60th Congress, ) 
 2d Session. § 
 
 SENATE. 
 
 ( Eepoet 
 \ No. 2543. 
 
 IN THE SENATE OF THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 February 7, 1889.— Ordered to be printed. 
 
 Mr. Blair, from the Committee on Woman Suffrage, submitted the 
 
 following 
 
 REPORT: 
 
 [To accompany S. Res. 11.] 
 
 The Committee on Woman Suffrage, to whom was referred the joint res- 
 olution (S. R. 11) proposing an amendment to the Constitution prohibit- 
 ing the denial or abridgment of the right to vote by the United States 
 or by any State on account of sex, having considered the same, ask 
 leave to submit the following report : 
 
 The joint resolution is in these words : 
 
 JOINT EESOLUTION proposing an amendment to the Constitntion of the United States extending 
 
 the right of suffrage to women. 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Eepresentatives of the United States of America in 
 Congress assembled {two-thirds of each House concurring therein,) That the following ar- 
 ticle be proposed to the legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the 
 Constitution of the United States ; which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said 
 legislatures, shall be valid as part of said Constitution, namely : 
 
 Article — . 
 
 Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied 
 or abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. 
 
 Sec. 2. The Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the 
 provisions of this article. 
 
 It will be observed that the proposed amendment is in the form of 
 a prohibition of the denial or abridgment of the exercise of a right the 
 existence of which is presupposed by the very fact of the prohibition of 
 its denial or abridgment. 
 
 There are two sources from which those who believe in woman suf- 
 frage as an existing right derive its origin. 
 
 L 
 
 It is held by one class that the suffrage is a natural right inherent 
 in all who are capable of exercising the political functions of citizen- 
 ship, that is to say, who are capable of becoming component parts of 
 the aggregate body of sovereigns in all governments which are repub- 
 lican in form. 
 
 These say that whatever restrictions and conditions it is necessary 
 to impose upon, and whatever qualifications may justly be required of, 
 the voter in order to secure the efficient exercise of the right and to 
 prevent the impairment of the efficiency of government of the people 
 by the people, that sex as such has nothing whatever to do with them ; 
 
2 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 that self-government, which in theory is government of the whole by 
 the entire body of those capable of particii)ation in the sovereignty, is 
 an act of intelligent decision guided by conscience upon issues presented 
 to the mind and not to the body 5 still less is the act of voting one which 
 can be performed only by the body, or even by the body and mind of a 
 male. 
 
 Those who hold to this broad foundation of the right of suffrage deny 
 that voting is simply an affirmative animal instinct asserting itself in 
 the government of the human race. They claim that the soul is supe- 
 rior to the body and that the attributes of the soul and not the members 
 of the body are the true tests of qualification and the proper agents 
 with which the right of suffrage should be exercised. They admit that 
 as a class males have more muscle than women, but they deny, and 
 prove by the facts, that women have as much of mental power, and as- 
 sert that the moral superiority of woman more than compensates for 
 her average inferiority in vigor as an animal. They insist that a politi- 
 cal question can not be safely submitted exclusively to a body of men, 
 simply because of capacity to kill each other or of disposition to do it, 
 but rather should be submitted to decision in accordance with the dic- 
 tates of conscience, after the investigation of facts in the light of reason. 
 They claim that woman has the greater need of the ballot for the pro- 
 tection of her person and property, especially of the former, which is far 
 more important than the protection of her property, for the reason that 
 she has less of brute strength than is possessed by man ; and in accord- 
 ance with that greater necessity on her part that God has given to her 
 a capacity for the wise and equitable exercise of her equal right in a 
 republican form of government, certainly not inferior to that of the sex 
 which has, as a rule, the more occasion to be restrained and governed 
 by some power external to themselves for their own and the general 
 good. 
 
 But your committee do not intend in this report to restate the argu- 
 ments which guaranty to women the exercise of this inalienable natural 
 right, without which neither life, liberty, nor property can be secure. 
 These can be found in the several reports of your committee made upon 
 this resolution when the same has been i)ending in former Congresses. 
 Nor shall we pause to confute the sophism that woman is protected as 
 well as man in governments wholly conducted by males. The assertion 
 is not true in fact, and even if women were as well protected as men 
 under the existing system of sex domination, it is no reply to the claim 
 that the participation of women in the government would greatly im- 
 prove the condition of all. The extension of the power of government 
 from the despot and the monarch to the many, even though they be 
 only men, has resulted in untold good to the whole race. 
 
 What, then, will be the hapijier condition of human society when the 
 other half of it, and that by the admission of man the superior, the an- 
 gelic portion, shall be admitted to the full enjoyment of the greatest of 
 rights — the right preservative of all rights — the suffrage or sover- 
 eignty. 
 
 n. 
 
 We dismiss this brief general discussion to menton the second ground 
 upon which it is claimed that woman now has the right of suffrage in 
 this country, and that is by virtue of the provisions of the Constitution 
 as it now stands. 
 
 This claim is consistent with that which finds the suffrage within the 
 domain of natural law. It is believed by many, who hold the suffrage 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 3 
 
 to be merely a privilege conferred or extended by the governing power 
 and not an inherent right, that the right has been extended to women by 
 the fourteenth amendment of the Constitution. The great misfortune 
 of those who thus believe is that the Supreme Court holds just the con- 
 trary opinion, and so it becomes necessary either to secure the reversal 
 of a solemn decision of that great tribunal or an amendment of the Con- 
 stitution expressly recognizing the right itself, as is proposed to be done 
 in the pending joint resolution. 
 
 But it may be well briefly to examine the grounds upon which the 
 right to the suffrage without distinction of sex is based by those who 
 believe it is already recognized and conferred in the Constitution as it 
 is. If there be strong ground for this belief it is a reason why further 
 legislation should settle the doubt in favor of the right. By the terms 
 of the fourteenth amendment — 
 
 All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction 
 thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No 
 State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges and immuni- 
 ties of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, 
 liberty, or property without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its 
 jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. 
 
 Under the provisions of this amendment it is conceded that women 
 born or naturalized in the United States are citizens ; that they have 
 civil rights, the right to life, liberty, and property; also, it is conceded 
 of necessity that, as citizens, they have " privileges and immunities," 
 because their denial or abridgment by the States is prohibited. It 
 would be a subject of ridicule if the Constitution were to prohibit the 
 denial or abridgment of that which does not exist. Further, the four- 
 teenth amendment forbids a State to deprive any person of life, liberty, 
 or property, etc. 
 
 Now, when a right or power is granted or recognized as already ex- 
 isting, there is of necessity a grant or recognition of a right to all 
 the means necessary to its protection and enjoyment. Without this 
 the grant or the recognition of the right would be nullitied by with- 
 holding the means indisijensable to its realization. There is an implied 
 grant of the necessary means of enjoyment, although there may be none 
 expressed. This is conceded by the most strict constructionists of con- 
 stitutional law, since to hold the contrary would be a denial or contra- 
 diction of the terms of the grant itself — or, in other words, an absurdity. 
 
 Can life, liberty, or property, or the privileges and immunities of 
 citizenship be realized, defended, and protected without political power! 
 Do not women possess, or are they not recognized as possessed of, life, 
 liberty, and property, and of the privileges and immunities of citizens 
 of the United States by virtue of the fourteenth amendment? 
 
 How are these righ ts, privileges, and immunities to be secured, except 
 by political power, in the case of women any more than to men ? Now, 
 if the rights, privileges, and immunities belong to women — notas women 
 by reason of their sex any more than to men for a like reason — how can 
 it be that women do not from some source, either the Constitution or from 
 anterior, natural, inalienable right, possSss the means — that is to say, 
 the political power — to protect and defend their rights, privileges, and 
 immunities as citizens of the United States as well as men? Espe- 
 cially how can it be denied to them, as a matter of law, when their 
 necessity for the possession of political power to be used in self-defense 
 is greater than that of men by reason of physical inferiority? 
 
 Is there anything in the Constitution which, in terms or by implica- 
 tion, restricts political power to men? By what a4ithority is it to be 
 
4 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 claimed that the fourteenth amendment carries more to men than to 
 women— giving to one political power and withholding it from the 
 other ! It must be conceded that there is no distinction of sex in the 
 Constitution, and that women take by the fourteenth amendment all 
 that is given or guarantied to men. 
 
 Kow, by numerous definitions of dictionaries and decisions of judges, 
 and by the maxims of the great writers upon the law, "privileges and 
 immunities" of citizens under free government are held to include the 
 elective franchise. Citizenship conferred without restriction includes 
 sovereignty, political as well as civil rights. By the fifteenth amendment 
 »nhe right of citizens of the United States" (not of the States) *'to 
 vote" is expressly mentioned. It therefore must exist. What is the 
 object for which this solemn fifteenth amendment was enacted into the 
 fundamental law ? To protect something which had no being ? 
 
 The citizen of the United States then was a voter, and this amend- 
 ment provides that " the right of citizens of the United States to vote 
 shall not be denied or abridged by the United States or by any State on 
 account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude, and Congress 
 shall have power to enforce this act by appropriate legislation." 
 
 This amendment was enacted not to limit or qualify, "deny or 
 abridge," any existing right. By no means. It was a great punitive or 
 protective measure, aimed at a gross and general deprivation of the right 
 to the elective franchise possessed by the colored people, who had been 
 wronged out of the exercise of their right by reason of race, color, or 
 previous condition Of servitude. 
 
 How can this take away the rights of white citizens, whether women 
 or men, and if of either, why of women and not also the suffrage of men ? 
 So the penalty inflicted upon a State by partial deprivation of repre- 
 entation in the House of Kepresentatives and in the electoral college 
 whenever certain citizens are deprived of sufl'rage has and can have no 
 effect to deny or abridge rights belonging to any one. These provisions 
 are aimed at abuses and violations of rights of a certain class of citizens 
 of the United States which were being assailed, and not at the extinc- 
 tion of the rights themselves as possessed by the great mass of citizens 
 of all races and colors and of both sexes. 
 
 There would seem to be no doubt that the Constitution, in the four- 
 teenth and fifteenth amendments, creates or recognizes the right of suf- 
 frage as among the rights, privileges, and immunities of all citizens 
 alike, irrespective of sex, subject only to such implied qualifications of 
 age, capacity, etc. (but not of sex), as are necessary to the accomplish- 
 ment of the great end for which the right itself exists. So thought the 
 women of this country when the fourteenth amendment was enacted. 
 Test cases were made by Miss Anthony and Mrs. Minor, who endeavored 
 to assert the right at the polls and in the courts. But in the great case 
 of Minor vs, Hoppersett (21 Wallace, p. 1G2) the Supreme Court decided 
 in effect that there is no political power, no sovereignty in any citizen 
 of the United States, as such. In other words that the United States 
 has no voter of its own creation. There was and there is no other 
 ground upon which suffrage in United States elections at least can be 
 denied to women any more than to men under the existing Constitu- 
 tion of the United States. 
 
 It is not the purpose of your committee to comment upon this de- 
 cision, which seems to concede that the United States is not a sover- 
 eignty ; that the State is supreme and the nation a m> th. Many be- 
 lieve that if the question were again raised and brought before that 
 august and co-ordinate power in the Government that this decision 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 5 
 
 would be reversed, or at least placed upon grounds which would relieve 
 our existence as a political entity of all question, and it is to be hoped 
 that the existence of the political equality of woman with man would 
 be vindicated by the court itself. 
 
 But although there are strong reasons for believing that the Con- 
 stitution now guaranties the suflrage to both men and women, the decis- 
 ion in Minor vs. Hoppersett to the contrary notwithstanding, a belief 
 which seems to be necessary in order to avoid extinction as a nation, 
 and for the hope that the decision might be reversed upon further hear- 
 ing, the policy has been adopted by the women of the country of press- « 
 ing at once for this constitutional amendment, the adoption of which 
 will settle the question at once and forever. In this connection it is 
 proper to call attention to the exhaustive arguments of Mrs. Hooker and 
 of others in the appendix. 
 
 It is perhaps necessary to suggest that the provisions of section 2 of 
 the first article of the Constitution expressly create an elector ; that is 
 to say, a voter of the United States. The fact tbat his qualifications 
 are to be the same as those of electors or voters in the State wherein he 
 resides does not deprive him of the sovereign capacity of a voter of the 
 United States. His personal identity exists in two sovereign capaci- 
 ties of citizen and voter of both the State and of the nation. This dis- 
 tinction seems to have wholly escaped the attention of the Supreme 
 Court. 
 
 m. 
 
 The movement in this country for the exercise of the suffrage by 
 women assumed the form of a popular political agitation in the year 
 1848, when the first convention was held at Seneca Falls, in the State 
 of New York. Singularly enough its immediate cause was the exclusion 
 of women delegates from a world's convention held in London to pro- 
 mote the abolition of slavery. What a comment upon the inconsisten- 
 cies of human nature and the blinding effect of habit and prejudice it is 
 that an act of tyranny on the part of these emancipators, exercised in 
 the very act of demanding freedom for the enslaved African toward 
 their fellow-agitators, should have constituted the startling revelation 
 of a real subjection of woman to man, world-wide, and, in many respects, 
 as complete and galling when analyzed and duly considered by its vic- 
 tims as that of the negro to his master. For it must be remembered that 
 everywhere in civilized countries the female sex is quite the equal of 
 the male in capacity and high devotion to the performance of duty, 
 and that there is no service so obnoxious as that which we are forced 
 to render to our equals or inferiors. 
 
 Since that event the contest has been waged with great pertinacity 
 and zeal, and the manifest justice of the demands of women for political 
 equality with men, when living in the same community, has steadily 
 forced the citadels of prejudice and usurpation, until now it is apparent 
 that within a few years, at furthest, all citizens will vote and hold office 
 regardless of the irrelevant distinction of sex. 
 
 A short review of the present condition and extent of the movement 
 will furnish an impressive demonstration of the great i)rogress which 
 has taken place in the last half century, and will convince any one who 
 concedes that revolutions do not go backward, that in all human prob- 
 ability women will be free in this country within the next twenty-five 
 years ; while in some portions of the world at large her condition is 
 even more hopeful than in the United States. 
 
6 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 There seems to be room for the belief that we, as Americans, the 
 descendauts of tbe *'lirst-borii of liberty divine/^ have been resting 
 too imicli upon the iTiurels and memories of the fathers, and that while 
 we have been celebrating the Fourth of July other i:>eoples have been 
 steadily advancing, until they have passed us in the march toward 
 freedom and equality. 
 
 The Tory premier of England, Lord Salisbury, in an address to the 
 " Primrose League," delivered on the 30th of November last at the 
 Lyceum Theater, in Edinburgh, referring to the gradual extension of 
 the suffrage to women, said : 
 
 Now, the Primrose League in that respect represents to my mind modifications of 
 our constitution that have taken place in the past and modifications which will 
 probably take place in the future. In the past, as we know, there has been a large 
 extension of the suffrage, and a very much larger proportion of the inhabitants of this 
 country take their share in the election of members and in the framing of the policy 
 by which the country is guided. * * * i am now speaking for myself only — do not 
 imagine that I am speaking for anybody else — but speaking for myself only. I ear- 
 nestly hope that the day is not very far distant when women shall bear their fair 
 share in voting for members of Parliament and in determining the policy of the coun- 
 try. / can conceive of no argument hy which they are excluded. It is obvious that they 
 are as abundantly fit as many who now possess the suffrage by knowledge, by train- 
 ing, and by character, and their influence is likely to weigh in the direction in which 
 in an age so material as ours is, so exceedingly valuable — namely, in the direction of 
 morality and religion. 
 
 And he continues thus, speaking to this political society of women : 
 
 I look upon the Primrose League, therefore, as not only representing a fact in the 
 past, but enshrining a policy for which we may hope in the future, and I gladly see 
 how readily it has achieved its conquests over populations in various parts of this 
 island, differing so largely in temperament aad character, and thereby proving that 
 it has that universal adaptability which belongs to every effective political instru- 
 ment. 
 
 Such words, coming from the Tory Premier of England, who repre- 
 sents a sentiment upon the subject far behind that prevailing in the 
 great Liberal party, should engage the candid attention of the Ameri- 
 can people upon the condition of women and the deprivation of rights 
 to which she is subjected in this boasted ^'land of the free.'' 
 
 Mr. Hamilton Wilcox, long a distinguished advocate of suffrage to 
 women, has lately published a pamphlet filled with statistics of the 
 present condition of the movement which are of great value. Wher- 
 ever there is in any form of practical action a participation by woman 
 in the voting power, any enfranchisement of woman by permission to 
 exercise political i^ower, whether in the recognition of the right to des- 
 ignate officers who by law are to be appointed upon petitions — as in 
 case of the appointment of school officers in Texas by the county judge 
 who is supposed to act upon the petitions of both women and men j 
 municipal suffrage, as in the State of Kansas; or the full suffrage, as in 
 Wyoming; and, until the late adverse decision of an inferior court, in 
 Washington ; and the equal municipal and county suffrage of unmarried 
 women and property-holders with men in England — the concession is 
 treated as an abandonment of the doctrine that woman is not entitled 
 to the possession of political power. Upon this basis Mr. Wilcox shows 
 that there are over 14,000,000 square miles in the world, with a popu- 
 lation of nearly three hundred millions of people, where woman suffrage 
 in a greater or less degree already prevails, and in all this region the 
 agitation is for complete enfranchisement or equality with man in politi- 
 cal power. Here, then, is the great governing force of the world al- 
 ready committed to the principle of woman suffrage. 
 
 In the province of Ontario, Canada, with 18i,000 square miles, 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 7 
 
 unmarried women vote for all elective officers but two on like terms 
 with men. lu the province of Quebec women vote in the various pro- 
 vincial cities and in Montreal and Quebec. In Wyoming Territory, of 
 98,000 square miles, women have complete suffrage, and they use it, 
 too. In British Columbia, with 341,000 square miles, women vote for 
 all elective officers but members of parliament. Kansas has 82,000 
 square miles and municipal suffrage for women, which is close upon the 
 full suffrage, and its success in that State, many libellous falsehoods to 
 the contrary notwithstanding, will speedily secure full suffrage in 
 this great central star in the zenith of freedom. Texas has 274,000 
 square miles, and is making sure progress in this reform. When the 
 petitions of women couut in the appointment of school officers, addi- 
 tional concessions are sure and full fruition is inevitable. 
 
 Woman suffrage in some of its various forms exists in Arizona, 
 113,000 square miles; Arkansas, 54,000; Colorado, 104,000; Dakota, 
 149,000; Idaho, 64,000; Indiana, 36,000; Kentucky, 40,000; Massachu- 
 setts, 8,000; Michigan, 59,000 ; Minnesota, 83,000; Mississippi, 49,000; 
 Montana, 146,000; Nebraska, 77,000; New Brunswick, 27,000; New 
 Hampshire, 9,000 ; New Jersey, 8,000 ; New York, 49,000 ; Nova Scotia, 
 21,000; Ontario, 102,111; Oregou, 96,000; Quebec, 188,000; Texas, 
 265,000; Utah, 85,000; Vermont, 9,000; Washington, 90,000 ; Wiscon- 
 sin, 56,000; Wyomiog, 98,000. In Idaho, Utah, and Washington the 
 right hitherto exercised is temporarily suspended, owing to outside 
 causes, and not to any change in the sentiments of the peoi)le them- 
 selves. The above gives a total area of 2,630,000 square miles on the 
 North American continent wherein the suffrage is now to some extent 
 in the hands of women. Of this territory 810,000 square miles are in 
 Canada and 1,820,000 in the United States. 
 
 In England, Scotland, and Wales, women, unless married, vote for 
 all elective officers except members of Parliament, and are very near 
 the full realization of equal rights with men. In Ireland women vote 
 everywhere for poor-law guardians ; in sea-ports for harbor boards, and 
 in Belfast for municipal officers. In Sweden their suffrage is about 
 the same as in Britain, and indirectly they vote for members of the 
 House of Lords. In Eussia, women, heads of households, vote for all 
 elective officers and on all local questions. In Austria-Hungary they 
 vote (by proxy) at all elections, including members of provincial and 
 imperial Parliaments. In Croatia and Dalmatia they vote at local elec- 
 tions in person. In Italy widows vote for members of Parliament. In 
 Finland women vote for all elective officers. 
 
 In Asia even progress is being made. In British Burmah women 
 tax-payers vote in the rural districts. In the Madras presidency they 
 can do so in all municipalities, and so in the Bombay presidency. In 
 all the countries of Eussian Asia they can do so wherever a Eussian 
 colony settles. 
 
 Municipal suffrage, which is the morning star of the full-orbed sun, 
 exists in New Zealand, Victoria, New South Wales, Queensland, and 
 South Australia ; and in New Zealand the legislature has resolved that 
 women shall vote for members of parliament. 
 
