout our 
 State, lo be i)resente(l to the legislature, ])rayiug that women be exempted from tax- 
 ati<m until they have some voice in the management of local affairs and the affairs of 
 the Stat<\ You nmy H'ik, ''Do not your iinsbands protect you? Are nt)t all the men 
 protecting you ?" We answer that our husbands are grand, noble mm, who are will- 
 ing to do all they can for us, but there are many who have no husbands, and wdio 
 own a great deal of ])roi)erty in tii<^ State of Iowa. Particularly in great moral re- 
 
WOMAN suf?^kac;e. 
 
 21 
 
 forms the woiiieu tluTe feel the need ol' th«* hallot, Hy inrsfiitiii;; l"n^ petitioiiH to 
 the leijislatnio tliey have succeeded in haviii<r l»etter teiiiixTaiice laws enacted, hut 
 the uuMi havi- failed to elect oltieials who will <Mifi)rce those laws. CouKequently they 
 have becouie as dead letters ui>ou the statiit<! hooks. 
 
 I wouhl reftT aj;aiu to taxes. I have a list shoN\ ini; that in my city thrre w(»nit ii i»;iy 
 more taxes than all the city olhcials iiichnled. Those women are <roo(l tenijn rancid 
 Avomen. Our city council is coni])osed almost entirely of saloon men and those who 
 visit saloons and brewery men. There are some j^ood men, hut the ^ood men heinj; 
 in the minority, the voices of these women are hut little re«jarded. All these nfMcials 
 arc ])aid, and we have to help sni)port them. All that we ask isan e<|nality of ri;;hts. 
 As Sumner said, E(|uality of rij;hts is the lirst of ri<^hts." If we can only he e(|ual 
 with man under the law, it is all that we ask. We do not propose to relin(|uish our 
 domestic circles; in fact, they are too dear to us for that : they are dear^ to us as life 
 itself; but we do ask that we may be permitted to be rei)res('nted. I'(iu*ality of tax- 
 ation without representation is tyranny. 
 
 REMARKS BY MISS SUSAN 13. ANTHONY, OF NEW YOKK. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Mr. Chairman and <!;entlemen : Mrs. Spencer said that I wouhl 
 make an ar<;ument. I do not propose to do so, because I take it for "granted that the 
 members of this committee understand that we have all the ar<jument on our side, 
 and such an argunu'ut would be sin)ply a series of ]>latitudes and maxims of ixovein- 
 ment. The theory of this (iovernuu'nt from the beiijinuiii<^ has been ]>erfect eiiuality 
 to all tln' people. That is shown by <'very one of the fundanuMital principles, which 
 I need not stop to repeat. Such beinj^ the theory, the application would be, of course, 
 that all i)ersons not havinf; forfeited their right to representation in the Governnjent 
 should be ])ossessed of it at the aoe of twenty-one. But instead of adoptiuir a i)ractice 
 in conformity with the theory of our Government, we be<>an first by savin that all 
 men of projjerty were the people of the nation upon whom the Constitution conferred 
 ■equality of rights. The next step was that all white men were the ])coj)le to whom 
 should be i)ractically applied the fundamental theories. There we halt to-day and 
 stand at a deadlock so far as the api)licat!on of our theory may go. We w(unen have 
 been standing before the American Republic for thirty years asking the men to take 
 yet one step further and extend the practical application of the theory of equality of 
 rights to all the people to the other half of the i)eople, the women. That is all that 
 I stand here to-day to attem])t to demand. 
 
 Of course, I take it for granted that the committee are in sympathy at least with 
 the reports of the Judiciary Committees presented both in the Senate and the House. 
 I remember that after the adoption of the fi)urteenth and fifteenth anumdinents Sena- 
 tor Edmunds reported on the i^etitiou of the ten thousand foreign-born citizens of 
 Rhode Island who were denied equality of rights in Rhode Island simply because of 
 their foreign birth ; and in that r<»port held that the ameiulments were enacted and 
 attached to the Constitution simply for nu-n of color, and therefore that their provi- 
 sions could not be so construed as to bring within their purview the men of foreign 
 birth in Rhode Island. Then the House Committee on the Judiciary, with Judge 
 Bingham, of Ohio, at its head, made a similar report upon our petitions, holding that 
 because those amendments were made essentially with the black men in view, there- 
 fore their provisions could not be extended to the women citizens of this country or 
 to any class except men citizens of color. 
 
 I voted in the State of New York in 1872 under the construction of those amend- 
 ments, which we felt to be the true one, that all persons born in the United States, or 
 any State thereof, and under the jurisdiction of the United States, were citizens, 
 and entitled toequality of rights, and that no State could deprive them of their e(|uality 
 of rights. I found three young men, inspectors of election, who were simple enough 
 to read the Constitution and understand it in accordance with what was the letter 
 ^ind what should have been its spirit. Then, as you will remember, I was prosecuted 
 by the officers of the Federal court, and the cause was carried through the different 
 courts in the State of New York, in the northern district, and at last I was brought 
 to trial at Cauandaigna. When Mr, Justice Hunt was brought from the Supreme 
 bench to sit U])on that trial, he Avrested my case from the hands of the jury altogether, 
 after having listened three days to testimony, and brought in a verdict himself of 
 guilty, denying to my counsel even the poor privilege of having the jury ])olled. 
 Through all that trial when I, as a citizen of the United States, as a citizen of the 
 State of New York and city of Rochester, as a person who had done something at le.xst 
 that might have entitled her to a voice in speaking for herself and for her class, in all 
 that trial I not only was denied my right to testify as to whether I voted or not, but 
 there was not one single woman's voice to be heard nor to be considered, t xcept as 
 witnesses, save when it came to the judge asking, "Has the prisoner anything to say 
 why sentence shall not be pronounced ?" Neither as judge, nor as attorney, nor as 
 jury was I allowed any person who could be legitimately called my peer to speak for 
 me. 
 
22 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 r i\,tin o (Mi.it tlial lin.'. ]5oth Houses letused it: the couunittccs reportea 
 
 BiiliMii 
 
 representation and ^^'^ f V J Vt thl mei^.^^^^^^^^ the State militia, hundreds 
 
 be did vote in New York he^ voted ^.^ , X'e f the State, but 
 
 bhick nten and black ^von.en ^v.'io exetnpted 1. tax. t black men 
 
 Constirtition they earned to the ^''f' '\ ^ij,. black woman ot Cou- 
 com;" n,.,l to pay a h. avy t.x o„ ..n.mnt ol ,,.0,....,. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 23 
 
 Mrs. Spencer. Is it bocaiiso slio is a citi/cn ! I.Mcasc cxplMiii. 
 Misa Anthony. Bccaiisci slu' is black. 
 
 Mrs Spencer. Is it because the fourte«nitli aiul (iltcenth amciKliiients iiia<b' wnincn 
 citizens ? 
 
 Miss Anthony. Certainly ; because it declared tlie black ]>e()j»lc citizens. 
 
 (ientleuien, you luiM' belbi-e _\ou various |uo]Kisil ions of amendment to the Fe<leral 
 Constituti«)U. One is for the election of President by the \ otc «»f the i)eo|de direct. 
 Of couise, wonuui are not i)eople. 
 
 Senator Edmunds. Anj^els. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Yes; an«;els up in Heax'en or els(> devils down tlicn-. 
 Senator Kdmunds. I have never known any of that kind. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I wish you, gentlemen, would look down there and sec the myriads 
 that are there. We want to help them and lift them up. That is exactly the trouble 
 with you, gentlemen ; you are forever looking at your own wi\'es, your own nnithers, 
 your own sisters, and your own daughters, and they an; well cared for and protected ; 
 but only look down to tlu^ struggling nuisses of women who ha\'e no one to ])rotect 
 them, neither husband, father, brother, son, with no mortal in all the land to i)rotect. 
 tbojn. If you would look down there the (luestion wouhl be sol ved ; but the diflicnlty 
 is that you think only of those who are doing well. We ar<; not s))eakiug for our- 
 selves, but for those who caTinor speak for themselves. We art; speaking for the 
 doonu'd asnuieh as you, Senator Ednnuids, used to speak for the doomed on the plau- 
 tatn)ns of i he South. 
 
 AmenduuMits have been proposed to put God in the Constitution and to keep God 
 out of the Constitution. AH sorts of propositions to amend the Constitution have 
 been made : but I ask that you allow no other amendment to be ealle<l the sixteenth 
 but that which shall put into the handsof one-half of the entire people of the nation the 
 right to express their opinions as to how the Constitution shall be amcj'ded henceforth. 
 Women have the right to say whether we shall have God in the Constitution as well 
 as nuMi, \^'omen have a right to say whether we shall have a national law or an 
 amendment to the Constitution i)rohibiting the importation or manufacture of alco- 
 holic litjuors. We have a right to have our o])inions counted on every pt)ssible ques- 
 tion concerning the public welfare. 
 
 You ask us why we do not get this right to vote first in the school districts, and ou 
 school (]uestions, or the questions of litjuor license. It has been shown very clearly 
 why we need sonu^thing more than that. You have good enough laws to-day in every 
 State in this Tniou for the suppression of what are termed the social vices; for the 
 suppression of the grog-shops, the gambling houses, tlu^ brothels, the obscene shows. 
 There is plenty of legislation in every State in this Union for tlieir suppression if it 
 could be executed. Why is the (ioverument, why are the States and the cities, unable 
 to execute those laws ' Simply because there is a large balance of ])ower in every city 
 that does not want tho.se laws executed. Consetiuently both parties must alike cater 
 to that balance of political power. The f)arty that juits a jdank in its ])latform that 
 the laws against the grog-shops and all the other sinks of initjuity uuist be executed, 
 is the party that will not get this balance of power to vote for it, and, consequently, 
 the party that cannot get into power. 
 
 VVhat we ask of you is that you will make of the women of the cities a balance of 
 political power, so that when a mayor, a member of theconnnon council, a supervisor, 
 a justice of the peace, a district attorney, a judge on the l)ench even, shall go before 
 the j)eople of that city as a candidate for the sutfrages of the peoi)le he shall not only 
 be comi)elled to look to the nuMi who frecjuent the grog shoi>s, the brothels, and the 
 gambling houses, who will vote for him if he is not in favor of executing the law, but 
 that he sliall have to look to themothers, thesisters, the wives, the (laughters ofthoso 
 deluded men to see what they v. ill do if he does not execute the law. 
 
 We want to make of ourselves a balance of political power. What we need is the 
 power to execute the laws. We have got laws enough. Let me give you one little fact 
 in regard to my own city of Kochesrer. Y<»u all know how that woiulerful whi]), called 
 the temi»erance crusade, roused the whisky ring. It caused the whisky forc(! to con- 
 centrate itself more strongly at the ballot-box than ever before, so that when the report 
 of the elections in the spring <ft' went over the C(Mintry, the result was that the 
 whisky ring was triumphant, and that the whisky ticdvet was elected uiore largely 
 than ever before. Senator Thuruian will remember how it was in his own Sta'e of 
 Ohio. Everybody knows that if my fricmds, Mrs. Ex-Gov(!rnoT Wallace, Mrs. Allen, 
 and all the women of that great West could have gone to the ballot box at those muni- 
 cipal elections and voted for candidates, no such result woul l ha ve occurred ; while 
 you refused by the laws of the Stat(^ to the women the right to have their opinions 
 counted, every rum-seller, every drunkard, every ])aui)cr even frouj the poor-house, 
 and every criminal outside of the State's prison came out on tdection day to t-xpress 
 his opinion and have it counte<l. 
 
 The next result of that political event was that the ring deuuiuded new legislation 
 to protect the whisky traffic everywhere. In my city the women did not crusade the 
 
24 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 streets, but tli« y .said tliey would help the men to execute the hnv. They lield uieet- 
 iugH, sent out eoniniitteeis, and had testimony secured ayjainst every man who had vio- 
 lated the law, and when the hoard of excise held its meetin*; those women assembled, 
 three oi- four hundred, in the church one mornin<;, and marched in a solid l)0(ly to the 
 common council chand)er where the board of excise was sittin<^. As one rnni-sell(;r 
 after another broui;lit m his petition lor a lenewal of license who had violated the 
 law, those women presented the testimony aj;ainst him. The law of the State of New 
 York is that no man shall have a renewal who has violated the law. Hut in not one 
 case did that board refuse to grant a renewal of licenst; because of the testimony which 
 those women ]»resented, and at the close of the sittiii<^ it was found that twelve hun- 
 dred more licenses had been ^ranted than ever before in the history of the State. 
 Then the defeated women said they would have those men punished according; to law. 
 Again they retained an attorney and appointed connnittees to investigate all over the 
 city. They got the proi)er oHicer to jjrosecute every rum-seller. 1 Avas at their meet- 
 ing. One woman re])orted that the oflicer in every city relused to ])rosecute the licjuor 
 dealer who had violated the law. Why? Because if he sh.ould do so he wouhl lose 
 the votes of all the enij)loyes of certain shops on that street, if another he would lose 
 the votes of the railroad employes, and if another h(i would lose the (ierman vote, if 
 another the Irish vote, and so on. I said to those women what Isay to you, and what 
 I know to be true to-day, that if the women of the city of Rochester had held the power 
 of the ballot in their hands they would have been a great political balance of i)ower. 
 