 So suffrage is existing in some form upon the Isle of Man, Pitcairn 
 Island, Tasmania, Iceland, Sardinia, Sicily; and, in all, woman suffrage, 
 complete or partial, exists in over two thousand of the islands of the 
 world. 
 
 Mr. Wilcox sums up his valuable compilation thus : 
 
 The area Freedom lias already in some degree conquered is half as large again as 
 the enormous British Empire ; seventy- five per cent, greater than the vast dominions 
 
8 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 of the Tsar; four times the size of all Europe or Australia; double that of both com- 
 biucd ; almost equal to the North aud South American continents together. Its pop- 
 ulation equals that of all North America, South America, aud Africa, and almost 
 equals the population of all Europe. 
 
 To this it should be adtled that we have here indicated the tendeucy 
 of public opinion among intelligent men, for there is nowhere conces- 
 sion of right or extension of privilege to women but by the free consent 
 of men. Woman has never caused an insurrection or even the sb'ghtest 
 popular disturbance, far less wars and revolutions, to obtain a single 
 boon from mankind. Her pathetic but mighty warfare for a "fair 
 chance in the race of life " is the most remarkable fact in the history 
 of the human race. The sublime movement seems to conquer like the 
 sun in his beneficent course, and to demonstrate the almighty power of 
 a patient, peaceful, but everlasting appealto the innate sense of justice, 
 which ultimately must control the actions of men, even when they are 
 called upon to surrender one-half of their own apparent consequence 
 and power. But who can fail to see that nothing but a curse to man 
 can follow the withholding of her right from woman ? 
 
 When was slavery, in any form, as harmful to the slave as to the 
 master? In this case the giver would be thrice blessed, indeed. 
 
 Jefferson trembled when he remembered that God is just. Now, 
 woman, our equal, asks relief from her greater wrongs. We shall re- 
 fuse them at our peril. God is still just. Jefl'erson's forebodings were 
 but a faint glimpse of the terrible retribution which descended upon 
 the people. We of this generation do know that His justice will not 
 sleep forever, for we have felt its terrible i)ower. Injustice to woman, 
 by withholding her equal political rights, will surely be followed by 
 penalties and calamities not hitherto surpassed, for in all history there 
 has been no greater wrong. 
 
 Unless this Government shall be made and preserved truly republi- 
 can in form by the enfranchisement of woman, the great reforms which 
 her ballot would accomplish may never be ; the demoralization and 
 disintegration now proceeding in the body-politic are not likely soon to 
 be arrested. Corruption of the male sufirage is already a well-nigh 
 fatal disease; intemi)erance has no sufficient foe in the* law-making 
 power ; a republican form of Government can not survive half slave 
 and half free. 
 
 The ballot is withheld from women because men are not willing to 
 part with one half the sovereign power. There is no other real cause 
 for the continued perpetration of this unnatural tyranny. 
 
 Enfranchise woman or this Eepublic will steadily advance to the 
 same destruction, the same ignoble and tragic catastrophe, which has 
 ingulfed the male republics of history. Let us establish a republic in 
 which both men and women shall be free indeed. Then shall the Re- 
 public be perpetual. 
 
 Note. — In the mouth of April last delegates in behalf of the First International 
 Woman's Council, then in session in this city, appeared before your committee and 
 were fully heard; and during the present session delegates of the National Woman 
 Suffrage Association, which lately held its twenty-first anniversary here, addressed 
 the committee. Both of these historic bodies of women were represented by dele- 
 gates of great ability, who discussed this most important question with a fullness of 
 detail not possible to be entered upon in this report. But the matter should be given 
 wide circulation and be permanently preserved. We therefore call special attention 
 to the appendix to our report. 
 
Appendix I. 
 
 Bearing before the Committee on Woman Suffrage^ United States Senate^ 
 
 April 2, 1888. * 
 
 Monday, Aj^ril 2, 1888 — 10 o'clock a. m. 
 
 The committee met to hear arguments in behalf of woman suffrage 
 from the delegates to the International Woman's Council. 
 
 Present, Senators Cockrell (chairman), Brown, Blair, Palmer, Chase, 
 and Bowen. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. ELIZABETH CADY STANTON. 
 
 Mrs. Stanton. Honorable gentlemen, for many successive years a 
 class of women, fully comprehending the dignity of citizenship in a Ee- 
 public, have appeared before committees of the House and the Senate, 
 praying that the national Constitution should be so interpreted or 
 amended as to secure to the women of the nation all the rights, privi- 
 leges, and immunities of citizens. 
 
 During this discussion the basic principles of reimblican government, 
 the Declaration of Independence, the national Constitution, have been 
 thoroughly studied by us, until it may be truly said that the leaders in 
 the suffrage movement fully understand the Constitutioii, and that to 
 them its provisions for the largest liberty are as familiar as the spelling 
 book. Their arguments already gild the page of history and are highly 
 creditable, for their research and eloquence, to the women of this gen- 
 eration. 
 
 Our champions, too, in the halls of Congress and legislative assem- 
 blies in half the States of the Union have based their arguments on 
 these immortal documents, which together form the Magna Charta of 
 human liberties. Logical arguments against woman's enfranchisement 
 can not be based on the principles of our Government, for they all alike 
 proclaim "equal rights to all" without regard to race, color, sex, or 
 previous conditions of servitude. Individual sovereignty, individual 
 conscience and judgment, are the central truths of a republic, from 
 which radiate the guiding principles that lighten our path through all 
 the complications of government. 
 
 The Constitution as it is, in spirit and letter, is broad enough to pro- 
 tect the personal and property rights of all citizens under our Hag. By 
 every principle of fair interpretation we need no amendment, no new 
 definitions of the terms "people," "persons," "citizens," no additional 
 power conferred on Congress to enable this body to establish a republi- 
 can form of government in every State of the Union ; and whenever our 
 rulers are ready to make the experiment they will see that they already 
 possess all the constitutional power they need to act, and that the right 
 of suffrage is, and always was, the inalienable right of every citizen under 
 government. 
 
 9 
 
10 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 Let me rehearse a few of the provisions of the Constitution to show 
 your i^ower and our rights as citizens of a republic : 
 
 We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more perfect union, estab- 
 lish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote 
 the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, 
 do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America. 
 
 Article I, section 2 : 
 
 The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second 
 year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the 
 qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legis- 
 lature. 
 
 Section 4 : 
 
 The times, places, and manner of holding elections for Senators and Representatives 
 shall be prescribed in each State by the legislature thereof ; but the Congress may at 
 any time by law make or alter such regulations, except as to the places of choosing 
 Senators. (See Elliot's Debates, vol. 3, p. 366 — remarks of Mr. Madison — Story's 
 Commentaries, sees. 623, 626, 578.) 
 
 Section 8. The Congress shall have power — 
 
 To establish a uniform mode of naturalization, to make all laws which shall be 
 necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers, and all other 
 powers vested by this Constitution in the Government of the United States, or in any 
 department or oflScer thereof. 
 
 Section 9. No bill of attainder or ex post facto law shall be passed. 
 
 No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States. 
 
 No State shall pass any bill of attainder, ex post facto law, or law 
 impairing the obligations of contracts, or grant any title of nobility. 
 (See Cummings vs. The State of Missouri, Wallace Eep., 287, and ex 
 parte Garland, same volume.) 
 
 Article lY, section 2 : 
 
 The citizens of each State shall be entitled to all privileges and immunities of citi- 
 zens in the several States. 
 
 The elective franchise is one of the privileg:es secured by this sec- 
 tion. (See Corfield vs. Coryell, 4 Washington Circuit Court Keps., 380, 
 cited and approved in Durham vs. Lamphere, 3 Gray; Mass. llep., 276, 
 and Bennett vs. Boggs, Baldwin Rep., p. 72, Circuit Court U. S.) 
 
 Section 4 : 
 
 The United States shall guaranty to every State in this Union a republican form 
 of government. 
 
 How can that form of government be republican when one-half the 
 people are forever deprived of all participation in its affairs % 
 Article VI : 
 
 This Constitution, and the laws of the United "States which shall be made in pur- 
 suance thereof, shall be the supreme law o? the land; and the judges in every State 
 shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any State to the 
 contrary notwithstanding. 
 
 XIY amendment : 
 
 All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction 
 thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. 
 
 No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immu- 
 nities of the United Sfcates. 
 
 Even the preamble of the Constitution is an argument for self-govern- 
 ment — ^' We, the people." You recognize women as people, for you count 
 us in the basis of representation. Half our Congressmen hold their seats 
 to-day as representatives of women. We help to swell the figures by 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 11 
 
 which you are here, and too many of you, alas! are only figurative rei)re- 
 sentatives, paying little heed to our rights as citizens. 
 
 " No bill of attainder shall be passed." No title of nobility granted." 
 So says the Constitution; and yet you have passed bills of attainder in 
 every State of the Union making sex a disqualification for citizenship. 
 You have granted titles of nobility to every male voter, making all men 
 rulers, governors, sovereigns, over all women. 
 
 " The United States shall guaranty to every State in the Union a 
 republican form of government." And yet we have not a republican 
 form of government in a single State in the Union. One-half the people 
 have never consented to a single law under which they live. They have 
 had rulers placed over them in whom they have no. choice. They are 
 taxed without representation, tried in our courts by men, for the viola- 
 tion of laws made by men, with no appeal except to men, and for crimes 
 over which men should have no jurisdiction whatever, while honorable 
 gentlemen all — these, and many more provisions of the Constitution 
 are violated every day that woman remains disfranchised. You are 
 very conscientious in not using the power you already possess to crown 
 us with all the rights of citizens. 
 
 There is no significance in the argument that the fathers did not in- 
 tend to include women in these provisions. The contrary supposition 
 is quite as fair as in spirit, and, Ijetter, they have done so. " We, the 
 people" are three plain English words that do not admit of any sul)tle, 
 symbolical meaning, and when you count us in the basis of represen- 
 tation, as I said, you admit that we are people. Again, as women voted 
 all along from the earliest days in England, and many voted and held 
 important ofi&ces in colonial days in our country, the fact must have 
 been familiar to the fathers. 
 
 Article 4, section 2, says the citizens of each State shall be entitled 
 to all privileges and immunities of citizens in the several States. Yet, 
 if citizens from Washington Territory, Wyoming, or Kansas, where 
 women vote, pass into any other State or Territory they lose the right 
 to vote, the fundamental right of citizenship. 
 
 We have abundant guaranties in the Constitution to secure to woman 
 all her rights. All we need is that some far-seeing statesman or chief 
 justice may arise who shall fairly interpret the constitutional law we 
 already possess ; a man who, like Lord Mansfield in the Somerset case, 
 shall declare that, according to the genius of our institutions, no disfran- 
 chised citizen can breathe on American soil. That simple declaration 
 of Lord Mansfield struck every fetter from the slaves in every land 
 and isle of the sea under the shadow of the English throne. 
 
 The chief justice of Massachusetts abolished slavery in that State by 
 a similar declaration. The fact that the pronoun ''he" is used in various 
 provisions of the Constitution does not decide that man alone is referred 
 to, for in the whole criminal code the pronouns are "he," "his," "him." 
 Surely if women can be made to pay all the penalties of violated law as 
 "he," she might be permitted to enjoy all the privileges of a citizen as 
 " he." If a woman can hang as "he," she might vote as "he." 
 
 I would quote a few opinions of distinguished statesmen and publi- 
 cists, to show what our ablest men think as to where? the principles of 
 our Government legitimately lead us in deciding the inalienable rights 
 of citizens. 
 
 The Declaration of Independence asserts that to secure the inalien- 
 able rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, governments 
 are instituted among men, "deriving their just powers from the consent 
 of the governed." 
 
 S. Rep. 1 2S 
 
12 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 Beujamin Frauklin said: 
 
 Liberty consists in having an actual share in the appointment of those who frame 
 the laws and who are the guardians of every man's life, property, and peace. 
 
 That they who have no voice nor vote in the electing of rei>resentative8 do not en- 
 joy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who have votes and to their repre- 
 sentatives. 
 
 James Madison said : 
 
 Under every view of the subject, it seems indispensable that the mass of the citizens 
 should not be without a voice in making the laws which they are to obey, and in 
 choosing the magistrates who are to administer them. 
 
 Samuel Adams said : 
 
 Eepresentation and legislation, as well as taxation, are inseparable, according to 
 the spirit of our Constitution and of all others that are free. 
 
 Again, he said : 
 
 No man can be justly taxed by, or bound in conscience to obey, any law to which 
 he has not given his consent in person or by his representative. 
 
 And again : 
 
 No man can take another's property from him without his consent. This is the law 
 of nature, and a violation of it is the same thing whether it is done by one man, who 
 is called a king, or by five hundred of another denomination. 
 
 James Otis, in speaking of the rights of the colonists as descendants 
 of Englishmen, said they were not to be cheated out of them by any 
 phantom of virtual representation, or any other fiction of law or politics.'^ 
 
 Again : 
 
 No such phrase as virtual representation is known in law or constitution. It is 
 altogether a subtlety and illusion, wholly unfounded and absurd. 
 
 Among all the rights and privileges appertaining unto us, that of having a share 
 in the legislation, and being governed by such laws as we ourselves shall cause, is 
 the most fundamental and essential as well as the most advantageous and beneficial. 
 
 The judicious Hooker wrote: 
 
 Agreeable to the same just privileges of natural equity is that maxim of the En- 
 glish constitution, that "law, to bind all, must be assented to by all," and there can 
 be no legal appearance of assent without some degree of representation. 
 
 In 1790, Condorcet, in his treatise on the admission of women to the 
 rights of citizenship in France, says : 
 
 Now, the rights of men result solely from the fact that they are rational beings, 
 susceptible of acquiring moral ideas and reasoning on those ideas. Women, having 
 the same qualities, have the same equal rights. Either no one individual of the hu- 
 man kind has true rights or all have the same, and one who votes against the right' 
 of another, whatever be that other's religion, color, or sex, from that moment for- 
 feits his own. 
 
 Mirabeau condenses the whole question in his definition that "a rep- 
 resentative body should be a miniature of the whole community.'^ 
 
 The right of women to personal representation through the ballot 
 seems to me unassailable wherever the right of man is conceded and 
 exercised. I can conceive of no possible abstract justification for the 
 exclusion of the one and the inclusion of the other. 
 
 For years we demanded our rights under the Constitution as it is, 
 specifically under the fourteenth amendment. Some of our coadjutors 
 tested its legality by exercising the right of sufi'rage in their respective 
 States. Their cases were tried in the Supreme Court and decided 
 against them, thus practically declaring that under neither State nor 
 national constitutions is there any guaranty for the protection of the 
 political rights of women, and their civil rights have also been denied 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 13 
 
 by both the State and General Governments. A woman in the State 
 of Illiuois was denied the right to practice law, and the Supreme Court 
 of the United States, to which she carried her case, confirmed the State's 
 decision. 
 
 Since these decisions we have asked for a sixteenth amendment, de- 
 claring that all the provisions of the Constitution shall apply equally 
 to men and women. 
 
 Although we have had these hearings eighteen years in succession, 
 and all the minority reports of our champions, from General Butler, of 
 Massachusetts, down to Senator Blair, of New Hampshire, have been 
 able, unanswerable constitutional arguments, the majority reports have 
 studiousl}^ avoided logic, common sense and Constitution, and based 
 their objections upon the most trivial popular prejudices. Lecky, the 
 historian, has well said the success of a movemeiit depends much less 
 on the force of its arguments, or upon the ability of its advocates, than 
 the predisposition of society to receive it. 
 
 Though our arguments have never been answered, it is fair to sup- 
 pose that the honorable gentlemen who have written the adverse re- 
 ports have read the Constitution which they have sworn to support, 
 and are fully g;ware that the weight of argument rests on our side. 
 Hence they betake themselves to the world of speculation, where they 
 can manufacture statistics adapted to their prejudices. As our argu- 
 ments are never answered, it is evident they make no impression on our 
 opponents, as each committee in turn rehearses the popular objections, 
 though we have pointed out their absurdity as often as they are offered- 
 
 Instead of a constitutional argument at this time I will review a few 
 of the points made by former majority committees, suggesting that the 
 gentlemen to report on this hearing will try to strike out some new and 
 more worthy trend of thought. It may not be known to you gentle- 
 men that all these reports are published in the History of Woman Suf- 
 frage and that these volumes have been not only extensively circulated 
 in this country and placed in all our leading public libraries, but that 
 they are also circulated in foreign lands and placed in all the old uni- 
 versities in Great Britain and Europe. 
 
 However indifferent our statesmen may be to their own reputation, 
 their wives and daughters do not wish them to make fools of them- 
 selves on the page of history. I never glance over these reports that 1 
 do not blush for my countrymen. My only consolation is that the able 
 and eloquent minority reports do in a measure redeem the dignity of 
 these committees in both the Senate and the House. In view of such 
 reports as the majority have given us I can not express to you, gentle- 
 men, the humiliation I feel, as a native-born American citizen, much 
 older, probably, than any member on the committee, that after half a 
 century of weary waiting and watching, educated, refined women are 
 still compelled to beg of their own Saxon fathers, husbands, brothers, 
 and sons, for those civil and political rights so freely granted to every 
 foreigner who lands on our shores. 
 
 While I possess every quabfication of a voter — age, property, educa- 
 cation ; while I fully appreciate the genius of republican institutions, 
 and glory in the success of our triumphant democracy; while traveling 
 in the Old World my proudest boast has ever been "I am an American 
 citizen yet to my pleadings for the political rights of women you turn 
 a deaf ear, and hold the very idea of woman's enfranchisement up to 
 scorn, while you extend the right hand of welcome to everv ignorant 
 foreigner who lands on our shores, who has no idea of what constitutes 
 a republic, nor of the duties self-government invokes; yet you crown 
 
14 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 him with the rights of American citizenship, rights for which your own 
 mothers, wives, sisters, and daughters plead in vain. 
 
 Landing in New York one week ago, I saw 400 steerage passengers 
 leave the vessel. Dull eyed, heavy-visaged, stooping with huge bur- 
 dens and the oppressions they endured in the Old World, they stood in 
 painful contrast with the group of brilliant women on their way to the 
 International Council just held here in Washington. I thought, as this 
 long line passed by, of the speedy transformation the genial influences 
 of equality would effect in the appearance of these men, of the new dig- 
 nity they would acquire, with a voice in the laws under which they live, 
 and I rejoiced for them ; but bitter reflections filled my mind when I 
 thought these men are the future rulers of our daughters; these will in- 
 terpret the civil and criminal codes by which they will be governed; 
 these will be our future judges and jurors to try young girls in our courts 
 for the crime of infanticide, for trial by a jury of her peers has never yet 
 in the history of the world been vouchsafed to woman. Here is a right 
 so ancient that it is difficult to trace its origin in history, a right so 
 sacred that tbe humblest criminal may choose his juror. But, alas for 
 the daughters of the people, their judges, advocates, jurors, must be men, 
 and for them there is no appeal. But this is only one wrong among 
 many inevitable in a disfranchised class. It is impossible for you, gentle- 
 men, to appreciate the humiliations women suffer at every turn. 
 
 My joy in reaching my native land and meeting dear friends and family 
 once more was shadowed by that vision on the w^harf and by the knowl- 
 edge that by the thousands still they come, and from lands where woman, 
 as a mere beast of burden, is infinitely more degraded than by any possi- 
 bility she can be here. Do you wonder, in view of what the character 
 of our future law-makers may be, that we are filled with apprehensions 
 of coming evil, and that we feel that there is no time to be lost, if our 
 Saxon fathers ever propose to throw around us the protecting power of 
 law and Constitution ? 
 
 The next generation of women will not argue with their rulers as 
 patiently as we have done, and to so little purpose for half a century. 
 You have now the power to settle this quest on by moral influences, by 
 wise legislation. But, if you can not be aroused to its serious considera- 
 tion, like every other step in progress, it will eventually be settled by 
 violence. The wild enthusiasm of woman can be used for evil as well 
 as good. To day, you have the power to guide and direct it into chan- 
 nels of true patriotism, but in future, with all the elements of discontent 
 now gathering from foreign lands, you will have the scenes of the 
 French Commune repeated in our land. What women, exasperated 
 with a sense of injustice, have done, in dire extremities in tlie nations 
 of the Old World, they will do here. 
 