 The last re])ort was from District Attorney Raines. The women complained of a 
 certain lager-beer-garden keeper. Said the district attorney, "Ladies, you are right, 
 this man is violating the law, everybody knows it, but if 1 should prosecute him I 
 would lose the entire Geruum vote." Said I, ''Ladies, do you not see that if the women 
 of the city of Rochester had the right to vote. District Attorney Raines would have 
 been com])elled to have stop])ed and counted, weighed and measured. He would 
 Lave said. *Mf Ijjrosecute that lager-b(;er German, I shall lose the o,UO(l German votes of 
 this citv, but if J fail to prosecute him and execute the laws, I shall lose the votes of 
 20,000 women. 
 
 Do you not see, gentlemen, that so long as you ])ut this power of the ballot in the 
 hands of every possible nuin, rich, poor, drunk, sober, educated, ignorant, outside of 
 the State's prison, to make and unmake, not only every law and law-maker, but every 
 oftice-holder who has to do with the executing of the law, and take the })ower from 
 the hands of the women of the nation, the mothers, you i)ut the long arm of the lever, 
 as we call it in mechanics, in the hands of the whisky ])ower and make it utterly im- 
 possible for regulations of sobriety to ])e maintained in our community ? The lirst 
 ste]) towards social regulation and good society in towns, cities, and villages is the 
 ballot in the hands of the mothers of those places. I appeal to you esi)ecially in this 
 matter. I do not know what you think about the proper sphere of wonu'u. It 
 matters little what any of us think about it. We shall each ami every individual 
 find our own i»roper sphere if we are left to act in freedom; but my opinion is that 
 when the whole arena of i)olitics and government is thrown open to women tlu'y 
 will endeavor to do very much as they do in their honu-s ; that the nu'u will look 
 after the greenback theorj'^ or the hard-money theory, that you will look after free- 
 trade or tarili", and the women will do the home housekee])ing of the government, 
 which is to take care of the moral government and the social regulation of our home 
 de])artiiuMit. 
 
 it seems to me that we have the power of government outside to shape and control 
 circumstances, but that the inside power, the government housekeeping, is ])owerles8, 
 and is compelled to accept whatever conditions or cii cumstanct's shall be granted. 
 
 Thenifore I do not ask for licjuor suffrage ahuu'-, nor for school suffrage alone, be- 
 cause that would amount to nothing. We must be able to have a voice in the elec- 
 tion not only of every law-maker but of every one who has to do either with the 
 making or the executing of the laws. 
 
 Then you ask why we do not get suffrage by the popular-vote method. State by 
 State? I answer because there is no reason why I, for instance, should desire the 
 women of om; State of this nat ion to vote any mow than the women of another State. 
 I have no uu)re interest as regards the women of New ^)rk than I have as regards the 
 women of Indiana, Iowa, or any of the States represented by the women who have 
 come up luue. The reason why I do not wish to get this right by what you call the 
 l)opular-vote nu'thod, the State vote, is because I believe there is a United States citi- 
 zenship, I believe that this is a nation, and to be a citizen of this nation should be 
 a guaranty to every citizen of the right to a voie(> in the Govennueul, and should 
 give to me my right to cixpress my opinion. \on deny to me my liberty, n)y freedom, 
 if you say that I shall have no voice whatever in making, shaping, or controlling the 
 conditions of society in which I live, I differ from Judge Hunt, and 1 hope I am re- 
 Njjectful when I say that I think he made a very funny mistake when he said that 
 fundamental rights belong to the States, an<l only snrtaci^ rights to the National Gov- 
 erinnenf. I hope you will agree with m<' that tlie fundamental right of citizenship, 
 (he right to voice in tlu' (Jovernment, is a national light. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 25 
 
 The National Govornmmit may concede to the States the ri<ilit to (leci<h- l>y a ma- 
 jority as to what banks tliey shall have, what laws they shall enact with rej^anl to 
 insniance, with n'iiard to property, and any other (jnestion; but 1 insist ujton it that 
 the National CJov<'rnment should not leave it a (piestion with the .States that the ma- 
 jority in any 8tat<' ni:iy disfrMnchise the minority under :iny eircumstancfs whatso- 
 ever. The franchise t<) you men is not secure. V(tu hohl it to-day, to be sure, by the 
 connnon consent of white nu'u, but if at any time, on your ])rinciple of government, 
 the majority of any of the States should choose to amend the State constitution so as 
 to disfranchise this or that i)ortion of the white men by makinj^ this or that <!ondi- 
 tion, by all the derisions of the Supreme Court and by the legislation thus far there is 
 uothin<; to hin<ler them. 
 
 Therefore the wonuui <lemand a sixteenth amendment to bring to women tlu^ right 
 to vote, or if you pleas*^ to confer upon women their right to vote, to protect them in 
 it, and to secure n)en in their right, bt>cause you are not secure. 
 
 I would let the States act u])on almost every other question by majorities, except 
 the power to say whether my opinion shall be counted. I insist upon it that no State 
 shall decide that question. 
 
 Then the poi)ular-vote method is an impracticable thing. We tried to get negro 
 surtrage by tlie popular vote, as you will remember. Senator Thurman will remember 
 that in Oliio the Ke])ublicans submitted the question in 18(57, and witli all the ])re8- 
 tige of the National Eepublican i)arty and of the State party, when every intluence 
 that could be brought by the power and the patronage of the party in power was 
 brought to bear, yet negro sutfrage ran behind the regular Republican ticket 40,000. 
 It was tried in Kansas, it was tried in New York, and everywhere that it was sub- 
 mitted the (luestion was voted down overwhelmingly. Just so we tried to get women 
 sutfrage bv the ])oi>ular-vote method in Kansas in 1807, in Michigan in 1874, in Colo- 
 rado in 1877, and in each case the result was precisely the same, the ratio of the vote 
 standing one-third for women snftiage and two-thirds against women suffrage. If we 
 were to canvass State after State we should get no better vote than that. Why? Be- 
 cause the question of the enfranchisement of woman is a (jnestion of government, a 
 question of philoso])hy, of understanding, of great fundamental principle, and the 
 masses of the hard-working people of this nation, men and women, do not think upon 
 principles. They can only think on the one eternal struggle wherewithal to be fed, 
 to be clothed, and to be sh(dtered. Therefore I ask you not to compel us to have this 
 question settled by what you term the popular-vote method. 
 