 The justice and moderation of our demands have always seemed to 
 me so apparent that the bare statement should have sufficed long ago. 
 The protracted struggle through which we have passed, and our labors 
 not yet crowned with success, seems to me sometimes like a painful 
 dream in which one strives to run and yet stands still, incapable alike 
 of jBScaping or meeting the impending danger. I would not pain your 
 ears with a rehearsal of the hopes ofttimes deferred and shadowed with 
 fear, of the brightest anticipations again and again disai)pointed. I 
 will leave it to your imagination to picture to yourselves how you 
 would feel if you had had a case in court, a bill before some legislative 
 body, or a political aspiration, for nearly half a century, with a con- 
 tinual succession of adverse decisions, while law and common justice 
 were wholly on your side. Such, honorable gentlemen, is our case. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 15 
 
 Every point of constitutional law has been argued over and over, not 
 only by our coadjutors, but by some of the ablest men in the nation. 
 These arguments still remain unanswered. 
 
 It is fair to suppose that, understanding the provisions of the Consti- 
 tution, you know that women being persons born and naturalized in 
 this country are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein 
 they reside, and that they have the same inalienable right to life, lib- 
 erty, and happiness, to self government and self protection that each 
 of you possesses. Like you, women pay taxes and the penalty of their 
 own crimes. If they commit theft or murder they are imprisoned and 
 hung. If compelled to represent themselves on the gallows, why not 
 at the polls? Surely the latter duty could be much more gracefully 
 discharged than the former. 
 
 In looking over the majority reports I find the chief subterfuge of 
 some of our opponents is that woman would be a dangerous element in 
 politics. 
 
 First. They fear the vicious women, as it is supposed that they would 
 rally a mighty multitude and all go to the polls, drive all the virtuous 
 women away, completely demoralize the men, and sap the foundations 
 of party platforms and political life. The women of the French revo- 
 lution are supposed to illustrate what this class would do. 
 
 Second. They fear the fashionable women, because they would vote 
 for handsome men, make their parlors symposiums for the discussion of 
 questions of political economy, sacrifice their country to personal ambi- 
 tion and family aggrandizement, and spend so much time in the galler- 
 ies of legislative assemblies as to distract the attention of statesmen 
 from the great work of government. 
 
 Third. They fear religious, devout women, because they would 
 destroy the secular nature of our Government by introducing the name 
 of God into the Constitution, and establishing religious tests for polit- 
 ical parties and platforms. 
 
 Fourth. They fear married women, because they would vote with 
 their husbands, and thus merely double the vote, or they would vote 
 directly opposite, and thus destroy the family relation, which in either 
 view would be a public and social calamity. 
 
 Fifth. The colored women. After wasting reams t)f paper and an 
 immense amount of brain force in drawing up the fourteenth amend- 
 ment expressly to keep this class out of the body politic, it would be 
 most aggravating, after twenty years of safety, to find them citizens of 
 the United States under this very amendment. 
 
 Though I believe in universal suffrage, yet I am willing you should 
 begin the experiment of womanhood suffrage with the smallest minority 
 you deem sale, so that by enfranchising some women you overturn the 
 present aristocracy of sex. 
 
 Well, gentlemen, to make the first practical step for you as easy as 
 possible, why not exclude these five classes for the present and begin 
 your experiment "with spinsters and widows" who are householders. 
 This is the basis on which England extends municipal suffrage to women. 
 You have the power to extend and withhold the suffrage, as jou 
 choose ; there is no reason why you should begin with universal suf- 
 frage for women. We can not ask you to be more generous to us than 
 you have been to your own sex. Men at one time voted on qualifica- 
 tions of property, education, color, but each in turn were abolished in 
 some States, and in some States still remain, except color, which was 
 abolished for men by the fourteenth amendment. 
 
16 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 Tbough my coadjutors all believe in universal suffrage, yet I think 
 we should be williug to let you start with si)iusters and widows who 
 are householders. Having homes of their own it is fair to suppose that 
 they are industrious, common-sense women, neither vicious, fashionable, 
 nor ambitious for family position, women who love their country (having 
 no husbands to love) better than themselves. With this class, you es- 
 cape all danger of family upheavals on the one side and doubling the 
 vote on the other. In this way, by admitting some women into political 
 life, we overturn the aristocracy of sex. 
 
 Do you realize, gentlemen, that in establishing manhood suffrage you 
 made all men sovereigns and all women subjects'? This, the most odious 
 form of aristocracy that the world ever saw, is the only one we have; 
 an aristocracy that makes all men, black and white, foreign and native, 
 lettered and unlettered, washed and unwashed, virtuous and vicious, 
 the rulers of refined, educated, native-born women j an aristocracy that 
 destroys the happiness of social life, exalting the son above the mother 
 who bore him, engendering an insidious contempt for woman among all 
 classes expressed in the debates on this question at every fireside, in 
 the halls of legislation, in our laws and literature, alike in poetry and 
 prose, most depressing to sensitive women, insulting to those who have 
 a proper self-respect, and alike exasperating to all. 
 
 In the history of the race there has been no struggle for liberty like 
 this. Whenever the interest of the ruling classes has induced them to 
 confer new rights on a subject class it has been done with no effort 
 on the part of latter. Neither the American slave nor the English 
 laborer demanded the right of suffrage. It was given in both cases to 
 strengthen the liberal party. The philanthropy of the few may have 
 entered into those reforms, but politicial expediency carried both meas- 
 ures. Women, on the contrary, have fought their own battles ; and in 
 their rebellion against existing conditions have inaugurated the most 
 fundamental revolution the world has ever witnessed. The magnitude 
 and multiplicity of the changes involved make the obstacles in the way 
 of success seem almost insurmountable. 
 
 The narrow self-interest of all classes is opposed to the sovereignty 
 of woman. The rulers in the state are not willing to share their power 
 with a class equal, if not superior, to themselves, over which they could 
 never hope for absolute control, and whose methods of government 
 might in many respects differ from their own. The anointed leaders 
 in the church are equally hostile to freedom for a sex supposed for wise 
 purposes to have been subordinated by divine decree. The capitalist 
 in the world of work holds the key to the trades and professions and 
 undermines the power of labor unions in their struggles for shorter 
 hours and fairer wages by substituting the cheap labor of a disfran- 
 chised class that can not organize its forces, thus making wife and sister 
 rivals of husband and brother in the industries, to the detriment of both 
 classes. Of the autocrat in the home, John Stuart Mill has well said : 
 
 No ordinary man is willing to find at his own fireside an equal in the person he 
 calls wife. 
 
 This society is based on this fourfold bondage of woman, making 
 liberty and equality for her antagonistic to every organized institution. 
 Where, then, can we rest the lever with which to lift one-half of human- 
 ity from these depths of degradation, but on that columbiad of our 
 political life — the ballot — which makes every citizen who holds it a full- 
 armed monitor [Ai)plause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. I would say to the committee that Mrs. Stanton 
 stands ready to answer any questions you may choose to ask her. I 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 17 
 
 see Senator Brown has come in ; I am happy to see him. Has he any 
 questions to ask of Mrs. Stanton ? 
 Senator Brown. I believe I have no questions to ask. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. SCATCHERD. 
 
 Miss Anthony. If the committee have no questions to ask Mrs. 
 Stanton, I should like to present to them representatives from the dif- 
 ferent countries of the old world. First, 1 will introduce Mrs. Alice 
 Scatcherd, of Leeds, England. She is here to represent the Edinburgh 
 Women's Suffrage Society; also Yorkshire, Darlington, and Southport 
 Women's Liberal Associations, the parent society of which is the Wo- 
 men's Liberal Federation, with Mrs. Gladstone as the president. 
 
 Mrs. Scatcherd. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen, I deem it a great 
 privilege to be allowed to speak before this committee for a few mo- 
 ments. We foreign delegates have had a most wonderful experience 
 during the past week, but it did not take that experience to tell us what 
 we already knew before, that the women of this great Republic have in 
 many respects advantages over the women of the Old World. We 
 came expecting to learn much, and we have, indeed, learned much from 
 the women of your country. But on the other hand we see that there 
 are some respects in which we English women, at any rate, have the 
 advantage of them, and I think that is notably in the matter of voting 
 at municipal and local elections. 
 
 There never was a time in our country, so far as I have been able to 
 ascertain, when women who paid the same rates and taxes as men had 
 not the same local vote. That has been our right from time immemorial ; 
 and whatever extension of local government is made in our country, no 
 one ever dreams of depriving those women rate-payers, namely, the 
 widows and spinsters who pay rates, of having the franchise. In the 
 year 1835, when the municipal reform act was brought in, an attempt 
 was made to deprive women for the time of that vote. It was done 
 more from carelessness than intention. Various localities were then 
 turned into municipalities, and for a time it occurred that women who 
 had voted in the locality were deprived, when that locality was turned 
 into a town, of the vote. Directly attention was called to this matter 
 it was remedied at once. When the district of South wark was turned 
 into a municipal borough, the majority of the householders were women, 
 and it struck our legislators as absurd to give only to a minority of the 
 householders the vote in local matters. 
 
 Women also vote at the school-board elections with us, and I must 
 say that they do use their vote largely and well, and take an especial in- 
 terest in these elections. We have not found, because women mix freely 
 with men on those occasions, any of the terrible things which were pre- 
 dicted to happen. Women sit upon the school-boards and take an active 
 part in the education of our country. 
 
 But, more than that, we women also have a vote for what we call our 
 poor-law boards — our boards of guardians — and women sit upon those 
 boards. And here let me say that our men are beginning to realize 
 that they can not settle great social problems without calling in the 
 help of women; and that wherever children, the aged, the sick, the 
 poor, the erring, the fallen, and the weak are concerned, there is woman's 
 right place. (Applause.) 
 
 It has often been said that women would not vote at elections, nor 
 take part in them if they had the right to do so. My experience is ex- 
 S. Rep. 2543 2 
 
18 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 actly the contrary. Our women do vote in quite as large a percentage 
 as our men vote. If an election is lost in any ward of our town you 
 usually Lear the candidate who has lost say it was the women who 
 have not come forward and who have not supported him ; it is the 
 women who have really lost him his election. Practically we have won 
 both the Conservatives and Liberals to accepting the right of women 
 to vote. If the franchise were granted to our women rate-payers — and 
 that is all we ask for in England at present — there would be found one 
 woman to every six or seven men voters, and I really do think .with a 
 majority like that in their favor the men are quite able to take care of 
 their own interests. [Laughter.] 
 
 We have had actual experiment of parliamentary voting in the Isle of 
 Man. I, myself, ran over there at the time of the passing of the reform 
 bill for that island, which, as you know, possesses its own house of legis- 
 lature and makes its own laws, subject to the approval of our Imperial 
 Parliament ; and there it was not the women occupiers, those who paid 
 rates, who were admitted to the franchise, but only the women owners 
 of property, of which in that small little island there are six hundred 
 and forty- two. They have voted, and none of the evil things that were 
 predicted as going to happen have happened, but I believe they have 
 voted with very great benefit to the government of that little kingdom. 
 
 Well, as we have not got our parliamentary franchise yet, the women 
 of our Kingdom have not waited for that, but take a very active part 
 indeed in political matters. The conservative women, the women of 
 high degree and title and great position in our land, have come for- 
 ward, and going on their mission have formed what is called the Prim- 
 rose League. It has titles, badges, and lodges, and what not. But 
 there is the great fact that a very large political movement is going 
 on among the aristocratic women of our country, and that they take a 
 great interest, a very active interest, in political matters. 
 
 On the other hand, we have what we call the Woman's Liberal Asso- 
 ciations, which are founded for the avowed purpose of educating women 
 in sound Liberal principles, and taking part in all the local elections, 
 and indeed in the parliamentary elections, too. I am bound to say 
 that, while those women read papers and hold discussions once a month 
 upon i)olitical subjects which affect women, their meetings are not con- 
 fined to women. Men find them so interesting that they attend in large 
 number, and take part in the discussions as well as women. 
 
 I ought to say that Mrs. Gladstone is the president of the Woman's 
 Liberal Federation. [Applause.] 
 
 To tell women to let politics alone is really to reduce one-half of the 
 race into actual and practical slavery. I, mys^f, should have been 
 forced to take an interest in politics immediately I landed in your 
 country, if I had not done so before. When I opened my luggage for 
 examination, it was very kindly and politely examined by a woman ex- 
 aminer; but I had put in my large trunk my husband's dress suit merely 
 for convenience sake, as he was to follow me a week later in the Um- 
 bria, 1 was taken from one office to another and had to pay $6 duty 
 upon that dress suit. Kow, gentlemen, that was a question which 
 would have made me think about free trade or fair trade if I had never 
 thought about it before. [Laughter.] 
 
 Holding, as I do, that every home is better for the influence of men 
 and women, I also hold that all local councils are better for the influence 
 of men and women, and that national councils are the better for that in- 
 fluence. I do not speak after one or two years' work or after recent con- 
 viction, but after twenty-three years of hard and faithful work for the 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 19 
 
 town and the district and the county in which I live. Living, as I do, in 
 the heart of a great manufacturing district, and looking on it not in the 
 mere surface light, but grasi^iug all the circumstances that aftect the 
 district, I must say that at every turn I am met with the conclusion that 
 the franchise is necessary for women, not only to promote those social 
 reforms and improvements which she has in her mind, but also to pro- 
 tect such interests as sh6 already possesses. 
 
 I have never been one of those who have struggled for exact equality 
 between men and women. I do not think, gentlemen, that we are equal 
 in any way; rather are we equivalent, men and women, to each other. 
 Men have done wonderful things. They have laid the material founda- 
 tions of the social structure ; and as I come across in the grand ships 
 which have been built, as I travel on your railways, I never cease to 
 admire the foresight and the ability, the thought and the forethought 
 which you have evinced ; but you can not now proceed as you ought 
 to do unless you take into council the women of your country. You 
 can not build the superstructure upon the foundations which you have 
 laid unless you consult women. 
 
 Mrs. Stanton has mentioned many of the social points on which we 
 have views, and we long to lay those views before you to have them 
 put in practice, and 1 do hope the time is coming when good men, those 
 men who think seriously, will gradually come and say to us, ^' what do 
 you think upon these social problems" ? Will you come and will you 
 help us solve them 
 
 I do not wish to take up any more of your time. I am very grateful, 
 indeed, for having been allowed to speak to this committee, and to tes- 
 tify here before all these American women, and before you gentlemen, 
 our great gratitude, and how much we have learned in your country, 
 and how our thoughts have been drawn together at the great council 
 which has just been held. [Applause.] 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. GROTH. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Now I want to go across the narrow bit of water and 
 introduce to you Mrs. S. Maglesson Groth, of Norway. 
 
 Mrs. Groth. Gentlemen, I have seen very splendid things in America. 
 I have seen evidences of your friendship and of your independence. I 
 come to tell you that a law has been passed in Norway and all men are 
 in favor of woman suffrage in Norway, and it has been very highly suc- 
 cessful. [Applause.] 
 
 STATEMENT OF MISS TRYGG. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Miss Alii Trygg, of Finland, is not exactly a dele- 
 gate, but she is a Finn. The delegate. Baroness Alexandra Gripen- 
 berg, is at the Riggs House, and has not been able to attend a single 
 meeting ; but Miss Trygg, her intimate friend, who is an educator from 
 the little country of Finland, is here, and so I want to introduce to you 
 Finland. 
 
 Miss Trygg. Gentlemen, I do not know English very well, but I come 
 to speak to you a few words as well as I can. If I could speak it well 
 I should have very much to tell you. I am a daughter of Finland, 
 which is united with Russia, and you know what that means so far as 
 liberty is concerned. I can tell you what is the greatest momert in my 
 whole life J it is when I stand here under this ceiling in a building 
 
20 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 where laws are made for a free people, but your trouble is they are now 
 made for a half of the people ami not made for the whole of the people. 
 I can not tell you how much I enjoy my being here in America. I hope 
 I shall be able to come back in ten years to the half-century jubilee, 
 and then I shall see all the women in this great country represented, 
 and then they need not come here and ask you any more to give these 
 rights to women. I hope to see that day. [Api)lause.] I thank you. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MME. BOGELOT. 
 
 Miss Anthony. "N^ow I want to introduce to you Madame Bogelot, 
 of Paris, France. 
 
 Madame Bogelot addressed the committee in French. 
 
 Gentlemen : 1 am here to represent the women of France who are 
 working on behalf of prisoners of their own sex. We feel that the more 
 oppressed is the woman by her own failure and by the want of pity in 
 those about her, so much the more does she need the help and strength 
 of all good women to save her from despair. We feel also that the laws 
 of our country are very uujust to many women, and that until women 
 have a voice in the making of laws they will continue to be so. We 
 leel also that all our efforts for uplifting women are crii)pled by the in- 
 ferior position of women to that of men before the law. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. CHANT. 
 
 Miss Anthony. We have three delegates from England, but I am 
 very sorry to say to you that the third one is overcome by our climate 
 or our cordial welcome or something, and she is not able to be here this 
 morning, and that is Mrs. Dilke. I now have the pleasure of introduc- 
 ing to you Mrs. Laura Ormiston Chant, of London, who is present here 
 with us by authority as a delegate of Edinburgh, of which society Mrs. 
 Priscilla Bright McLaren is the president. Mrs. McLaren, as you 
 recognize by the name, is the sister of John and Jacob Bright. Mrs. 
 Chant also represents the Glasgow Women's Suffrage Society, the 
 British Women's Temperance Society, the l^fational Vigilance Associa- 
 tion, as well as two or three others, including the Women's Peace and 
 International Arbitration Society. 
 
 Mrs. Chant. Mr. Chairman and gentlemen: It is a great thing, 
 surely, to be allowed, as an English woman, to stand here and plead in 
 the name of American women for that which we hope American women 
 will soon enjoy. I should like to remind you that those of us women 
 who are striving to gain the suffrage for women are not the indifferent, 
 the vicious, or the fashionable, of whom Mrs. Cady Stanton spoke, but 
 we are women of all countries who are prominent in all philanthropic 
 work, all educational work, all literary work, and all work that is for 
 the uplifting and advancement of humanity in any way. There are 
 very few of us women — I can speak for Great Britain and Ireland — who 
 have not noble ancestors who have stood prominently forth in the his- 
 tory of the world as advocates of freedom of all kinds, and we think it 
 a fitting and beautiful thing to day that we, their daughters and grand- 
 daughters and great-granddaughters should be standing here, some of 
 us certainly, under the roof of a building which embodies the liberties 
 of as great and magnificent a national constitution as the world has 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 21 
 
 yet seen. It is a fitting thing that we should be allowed the honor of 
 standing before you to day, echoing faintly, it may be, the voices of 
 those, our men, who have gone belbre us, who sounded the first clarion 
 notes of liberty, of which we hope we are giving the echoes. 
 
 I stand here as the grCat-grandniece of one of the greatest orators 
 and clearest and wisest statesmen that Europe has known, and that is 
 Edmund Burke [applause]. It seems to me an almost overwhelming 
 humility that I should be able to echo faintly the magnificent impeach- 
 ment that he made against Warren Hastings, in our House of Commons, 
 on behalf of the oppressed women of Hindostan, in this my passionate 
 appeal on behalf of oppressed women all over the world. We women 
 feel that while women have no voice whatever in making the laws, the 
 central necessity of the human life is in great danger of being taken 
 away from them, the necessity of earning bread and havingland on which 
 to live. No one has denied to women the right of burial, and in that one 
 sad necessity of human life they stand on an equal footing with men ; 
 but I see in our England that while women have no recognized voice in 
 making law by helping appoint the law-makers, the power of women to 
 earn bread and possess a home is in constant danger, and is being les- 
 sened more and more, as th3 increasing electoral righto of men place 
 greater differences between the sexes. Oh, I wish you could hear be- 
 hind my voice, 1 wish you could feel behind my heart and my thought, 
 the agonies and sorrows of those thousands of poor and oppressed and 
 downcast women in our England who come to your shores as a last re- 
 sort, to find that which the Old World has denied them ! We are op- 
 pressed in our country by centuries of feudalism and monarchism, and 
 you are not. We are old; we are in the sunset of a grand past; and 
 you are in the glorious dawn somewhere near the morning and advanc- 
 ing towards a day of which the world has never known* ihe equal for its 
 splendor. 
 
 Therefore we pray to you, by the lessons taught by ancient Egypt, 
 where they recognized and did not hesitate to put into force the equality 
 of women, by ancient Greece where women obtained an educational 
 height that they have not yet attained anywhere else so long as they 
 were not the women of the family, and by ancient Eome, where women 
 had such power that the life of a man in the arena might be dependent 
 on the upturning or downtarning of the thumb of the frivolous or the 
 vicious woman in the amphitheater, to be wiser than them all, and free 
 womanhood from the artificial disability of sex in national life. To-day 
 the women who are laying down their lives for the good of their coun- 
 try in temperance, in purity, and in education, aye, in politics, too, be- 
 cause we are most of us women who feel that what religion is to the 
 individual, the duty to God and man, that politics is to the nation, duty 
 to God and man also [applause] — we ask that the religion of the nation 
 shall not exclude women any longer. 
 