 Let me illustrate by Colorado, the most recent State, in the election of 1877. I am 
 hapi)y to say to you that I have canvassed three States for this (luestion. If Senator 
 Chandler were alive, or if Senator Ferry were in this room, they would remember 
 that I followed in their train in Michigan, with larger audiences than either of those 
 Senators throughout the whole canvass. T want to say, too, that, although those 
 Senators may have believed in woman sutfrage, they did not say much about it. 
 They did not help us much. The Greenback movement Avas quite popular in Michi- 
 gan at that time. The Kepublicans and Greeubackers made a most humble bow to 
 the Grangers, but woman sutfrage did not get much help. In Colorad( , at the close 
 of the canvass, 6,(i6(i men voted " Yes." Now, I am going to describe the men who 
 voted " Yes." They were native-born white men, temperance men, cultivated, broad, 
 generous, just men, men who think. On the 'other liand, lb,007 voted *'No." Now", 
 I am going to describe that class of voters. In the southern part of that State there 
 are Mexicans, who speak the Spanish language. They put their wheat in circles on 
 the ground with the heads out, and drive a mule around to thrash it. The vast popu- 
 lation of Colorado is made up of that class of people. I was sent out to speak in a 
 voting precinci having 200 voters ; 1,")0 of those voters were Mexican greasers, 40 of 
 them foreign-born citizens, and just 10 of them were born in this country; and I 
 was sup])osed to be com])etent to convert those men to let me have as much right in 
 this Government as they had, when, unfortunately, the great majority of them could 
 not understand a word that I said. Fifty or sixty Mexican greasers stood against 
 the wall with tluiir hats down over their faces. The Germans put seats in n lager- 
 beer saloon, and would not attend unless I made a speech there ; so I had a small 
 audience. 
 
 Mrs. Archibald. There is one circumstance that I should like to relate. In the 
 county of Las Animas, a county where there is a large population of Mexicans, and 
 where they always have a large majority over the native i»opulation. they «lo not 
 know our language at all. Consequently a number of tick<'ts must be ])rinted for 
 those ])e()ple in Si)ani8h. The gentleman in our little town of Trinidad who had the 
 charge of the printing of those tickets, being adverse to ns. had every ticket ])riuted 
 against woman sutfrage. The sain))les that were sent to ns from Denver were "for" 
 or "against," but the tickets that were ])rinted only had tlu* .vord "against" on 
 them, so that our friends had to scratch their tickets, and all those Mexican j)eople 
 who could not understand this trick and did not know the facts of the case, voted 
 against woman sutfrage; so that we lost a great many votes. This was man's gen- 
 erosity. 
 
26 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Special leffislatioii for the benefit of woman ! I will admit you 
 that on the floor of the constitutional convention was a representative Mexican, in- 
 telligent, cultivated, chairman of the commil tee on sntirage, who sigiied tlu' petition, 
 and was the first to s])eak in favor of woman siitfrage. Then they have in Denver 
 about 400 nej;roes. Governor Kojitt said to nu;, "Th»' 400 Denver nejrroes are going 
 to vote solid for woman suttrage," I said, " I do not know much about the Denver 
 negroes, but I know certainly what all negroes were educated in, and slavery never 
 educated master or negro into a comprehension of the great princii)les of human free- 
 dom of our nation ; it is not possible, and I do not believe they aie going to vote for 
 us." Just ten of those Denver negroes voted for woman sufirage. Then, in all the 
 mines of Colorado the vast majority of the wages laborers, as you know, are foreign- 
 ers. There may be intelligent foreigners in this country, and I know there are, who 
 are in favor of the enfranchisementof woman, but that one does not happen to be Carl 
 Schur/, I am ashamed to say. And I want to say to you of Carl Schnr/, that side by 
 side with that man on the battle-fields of Germany was Madame Anneke, as noble a 
 woman as ever trod the Anierican soil. Slu; rod(i by the side of her husband, who was 
 an officer, on the battle-field; she slei)t in battle-field tents, and she fled from Ger- 
 many to this country f\)r her life and property, side by side with Carl Schurz. Now, 
 what is it for Carl Schurz, stepi)ing up to the very door of the Presidency and looking 
 back to Madame Anneke, who fought for liberty as W(>11 as he, to say, "You be sub- 
 ject in this republic, I will be sovereign." If it is an insult for Carl Schurz to say 
 that to a native-born Gernum wonum, what is it for him to say it to Mrs. ex-Gover- 
 nor Wallace, Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Lucretia Mott, to the native-born, educated, 
 tax-paying woummi of this republic ? I can forgive an ignorant foreigner; I can for- 
 give an ignorant negro; but I cannot forgive Carl Schurz. 
 
 Right in the file of the foreigners opposed to woman suffrage, educated under mon- 
 archical governments that do not comprehend our i)rinciples, whom I have seen trav- 
 eling through the prairies of Iowa, or the ])rairies of Minnesota, are the Bohemians, 
 Swedes, Norwegians, Germans, Irishmen, Mennouites ; I have seen them riding on 
 those magniticent loads of wheat with those nuignificent Saxon horses, shining like 
 glass on a sunny morning, every one of them going to vote '*no" against woman suf- 
 frage. You cannot convert them ; it is impossible. Now and then there is a whisky 
 uumnfacturer, drunkard, inebriate, libertine, and what we call a fast man, and a 
 colored man, broad and generous enough to be willing to let women vote, to let his 
 mother have her opinion counted as to whether there shall be license or no license, 
 but the rank and file of all classes who wish to enjoy full license in what, are termed 
 the petty vices of men are pitted solid against the enfianchisement of women. Then, 
 in addition to all these, there are, as you know, a fcAv religious bigots left in the wtirld 
 who really believe that somehow or other if wouuui are allowed to vote Saint Paul 
 would feel badly about it. I do not know but that some of the gentlemen ])re!<ent be- 
 long to that class. [Laughter.] So when you i)ut those best men of the nation having 
 religion about everything except on this one question, whose prejudices con rol them, 
 with all this vast mass of ignorant, uneducated, degraded ]>opulation in this country, 
 you make an overwhelming and insurmountable majority against the enfranchisement 
 of women. 
 
 It is because of this fact that I ask you not to remand us back to the States, but to 
 submit to the States the proposition «f a sixteenth amendment. The poi)ular vote 
 method is not only of itself an impossibility, but it is too humiliating a process to 
 compel the women of this nation to subn)it to any longer. 
 
 lam going to give you an illustration, not because I have any disrespect for the per- 
 son, because on many other (luestions he was really a good deal better than a good numy 
 other men who had not so bad a name in this nation. When, under the old rq/ime, 
 John Morrissey, of my State, the king of gamblers, was a Re|)resentative on the floor 
 of Congi ess, it was humiliating enough for Lucretia Mott, for Elizabeth Cady Stanton, 
 for all of us to come down here to Washington ami beg at the feet of John Morrissey 
 that he would let intelligent, native-born women vote, and let us have as much right 
 in this (iovernment and in the government of the city of New York as he had. When 
 John M(urissey was a member of the New York State legislature it would have b«'en 
 humiliating enough for us to go to the New Y(m1c Stat«> legislature and pray of John 
 Mcurissey to vote to ratify tlu^ sixtci'iith amendment, giving to us a right to vote : but 
 if instead of a sixteenth amendment you tell us to go back to the p()])ular vote method, 
 the old tinu^ method, and go down into John Morrissey's seventh C'ongressional <lis- 
 trict in thecity of New York, and there, in the sloughs and slum of that great Sodom, 
 in the grog-sho])s, the gaml)ling-houst's, and the brotlu'ls, beg at the feet of each in- 
 dividual listicutf of his constituency to give the nobh', educated, native-born, tax- 
 l)ayiug women of the State of New York as much right as he has, ihat would be too 
 bitter a pill for a native-born woman to swallow any longer. 
 