 When I saw your magnificent churches here yesterday opened to the 
 voice of women in a way in which our English churches are not, I could 
 only hope that we may be able to take back over the Atlantic the ex- 
 ample of the new country into the old to quicken the movement there 
 and teach the great lesson that offices should be filled by those whose 
 gifts render them fit for the post, irrespective of sex. 
 
 In the enfranchisement of women is the race between the Old World 
 and the New. We possess to-day a majority in our English House of 
 Commons on behalf of woman suffrage, and we have never possessed that 
 before ; but what blocks the way is the cause of that oppressed conn- 
 
22 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 try, Ireland, and I, for one, feel that I would rather that Ireland should 
 continue to block the way till in her emancipation from centuries of 
 injustice the great i)rincii)le of freedom for all without resi)ect of per- 
 son, race, or sex has been vindicated in the eyes of the world by grant- 
 ing her home rule. Here is the old mother with her grand past, and 
 the daughter with her magnificent future. If you win this race we 
 sliall bless you, and you will see not only England, Scotland, and Ire- 
 land, but Kussia, Germany, Italy, and Spain following in your lead. 
 Do not let us fail. By all you have held most sacred and beautiful in 
 the women who have loved you and made life possible for you — for 
 their sake and in their name, I do entreat you no longer to allow one of 
 your grandest women to plead for over half a century, but say " th« 
 past has been a long night of wrong, the day has come and the hour in 
 which justice shall conquer." Open your arms wide now and take iuto 
 the i)rotection of the law the womanhood as well as the manhood of 
 your country. [Applause.] 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. JULIA WARD HOWE. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Now, gentlemen, I have the pleasure of introducing 
 to you the woman who has stood at the head of literature in Boston, 
 the woman who twenty-five years ago wrote "The Battle Hymn of the 
 Kepublic," the president of the Association for the Advancement of 
 Women, Mrs. Julia Ward Howe, of Boston. 
 
 Mrs. Howe. Gentlemen, I had not expected to speak here to-day, 
 and my heart has been full enough with the words of others that have 
 been here uttered ; but a single word will enable me to cast in my voice 
 with theirs withpall the emphasis that my life and such power as I have 
 given it will enable me to add. 
 
 Gentlemen, what a voice you have hereto-day for universal suffrage. 
 Think that not only we American women, your own kindred, appear 
 here, and you know what they represent, but these foremost women 
 from other countries, representing not only the native intelligence and 
 character of those countries, but deep and careful study, and the pre- 
 cious experience which is derived from earnest labor for the good of 
 society and for the elevation of the race 5 and think that between them 
 and us, who are for suffrage, there is entire unanimity. We all say the 
 same words ; we all are for the same thing. 
 
 I have never had the honor to speak in this Capitol of our dear, glorious 
 country before ; but in my adopted State of Massachusetts, the aspect 
 of the legislature is not unfamiliar to me. How many times, with my 
 colleagues, have I toiled up those steps, and have got more " leaves to 
 withdraw" than it is worth while to count here, but each one of those 
 counts behind us : and as the difiiculties had to be overcome, as the 
 steps that had to be taken were taken, with each one there has been 
 one cure for us there, and so we all pressed onward in one great and 
 fervent hope, which is a deep religious hope, and which I am sure the 
 oldest and most honored of us will live to see realized ; and as we speak 
 not only together, but each has her own voice, I will say that while I 
 desire very much that the two classes mentioned by our honored chief, 
 Mrs. Stanton, shall be enfranchised, I will not abate one jot of my de- 
 mand for all women [applause] — not that I love spinsters and widows 
 less, but that I love all woman kind more [applause], 
 
WOMAN SUFFllAGE. 
 
 23 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. MERRICK. 
 
 Miss Anthony. GentlemeD, I want to present to you a lady whom I 
 see sitting here. I remember when I talked to Senator Brown a couple 
 of years ago he said he did not know a woman in the South, in all the 
 Gulf States, who wanted to vote, and especially in Georgia. Now, 1 
 bring you up a woman from Louisiana who does want to vote. Sena- 
 tors, Mrs. Judge Merrick, of New Orleans. 
 
 Senator Brown. With great deference, I think you state it a little 
 too broadly. I said the number was not very large, probably. 
 
 Miss Anthony. But 1 want to show you at least one. Mrs. Mer- 
 rick is the widow of a man who prior to the war was chief-justice of 
 Louisiana, and she is a woman who stands at the head of a large num- 
 ber of the most intelligent and cultivated and representative women of 
 the Gulf States, and I do hope that our Southern members of Congress 
 and of the Senate will come to know that there are women in their 
 midst who want to vote, as well as the Northern representatives, who 
 know they have among their constituents many such women. 
 
 Mrs. Merrick. Honorable gentlemen: When Miss Anthony says 
 that I wish to vote, she says the truth. If any one asks me when I be- 
 came a convert, I will say that I believe I was born that way. I have 
 been a married woman for forty 3 ears, and I have eight grandchildren, 
 and my husband and my two sons and my brother indorse everything 
 that I do on this question, but only of late years. It has taken those 
 forty years to bring them to my position that I had in the beginning, 
 for I always believed that woman was an equal factor, and when she 
 counts in the church and when she counts in the family, she ought also 
 to count in the government. 
 
 But you have heard this thing over and over. It is not asking too 
 much that when a woman is admitted to the tax-list she should also be 
 admitted to the ballot. When my son became twenty-one years of age 
 we were in the North, and he wanted very much to go South to vote for 
 Cleveland. His father was unwilling that he should, but I used my in- 
 fluence and he was i^ermitted to go. When I took leave of him I said, 
 "My dear son, you are so glad you are going to vote, being twenty-one 
 years of age, and now you are going South to vote for the first time ; re- 
 member that your mother will always be a perpetual minor and that she 
 feels humiliated and mortified on that account." He said, "Mother, I 
 wish you could vote." I said, " Well, I am so happy in having so young 
 a son express such a wish that I can do without voting for a while." 
 [Laughter.] But when Miss Anthony invited me to come here I was 
 sick and not able to come. My son said, "Although you are a woman's 
 rights woman why should you commit suicide by going to Washington 
 with that dreadful cold?" I said, "My son, I am going to take my 
 chances. Miss Anthony says she wants to see a Southern woman who 
 wishes to vote, and I am going to stand up and be counted, even if I 
 have such a cold that I can not talk." 
 
 Gentlemen, you are very kind to hear this Southern woman who does 
 not bring anything but her simple voice, that she wants the ballot for 
 herself and for her granddaughters, and she hopes they, at least, will live 
 to see the time when they will have it if I do not. I thank you, gen- 
 tlemen. 
 
24 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 REMARKS OF MISS ANTHONY. 
 
 Miss Anthony. It is but fair for me to state that in this room there 
 is probably at least one woman representing? each State or Territory of 
 this Union. I think during the sessions of the council — we have been 
 so busy that we have not had time to look it up — but we have not a 
 State or a Territory that has not been represented in the meetings du- 
 ring the past week. I need not say that we all hope that this first 
 Congress of the second century will take the initiative step towards se- 
 curing the enfranchisement of woman. 
 
 I want to say in conclusion what perhaps I need not say," that I hope 
 this committee or the chairman of it, will make a motion on the floor of 
 the Senate that shall secure an order for the printing of a good large 
 number of the speeches and addresses which have been made here this 
 morning. This convention, this year, rounds out the first forty years 
 since woman began to make a public demand for enfranchisement in 
 this country, and therefore it is fitting that your honorable committee 
 shall make this hearing mark this epoch by thus publishing the report 
 of the xDroceedings. 1 wish you would ask leave to publish a hundred 
 thousand copies, that we might have them sent to every school district 
 of the United States. But if you can not bear to have the Government 
 do so much for the women of this Republic and of the world, ask for the 
 largest number that the law will allow you to get. 
 
 I thought I had asked a representative of every distant country to 
 be heard, but I find that I have omitted to call upon Canada, which is 
 not distant. I now i)resent to you Mrs. Keefer, of Toronto. 
 
 STATEMENT OF MRS. KEEFER. 
 
 Mrs. Keefer. Mr. Chairman and honorable gentlemen of the com- 
 mittee : I think that I am an American citizen, although I live just 
 across the line, and as I stood in your House of Representatives the 
 other day and watched the flag over the head of the Speaker, I won- 
 dered to myself if the time would ever come when the beaver and maple 
 leaf would find a place somewhere around and,jtist under the stars and 
 stripes. I am so glad to be here this morning, and to add my voice to 
 the voices of your own women who have been pleading with you for 
 the vote. I do not ask the vote to be extended to spinsters and widows 
 only. I do not ask you to put a premium on unmarried women, al- 
 though we have it in our country. I ask that the vote may be extended 
 to all women as it is to all men, for right is right, and you can not make 
 it wrong, and you can not make a part wrong of a whole right. 
 
 We have a little experience in our country in regard to the woman's 
 vote, and we know that it is one of the very best factors that enter into 
 an election. We have seen our council chambers i)urified of a great 
 many things that were there before. We have seen cleaner, better, 
 grander, nobler men put into our councils all through the province of 
 HOntario because of the woman's vote. 
 
 Men and brethren, you need the woman's vote here, just as much as 
 we need the woman's vote over there. I know that a great many of 
 you have an idea that if we women vote it will injure us. i^ou think 
 that politics have got into such a muddle, have got so dirty some way 
 or other thatthe dirty house is not tit for us to live in. But men and 
 brethren, did you ever see a dirty house that was fit for a man to live 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 25 
 
 iu if it was not fit for a woman, and did you ever see a house that was 
 clean enough for a man that was too dirty for a woman ? i^ay, further, 
 did you ever see a dirty house that was fit for a man to live in until 
 some woman or other had got into it and cleaned it up for him? [Ap- 
 plause.] 
 
 STATEMENT OF MISS FRANCES E. WILLARD. 
 
 Miss Anthony. The committee ask to hear Miss Willard, and I ask 
 her to please come forward. 
 
 Gentlemen of the committee, here stands before you a woman who is 
 commander-in-chief of an army of women in these United States, who 
 commands to-day an army of 250,000 women. It is said women do not 
 want to vote, but this woman has led up this vast army to the ballot- 
 box, or to a wish to get there. Gentlemen, I present to you Miss Wil- 
 lard. 
 
 Miss Willard. I suppose these honorable gentlemen think that we 
 women want the earth, when we only want half of it. That is just ex- 
 actly where we stand. We call their attention to the fact — I do not 
 know whether it has been brought out here this morning, but it is a 
 fact — that our brethren have encroached upon the sphere of woman. 
 They have very definitely marked out that sphere, and then they have 
 proceeded with their incursion by the power of invention. They have 
 taken away the loom and the spinning-jenny, and they have obliged 
 Jenny to seek her occupation somewhere else to an extent. They have 
 set even the tune of the old knitting-needle to humming by steam. So 
 that we women, full of vigor and full of desire to be active and useful 
 and to re-act upon the world around us, finding our occupation indus- 
 trially largely gone, have been obliged to seek out a new territory 
 and to pre-empt from the sphere of our brothers, as it was popularly 
 supposed to be, some of the territory that they have hitherto consid- 
 ered their own. As I understand it, that is the rationale of the present 
 crowding in of these women. If you had left them spinning-jennies 
 and looms and the knitting-needle, they might not be here. But you 
 shrewd Yankees set to work and put spindles and steam at your serv- 
 ice, and lo and behold we need more occupation, and so we think it 
 will be very desirable indeed that you should let us lend a hand in the 
 affairs of government. 
 
 We know that in the olden time when force was at the fore, and had 
 to be, women were at a discount, but we accept that and have no com- 
 plaint to make. We think, however, in these ^'piping times of peace" 
 women may well pipe up and may be heard; and your presence, "grave 
 and reverend signiors" and Senators, looking at us and beaming upon 
 us so kindly and giving your time to us this morning, shows that you 
 think just the same. 
 
 We call you to remember a certain incident in politics, namely, that 
 when women had the vote, as they had for a brief space in Kew Jersey, 
 thanks to the kindliness of the Quakers, who always thought well of 
 women and marked them at their true value, it was the decisive vote 
 of women in New Jersey that put John Quincy Adams in the great 
 Executive Mansion at Washington. Then he, like the true and loyal 
 man he was, stood up and argued that women should have the right to 
 pat their signature to petitions, which had not been done before. He 
 remembered the women that he left behind him, and he it was who, 
 when men in the Capitol at Washington said that if women put their 
 names to a bit of paper in the way of a signature to a petition they 
 
2G 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 would lose their womauliness, that they would not care for their homes, 
 and that they would become strong minded — he it was who declared 
 that it would not make them a bit different, that they would still be 
 womanly and kind and motlierly and sisterly. The result was that 
 women were given the right of petition, and have they not vindicated 
 John Quincy Adams ? You can not legislate the womanly trait into 
 being. 
 
 It is said that if women are given the right to vote it will prevent 
 their being womanly. I know it is a sentiment of chivalry in some good 
 men that hinders them from givdng us the ballot. They think we should 
 not be what they admire so much j they think we should be lacking in 
 womanliness of character, which we most certainly wish to preserve; 
 but we believe that history proves they have retained that womanliness, 
 and if we can only make men believe that, and if we can only make 
 women believe that, the ballot will just come along sailing in a ship 
 with the wind beating every sail — the ballot will come in the next ten 
 years. 
 
 I ask you to notice here if the women who have been in this inter- 
 national council, if the women who are school teachers all over this 
 nation, if the hundreds of thousands are not a womanly set of women. 
 They have gone outside of the old sphere. We believe that in the time 
 of peace women can come forward, and can, with peaceful plans, use 
 weapons that are grand and womanly, and that her thoughts, winged 
 with hope and the force of the heart given to them, will have an effect 
 far mightier than forceful power. For that reason we ask you that that 
 class of our women who, having a level head upon their shoulders, can 
 be trusted shall be allowed to stand at the ballot-box, because we be- 
 lieve that at the ballot-box every person shows his individuality, and 
 would show her individuality. The majesty or the meanness of the 
 man — and by that I mean to include womanhood — comes out more at 
 the ballot-box than anywhere else. The ballot is the compendium of all 
 there is in civilization, and of all that civilization has done for us. We 
 believe that the mothers who had the good sense to train noble men like 
 you who have achieved high positions, had the good sense to train your 
 sisters in the same way, and that it is a -pitj that the State has lost that 
 other half of the conservative power that comes from a Christian rear- 
 ing and a Christian character. 
 
 I have spoken thus on the principles which Lave made me, a con- 
 servative woman, devoted to the idea of the ballot, and have made me 
 one in heart with all these good and true suffrage women, though not 
 one in organic community. I represent before you the Woman^s 
 Christian Temperance Union and not a suffrage society, but I bring 
 these principles to your sight, and I ask you, my brothers, to be grand 
 and chivalrous towards us on this new departure that we now wish to 
 make. 
 
 I ask you to remember that it is women who have given the costliest 
 hostages to fortune, and out into the battle of life they have sent their 
 best beloved with snares that have been legalized set on every hand. 
 From the arms that held him long the boy has gone forever, and he will 
 not come back again to the home, and can not come back again into the 
 world. Then let the world in the person of its womanhood go forth and 
 make a home, and make that home in the State and in society. By all 
 the pains and danger the mother has shared, by the hours of patient 
 watching over beds where little children tossed in fever and in pain, by 
 the incense of ten thousand prayers wafted to God from earnest lips, I 
 charge you, gentlemen, give women power to go forth so that when her 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 27 
 
 son undertakes life's treacbeious battle still let his mother walk beside 
 him weak but serious, and clad in the garments of power. [Applause.] 
 
 Miss Anthony. The chairman assures me that the resolution for the 
 printing shall be passed. 
 
 The Chairman, ^o, presented. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Presented. Of course we know that whatever the 
 chairman of this committee does present will be passed. Kow, gentle- 
 men, we are greatly obliged to you and I feel very proud of all my 
 "girls" who have been brought up before you this morning, and yon 
 may consider the meeting adjourned. 
 
 S. Rep. 1 27 
 
Appendix II. 
 
 Hearing before the Committee on Woman Suffrage^ Onited Stales Senate, 
 
 January 24, 1889. 
 
 Thursday, January 24, 1889. 
 
 The committee met at 10 o'clock a. m. in the Seuate reception room, to 
 hear arguments in behalf of woman suffrage from delegates to the Na- 
 tional Woman Suffrage Association. 
 
 Present: Senators Blair (acting chairman), Pasco, Palmer, and Chace, 
 of the committee, and Senators Chandler, Dolph, Farwell, and Stewart. 
 
 Senator Blair (acting chairman). Ladies, the hearing is to be, as 
 you all understand of course, upon the joint resolution (S. R. 11) pro- 
 posing an amendment to the Constitution of the United States extend 
 iug the right of suffrage to women, which has been introduced in the 
 Senate and referred to this committee, and is as follows : 
 
 Resolved by the Senate and House of Bepresentatives of the United States of America in 
 Congress assembled {two-thirds of each House concurring therein), That the following 
 article be proposed to the legislatures of the several States as an amendment to the 
 Constitution of the United States; which, when ratified by three-fourths of the said 
 legislatures, shall be valid as part of said Constitution, namely : 
 
 Article — . 
 
 Section 1. The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or 
 abridged by the United States or by any State on account of sex. 
 
 Sec. 2. The Congress shall have power, by appropriate legislation, to enforce the 
 provisions of this article. 
 
 The chairman of the committee, Senator Cockrell, is absent by reason 
 of the death of liis colleague, Mr. Burnes, a member of the House of Rep- 
 resentatives, and Senator Vest, who was requested to attend, has sent 
 a note excusing his absence by reason of the death of his colleague. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Gentlemen of the committee, I wiU introduce to you 
 first Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, of Connecticut, who has a thought 
 which she wants to present before the committee. 
 
 Mrs. Hooker. Gentlemen of the committee, Miss Anthony says that 
 1 have a thought to present to you. I have two thoughts, and the first 
 is this : The women of this country have been deprived of the right of 
 trial by jury simply because they have no vote. This was exemplified 
 in the case of Miss Anthony in 1873, when Judge Ward Hunt, of the 
 sui^reme bench, took the case from the jury, allowed them no cousulta- 
 
 29 
 
30 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 tion in their seats or out of tbem, and directed the clerk to enter up a 
 verdict of guilty. And when the counsel for the defendant interposed, 
 the judge closed the discussion by sayiug, Take the verdict, Mr. Clerk," 
 and the clerk then said : 
 
 Gentlemen of the jury, hearken to your verdict as the court has recorded it. You 
 say you tind the defendant guilty of the olfense wlicreof she stands indicted, and so 
 say you all. 
 
 To this the jury made no response, ahd were immediately dismissed. 
 
 Our claim is that if a man had been on trial instead of a woman, Judge 
 Hunt would not have dared thus to violate all rules of law. Do you 
 ask why ? 1 answer, simply because a man who votes has a political 
 party behind him whose interest it is to protect him in his right to 
 vote, and had the meanest man in this country been denied his right to 
 a verdict from the jury, the party i)ress of the country would have rung 
 the changes on such an infamous proceeding till the unjust judge would 
 have been compelled to reverse his own decision. But more than this, 
 we claim that he never would have even thought of making such a decis- 
 ion except as against a disfranchised class of citizens. 
 
 I would it were my right or privilege to ask the members of this com- 
 mittee how many of them know that Judge Hunt did thus actually take 
 the case from the jury. I have found very few gentlemen in Congress, 
 on the bench, or at the bar who believe that this my statement is abso- 
 lutely true; therefore I have rehearsed the story in this pamphlet, 
 which I now lay before the committee in the hope that it may be printed 
 as a part of my argument. 
 
 Do you ask why we have so long been silent on this matter, I an- 
 swer, because as a disfranchised class we have no power to influence 
 public opinion. "The Supreme ('ourt has decided against your right 
 to vote" was the cry all over the land, and it would have been suicidal 
 to attempt to characterize a1 that time this verdict of a judge of the 
 Supreme Court as an infamous one. But now Judge Hunt has gone to 
 render his own account before a tribunal that knows no iiartiality, and 
 I believe, friends, if he could stand here to-day in my place he would 
 plead guilty before you and ask to reverse his own decision, that his 
 soul might be at rest; and I feel sure it never will be at rest until he 
 does reverse it somehow or somewhere. 
 
 My second thought is this : That whereas in the great centennial of 
 1876 women were denied all participation in the public proceedings 
 that commemorated the birth of the Declarationof Independence, though 
 they earnestly and respectfully sought to declare their sentiments of 
 loyalty to the great principles of liberty and responsibility there pro- 
 claimed, and their fealty to the Constitution framed thereupon, they 
 now should demand official recognition by C'ongress and the State leg- 
 islatures and should be put upon every board of commissioners which, 
 at the public expense, are to initiate and carry out the august ceremonials 
 of the coming centennials of 1889 and 1892, to the end that taxation 
 without representation shall no longer be acknowledged as a just and 
 constitutional policy in this Government nominally by the people. Anh 
 we ask you, gentlemen of the committee, to bring this matter to the 
 consideration of the Senate, that in all future public occasions, that 
 august body may take the lead in recognizing the women of the country 
 as faithful citizens, worthy to be entrusted equally with men, with the 
 responsibilities growing out of our national constitution and our repub- 
 lican form of government. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 31 
 
 THE CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHTS OP THE WOMEN OF THE UNITED 
 
 STATES. 
 
 ( An address before the International Cotincil of Women, "Washington, D. C, March 30, 1888. By 
 
 Isabella Beecher Hooker.] 
 
 In tlie month of August, 1774, that eminent statesman and true patriot, Thomas 
 Jefferson, in a little tract entitled "xi Summary View of thoRightsof British America," 
 used certain words which I will take for my text while addressing you to-day on the 
 " Constitutional Rights of the Women Citizens of the United States." They are 
 these : 
 
 ' ' The whole art of Government consists in the art of being honest." 
 And again : 
 
 The God who gave us life gave us liberty at the same time ; the hand of force may 
 destroy, but can not disjoin them." 
 
 May i ask your patient attention while I attempt to show : First, that under a 
 proper interpretation of the Constitution of the United States, which he had so largo 
 a part in preparing, women have a right to vote to-day, on precisely the same terms 
 with men ; and secondly, that they ought, for various reasons, to exercise this right 
 without subjection to'molestation or delay, and men ought to help them to do so by 
 every means in their power. 
 
 First let mo speak of the Constitution of the United States, and assert that there 
 is not a lino in it, nor a word, forbidding women to vote ; but properly interpreted, 
 that is, interpreted by the Declaration of Independence, and by the assertions of the 
 Fathers, it actually guaranties to women the right to vote in all elections, both 
 State and National. Listen to the preamble to the Constitution, and the preamble, 
 you know, is the key to what follows ; it is the concrete, general statement of the 
 great principles which subsequent articles express in detail. The preamble says : 
 
 We, the people of the United States, in order to form a more i)erfect union, es- 
 tablish justice, insure domestic tranquillity, provide for the common defense, promote 
 the general welfare, and secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our pos- 
 terity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America." 
 
 Commit this to memory, friends ; learn it by heart as well as by head, and I should 
 have no need to argue the question before you of my right to vote. For women are 
 ''people" surely, and desire as much as men, to say the least, to establish justice and 
 to insure domestic tranquillity ; and, brothers, you will never insure domestio tran- 
 quillity in the days to come unless you allow women to vote, who pay taxes and 
 bear equally with yourselves all the burdens of society ; for they do not mean 
 any longer to submit patiently and quietly to such injustice, and the sooner men un- 
 derstand this and graciously submit to become the political equals of their moth- 
 ers, wives, and daughters — ay, of their grandmothers, for that is my category, in- 
 stead of their political masters, as they now are, the sooner will this precious domes- 
 tic tranquillity be insured. Women are surely " people," I said, and were when these 
 words were written, and were as anxious as men to establish justice and promote the 
 general welfare, and no one will have the hardihood to dfeny that our foremothers 
 (have we not talked about our forefathers alone long enough?) did their full share in 
 the work of establishing justice, providing for the common defense, and promoting 
 the general welfare in all those early days. 
 
 The truth is, friends, that when liberties had to be gained by the sword and pro- 
 tected by the sword, men necessarily came to the front and seemed to be the only 
 creators and defenders of these liberties; hence all the way down women have been 
 content to do their patriotic work silently and through men, who are the fighters by 
 nature rather than themselves, until the present day; but now at last, when it is es- 
 tablished that ballots instead of bullets are to rule the world, and we in this country 
 are making and upholding our just laws by ballots alone, keeping our bullets for the 
 few wretched Indians on the frontiers, whom we are wicked enough to wish to ex- 
 terminate rather than to civilize and educate, now, it is high time that women 
 ceased to attempt to establish justice, and promote the general welfare, and secure 
 the blessings of liberty to themselves and their posterity, through the votes of men, 
 because they can not control these votes and turn them to high moral uses in gov- 
 ernment; on the contrary, our brothers, the best of them, are at their wit's end to- 
 day, and so appalled at the moral corrux)tions of the body-politic that they are ready, 
 some of them, to throw away their own power to vote and go back upon^the whole 
 theory of our Government of the many, of the people (our Government nominally of 
 the people, by the people, and for the people), and to ask for the government of the 
 few once more, the few rich, the few wise, the few educated. 
 
 But I shall deal with this point hereafter. I only wish to fasten upon your minds 
 now this thought, that women are included in this word ''people" of the preamble, 
 and were intended to be included as much as men, and that their non-use of the 
 
32 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE 
 
 ballot .in all the past, because they chose to exercise tlieir people's powers ii. other 
 "waj's, has not cnt them off from their right to use the ballot at any time they may 
 sec lit; and yon will perceive by a careful examination of the whole Constitution 
 which follows tlie preamble, and which became the law of the land so early as 1789, 
 that women were embraced in its provisions precisely as men were, and that the word 
 "people," so frequently used, always included them. 
 
 This is true of the four articles which I will consider, and of every other article in 
 the Constitution where the word "people" is used. Article 1 of the amendments is: 
 "The right of the people to peaceably assemble and petition for a redress of griev- 
 ances," etc. No one doubts that women have that right equally with men ; in fact, 
 this is about the only political right that is cheerfully accorded to us to-day, because 
 it is so easy to get rid of us and silence us in that way. 
 
 For years and years women have been petitioning Congress and the State legis- 
 latures to take down the i)olitical bars which men have put up, contrary to the 
 National Constitution and the whole spirit of our Government, and allow them to 
 become active coworkers in promoting the general welfare ; but the reply has been 
 "leave to withdraw," or its equivalent ; and this simply because these women pe- 
 titioners had no power to cut off the Heads of these Congressmen and assemblymen 
 (their political heads, I mean, because we do not believe much in bloodshed of any 
 sort). So long ago as 1871 1 got an order from a Senator to the Clerk of the Senate for 
 a search for petitions then on file in his office, and here is the Clerk's report. He found 
 the names of 20,000 women slumbering in the dusty pigeon-holes of his office, and the 
 honorable gentleman who asked me, witli a smile of contempt, "How many women 
 really want to vote ? " was surprised at the record, which was not a tenth part of the 
 number who had been wearily petitioning our legislative bodies year after year since 
 1848. 
 
 And then there is article 2, with its provision for " the right of the people to keep 
 and to bear arms," etc., which right women assuredly have equally with men, and 
 which, unless some new protective element is brought into society, women will be 
 compelled to use in self-defense as never before, for the crimes against woman in her 
 very womanhood are becoming unendurably frequent all over our land. The new 
 protective element, I hardly need say, is the ballot in her own hands, since it is 
 already in the hands of these ruffians who make night hideous, and who virtually 
 close the thoroughfares of our cities and villages even to all honest women the mo- 
 ment the sun has gone down. Have you ever thought of it, gentlemen ? you who are 
 opposed to woman's use of the ballot, that among her so-called protectors, who are to 
 use her ballot for her, are these very men for whom we build most of our jails and 
 penitentiaries, taxing the women to do it, and that every election day sees paupers 
 and vagrants taken from the work-house to elect the men who are to make and ad- 
 minister the laws for all women, no less than all men? 
 
 Article 4 provides for "the right of the people to be secure against unreasonable 
 searches aind seizures," etc. Women surely need to be and are thus secured. And 
 article 9 provides that the "enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall 
 not be construed to deny others retained by the people." 
 
 Is it not perfectly clear that all these are the rights of women equally with men, 
 and that the term "people" as here used was intended to embrace both? 
 
 Thus, then, the preamble and the Constitution under which our Government was 
 formed and began its w^ork of protective legislation, plainly embraced women in all 
 its provisions; and when the preamble declares that the object of all was to secure 
 the blessings of liberty to ourselves and our posterity, it surely did not mean to se- 
 cure to men alone and their posterity these blessings of liberty, to the half of our- 
 selves and the half of our posterity, but to the whole people, women as well as men. 
 
 And note, again, the word " secure" in this preamble, which is scarcely less im- 
 portant than the word "people." " Secure the blessings of liberty to ourselves and 
 our posterity" — not give the blessings of liberty ; as though the framers of the Con- 
 stitution were autocrats, with power to bestow or withhold liberties, but secure the 
 blessings of liberty to those who already had the right to them from God and by 
 their own free nature, and who were comiug together for purposes of defense and 
 security as against an outside world that still insisted that liberty was not the right 
 of the many but of the few, and who might be able to overthrow this right of indi- 
 viduals to life, liberty, and the j>ursuit of happiness, unless they combine together to 
 defend and secure these rights. 
 
 And this is where the Declaration of Independence comes in as an interpreter of 
 the Constitution, and it utters no uncertain voice on this question as to who are the 
 " people" meant in the preamble and articles following. It says : " We hold these 
 truths to be self-evident" — (mark that, self-evident; that is, that they require no 
 proof) — "that all men arc created equal; that they are endowed by tlicir Creator 
 with certain inalienable rights ; that amoug these are life, liberty, and the pursuit 
 of happiness; that to secure these rights" — (here again is the word "secure," not 
 give, grant, or b'jstow) — "governments are instituted among men, deriving their 
 
WOMAN SUFFEAGE. 
 
 33 
 
 just powers from the consent of the governed" (not from the consent of halt' the 
 governed — the consent of the male half — but the governed), and that ''whenever 
 any form of government becomes destructive of these ends it is the right of the 
 people to alter or abolish it, and institute a new government, laying its foundation 
 on such principles and organizing its powers in such form as to them shall 3eem most 
 likely to elfect their safety and happiness." 
 
 This is to say, the fathers in Congress assembled in Philadelphia on the 4th of July, 
 1776, proclaimed over the whole earth that governments derive their just powers 
 from the consent of the governed, and that taxation without representation is tyr- 
 anny ; and for the support of this declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection 
 of divine Providence, they mutually pledged to each other their lives, their fortunes, 
 aud their sacred honor ; and yet we are told to-day that the women of these States 
 have no right to vote until the men, who alone have been in the habit of voting, shall 
 make some new aud special laws to meet their case ; iu other words, till men shall 
 grant women a right to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, a. right to promote 
 the general welfare, a right to establish justice, and secure the blessings of liberty to 
 themselves and their posterity. Now, friends, do you wonder that it makes my blood 
 boil to hear such words as these ; to hear from the lips of mere boys the assertion that 
 they and their sex alone have the right to make and execute the laws that I and my 
 daughters are to live under ; that they are born to rule and I born to obey ; that be- 
 cause I and other women have blindly thought aud loved to think in all the past 
 that law-making aud law-executing were safe in the hands of our brothers and 
 fathers and husbands, they being the accredited protectors of women, we are to leave 
 men now aud forever to the use of this power, when we have reluctantly opened our 
 eyes to the truth that it is not good for mau to be alone in the state any more than 
 iu the family, in the church, and in social life; that the state needs mothers as well 
 as fathers, and that moral corruption will not only continue to prevail, but with an 
 advancing civilization will be steadily on the increase, so long as woman is powerless 
 to put down moral evils by the direct use of political power as well as by moral influ- 
 ence ? 
 
 You tell me that I must submit to conditions before I can vote ; I, who am a free- 
 born citizen of the United States; while yet you admit this ignorant foreigner, if he 
 is a man, to the full privileges and responsibilities of citizenship. I defy this assump- 
 tion of power on the part of the men of this country. I declare to you as did the 
 Apostle Paul: I am free-born." " With a great price obtained I this freedom," said 
 the Roman centurion to thispatriotric old apostle ; but he replied : " I am free-born." 
 
 Ah, friends, there is music iu these words to my ear. They are the deep vibrations 
 of a soul that loves its country as itself, and there are tens of thousands of women 
 to-day that are ready to pledge their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor to 
 the maintenance of their rights as free-born citizens of this Republic, and who will 
 never willingly consent to such desecration of coustitutious. State or National, as 
 would be caused by the addition of special articles providing for the right ^f women 
 to vote. Such articles would virtually read thus: " All men are created equal ; all 
 women are also created equal not only to each other but to men ; all men may peace- 
 ably assemble and petition for redress of grievances, may keep and bear arms, may 
 be secure against unreasonable searches and seizures, may retain to themselves all 
 rights not enumerated in the Constitution, and all women may assemble, etc." 
 
 As well may theologians interpret "Whatsoever ye would that men should do 
 unto you, do ye even so to them," to mean literally men, and therefore demand a 
 new scripture specially to include women in these and the like injunctions: *'He 
 that believeth shall be saved, and he that believeth not shall be condemned," " No 
 man can serve two masters," "A good man out of tbe good treasure of his heart 
 bringeth forth good things," etc. No, friends, the truth is, precedent and prejudice, 
 custom aud blind conservatism, are the only barriers against women in government 
 to-day. Constitutions are all right when properly interpreted and shorn of their 
 man-made inconsistencies, and the laws are right save the voting laws. Every other 
 law recognizes woman by the use of the masculine pronoun, and compels her to pay 
 taxes, to be fined, imprisoned, and hung as he, his, and him, and it is simply absurd 
 and wicked to tax aud hang a woman by one statute and deny her right to vote by 
 another, when the phraseology is precisely the same iu both. 
 
 And now, as to the one article of the National Constitution which, it is claimed, 
 forbids women to vote. Will you follow me patiently while I attempt to show that this 
 article really in fact guaranties to women the right to vote for members of Congress 
 rather than'forbids it, and not only so, but it virtually calls upon the General Gov- 
 ernment to interfere with the State governments if necessary for the purpose of pro- 
 tecting women in the exercise of this right. That article reads thus : 
 
 "Art. 1, Sec. 2. The House of Representatives shall be chosen every second year by 
 the people of the several States, and the electors of each State shall have the qualifi- 
 cations requisite for eh ctorsoi the most numerous branch of the State legislature." 
 
 S. Rep. 2543 3 
 
34 
 
 WOMAIs SUFFRAGE. 
 
 Here you have it in full. The ouly paragraph in the United States Constitution 
 th;it can be tortured to exclude women from voting for United States officers, and this 
 is the way it is tortured by onr adversaries. I speak advisedly when I say adversa- 
 ries;" for friends, it is no pleasant task, this work of going up and down the length 
 and breadth of the land proclaiming that women are free, aud ought to use their free- 
 dom under a sense of responsihility, and by the couscientious use of the ballot, the 
 only token of political responsibility; aud the men who keep up these laws of preccr 
 dent and prejudice aud shut us from the peaceful and womanly expression of our 
 opinion aud our will in matters of Government are therefore the worst kind of adver- 
 saries. They compel us to most unwelcome duty, and to penalties of whose sting 
 they have but little conception. Some of us know in our hearts to-day of tire and 
 fagot, whose burning makes deeper scars than the martyr fires of old, and were it not 
 for faith in God aud love to man we should have given up the contest long ago. 
 
 Hero, then, you have, I say, the ouly argument against the right of women to vote 
 contained in the Constitution of the United States, and briefly stated it is this : The 
 latter clause says that electors for members of Congress must have the same qualifi- 
 cations as electors for members of the State legislature, and the constitution of Con- 
 necticut, for instance, declares in article 6, section 2, that — 
 
 Every white male citizen of the United States, who shall have attained the age 
 of tweuty-oue years and resided in this State one year and in the town six mouths, 
 and shall be able to read any article of the constitution, shall, on his taking such 
 oath as may be prescribed by law, be an elector of the State." 
 
 Now, say objectors, women are not white male citizens of the United States, aud as 
 these are the only ones that may choose members of the legislature, these are the only 
 ones who may choose members of Congress. To which I reply : First, that by the four- 
 teenth ameudment to the Constitution of the United States the word Avhite" was 
 expressly, aud the word "male" virtually, blotted out from our State constitutions ; 
 aud in Connecticut black men under that amendment were allowed to vote for years 
 before the word white" was expunged from its constitution ; and, second, that the 
 first clause of this article 2, section 2, which says that the House of Representatives 
 shall be composed of members chosen by the people, denies to every State the right 
 to make any qualification for State electors that shall interfere with the predomi- 
 nating right of the whole people to elect their members of Congress. 
 
 It is as if the United States Constitution had said the right of trial by jury shall 
 bo secured to all the people of the United States," and Connecticut had said in her 
 constitution "every white male citizen shall be entitled to a trial by jury." Plainly 
 such an article of a State constitution would be pronounced null and void, and the 
 only reason the other has not been so pronounced long ago is that in the beginning 
 men alone thought of voting, wished to vote, did vote, and so the authors of the 
 State coustitutiou, in defining who should be electors, naturally, and as a matter 
 of exactness, and without any thought of women, said "all white male citizens," 
 with such and such qualifications, may vote; and the case is all the stronger for 
 women than for black men, because the enslavement and disfranchisement of black 
 men was contemplated, reluctantly it is true, but nevertheless contemplated and 
 recognized by the National Constitution, while the disfranchisement of women was 
 not thought of or seriously considered for a moment. 
 
 This is so plainly true that women did actually vote in a few instances in the earlier 
 days, and they only ceased to do so because they did not appreciate its importance, 
 or, as in New Jersey, because that State, in direct violation of the Coustitutiou of the 
 United States, as I think, specially disfrauchised the women of the State. 
 
 And to those who may not be ready to admit that the National Constitution secures 
 to women the right to vote in all cases equally with men, there is this special and de- 
 cisive argument with regard to their right to vote for members of Congress. The 
 Constitution, as we have seen, gives the right to the people of the State with only 
 this limitation — that the electors for members of Congress shall have the qualifica- 
 tions requisite for electors for the most numerous branch of the State legislature. 
 The right is absolute, except that the State may fix the "qualifications." 
 
 Now what is a qualificatiou ? Sex is not one. A qualification is something that 
 may be acquired, as a certain age, a certain time of residence, ability to read, etc... 
 A certaiu height of stature could not be, a certain color of the eyes could notW', 
 Nothing natural and uuchangeable could be. So sex can not be. The State, therefore 
 in making sex a disqualification, has attempted that which it had no power to do^ - 
 and its action is so far void. 
 
 If then, as is claimed, the United States may step in aud jjunish a citizen of the 
 United States for voting illegally for members of Congress, as in the case of Susan 
 B. Anthony, because the State had limited the voting jirivilege to male citizens, surely 
 the United States may much more be called upon to step in and protect the right of 
 all the people of every State to become electors for members of Congress, including 
 the women people as well as the men people. Do you not see it, friends f "Members 
 of the House of Reiiieseutatives shall be chosen by the people of the several States," 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 35 
 
 and yet when one of these people, being an honest, law-abiding, tax-paying woman, 
 after consulting the best lawyer in her city and being duly registered and sworn in as 
 an elector, puts her ballot in the box for a member of Congress, the United States 
 Government by marshal and commissioners seizes her, and by a judge of the Supreme 
 Court of the United States condemns her to a fine and costs of prosecution, on the 
 ground that the State of New York has a right to disfranchise half its citizens, they 
 being guilty only of being women, and in the face of the express provision of this 
 article that the people of every State shall elect the members of Congress of that 
 State. And I may as well finish what I have to say of Miss Anthony's trial just here, 
 because Judge Hunt's decision against her was based partly on this very article, and 
 it is time that his interpretation of it and the consequences thereof were fully made 
 known to all the people of this land. 
 
 Judge Hunt decided that the right of voting is a right or privilege arising under 
 the constitution of the State, and not of the United States, and this in the face of the 
 fourteenth and fifteenth amendments, recently ratified by three-fourths of the 
 States, and thereby made as much the law of the land as any other part of the United 
 States Constitution. These amendments read thus : 
 
 ''Fourteenth. All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to 
 the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States, and of the State wherein 
 they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the priv- 
 ileges or immunities of citizens of the United States, nor shall any State deprive any 
 person of life, liberty or property without due process of law, nor deny to any person 
 within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the law. " 
 
 This amendment was supposed to cover the whole ground of enfranchising the 
 black men made free by the thirteenth amendment, and it ought to have been suffi- 
 cient. 
 