 I beg you, gentlemen, to save us from the mortification and the humiliation of ap- 
 pealing "to tlm rabble. We already have on our side the vast majority of the better 
 educated — the best classes of num. You will remember that Senator Christiancy, of 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE 
 
 27 
 
 Micliijjjan, two years af^o, said on tho floor of the S»Miate, tliat of tlni 4(i.()()(» mon 
 who voted for women H)irtiaj;o in Michij^an it wassaiil that there was not a drunkard, 
 not a libertine, not a ••nnihh'r, not a d( i)ia\ «d, low man amon«:8t them, Ik not that 
 somethintr that tells for iis, antl for our rijjht ? It is the fact, in every Stat(^ of tho 
 Union that we have the intelligent lawyers and the most liln-ral mini.sters of all the 
 sects, not exceptiiiii' the Roman Catholics. A liomaii Catholic priest ]>reach<Ml a ser- 
 mon the other day, in which he said, " (iod <»rant that tluMv were a thousand Susan li. 
 Anthonys in this city to vote and work for temperance." When a Catholic priest nays 
 that there is a great nu)ral necessity pressiui;- down u])on this iuiti<ui denuiuding the 
 enfranchisement of women, I ask you that you shall not tlrive ns back to bej; our 
 rights at the feet of thenu)st ignorant and dei)ravedmen of the nation, l)ut that you, 
 the representative nu'U of the riation, will hold thecjuestion in the hollow of your 
 hands. We ask you to lift this question out of the hands of the rabble. You who are 
 here upon the floor of Congress in both Houses are the i)ickcd men of the nation. You 
 may say what you please about John Moirissey, the g.imblcr, tVc.; he was head and 
 shoulder abovt; the rank and tile of his constituency. 'I'he world may gabble ev(^r so 
 much about members of Congress being corrupt and being bought and sold ; they are 
 as a rule head and slioulders amongst the great majority who compose their Stat(^ gov- 
 ernments. There; is no <loubt about it. Tlierefore I ask of you, as re])resentati ve 
 ujen, as men who think, as men who study, as men who pliilosophi/e, as men 
 who know that you will not drive us back to the States any more, but that 
 you will carry out this nu^thod of proce<lur«; which has been practiced from the be- 
 ginning of the Government ; that is, that you will put a prohibitory amendment in 
 the Contitution, and submit the i»roposition to the several State legislatures. The 
 am«;ndmeut which has been presented before you reads: 
 
 Article XVI. 
 
 Section 1. The right of sulfrage in tlie United States sliall be based on citizensliip, 
 and the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or al)ridge(l 
 by tin; United Slates, or by any State, on account of sex, or for any reason not efjually 
 applicable to all citizens of the United States. 
 
 Sec. 'Z. Congress shall have power to enforce this article by appropriate legislation. 
 
 In this way we would get the right of suffrage just as nnich by what yon call the 
 consent of the States, or the States' rights method, as by any other method. 'J'Ik^ only 
 ])oint is that it is a, decision by the representative men of the States instead of by the 
 rank and tile of the ignorant men of the States. If you would submit this i)roposition 
 for a sixteenth amendment, by a two-thirds vote of the two Houses, to the several 
 legislatures, and the several legislatures ratify it, that would be just as much by the 
 consent of the States as if Tom, Dick, and Harry, voted "yes" or " no." Is it" not, 
 Senator? I want to talk to Democrats as well as Repnblicans, to show that it is a 
 States' rights method. 
 
 Senator Edmunds. Does anybody propose any other, in case it is done at all by the 
 nation? 
 
 Miss Anthony. Not by the nation, but they are continnally driving us back to 
 get it from the States, State by State. That is the point I want to make. We do not 
 want you to drive us back to the States. We want you men to take the question out 
 of the hands of the rabble of the State. 
 
 The Chairman. May I interrupt you? 
 
 Miss Anthony. Yes, sir; I wisli you would. 
 
 The Chairman. You have reflected on this subject a great deal. Yon think there 
 is a majority, as I understand, even in the State of New York, against woman suttrage ? 
 Miss Anthony. Yes, sir; overwhelmingly. 
 
 The Chairman. How, then, would you get legislatures elected to ratify such a con- 
 stitutional amendriu'ut ? 
 
 Miss A.XTHONY. That brings me exactly to the point. 
 The Chairman. That is the point I wish to hear you upon. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Because the nuunbers of tlie State legislatures are intelligent men 
 and can vote and enact laws enibodying great i)rinciples of the Government without 
 in any wise eudangeriug tlu'ir positions with tlunr constituencies. A constitu«'ncy 
 comi)<.sed of ignorant men would vote solid against us because they have; never tlnuight 
 on tilt; (]uestion. Every man or woman who believes in the enfrauchisemenl of women 
 is educated out of every idea that he or she was born into. We were all born into 
 the idea that the proper si)h;'re of woman is subjection, and it takes education and 
 thought ami culture to lift us out of it. Thcn'fore when men go to the ballot-l)ox 
 they all vote " no," unless they have actual ai'gumeut on it. I will illustrate. \Ve 
 have six legislatures in the nation, for instance, that have extended the right to vote 
 on school (juestions to the women, and not a single member of a State h'gislature has 
 ever lost his ottice or forfeited the respect or confldem-*' of his constituents as a repre- 
 
28 
 
 WOMAN S . FFRAGE. 
 
 seutative, because be voted to give women tbe rigbt to vote on scbool qnestions. It 
 is a (jiiestion tbat tbe uutliinkinj? masses never bave tbont^bt n])on. Tliey do not care 
 about it one way or tbe otber, only tbey bave an instinctive feelini; tbat because wo- 
 men never tlid vot(i tberefore it is wronj^ tbat tbey ever sbonbl vote. 
 
 Mrs. 8p«ncku. Do make tbe point tbat tbe Congress of tbe United States leads tbe 
 legislatures of tin? States and e<lucates tluiui. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Wlu;n you, rei)resentative men, carry tins nuitter to legislatures, 
 State by State, tbey will ratify it. My i)()int is tbat you can safely do tins. Senator 
 Tburmau, of Obio, would not lose a single vote in Obio by voting in favor of tbe en- 
 franc bisenu'.nt of women. Seiuitor Edmunds would not lose a single Re))ul)lican vote 
 in tbe State of Vermont if be ])uts biniself on our side, wbicb, I tbink, be will do. It 
 is not a political question. We are no })otitical ])ower tbat can make or V»reak eitber 
 party to-day. Couse(iuently eacb man is left independent to express bis own moral 
 and intellectual convictions on tbe matter witbout endangering bimslf ]>olitically. 
 
 Senator Edmunds. I tbink, Miss Antbony, you ougbt to put it on ratlier bigber, I 
 will not say stronger, ground. If yon can convince us tbat it is rigbt we would not 
 stop to see bow it att'ected us politically. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I was coming to tbat. I was going to say to all of you men in of- 
 fice bere to-day, tbat if you cannot go forward and carry out eitber your Democratic 
 or your Rei)ul)lican or your Greenback theories, for instance, on tbe finance, tbere is 
 no great })olitical ]>ower tbat is going to take yon away from tbese balls and prevent 
 you from doing all tbose otber tilings wbicb you want to do, and you can actotit your 
 own moral and intellectual convictions on this witbout let or binderance. 
 
 Senator Edmunds. Witbout any danger to tbe j)ul)lic interests, yon mean. 
 
 Miss Anthony'. Witbout any danger to tbe public interests. I did not mean to 
 make a bad insinuation. Senator. 
 
 I want to give yon anotber reason wby we api)eal to you. In tbese three States 
 where tbe question has been submitted and voted down we cannot get anotber legis- 
 lature to resubmit it, because tbey say the })eo])le bave expressed their opinion and de- 
 cided no, and tberefore nobody with any ])olitical sense would resubmit tbe question. 
 It is tberefore impossible in any one of those States. We have tried hard in Kansas 
 for ten years to get tbe (question resubmitted ; the vot(^ of tbat State seems to be taken 
 as a liiiality. We ask you to lift the sixteeeuth amendment out of the arena of the 
 public mass into tbe arena of thinking legislative brains, the brains of the nation, 
 nnder the law and the Constitution. Not only do we ask it for that pur])oee, but 
 when you will bave by a two-thirds vote submitted the proi)osition to tbe several legis- 
 latures, you have ])ut the pin down and it never can go back. No subsequent Congress 
 can rev<»kti that submission of the ])io]tosition ; tbere will be so much gained ; it can- 
 not slidi! back. Then we will go to New York or to Pennsylvania, and urge upon the 
 legislatures the ratification of tbat amendment. They may refuse ; they may vote it 
 down tbe first time. Then we will go to tbe next legislature, and the next legisla- 
 ture, and plead and plead, from year to year, if it takes ten years. It is an open 
 (luestion to every legislature until we can get one tbat will ratify it, and when tbat 
 legislature has once voted and ratified it no subse(iuent legislation can revoke their 
 ratification. 
 
 Thus, yon perceive, Senators, that every step we would gain by this sixteenth- 
 amendment |)rocess is fast and not to be done over again. That is why I a]>])eal 
 to you especially. As I bave shown yon in tbe respective States, if we fail to edu- 
 cate the people of a whole State — and in Michigan it was only six months, and in 
 Colorado less than six months — the State legislatures say that is the end of it. I ap- 
 ])eal to you, therefore, to ado])t the course that we suggest. 
 
 GenthMuen of tiic committee, if there is a question that you want to ask me before 
 I make my linal appeal, I should like to have you ])ut it now ; any question as to cou- 
 stitutiouai law or your right to go forward. Of course, you do not deny to us that 
 this amendment will be right in tbe line of all the amendments heretofore. The 
 eleventh, twelfth, thirteenth, fourteenth, fifteenth amendments are all in line ]>robib- 
 iting the States from doing something which they heretofore thought tbey bad a right 
 to do. Now we ask you to ])rohibit the States from denying to women their rights. 
 
 I want to show you in closing tbat of tbe great acts of justice done during tbe war 
 and sinc(! tbe war the lirst one was a great military necessity. We never got ouv 
 inch of headway in i)utting down the rebellicm until the purpose of this great nation 
 was declared tbat slavery should be abolished. Then, as if by magic, we went for- 
 ward and put down the rebellion. At the close of the rebellitui the nation stood again 
 at a perfect deadlock. Tbe Republican ])arry was trembling in tbe balanc*', because 
 it fear«^d that it could not bold its position uiitil it sbduld bave secured by legislation 
 to tln' (Jovcnimeut what it bad gaiued at tbe ]»oint of the sword, ami when the na- 
 tion dcclare«l its purpose to enfranchise the negro it was a ])olitical necessity. I do not 
 want to take too much vainglory out of the beads of K'epublicaus, but nevertludess 
 it is a great national fact that neither of those great acts of beiu^licence to the negro 
 ra<'e was done because of any high, overshadowing moral convict ion on tbe ])art of 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 21) 
 
 :iny considerable minority oven of thv people of this nation, bnt simply becansc of a 
 military necessity slavery was abolished, and sin)])Iy becanse of a p()liti<'al necessity 
 black men were entrancbised. The blackest l\<']»nbli( an Stat<' yon had voted d(»wn 
 ncfiro snlfra<j;e, and that was Kansas in lf^(>7. Michi«;an voted it down in HiiT ; Ohio 
 vote<l it down in IHw. Iowa w;is the only State that over voted ne<;i-o sntVniife l»y a 
 majority of the citi/.ens to which the (piestion was snbmitted, and they had not more 
 than sevenry-live neu;roes in the whoh^ State ; so it was not a very practical qnestion. 
 Therefore, it may be fairly said, 1 think, t hat it was a military necessity that coinpciliMl 
 on(^ of those acts of jnstice and a political necessity that comiu'lhid the other. 
 
 It seems to me that froni the first word nttercd by onr dear friend, Mrs. Kx-(jover- 
 nor Wallace of Indiana, all the way down, we have been ])rcsentin<<; to yon the fact 
 that tlu're is a g;reat moral necessity pressing; njion this nation to-day that yon shall 
 go forward and attach a sixteenth amendment to the Federal Constitntion which shall 
 ])nt in the hands of the women of this nation the power to help make, sha))e, and con- 
 trol the social conditions of society everywhere. 1 appeal to yon from that stand-j)oint 
 that yon shall submit this proposition. 
 