 But the white men of the South were naturally averse to seeing black men, just out 
 of slavery, the chief rulers of their States, they being recently disfranchised them- 
 selves for rebellion, and they made it so difficult for black men to vote that the Ee- 
 publican party, who were absolutely dependent upon their votes for continuance in 
 power, determined to strengthen the right of black men to vole by another amend- 
 ment, and so they passed the fifteenth amendment, which reads thus : 
 
 "The right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged 
 by the United States or by any State on account of race, color, or previous condition 
 of servitude. Congress shall have power to enforce this act by appropriate legisla- 
 tion. " 
 
 And notice here, that while these specified grounds of denial are forbidden, this 
 fifteenth amendment does not by implication authorize a denial on other grounds. 
 If it did, a majority in a State might at any time disfranchise a minority. In a State 
 like Massachusetts, where the women are in a large majority, they might, if allowed 
 to vote (we will merely imagine the absurdity;, amend the State constitution, and 
 exclude all men from the franchise. Yet no one would for a moment claim that this 
 action would be valid. It would be held by every court in the land that the men had, 
 under the National Constitution, a right to vote that could not be taken away. And, 
 by the way, a question is often made as to what this right to vote shall be called — 
 whether a natural right or mere privilege. I do not care for names. But if the men 
 of Massachusetts were thus debarred from voting, and were struggling to recover 
 the franchise, their right to it would be precisely w^hat that of women is to-day. I 
 do not care what you call it. I am satisfied to call it a fundamental right. 
 
 Here, then, we have the Constitution of the United States declaring in the four- 
 teenth amendment that all persons born in the United States and subject to the ju- 
 risdiction thereof are citizens, not only of the United States, but of the State wherein 
 they reside; and in the fifteenth recognizing the right of citizens to vote; and yet a 
 judge of the Supreme Court of the United States declares from the bench that the 
 citizen's right to vote comes from the State alone, and thus that a State may dis- 
 franchise any of its citizens except black men, these alone being protected from dis- 
 franchisement by the latter clause of the fifteenth amendment — "on account of race, 
 color, or previous condition of servitude." Thus you perceive that, as I have just 
 suggested, a majority of the present voters in any State may, under this view, dis- 
 franchise every other voter who has gray hair or bine eyes, or any physical i^eculiar- 
 ity but a black skin ; may disfranchise all men over forty years of age, or all men worth 
 less than $50,000, or all men of the temperance party, or the labor party, or the Re- 
 publican or Democratic parties; in short, every one but themselves, the then major- 
 ity of voters; and Judge Hunt accepted this conclusion and declared that this is the 
 constitutional law of the United States as interpreted by him in his capacity of 
 judge of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 He did this because he was so imbued with the theory of State rights as against na- 
 tional rights, and so filled with prejudice against the rights of women in govern- 
 ment that he was determined to interpret these amendments in behalf of black men 
 alone, although the wording of them leaves no room for question that they embrace 
 
36 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 all the people of tlie United States according to the meaning and intent of that word j 
 " people" in all the previous articles of the National Constitution. | 
 And yet this is but half, and the least criminal half, of his unjust decision in the|i 
 case of Miss Anthony. Not content with misinterpreting the law of the United i 
 States by proclaiming that the right to vote of every citizen but black citizens was 
 subject to loss at the pleasure of a bare majority of voters, he denied to Miss Anthony 
 the right of trial by jury —that is, ho decided the case himself, and caused the clerk of 
 the court to record the verdict of guilty without reference to the jury, who were impan- 
 eled for the case, who had been sitting all through the trial to hear the case, and who 
 alone were legally competent to bring in a verdict u^^on it. And when Miss Anthony's 
 counsel asked leave to address the jury he was denied ; and when he asked that the 
 jury be polled— that is, that each member might be asked by name if this was his 
 verdict, he was again denied, and Judge Hunt then instructed the clerk to take the 
 verdict, and the clerk said, in the usual form : Gentlemen of the jury, hearken to 
 the verdict as the court hath recorded it. You say you find the defendant guilty of 
 the offense charged. So say you all." | 
 
 No response was made by the jury, either by word or sign. They had not consulted 
 together in their seat or otherwise. Neither of them had spoken a word. Nor had 
 they been asked whether they had or had not agreed upon a verdict. No juror spoke 
 a word during the trial from the time they were impaneled to the time of the dis- 
 charge, and so soon as the judge refused to poll the jury he said, ''Gentlemen of the 
 jury, you are discharged," and the jurors left the box, and one of them declared to a 
 bystander that guilty was not his verdict, neither was it the verdict of the other 
 eleven. ''Could I have spoken," said he, "I should have answered not guilty, and 
 men in that jury box would have sustained me." It seems, friends, that he and the 
 other jurors had a right to speak and to demand that the verdict be submitted to the 
 jury in some way. But they did not understand their rights in this respect, and were 
 naturally in awe of a judge of the Supreme Court of the United States, and the judge 
 must have known that they would be thus awed, or he would not have dared thus 
 to transgress the ordinary rules of law. And for this act he deserved impeachment^ 
 and had the accused been a foreign born, though naturalized, citizen of the United 
 States, on trial for fraudulent voting, which is a criminal offense, you know, punish- 
 able by heavy fine and imprisonment, and had he been thus denied a verdict from the 
 jury, the press would have rung out the injustice all over the land. And this simply 
 because this man being an acknowledged voter would have had a political party be- 
 hind him, whose interest it was to protect him and every other citizen, whether free- j 
 born or naturalized, in his right to vote. 
 
 Thus you see how in this right to vote is wrapped up the great volume of our 
 cherished rights. Judge Hunt began with denying to women their citizens' right to j 
 vote, and by an easy step passed on to denying that right regarded most sacred of 
 all, the right of trial by jury. 
 
 And the crime of Judge Hunt in refusing Miss Anthony her right of trial by jury 
 was all the greater because there was no appeal from his court to any higher one, as 
 is customary in all our other courts. A circuit court judge may review His ow^n de- 
 cision, but there is no appeal from his final decision in such a case as this, and in this 
 case the judge refused even to reconsider the case, though strenuously urged to do so 
 by Judge Selden, Miss Anthony's able counsel. Do you ask why Judge Hunt was 
 willing thus to soil the purity of his judicial ermine and lower the dignity of the 
 court ? I answer, precedent and prejudice held him in bonds, as it does many other 
 men of character and position, and he felt doubtless that he was rendering his coun- 
 try a good service when he pronounced it a crime for a woman citizen of the United 
 States to vote under the same charter with the men citizens of the United States. 
 And there are hundreds of men who think themselves both wise and just who would 
 have been glad of his opportunity to do the same thing and thus crush out this 
 h(iresy of woman's right to help to make and execute the laws she is to live under. 
 But, friends, you remember that " truth crushed to earth shall rise again ; " and this 
 truth of the political equality of woman ha?j risen already from its judicial grave and 
 in white raiment is marching on, like John Brown's soul, conquering and to conquer. 
 And the day is not far distant when this decision of Judge Ward Hunt will be over- 
 ruled and trodden under foot, and he himself will be compelled to submit at last to a 
 verdict, just but humiliating, a verdict recorded on high in the book of everlasting 
 judgments.* 
 
 And now permit me to give you briefly the argument of woman's right to vote in 
 our State elections as well as national, in consequence of the fourteenth and fifteenth 
 
 * The atrocity of Judge Hunt's course in Miss Anthony's case so strikingly illus- 
 trated the almost universal rule that in striking down ore just right other important 
 ones are trampled down with it, that I have thought it best to insert in the appendix 
 a critical review of the matter, jirepared at the time by my husband, Mr. John Hooker, 
 and published in Miss Anthony's history of her trial. 
 
WOMAN SUFFEAGE. 
 
 37 
 
 amendments to the Constitution of the United States. It is simply this: Before the 
 war, and reconstruction acts following it, the word ''citizen" was not fully defined, 
 some jurists contending that all persons owing allegiance to the Government and pro- 
 tected by it were properly citizens, and others, that only those who were accredited 
 legal voters could properly be called citizens. Then, when the Republican party de- 
 sired to enfranchise the black men, partly for the sake of securing 'their votes (I do 
 not say that this was the sole moLivo) in the next Presidental election, it was not 
 willing to deface the national Constitution by such words as those, "All black men, 
 formerly slaves, are citizens of the United States," and "No State shall make or en- 
 force any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of black men;" and 
 again, **The right of black citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied 
 or abridged by any State," and therefore it was driven to the annunciation of a 
 general principle of citizenship, applicable to all persons at all times, and this was 
 the principle that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject 
 to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein 
 they reside." This a grand assertion, a true one, and one in harmony, as I have already 
 shown, with the spirit and letter of the whole Constitution of the United States and 
 the Declaration of Independence, and, like them, it embraced all women as well as 
 all men, and secured to all women no less than all men their right to vote. 
 
 Now, friends, mark these words : " Secure " and " righ t to vote." Our claim is that 
 the original Constitution gave no right to vote to any man or woman, but it simply 
 secured to every man and woman his or her original natural right to govern himself 
 or herself, except so far as he or she delegates this to others for purposes of social 
 order. And these amendments, following the spirit of the Constitution in preamble 
 and articles, declare that all persons are citizens, and reco;j;nize the citizen's right to 
 vote. Can anything be plainer, then, than that a woman, being a '* person," is a citi- 
 zen, and being a "citizen," has the citizen's right to vote? 
 
 It was under this conviction that she had a plain right to vote, and therefore a plain 
 duty to vote, that Miss Anthony determined to cast her vote for President and mem- 
 bers of Congress at a certain election. And she succeeded in convincing the regis- 
 trars of her ward and the inspectors of elections that she had this right, insomuch 
 that they registered her name, and the oath of the elector was administered and her 
 ballot was received and counted, and then the United States came down upon her as 
 a criminal, and prosecuted her for illegal voting under a law of Congress passed in 
 1870 on purpose to enforce the provisions of the fourteenth and fifteenth amend- 
 ments. 
 
 Please notice now that formerly each State had charge of its own elections and the 
 United States had no right to interfere with the elections in any State, even though 
 the election was for national officers, but in the eagerness of the Republican party to 
 enforce the amendments which would bring black votes to their aid, they gave a new 
 power to Congress in this section, "Congress shall have the power to enforce this 
 article," viz, "the right of citizens of the United States to vote without denial on 
 account of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." And Congress passed 
 what is called the enforconient act of 1870, which is entitled "An act to enforce the 
 right of citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of the Union." 
 General terms again here, you perceive ; not an act to enforce the right of black men 
 to vote in the several States of the Union, but of all citizens of the United States. 
 And the first eighteen clauses of the act are very minute in their provisions for the 
 protection of these black men whose votes wore wanted; and then there was a nine- 
 teenth clause, that was intended solely to hinder white rebel men from voting, who 
 had been disfranchised during the war, and this clause reads thus: "If at any elec- 
 tion for Representatives or Delegates to Congress of the United States any person shall 
 vote without having a lawful right to vote, every such person shall be deemed guilty 
 of a crime, and shall for such crime bo liable to prosecution in any court of the United 
 States of competent jurisdiction, and on conviction thoreof shall be punished by a 
 fine not exceeding $500, or by a terra of imprisonment not exceeding three years, or 
 both, in the discretion of the court, and shall pay the costs of prosecution." 
 
 And under this clause of the enforcement act of 1870, which was made expressly 
 to punish white male rebel citizens for voting after they had been disfranchised for 
 rebellion, Judge Hunt condemned Susan B. Anthony for the crime of voting " with- 
 out having a lawful right to vote." This woman, the blackest of Black Republicans, 
 who had, with others like herself, furnivslied Mr. Sumner with half his ammunition, 
 in the shape of petitions from thousands and thousands of citizens in behalf of the 
 black man — names which it was an enormous task to collect, but without which all 
 appeals to Congress to do justice would have been in vain ; this woman, who had vio- 
 lated the infamous fugitive slave law every time by giving the cup of cold water to 
 the panting fugitive and speeding him on his way to free soil in Canada — she, thank 
 God, of all women in this land, was selected by the Government of the United 
 States to be prosecuted, dragged from one court to another, harassed during the 
 space of nearly a year, tried at last in another city, and fined for the crime of vot- 
 
38 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 ing for President of the United States and members of Congress, under an act en- 
 titled "An act to enforce the riglit of citizens of the United States to vote in the 
 several States of this Union," and under a clause of that act that made it a crime for 
 a rebel to vote, because he had been deprived of his citizen's right to vote by special 
 act of Congress in consequence of his crime of rebellion. 
 
 And, friends, do you not know that no citizen can be lawfully disfranchised either 
 by State or nation except for crime or rebellion, and then only by the judgment of 
 his peers * But in this case of Miss Anthony, she was punished, not only as if she had 
 beeu guilty of crime or rebellion, or both, but she was, so far as the unjust judgment 
 of the court could do it, disfranchised for evermore, and that without the judgment 
 of her peers, in a double sense; for she was not only denied the verdict of the male 
 jury sitting there on purpose to render their verdict, but a jury of her peers she could 
 uot have, nor can any woman, so long as women are denied the right to vote and to 
 sit upon a jury. And, in the case of Miss Anthony's jury, had they been allowed to 
 render a verdict, it would have beeu a verdict not of her peers, but of her political 
 superiors, and this would have been true of them however ignorant or uneducated 
 they were ; whether black men or white, drunk or sober, every man of them was her 
 sovereign, with power uot only to make but to administer the laws under which she 
 is compelled to live. 
 
 And herein is the degradation of woman to-day, not only that she can not have a 
 voice in making the laws and choosing officers to execute the laws, but she is com- 
 pelled to be taxed, fined, imprisoned, hung even, by the verdict always of her politi- 
 cal superiors, her male sovereigns, every one of whom is considered competent to 
 legislate for her and to sit in judgment upon her by court and jury now and for 
 evermore. Do you wonder that Miss Anthony declared to Judge Hunt that she 
 should never pay this fine, or that he, apparently cowed by this modern John Ham- 
 den, blandly replied : " The court does not order you to stand committed till the 
 fine is paid f" Judge Hunt knew full well that Miss Anthony would goto jail a 
 thousaud times before she would pay this unjust fine. And he knew also that the 
 spectacle of this woman in prison for three years under charge of voting without 
 having a lawful right to vote" would rouse the nation to a sense of woman's 
 political status before the law as nothing else could do ; therefore he virtually re- 
 mitted the tine, and by so doing sealed forever his own condemnation. 
 
 Do you ask, why recount this trial, and so asperse the character of a learned and 
 otherwise upright judge? I answer, because his decision has become a precedent, 
 and on this account we have been compelled to relinquish, temporarily at least, our 
 high vantage ground of constitutional rights and guaranties and resort to the ad- 
 vocacy of an amendment to the National and State constitutions, measures alike dis- 
 honoring to the constitutions and to the womanhood of the country.* 
 
 We believe, with Senator Hawley, from my own State, whom I have been proud 
 to claim as a personal friend for many years, that (and I now give his own language 
 as reported in the Hartford Couraut) " our Government involves a great deal of 
 labor for us. ' Liberty is a burden, not a release,' a French philosopher has said. If 
 you want ease, appoint as good a king as you can find, give him good counsellors, and 
 tell them to save you all trouble. You will have ease ; but if you desire real free- 
 dom, it means labor. The twelve million sovereigns of this country [notice here 
 that my friend calls this voting half of the people the ' sovereigns,' just as I have done] 
 are bound each to know something of the responsibility that is constantly taught in 
 caucus, town meetings, etc. The caucus should be only a meeting of honest citizens 
 to see what had best be done." And as there are thousands of women quite ready to 
 assume this responsibility of seeing what had best be done in the primary meetings 
 of all the cities and villages of our land, and thousands more who will do it consci- 
 entiously, though reluctantly, when called to it by invitation of their fathers, 
 brothers, husbands, and sons, we desire most earnestly that the approaching second 
 century of male legislation should witness a reversal of this unjust decision of Judge 
 Hunt and proclaim the freedom and responsibility of all the citizens of these 
 United States. Let our brothers, then, consecrate this opening century of consti- 
 tutional government by an act of justice that shall be a supreme one, and that shall 
 make our National Constitution forever a charter of the highest human rights. 
 Aud let them, in token of their willingness to recognize our equal political rights, 
 at least invite us to participate with them by personal representation in the cere- 
 monial and pageant that is to welcome in this new century of oonstitutional 
 government. 
 
 I said in the beginning that women ought to exercise their constitutional right to 
 
 * The ofiicial report of Miss Anthony's trial may be found in 11 Blatchford (Circuit 
 Court Reports), 200, of the circuit court of the northern district of the State of New 
 York, and the subsequent decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in the 
 case of Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, of Missouri, for which Judge Hunt's decision became 
 the precedent, may be found in 21 Wallace (U. S. Reports), 162. 
 
WOJUN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 39 
 
 vot», and men ought to help them to do so by every means in their power. And this 
 for two reasons : 
 
 (1) Because questions of legislation to-day are largely questions of morals, and men 
 alone are incompetent to deal with the morals of a community, however wise and just 
 they may be, and however honest in their desire to promote the general welfare. 
 Education, secular and religious, temperance, chastity, police regulations, penal in- 
 stitutions and reformatories — who has more interest than women citi/ens in all these 
 questions, and more wisdom to bring to their solution ? 
 
 (2) There can be no true manhood nor true womanhood when men rule and women 
 merely obey. Every mother in her home, every woman teacher in our schools is at a 
 discount to-day because of her political subordination. Every boy knows this, and 
 consciously or unconsciously acts accordingly, and true political economy, which is 
 only another name for the science of government, can never be taught until women 
 are intelligent and responsible thinkers upon the subject equally with men, and are 
 able to carry out their convictions at the ballot-box as men do. Hence, I repeat, it 
 is the plain duty of every woman to desire to vote, and of every man to remove the 
 obstacles in her way. 
 
 I will only answer one objection. It is said, "We have too many voters already. 
 It is unjust, to be sure, to exclude all women on this account, but we can not help it. 
 Men will not consent to be disfranchised, so wo must make amends for our mistake 
 in inviting all men to vote by forbidding all women." This is too much like Charles 
 Lamb, who, being reproved for going so late to his desk in-the morning, said he made 
 up for it by going home early in the afternoon. 
 
 But hare we too many voters? In other words, is the doctrine of God and the 
 fathers of this Republic an unsound one, that personal liberty and personal responsi- 
 bility are the only foundations of integrity, whether in the individual or the nation? 
 No, it is not unsound. It is just as true to-day as it was at Sinai and Plymouth Rock. 
 
 "Thou shalt " and "We will," reads tbe Decalogue and the covenant of that old-time 
 Jewish people ; and thus in spirit speak the Constitution of the United States and 
 the Declaration of Independence ; and it is a grand and wholesome doctrine, and one 
 we can not afford to lose sight of for a moment. But those do lose sight of it who say 
 we have too many voters already. No, we have not too many. On the contrary, to 
 take away this ballot even from the ignorant and perverse is to invite discontent, 
 social disturbance, and crime. The restraints and benedictions of this little white 
 symbol are so silent and so gentle, so atmospheric, so like the snow-flakes that come 
 down to guard the slumbering forces of the earth and prepare them for spriogiug into 
 bud, blossom, and fruit in due season, that few recognize the divine alchemy, and 
 many impatient souls are saying we are on the wrong path — the old world was right — 
 the government of the few is safe ; the wise, the rich should rule ; the ignorant, the 
 poor, should serve. But God, sitting between the eternities, has said otherwise, and 
 we of this land are foreordained to prove his word just and true. And we will prove it 
 by inviting every new-comer to our land to share our liberties so dearly bought and 
 our responsibilities now grown so heavy that the shoulders which bear them are 
 staggering under their weight ; that by the joys of freedom and the burdens of re- 
 sponsibility they, with us, may grow* into the stature of perfect men, and our country 
 realize at last the dreams of the great souls who, " appealing to the Supreme Judge 
 of the world for the rectitude of their intentions," did "ordain and establish the Con- 
 stitution for the United States of America" — the grandest charter of human rights 
 that the world has yet conceived. 
 
 OPINIONS OF LEADING THINKERS ON THE GENERAL SUBJECT 
 
 OF HUMAN RIGHTS. 
 
 Richard HooTcer, 1594: "Law, to bind all, must be assented to by all; and there 
 can be no legal appearance of assent without some degree of representation." 
 
 Granville Sharp, 1778: "No tax can be levied without manifest robbery and injus- 
 tice where legal and constitutional representation is wanting, because the English 
 law abhors the idea of taking the least property from freemen without their free 
 consent." 
 
 Lord Somers, about 1700: "Amongst all the rights and privileges appertaining unto 
 us, that of having a share in the legislation, and being governed by such laws as we 
 ourselves shall cause, is the most fundamental and essential, as well as the most ad- 
 vantageous and beneficial." 
 