 There is one other point to which I want to call yonr attetition. The Senate .Jndi- 
 ciary Committee, Senator Edmnnds, chainnau, reported that the United States conld 
 do nothing to ])rotect women iu the right to vote under the amendments. Now, I want 
 to give yon a few points where the United States interferes to take away the right to 
 vote from ^vonlen where the State lias given it to them. In Wyoming, for instance, by 
 a Democratic legislature, the women were enfranchised. They were not only allowed 
 to vote, but to sit ujjon juries, the same as men. Those of you who read the reports 
 giving the results of that action have not forgotten that the hrst result of women sit- 
 ting upon juries Avas that wherever there was a violation of the whisky l.aw they 
 brought in verdicts accordingly, for the execution of the law ; and you will remember, 
 too, that the lirst man whoever had a verdict ot guilty for murder in the first degree in 
 that Territory was tried by a jury made up largely of women. Always nj) to that day 
 every jury had brought in a verilict of shot iu self-defense, although the person shot 
 down may have been entirely unarmed. Then in cities like Cheyenne and Laramie, 
 persons entered complaints against keepers of houses of ill-fame. Women were on 
 the jury, and the result was iu every case that before the juries could bring in a bill 
 of indictment the women had taken the train and left the town. Why do you hear 
 no more of women sittiug on juries in that Territory? Simply because the United 
 States marshal, who is ai)pointed by the President to go to Wyoming, refuses to put 
 the names of women into the box from which tin; jury is drawn. There the United 
 States Government interferes to take the right awaj'. 
 
 A Delegate. 1 should like to state that Governor Hoyt, of Wyoming, who was the 
 governor who signed the act giving to women this right, informed me that the right 
 had been restored, and that his sister, who resides there, recently served on a jury. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I am glad to hear it. It is two years since I was there, but 1 was 
 told that that was the case. In Utah the women were given the right to vote, but a 
 year and a half ago their legislative assembly found that although they had the right 
 to vote the territorial law provided that only male voters should hold otlice. The 
 legislative assembly of Utah passed a bill providing that women should be eligible 
 to all the ottices of the Territory. The- school offices, superintendents of schools, were 
 the ottices in particular to wiaich the women wanted to be elected. Governor Emory, 
 appointed by the President of the United States, vetoed that bill. Thus the full 
 operations of enfranchisement conferred by two of the Territories has l)eeii stoj^ped 
 by Federal interference. 
 
 You ask why I come here instead of going to the State legislatures. You say that 
 whenever the legislatures extend the right of sntfrage to us by the constitutions of 
 their States we can get it. Massachusetts, New Hami)sliire, Minnesota, Colorado, 
 Kansas, Oregon, all thes<; States, have had the school sutl'rage extended by legislative 
 enactment. If the (juestion had been submitted to the rank and tile of tlie people of 
 Boston, with 6(),(>0^> men })aying nothing but the ])oll-tax, they would have undoubt- 
 edly voted against letting women have the right to vote for members of the school 
 board; but tlieir intelligent representatives on the Hoor of the legislature voted in 
 favor of the extension of the school suffrage to the women. The first; result in Boston 
 has been the <dection of quite a numberof women to tiu' school board. In Minnesota, 
 iu the little town of Kochester, the school l)oard declared its purpose to cut the 
 women teachers' wages down. It did not pro])ose to touch the j)rincipal, who was a 
 man, but they proj)osed to cut all the women down from .^'jO to ^'Ao. One woman ])ut 
 her bonnet on and went over the entire town and said, " We have got a right to vote 
 for this school board, and let us do so." They all turned out ami voted, and not a 
 single man was re-elected, but all those who wer<' in lavor of i)ayiug $">('• 
 
 It seems to be a sort of chaiity to let a woman teach school. You say here that if 
 a woman has a father, mother, or brother, or anybody to support her, she cannot have 
 a i)lace in the Departments. In the city of Ivochester they cannot let a married woman 
 teach school because she has got a husband, and it is supposed he ought to support 
 
30 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 lier. The women are working in the Departments, as everywhere else, for half price, 
 and tli(i only pretext, yon tell ns, tor kpej)in<; women there is l)eeanse the Government 
 can econoiiii/e hy fiiiplovini^ women tor less money. The ()th('r day wIumi 1 saw ;i 
 newsp;ip(;r Itvm statiii<^ that the Government proposed to c()mi)eiisate Miss .Jos<'phine 
 Meeker for ;lll her bravery, heroism, and terril)le sntleiings by givifig lier a place in 
 the Interior Department, it made my Idood hoil to the ends of my lingers and toes. 
 To give that girl a chance to work in the D<'partment ; to do jnst as mnch work as a 
 man, and pay her half as mnch, was a charity. That was a beneticence on the i)art 
 of this grand Government to her. We want the ballot lor bread. When we doe(|ual 
 work we want e<|iial wages. 
 
 Mrs. Saxox. Calirornia, in her recent convention, prohibits the legislature hereafter 
 from enacting any law Jbr woman's snil'rage, does it not? 
 
 Miss Anthony. I do not know. I have not seen the new constitution. 
 
 Mrs. Saxon. It does. The convention inserted a provision in the constitution th^t 
 the legislature could not act upon the subject at all. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Everywhere that we have gone, Senators, to ask our right at the 
 hands of any legislative or i>olitical body, we have been the subjects of ridicule. For 
 instance, 1 went before the great national Deujocratic convention in New York, in 18(iH, 
 as a delegate from the New York Woman Suttrage Association, to ask that great i)arty, 
 now that it wanted to come to the front again, to i)Ut a genuine Jetfersonian ])lank in 
 its platform, ])ledging the ballot to all citizens, women as well as men, should it come 
 into i)ower. You may remember how Mr. Seymour ordered my petition to be read, 
 after looking at it in the most scrutinizing manner, when it was referred to the com- 
 mittee ()n resolutions, where it has slept the sleep of death from that day to this. But 
 before the close of the convention a body of ignorant workingmen sent in a petition 
 clamoring for greenbacks, and you remember that the Deujocratic jiarty bought those 
 men by putting a solid greenback plank in the platform. Everybody supposed they 
 would nominate Pendleton, or sonie other man of pronounced views, but instead of 
 doing that they nomiuated Horatio Seymour, who stood on the fence, pcditically speak- 
 ing. My friends, Mrs. Stanton, Lucretia Mott, and women who have brains, and educa- 
 tion, woirien who are tax-payers, went there and petitioned for the ])ractical ai)plication 
 of the fun<lamental principles of our Government to one-half of the i)eople. Those 
 most ignorant workingmen, the vast mass of them foreigners, went there, ami peti- 
 tioned that that great political party should favor greenbacks. Why did they treat 
 those workingmen with respect, and put a greenback plank in their platform, and 
 only table us, and ignore ns? Simply because the workingmen represented the power 
 of the ballot. They could make or unmake the great Democratic ])arty at that «'lectiou. 
 The women weie i)owerless. We could be ridiculed and ignoreil with impunity, and 
 so we were laughed at, and put on the table. 
 
 Then the Kepublicans went to Chicago, and they did just the same thing. They 
 said the Government bonds must ho, })ind in precisely the currency specified by the 
 Congressional enactment, and Talleyrand himself could not have devised how not to 
 say anything better than the Re[)ublicans did at Chicago on that (jtiestion. Then 
 they nominated a man who had not any iinancial oi>iuions whatever, and who was 
 not known exce])t for his military record, and they went into the campaign. Bot li 
 those ]>arlies ha<l this petition from us. 
 
 I m(!t a woman in (xiaiul Rajuds, Mich., a short time ago. She came to me one 
 moiningand told me about the obscene shows licensed in that city, and said that she 
 thought of Memorializing the legislature. I said, "Do; you (iriunot do anything 
 else; you are hel))less, but you can petition. Of course, they will laugh at you." 
 Notwithstanding, I drt^w nj) a ))etition and she circulated it. Twelve hundred of the 
 best citizens signed that petition, and the lady carried it to tlie legislature, jnst as Mrs. 
 Wallace took her petition in tln^ Imliaiia legislature They read it, laughed at it, and 
 laid it on tlu; talde: and at tin; ( lose ot the session, by a unanimous vote, they re- 
 tired in a solid body to witness the obscene show themselves. Alter witnessing it, 
 they not only allowed the license to continue for that year, but they have licensed 
 it every year from that day to this, against all the protests of the petitioners. 
 [Laughter. "| 
 
 Senator Ei)Mi\\DS. Do not think we are wanting in respect to you and the ladies 
 her*' because you say something that makes us laugh. 
 
 Miss Anthony. You are not laughing at me ; you art^ treating me respectfully, be- 
 cause you are hearing my argument; you are not asleep, not one of you, ami I am <le- 
 lighti'd. 
 
 Now, I am going to tell you one other fact. Seven thousand of the bt^.st citizens of 
 Illinois petitioned the legislature in 1877 to give them'the poor privileg*' of voting on 
 the license (luestion. A gentleman presented their petition ; the ladies were in the 
 lobbi< s aiouiid the room. A gentleman made a motion that the president of the State 
 Association of Ihe Christian remperance I'nion be allowed to addn-ss the legislature 
 regarding the petition of the memorialists, when a gentleman sprang to his feel, and 
 said it was wvW (Miough for the honorable geutleniou to present the petition, and have 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 31 
 
 it received, and laid on the table, bnt " tor a j;entlenian to rise in liis seat and projioHe 
 that the valnable time of the honorable <j;»*nt Kmimmi of the Illinois le<;isl;itnre sliould l)e 
 consnnied in discnssin«r the nonsense of those women is ^oinj; a litth'; too far. I move 
 that tlui serjeant-at-arms be ordered to clear the hall of the honse of rejjrcsmtatives 
 of the mob:'' releriin<; to those Cliristian womm. Now, they liad had th«' h»bbyist.s 
 of the whisky rin«; in that leijishitnre for yt'arsand years, not only around it at respect- 
 ful distances, but insidi* the i>ar, and nobody ever made a motion t«» cleai" the halls of 
 the whisky mob there. It only takes Christian women to niake a mob. 
 
 Mrs. Saxon. We were treated extremely respectfully in Louisiana. It showed 
 plainly the tem})er of the convention wIh'U the present {governor aduutted that woman 
 suffrage was a fact bound to come. They gave us the privilege of havin<r women on 
 the school boards, l)ut then the otticers are appointed by men who are i>oliticians. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I want to n iid a tV w words that come from good autliority, Ibr 
 black nun at least. I tind here a little extract that I copied years ago from the Anti- 
 Slavery Standard of 1870. As you know, Wendell Phillips was the editor of that paper 
 at that time : 
 
 "A man with the ballot in his hand is the master of the situation. He defines all 
 his other rights; what is not already given him he takes.'' 
 
 That is exactly what we want. Senators. The rights you have not already given us; 
 ■we want to get in such a position that we can take them. 
 
 *'The ballot makes every class sovereign over its own fate. Corrui)tion may steal 
 from a man his independence; capital may starve, and intrigue fetter him, at times; 
 but against all these, his vote, intelligently and honestly cast, is, in the long run, his 
 full protection. If, in the struggle, his fort surrenders, it is only because it is betrayed 
 from within. No power ever permanently wronged a voting class without its own 
 consent." 
 
 Senators, I want to ask of you that you will, by the law and parliamentary rules of 
 your committee, allow us to agitate this question by publishing this report and the 
 report whieh you shall make ui)on our petitions, as I hope you will make a report. If 
 your committee is so pressed with business that it cannot possibly consider and report 
 upon this <iuestiou I w ish some of you would make a motion on the floor of the Senate 
 that a special committee be appointed to take the whole question of the eniranchise- 
 ment of women into consideration, and that that connnittee shall have nothing else 
 to do. This olf year of ])olitics, when there is nothing to do but to try how not to do 
 it (politically, I mean, I am not speaking personally), is the best time you can have 
 to consider the (piestion of woman suthage, and I ask you to use- your intluenee with 
 the Senate to have it speciall.N attended to this year. Do not make us come here 
 thirty years longer. It is twelve years since the tirst time I came before a Senate com- 
 mittee. I said then to Charles Sumner if I could make the honorable Senator from 
 Massachusetts believe that I feel the degradation and the humiliation of disfranchise- 
 ment precisely as he would if his fellows had adjudged him incompetent from any 
 cause whatever from having his oi)ini()u counted at the ballot-bax we shouUl have our 
 right to vote in the twinkling of an eye. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. SARA A. SPENCER, OF WASHINGTON. 
 
 Mrs. Spp:ncer. Congress printed 10,000 copies of its pmceedings concerning the 
 memorial services of a dead man, Professor Henry. It cost me three months of hard 
 work to have 3,000 copies of our arguments last year before the Committee on I'rivi- 
 leges and Elections i)rinted for 10,000,000 living women. I ask that the connnittee 
 will have iirinted 10,000 copii's of this report. 
 
 The CiiAiiiMAN. The committee have no power to order the printing. That can only 
 be done by the order of the Senate. A resolution can be otFered to that ettect in the 
 Senate. I have only to say, ladies, that you will admit that we have listened to you 
 with great attention, and I can ceitainly say with very great interest. What you 
 have said will be duly and earnestly considered by the connnittee. 
 
 Mrs. Wallace. I wish to make just one remark in reference to what Senator Tluir- 
 man said as to the ])()pular vote being against woman sutfrage. The popular vote is 
 against it, but not the pojnilar voice. Owing to the temperance agitation in the last 
 six years the growth of the sutfrage sentiment among the wives and mothers of this 
 nation has largely increased. 
 
 Mrs. Spknckr. In behalf of the women of the United States, permit me to thank the 
 Senate Judiciary Committee for their respectlul, courteous, and close attention. 
 
 o