 Priestly, 1772: "Political liberty, I would say, consists in power which the mem- 
 bers of the State reserve to themselves of arriving at the public offices, or at least 
 of having votes in the nomination of those who fill them." 
 
 Herhert Spencer: "However much the giving of political power to women may dis- 
 agree with our notions of propriety, we conclude that, being required by that first 
 
40 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 prerequisite to greater liappmess, the law of equal freedom, sucli a concession re un 
 questionably right and good." 
 
 Henry Thomas Buclclc : ** The turn of thought of women, their habits of mind, theii 
 conversation, insensibly extending over the whole surface of society, and frequentl.> 
 penetrating its intimate structure, have, more than all other things put together 
 tended to raise us from the dust in which we are too prone to grovel." 
 
 Bev. Charles Khuisley : ^' One principal cause of the failure of so many magnificent 
 schemes, social, jiolitical, religious, which have foUowt d each other ago after age. 
 has been this, that in almost every case they have ignored the rights and the powen 
 of one-half of the human race, namely, women. I believe that nothing will go right, 
 that politics will not go right, that society will not go right, that religion will nol 
 go right, that nothing human ever will go right, except in so far as woman goet 
 right ; and to make woman go right she must be put in her place, and she must havf 
 her rights, and as to what those rights are I have very definite opinions, which I shall 
 not give up for any arguments which I seem likely to meet with iu this present gen- 
 eration." 
 
 Benjamin FranJclin : *' Every man of this commonalty, except infants, insane per- 
 sons, and criminals, is of common right and by the laws of God a freeman, and en- 
 titled to the free enjoyment of liberty. They who have no voice nor vote iu the elect- 
 ing of representatives do not enjoy liberty, but are absolutely enslaved to those who 
 have votes and their representatives ; for to be enslaved is to have governors whom 
 other men have set over us, and be subject to laws made by the representatives ol 
 others, without having had representatives of our own to give consent on our behalf.' j 
 
 Otis^s Righ ts of the Colonies : The very act of taxing exercised over those who are| 
 not represented appears to me to be depriving them of one of their most essential! 
 rights as freemen, and if continued seems to be, iu efiect, an entire disfranchisement 
 of every civil right. If a man is not his own assessor iu person, or by deputy, hia 
 liberty is gone, or he is entirely at the mercjr of others." 
 
 James Madison: Under every view of the subject it seems indispensable that the 
 mass of the citizens should not be without a voice iu making the laws which they 
 are to obey and in choosing the magistrates who are to administer them." 
 
 Abraham Lincoln : I go for all sharing the privilege of the Government who assist 
 in bearing its burdens, by no means excluding women." 
 
 Hon. B. Gratz Brown, Missouri: I venture to affirm that the purity, the refine- 
 ment, the instinctive reading of character, the elegant culture of the women of our 
 laud, if brought to bear on the conduct of political affairs, would do much to elevate 
 them in all their aims and conform them to higher standards of justice. * * * 
 The i^articipation of woman in civil affairs is neither a new nor an uncommon experi- 
 ment." 
 
 Hon. George W. Julian, Indiana : "I am highly gratified with the late demonstra- 
 tion in the Senate on the question of woman suffrage. Do you not admire the speech 
 of Senator Brown ? He takes the ground that I have ever done, that the right of 
 suffrage and representation is a natural right, and not a privilege as many argue, 
 and even some claiming to be radicals." 
 
 Senator Anthony, Rhode Island : "If women are fit to rule in monarchies it is diffi- 
 cult to say why they are not qualified to vote in a republic." 
 
 Harriet Beecher Stoice: "If the principle on which we founded our Government is 
 true, that taxation must not be without representation, a^ul if women hold property 
 and are taxed, it follows that women should be represented in the state by their 
 votes." * * * ''I think the state can no more afford to dispense with the votes 
 of women in its affairs than the family." 
 
 Hon. L. F. S. Foster, Connecticut : "If there can properly be taxation without rep- 
 resentation, our American Revolution was an unjustifiable rebellion, and our Govern- 
 ment is founded on fraud and falsehood." (Letter to John Hooker with regard to the 
 right of tax-paying women to vote in Connecticut.) 
 
 Elizabetli Stuart Phelps : "If De Tocqueville was right in attributing the 'singular 
 prosperity and growing strength of the American people mainly to the superiority of 
 their women,' it is time that the commonwealth availed itself more directly of the 
 reserve forces and sources of such superiority." * * * "I earnestly desire to see 
 a more rational basis for the political future of our sex, which is as sure to develop 
 as the dawn to follow the dark. I have never faltered for an hour either in this wish 
 or this assurance." 
 
 George William Curtis : "Women have quite as much interest in good government 
 as men, and I have never heard or read of any satisfactory reason for excluding them 
 from the ballot-box. I have no more doubt of their ameliorating influence upon 
 politics than I have of the influence they exert everywhere else." 
 
 Rev. S. J. May, Syracuse, N. Y. : "The true family is the type of the true state. It is 
 the absence of the feminine from the conduct of the governments o,f the earth that 
 makes them more or less savage. There are fathers of the state, but no mothers." 
 
 Rev. Henry Ward Beecher : "We need the participation of women in the ballot- 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 41 
 
 box. It is idle to fear that sbe will meet with disrespect or insult at the polls. Let 
 her walk up firmly and modestly to deposit her vote, and all men will make way for 
 her; and if any one ventures to molest her, the crowd will swallow him up as the 
 whale swallowed Jonah." . .„ , 
 
 Bishop Simpson : "I believe that the great vices in our large cities will never be 
 conquered until the ballot is put into the hands of women." 
 
 Bev. James Freeman Clarke : " I do not think our politics will be what they ought 
 till women are legislators and voters." a 
 
 Eev. George W. Boardman, Philadelphia: "America's salvation lies under God in 
 America's women. It is precisely because I desire to conserve our glorious past that 
 I plant myself on the platform of woman suffrage." 
 
 Governor McCook, Colorado : "The logic of a progressive civilization leads to 
 women suffrage as an inevitable result." 
 
 Senator Hoar, Massachusetts : " If there be anything in politics which would degrade 
 women, it is time for that thing to come to an end. The thing we wish chiefly to 
 change is government, and not woman. If there be anything in politics which 
 would tend to degrade or stain the delicacy of the purest and best woman, it is 
 something wMch ought not to exist, and which the presence of woman would tend 
 to banish." 
 
 POLITICAL RIGHTS OF CITIZENS. 
 
 Chief Justice Taney : "The words 'people' of the United States and 'citizens' are 
 synonymous terms, and mean the same thing; they both describe the political body, 
 who, according to onr republican institutions, form the sovereignty, and who hold 
 the power and conduct the Government through their representatives. They are 
 what w^e familiarly call the * sovereign people,' and every citizen is one of these peo- 
 ple and a constituent member of this sovereignty." 
 
 Chief Justice Jay : "At the Kevolution the sovereignty devolved on the people, and 
 they are truly the sovereigns of the country ; but they are sovereigns without subjects 
 (unless the African slaves may be so called), and have none to govern but themselves. 
 The citizens of America are equal as fellow-citizens and joint tenants of the sover- 
 eignty." 
 
 Abraham Lincoln at Gettyshurgh : " These died that the Government of the people, by 
 the people, for the people, should not perish from the earth." 
 
 Webstei'' 8 Dictionary : "A citizen is a person, native or naturalized, who has the 
 privilege of votiug for public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of 
 the people." 
 
 Bouvier^s Law Dictionary : "A citizen is one who, under the Constitution and laws 
 of the United States, has a right to vote for Representatives in Congress and other 
 public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the people." 
 
 Worcester's Dictionary : "A citizen is an inhabitant of a republic who enjoys the 
 rights of a citizen or freeman, and who has aright to vote for public officers as a citi- 
 zen of the United States. " 
 
 The Dutch Publicist, Thorbecke: "The right of citizenship is the right of voting in 
 the government of the local, provincial, or national community of which one is a 
 member. In this last sense the right of citizenship signifies a participation in the 
 right of voting, in the general government, as member of the state." 
 
 Wheaion^s Lnternational Law : " The possession of the jus suffragii, at least, if not 
 also of the jus honorum, is the principle which governs at this day in defining citizen- 
 ship in the countries deriving their jurisprudence from the civil law." 
 
 Aristotle : "A citizen is one who is a partner in the legislative and judicial power, 
 and who shares in the honors of the state. " 
 
 Justice Daniel ( U. S. Supreme Court) : "There is not, it is believed, to be fonnd, in 
 the theories of writers on government, or in any actual experiment heretofore tried, 
 an exposition of the term citizen, which has not been understood as conferring the 
 actual possession and enjoyment, or the perfect right of acquisition and enjoyment, 
 of an entire equality of privileges, civil and political." 
 
 Thomas Paine: "The right of Voting for representatives is the primary right by 
 which other rights are protected. To take away this right is to reduce man to a state 
 of slavery, for slavery consists in being subject to the will of another." 
 
 Justice McKay (supreme court of Georgia) : "It is the settled and uniform sense of 
 the word "citizen," when used in reference to the citizens of the separate States of 
 the United States and to their rights as such citizens, that it describes a person en- 
 titled to every right, legal and political, enjoyed by any person in that State, unless 
 there be some express exceptions made by positive law covering the particular per- 
 sons whose rights are in question." 
 
 Judge fVashington ( U. S. circuit court) : " The inquiry is, what are the privileges and 
 immunities of citizens in the several States? They must all be comprehended under 
 the following general heads." [H' re follows a statement of numerous rights, civil 
 and political, closing as follows:] "To which is to be added the elective franchise, 
 
42 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. | 
 
 as re^;iilated and estaldislied l)v tLe laws or constitutiou of the State in which it i- 
 exercised." (Corfield v. Coryeli, 4 Wash. C. C. K., 360.) 
 
 Supreme court of Kentucky : "No oue can, therefore, in the correct sense of the term 
 be a citizen of a State who is not entitled, upon the terms prescribed by the institu- 
 tions of the State, to all the rights and privileges conferred by these institutions upon 
 the highest class of society." 
 
 Constitution of the United States, fourteenth amendment: "All persons born or nat- 
 uralized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens ol 
 the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or en- 
 force any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the 
 United States." 
 
 REMARKS OF MRS. HOOKER 
 
 [Before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, at "Washington, in Jannary, 1871, 
 in reply to a suggestion of the comuiittee as to the propriety of a greater restriction rather tbau 
 enlargement of the right of suflfiage ] 
 
 We are told by men themselves that there are too many voters already ; restriction 
 is what we want, not enlargement of the suffrage. Let us see how this is, my friends ; 
 let us reason together on this point for a few moments. The one great propelling 
 power of this Government that moves the great political engine, aud that keeps us 
 alive as a nation on the face of the earth, is God's own doctrine of personal liberty 
 and personal responsibility. That is all we have to go upon. It is, in fact, fuel 
 and steam. Liberty is the steam, responsibility puts on the breaks, and then what 
 is the safety-valve, I ask you 1 Is it not our election day ? Look at it in this way. 
 Every honest lawyer will tell you that the next best thing to settling a quarrel be- 
 tween two belligerents is to bring the parties into court, because the court-room is a 
 great cooling-otf place, a perfect refrigerator. A man who has quarreled with hig 
 neighbor comes into court, and before the lawyers get through with him he wishee 
 he hadn't quarreled. How is it that our courts act in this way T What do we gain 
 in this ? Everything. In old times a dispute between man and man was settled by 
 blows — fisticuffs — gradually superseded by the sword ; and now we have thrown that 
 out and established a system of jurisprudence. Now all these petty grievances must 
 be settled in court. Private violence must no longer be permitted, and that is a great 
 march in civilization. 
 
 Now the parallel case is this : We in this country — we men, I mean, for women are 
 nobodies and no^vhere when you come to the discussion of great questions like these 
 but I use the conventional we — " we" in this country are attempting to carry our 
 ideas of liberty and responsibility into legislation ; and we don't agree — we quarrel 
 bitterly and almost come to blows again ; but election days cool us off, acting like a 
 court-room itself upon us. We accept their judgment, and go about our business 
 quietly till next time. Now if we were all Americans, acting under an intelligent 
 sense of responsibility, everything might be expected to run smoothly under this 
 regime ; but the trouble is when the foreigner comes in who does not understand oui 
 institutions, who is, perhaps, ignorant, debased, and superstitious. But the foreigner 
 is, it seems to me, the very man who needs this safety-valve of the election day. 
 We ourselves could run our own nationality ; but here comes this man from the prio 
 cipalities and kingdoms of the old world, — and he has an idea that he is going to be 
 richer, smarter, happier — more on an equality with every other man than ever he 
 was before. He comes here, and what does he find ? He finds a ladder, reaching 
 higher into the clouds, perhaps, but the lower rounds are just as near the earth as 
 over there, and he is on the lowest round still. He sees his next-door neighbor has 
 more money than he has, is better educated, and commands the respect of the com- 
 munity, as he does not, and he is filled with disappointment, and sometimes with 
 rage. What would he naturally do, with his old world antecedents and training 
 when he is thus aggrieved, as he conceives himself to be ? Why, burn your barn — 
 break into your house — steal all he can from yoji. But what does election day do 
 for him ? On that day he is as good as anybody. He goes to the polls side by side 
 with the first man in the land, aud he rides in a carriage there — rf he is too drunk to 
 walk — and he can vote the first man in the line if he chooses. The richest man in 
 the country must walk behind him and wait for his turn. He drops his ballot aud he 
 is cooled off. He soon begins to get hold a little of this idea of responsibility that I am 
 speaking of, and after a while it will come into his head — very slowly, perhaps, for 
 we are all slow to learn these things — that he has got to work himself up and get on 
 a par with these intelligent and influential people who are so powerful in making 
 laws and customs. 
 
 Now, friends, it seems to me if you could disfranchise every foreigner to-day who is 
 not intelligent, or if you could make intelligence the test of voting, you would have 
 ten barns burned where you have one now. I believe it firmly. Being naturally 
 conservative, as I think all women are, a few years ago I really thought that ten, 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 43 
 
 even .twenty years' residence miglit be required of foreigners before they should be 
 allowed to vote. I said they did not know enough, and so ought to be kept out as 
 long as that. To-day, after years of careful observation, and of study of the question, 
 I would not require a day more than the brief term fixed by our present statutes. If 
 disfranchisement meant the annihilation of the trouble I might be glad to get rid of 
 this troublesome question in that way ; the task of running this country would then 
 be a far easier one than it is ; but it does not mean annihilation. So when gentlemen 
 talk with me, and say we have too many voters already, I reply, do not disfranchise 
 these men, enlighten them, for God has sent them here for a purpose of His own. 
 And I say to you to-night, that the ballot in the hands of every man is the only thing 
 that saves us from anarchy to-day, that keeps us alive as a republic, the ballot in the 
 hands of these ignorant men. and the more ignorant they are the more they need it, 
 and the more we need they should have it. And let me say in passino^, that recon- 
 struction in the South is hindered to-day for the same reason ; responsibility is taken 
 away from a large class of citizens. A disfranchised class is always a restless class ; 
 a class that, if it be not as a whole given up to deeds of violence, will at least wink 
 at them, when committed by men either in or out of its own ranks. "What the South 
 needs to-day is ballots, not bullets. 
 
 I leave out of the question the ultimate educating power of the ballot, though I 
 would like to make you an argument upon that alone. But I say give the poor men, 
 ignorant men, the ballot, for purposes of self-defense, and because we could not live 
 in safety in our homes otherwise. New York is poorly governed, we say, to-day, and 
 getting to be a pretty dangerous place to live in. But what would it bo if every 
 foreigner and every ignorant man could not go out on election day and prove that 
 he is as good as anybody ? That is human nature, and it is human nature, and plenty 
 of it, too, that we have'to deal with. 
 
 And now, my friends, let me ask you, what are these men sent here for, and who 
 sent them ? We have got all Europe, and all Asia is coming ; and who sends them ? 
 When God put into that good ship Mayflower those two great ribs of oak, personal liberty 
 and personal responsibility, He knew the precious freight she was to bear, and ail 
 the hopes bound up in her, and He x)ledged himself by both the great eternities, the 
 past and the future, that that ship should weather all storms and come safe to port 
 with all she had on board. And what God has promised He will perform. So I beg of 
 70U not to think for a moment of limiting manhood suffrage. You cut your own 
 throats the day you do it. 
 
 I And if men can not live in this country in safe homes except their neighbor men 
 ire enfranchised, can they live without enfranchised women any more? If you can 
 \ iot live in safety with irresponsible men in your midst, how can you live with irre- 
 I >ponsible women ? Much more, how can you grow into the stature of perfect men in 
 Christ Jesus, our Lord I How can you become perfect legislators, except your mothers 
 ' ire instructed on these great subjects you are called to legislate upon, that they may 
 I nstruct you in their turn? You do not know anything so well as what your mothers 
 lave taught you ; but they have not taught you political economy. It is not their 
 ault that they have not, nor yours, perhaps. No man or woman studies a subject 
 )rofoundly, except he or she is called upon to act upon it. What business man studies 
 I business foreign to his own ? What woman studies a business foreign to her own ? 
 [ 'n past ages this woman, in the providence of God, we will say, has been shut out 
 rom political action, for, so long as the sword ruled and man had to get his liberty 
 ^ )y the sword, so long woman had all she could do to guard the home, for that was her 
 ^ )art of the work — and she did it bravely and well, you will say. But now men are 
 » lot fighting for their liberty with the gun by the door and the Indians outside. You 
 ire fighting for it in halls of legislation, with the spirit of truth, with spiritual 
 , veapons, and woman would be disloyal to her womanhood if she did not ask to share 
 hese heavy responsibilities with you. And she has really been training herself all 
 , hese years she has seemed so indifferent ; she has neglected her duty in part — I con- 
 ^ ess it freely. It is not your fault alone, gentlemen, that we are not with you to-day. 
 r f we had been as aware of our duty and privilege years ago as we are to-day, if we 
 ^ lad known our birthright, we should have stood by your side, welcome coadjutors, 
 , ;>Dg since. So we will take the blame of the past alike ; we have all been walking 
 ^ ory slowly this path of Christian civilization. But in the greatest conflict of modern 
 . j imes you announced great principles and fought for them on the field, and we stood 
 I -y thena in the home, and we stand by them still there. And when we come to delib- 
 rate with you in solemn council as to how these principles shall be carried into legis- 
 I ition, your task will be easier, our opportunity will be larger, and still our hearts 
 rill be where they have ever been, in our homes. 
 
 S. Rep, I— 
 
44 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 JUDGE HUNT AND THE RIGHT OF TRIAL BY JURY. 
 
 By John Hooker, Hartford, Conn. 
 
 Ill the recent trial of Susan B. Anthony for voting (illegally, as was claimed, on the 
 gromul that as a woman she had no right to vote— a point which we do not propose 
 to consider, though we have a very positive opinion in favor of her right), the course 
 of Judge Hunt, in taking the case from the jury and ordering a verdict of guilty to 
 entered up, was so remarkable, so contrary to all rules of law, and so subrersive 
 of the system of jury trials iu criminal cases, that it should not be allowed to pass 
 without an emphatic protest on the part of every public journal that values our liber- 
 ties. 
 
 Let us, first of all, see precisely what were the facts. Miss Anthony was charged 
 with having knowingly voted, without lawful right to vote, at the Congressional 
 election ill the Eighth ward of the city of Rochester, m the State of New York, iu No- 
 vember, 1872. The act of Congress under which the prosecution was brought pro- 
 vides that, " If, at any election for Representative or Delegate in the Congress of the 
 United States, any person shall knowingly personate and vote, or attempt to rote, in 
 the name of any othe"r person, whether living,dead,orfictitious,or vote more than once 
 at the same election for any candidate for the same office, or vote at a place where the 
 may not be lawfully entitled to vote, or vote without having a lawful right to vote, 
 every such person shall be deemed guilty of a crime," etc. 
 
 The trial took place at Canandaigua, in the State of New York, in the circuit court 
 of the United States, before Judge Hunt, of the Supreme Court of the United States. 
 
 The defendant pleaded not guiltj' — thus putting the Government upon the proof 
 of their entire case, admitting, however, that she was a woman, but admitting uoth 
 ing more. 
 
 The only evidence that she voted at all, and that, if at all, she voted for a Repre 
 sentative in Congress, offered on the part of the Government, was that she handed 
 four bits of paper, folded in the form of ballots, to the inspectors, to be placed in 
 the voting boxes. There was nothing on the outside of these papers to indicate 
 what they were, and the contents were not known to the witnesses nor to the in 
 specters. " There were six ballot-boxes and each elector had the right to cast six 
 ballots. 
 
 This evidence would undoubtedly warrant the conclusion that Miss Anthony voted 
 for a Congressional representative, the fact probably appearing, although thepaperi 
 before the writer do not show it, that one of the supposed ballots was placed by hei 
 direction in the box for votes for members of Congress. The facts are thus minutelj 
 stated, not at all for the purpose of questioning their sufficiency, but to show hov\ 
 entirely it was a (question of fact, and therefore a question for the jury. 
 
 Upon this evidence Judge Hunt directed the clerk to enter a verdict of guilty 
 The counsel for the defendant interposed, but without effect, the judge closing th< 
 discussion by saying, " Take the verdict, Mr. Clerk." The clerk then said, ''Gen 
 tleiuen of the jury, hearken to your verdict, as the court has recorded it. You sa; 
 you find the defendant guilty of the offense whereof she stands indicted, and so sa; 
 you all." To this the jury made no response, and were immediately after dismissed 
 
 It is stated in one of the public papers, by a person present at the trial, that imme 
 diately after the dismissal of the jury one of the jurors said to him that that was no' 
 his verdict, nor that of the rest, and that if he could have spoken he should hav 
 answered "Not guilty," and that the other jurors would have sustained him in i1 
 The writer has no authority for this statement beyond the letter mentioned. Th 
 juror, of course, had a right, when the verdict was read by the clerk, to declare tha 
 it was not his verdict, but it is not strange, perhaps, that an ordinary juror, with n 
 time to consider or consult with his fellows, and probably ignorant of his rights an 
 in awe of the court, should have failed to assert himself at such a moment. 
 
 Probably the assumption by the judge that Miss Anthony in fact voted did h( 
 no real injustice, as it was a notorious fact that she did vote, and claimed the rigl 
 to do so. But all this made it no less an usurpation for the judge to take the ca- 
 from the jury, and order a verdict of guilty to be entered up -without consultin 
 them. 
 
 There was, however, a real injustice done her by the course of the judge, inasmuc 
 as the mere fact of her voting, and voting unlawfully, was not enough for her convi 
 tion. It Is a perfectly settled rule of law that there must exist an intention to do an ( 
 legal act to make an act a crime. It is of course not necessary that a person perpetr; . 
 ing a crime should have an actual knowledge of a certain law which forbids the act, I «i«8A; 
 he must have a criminal intent. Thus, if one is charged with theft, and admits t 
 taking of the property, which is clearly proved to have belonged to another, it is y 
 a good defense that lie really believed that he had a right to take it, or that he to 
 it by mistake. Just so iu a case where, as sometimes occurs, the laws regulating t 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 45 
 
 right to vote in a State are of doubtful meaning, and a voter is uncertain whether he 
 has a right to vote in one town or another, and, upon taking advice from good coun- 
 sel, honestly makes up his mind that he has a right to vote in the town of A. In this 
 belief he applies to the registrars of that town, who, upon the statement of the facts, 
 are of the opinion that he has a right to vote there, and place his name upon the list, 
 and on election day he votes there without objection. Xow, if he should be prose- 
 cuted for illegal voting, it would not be enough that he acknowledged the fact of 
 voting, and that the judge was of the opinion that his view of the law wns wrong. 
 There would remain another and most vital question in the case, and that is, did he 
 intend to vote uulawfully J 
 
 Now, precisely the wrong that would be done to the voter in the case we are sup- 
 posing, by the judge ordering a verdict of guilty to be entered up, was done by that 
 course in Miss Anthony's case. She thoroughly believed that she had a right to vote. 
 In addition to this she had consulted one of the ablest lawyers in western New York, 
 who gave it as his opinion that she had a right to vote, and who te^tiiied on the trial 
 that he had given her that advice. The act of Congress upon which the prosecution 
 was founded uses the term " knowingly," — ''shall knowingly vote or attempt to vote 
 in the name of any other person, or more than once at the same election for any 
 candidate for the same ofiSce, or vote at a place where he may not be lawfully enti- 
 tled to vote, or without having a lawful right to vote." Here most manifestly the 
 term " knowingly" does not apply to the mere act of voting. It is hardly possible 
 that a man should vote and not know the fact that he is voting. The statute will 
 bear no possible construction but*that which makes the term " knowingly" apply to 
 the illegality of the act. Thus, "shall knowingly vote without having a lawful 
 right to vote," can only mean, shall vote knowing that there is no lawful right to 
 vote. This being so, there was manifestly a most vital question beyond that of the 
 fact of voting, and of the conclusion of the judge that the voting was illegal, namely, 
 did Miss Anthony vote knowing that she had no right to vote ? 
 
 Now, many people will say that Miss Anthony ought to have known that she 
 had no right to vote, and will perhaps regard it as an audacious attempt, for mere 
 effect, to assert a right that she might think she ought to have, but could not really 
 have believed that she had. But whatever degree of credit her claim to have acted 
 honestly in the matter is entitled to, whether to much, or little, or none, it was 
 entirely a question for the jury, and they alone could pass upon it. The judge had 
 no right even to express an opinion on the subject to the jury, much less to instruct 
 them upon it, and least of all to order a verdict of guilty without consulting them. 
 
 There seems to have been an impression, as the writer infers from various notices 
 of the matter in the public papers, that the case had resolved itself into a pure 
 question of law. Thus, a legal correspondent of one of our leading religious 
 papers, in defending the course of Judge Hunt, says : "There was nothing before 
 the court but a pure question of law. Miss Anthony violated the law of the State 
 intentionally and deliberately, as she openly avowed, and when brought to trial her 
 only defense was that the law was unconstitutional. Here was nothing whatever 
 to go to the jury." And again he says: " In jury trials all questions of law are de- 
 cided by the judge." This writer is referred to only as expressing what are supj)osed 
 to be the views of many others. 
 
 To show, however, how entirely incorrect is this assumption of fact, I insert here 
 the. written points submitted by Miss Anthony's counsel to the court, for its instruc- 
 l;l tion to the jury. 
 
 gi J^\rst. — Tnat if the defendant, at the time of voting, believed that she had a right 
 J to vote, and voted in good faith in that belief, she is not guilty of the oifense charged. 
 J Second. — In determining the question whether she did or did not believe that she 
 J had a right to vote, the jury may take into consideration, as bearing upon that ques- 
 j^, tion, the advice which she received from the counsel to whom she applied. 
 
 Third. — That they may also take into consideration, as bearing upon the same ques- 
 I tion, the fact that the inspectors considered the question and came to the conclusion 
 J tliat she had a right to vote. 
 
 J Fourth. —That the jury have a right to find a general verdict of guilty or not guilty, 
 IS they shall believe that she has or has not been guilty of the offense prescribed in 
 the statute. 
 
 n This certainly makes it clear that the question was not "a pure question of law," 
 p|i md that there was "something to go to the jury." And this would be so even if, as that 
 
 jvriter erroneously supposes. Miss Anthony had openly avowed before the court that 
 
 she voted. 
 
 But even if this point be wholly laid out of the case, and it had been conceded that 
 vliss Anthony had knowingly violated the law, if she should be proved to have voted 
 i)t all, so that the only questions before the court were, first, whether she had voted 
 MS charged, and secondly, whether the law forbade her voting; and if in this state of 
 he case a hundred witnesses had been brought by the Government to testify that she 
 lad " openly avowed" in their presence that she had voted, so that practically the 
 
4G 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 question of her having voted was i)rove<l beyond all possible qnestion, still the judge 
 wonkl have had no right to order a verdict of guilty. The proof that she voted would 
 still be evidence, and mere evidence, and a judge has no power whatever to deal with 
 evidence. Ue can deal only with the law in the case, and the jury alone can deal with 
 the facts. 
 
 But we will go further than this. We will suppose that in New York, as in some 
 of the States, a defendant in a crinu\jal case is allowed to testify, and that Miss 
 Anthony had gone upon the staml as a witness, and had stated distinctly and un- 
 equivocally that she did in fact vote as charged. We must not forget that, if this 
 had actually occurred, she would at the same time have stated that she voted in the 
 full belief that she had a right to vote, and that she was advised by eminent counsel 
 that she had such a right; a state of the case which we have before referred to as 
 presenting a vital quehtion of fact for the jury, and which excludes the possibility of 
 the case being legally dealt with by the judge alone; but this point we are laying 
 out of the case in the- view we are now taking of it. We will suppose that Miss 
 Anthony not only testified that she voted in fact, but also that she had nobelif^f that 
 she had any right to vote; making a case where, if the court should hold as a matter 
 of law that she had no right to vote, there would seem to be no possible verdict for 
 the jury to bring in but that of ''guilty." 
 
 Even in this case, which would seem to resolve itself as much as possible into a 
 mere question of law, there is yet no power whatever on the part of the judge to 
 order a verdict of guilty, but it rests entirely in the judgment and conscience of the 
 jury what verdict they will bring in. They may act unwisely and unconscicntiously, 
 perhaps by mere favoritism, or a weak sympathy, or prejudice, or on any other inde- 
 fensible ground; but yet they have entire power over the matter. It is for them 
 finally to say what their verdict shall be, and the judge has no power beyon i that of 
 instruction upon the law involved in the case. 
 
 The proposition laid down by the writer before referred to, that " in jury trials all 
 questions of law are decided by the judge," is not unqualifiedly true. It is so in civil 
 causes, but in criminal causes it has been holden by many of our best courts that the 
 jury are judges of the law as well as of the facts. Pages could be filled with authori- 
 ties in support of this proposition. The courts do hold, however, that the judges are 
 to instruct the jury as to the law, and that it is their duty to take the law as thus 
 laid down. But it has never been held that if the jury assume the responsibility of 
 holding a prisoner not guilty in the face of a charge from the judge that required a 
 verdict of guilty, where the question was wholly one of law, they had not full power 
 to do it. 
 
 The question is one ordinarily of little practical importance, but it here helps to 
 make clear the very point we are discussing. Here the judge laid down the law, cor- 
 rectly we will suppose, certainly in terms that left the jury uo doubt as to what he 
 meaut ; and here, by all the authorities, the jury ought, as a matter of proper defer 
 euce in one view or of absolute duty iu the other, to have adopted the view oi 
 the law given them by the judge. But it was in either case the jury only who could 
 apply the law to the case. The judge could instruct, but the jury only could apply 
 the instruction. That is, the instruction of the judge, no matter how authoritativ 
 we may regard it, could find its way to the defendant only through the verdict of the 
 jury. 
 
 It is only where the confession of facts is matter of record (that is, where the pleafilec 
 or recorded in the case admits them), that the judge can enter up a judgment with 
 out the finding of a jury. Thus, if the defendant pleads " guilty," there is no uee< 
 of a jury finding him so. If, however, he pleads " not guilty," then no matter ho 
 overwhelming is the testimony against him on the trial, uo matter if a hundred wit 
 nesses prove his admission of all the facts, the whole is not legally decisive like 
 plea of guilty ; but the question still remains a question of fact, and the jury alon 
 can determine what the verdict shall be. Iu other w^ords, it is no less a question 
 fact for the reason that the evidence is all one way aud overwhelming, or that th 
 defendant has in his testimony admitted all the facts against himself. 
 
 The writer has intended this article for general rather than professional reader 
 and has therefore not encumbered it with authorities ; but he has stated only rul 
 and principles that are well established and familiar to all persons practicing in oi 
 courts of law. 
 
 This case illustrates an important defect in the law with regard to the revision 
 verdicts and judgments in the United States circuit court. In almost all other conr 
 an application for a new trial on the ground of erroneous rulings by the judge is ma( 
 to a higher and independent tribunal. In this court, however, an application for 
 new trial is addressed to and decided by the same judge who tried the case and who 
 erroneous rulings are complained of. Such a motion was made and argued by M 
 Anthony's counsel before Judge Hunt, who refused to grant a new trial. Thus it w 
 Judge Hunt alone who wpis to decide whether Judge Hunt was wrong. It is mauifi 
 that the opportunity for securing justice even before the most honest of judges wou 
 
 Coi 
 
 slioi 
 tliiii 
 
 ritur 
 Mi 
 
 ik 
 
 loo: 
 
WOMAN SUFFEAGE. 
 
 47 
 
 be somewhat less than before an entirely distinct tribunal, us the judjcje would be 
 prejudiced in favor of his own opinion, and the best and most learned of judges are 
 human and fallible ; while if a judge is disposed to be unfair, it is perfectly easy for 
 him to suppress all attempts of a party injured by his decision to set it aside. 
 
 The only remedy for a party thus wronged is by an appeal to the public. Such an 
 appeal, as a friend of justice and of the law, without regard to Miss Anthony's case 
 in any other aspect, the writer makes in this Article. The public, thus the only ap- 
 pellate tribunal, should willingly listen to such a case and pass its own suxireme and 
 decisive judgment upon it. 
 
 The writer can not but regard Judge Hunt's course as not only irregular as a mat- 
 ter of law, but a very dangerous encroachment on the right of every person accused 
 to be tried by a jury. It is by yielding to such encroachments that liberties are lost. 
 
 KEMARKS BY MRS. VIRGINIA L. MINOR. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Mrs. Hooker has referred to the decision of Justiee 
 Hunt in the circuit court of the northern district of New York declar- 
 ing that women are not entitled to exercise the right to vote under the 
 fourteenth amendment. I now have the pleasure of introducing to you 
 Mrs. Virginia L. Minor^ of Missouri, whose case was carried up to the 
 Supreme Court of the United States and a unanimous decision given 
 against the powers of the fourteenth amendment to protect women on 
 the ground that the United States Constitution has no voters." Mrs. 
 Minor will now address the committee. She will read a statement of 
 woman's rights under the Constitution, as it is prepared by her husband, 
 Mr. Francis Minor, who, it will be remembered, plead her case before 
 the Supreme Court in 1875. 
 
 Mrs. Minor. Gentlemen, in 1884 the chairman of your committee 
 (Mr. Cockrell) declared "that suflrage belonged entirely to the States 
 so long as no class of citizens were disfranchised." I hold that women 
 are a class of citizens in the different States who are disfranchised. 
 But I am happy to say the Senator must have changed his opinion on 
 that subject, because I notice that he has voted in Congress to take 
 away suffrage in one of the Territories. He has gone far beyond the 
 Constitution in taking away suffrage from the women of the Territory 
 of Utah. 
 
 In opposition to the Senator Mr. Madison, one of the framers of the 
 Constitution, declared, and left it on record, that '^should the people of 
 any State by any means be deprived of the right of suffrage, they 
 H should appeal to the General Government." He also goes on to say 
 •■ that " to have left this question to the legislation of the States would 
 J| have been impolitic." The wisdoni of this prevision has been shown 
 J in regard to the suffrage given by the legislature of Washington Ter- 
 at ritory, where it has been taken away because of the plea that it was 
 '^J not secured on constitutional grounds. 
 
 2 Now, gentlemen, 1 wish to show you from this paper of Mr. Minor's 
 I that we think woman's right to vote is secured on constitutional 
 rsl grounds. 
 
 lea 
 
 n THE LAW OF FEDERAL SUFFRAGE 
 
 To the National Woman Suffrage Association : 
 
 You are again in session for the purpose of renewing your appeal to Congress to 
 propose an amendment to the Constitution w hich shall forbid the denial of your right 
 to vote on account of sex. 
 
 Twenty-one years have elapsed since you first made application for this purpose, 
 and yet success seems as distant as ever. 
 
 For this reason some members of the association are considering the propriety of 
 bringing the matter before t he Supreme Court with the view of securing, if possible, 
 X reversal of the decision in the case of Minor vs. Happersett, and I liave been re- 
 quested to state briefly the grounds upon which such au application must rest. 
 
48 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 There is no impropriety or inconsistence in pursuing both methods at the same 
 time. 
 
 It will be necessary to state a few general propositions. 
 
 Since the adoption of the fourteenth amendment "all persons born or naturalized 
 in the United States aud subject to the jurisdiction thereof are citizens of the United 
 States and of the State in which they reside." 
 
 This amendment for the lirst time admitted the negro race to citizenship. Men 
 aud women of the white race had always been citizens or members of the national 
 body-politic. In that section of the Constitution we are now to consider, the term 
 used is the people," but Chief-Justice Taney tells us that the words people and citi- 
 zens are synonymous terms and mean the same thing. (Scott vs. Sandford, lU How- 
 ard.) While our first Chief- Justice, John Jay, speaking of the equality of all persons 
 in political rights, said "the citizens of America are equal as fellow-citizens and as 
 joint tenants in the sovereignty." (2 Dallas, 472.) 
 
 An appeal to the Supreme Court, properly brought, would be based upon the ground 
 that the right of suffrage is already established in the Federal Constitution, and is an 
 essential privilege of all American citizens. 
 
 It is not conferred in terms upon any person or class of persons, but inheres in and 
 attaches to a status or condition of being, which is expressed in the single word, citi- 
 zenship. 
 
 Admittance to national citizenship, either by birth or naturalization, endues the 
 person with the right of suffrage; its exercise is regulated by law. 
 
 Mr. Madison, one of the framers of the Constitution, said : " The definition of the 
 right of suffrage is justly regarded as a fundamental article of republican government." 
 It was incumbent on the convention therefore to define and establish this right in the 
 Constitution." (Federalist, No 52.) The right was so established in section 2, of 
 Article I, in these words : 
 
 "The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second 
 year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the 
 qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legisla- 
 ture." 
 
 This section consists of two clauses. The first relates to the right of suffrage, or 
 the right to choose, vesting the right in " the people of the several States." 
 The second clause relates to the qualifications of the electors. 
 
 As every one knows, there is a wide dlstioction between right and qualification. 
 A person may have the right to vote, aud still not be what is termed a qualified 
 elector for want of the necessary qualifications. 
 
 In this case the right is absolute and unconditional. No reference whatever ig 
 made to the sex or color of the elector. Citizenship or membership in the body 
 politic is the only requisite. Neither men, nor women, as such, are referred to. To- 
 gether they constitute the people, and the people choose. This second clause is thus 
 in entire accord with the preamble to the Constitution, which declares : "We, the 
 people of the United States, * * * do ordain and establish this Constitutior 
 for the United States of America," retaining in their own control this most funda 
 mental of all the rights of citizenship. The Constitution affords still further proof oi 
 the existence of this right. The fifteenth amendment, adopted eighty years subse- 
 quent to the original establishment of the right, declares that " the rights of citizem 
 of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged by the United States 
 or any State, on account of race, or color, or previous condition of servitude.' 
 Thus expressly, and in terms embracing all citizens, the right of suffrage is recog 
 nized as an existing right. The sixteenth amendment that you ask for is couched ii 
 the same language except that in place of race or color the word sex is used 
 Now it is clearly impossible to deny or abridge a right that does not exist; and if th 
 right of suffrage is not an existing right, then the fifteenth amendment is an absur< 
 abuse of language. 
 
 In construing this, and the other recent amendments, the Supreme Court adds it 
 testimony to the fact of the existence of this right. It said, " the negro having, b 
 the fourteenth amendment, been declared to be a citizen of the United States, is thu 
 made a voter in every State of the Union." (Slaughter House cases, 16 Wallace.) 
 
 Congress also is committed to the same position. I have room only to give th 
 title of the act. It is entitled " yn act to enforce the right of citizens of the Unite' 
 States to vote in the several States of this Union, and for other purposes," approve 
 May 31, 1870. 
 
 Thus, in the most solemn manner possible, the Constitution, the Supreme Cour 
 and the legislative branch of the Government are in accord in recognizing the righ 
 of citizens of the United States to vote as an existing right ; a right established i 
 the Federal Constitution, and derived from no other source. So much for the right 
 next as to qualifications. 
 
 The Constitution does not lay down any general rule applicable to all the State 
 nor undertake to prescribe qualificatious for the Federal elector. 
 
WOMAN SUPFiiAGE. 
 
 49 
 
 It was considered best to require liim to conform to such as exist in the several 
 States for State electors. 
 
 But this requirement by no means confers upon the States any power or authority 
 over the right of the Federal elector; least of all does it authorize the States to de- 
 feat the right by imposing conditions with which the Federal elector can not comply. 
 
 Yet, in point of fact, they have unlawfully disfranchised one-half of the " people" 
 by the use of the word male. For the purpose of contesting the matter, and of mak- 
 ing demand for the right, a white woman citizen of the United States, holding that 
 her citizenship ought to avail to place her at least upon the level of the negro, ap- 
 plied to the Supreme Court to protect her against disfranchisement, and was refused, 
 the court declaring that ''the United States has no voters of its own creation." 
 (Minor vs. Happersett, 21 Wallace.) This decision is so manifestly in conflict with 
 the Constitution, as well as with the court's own ruling just quoted, that it is likely 
 if the matter were again presented, the court would recede from its last decision. 
 
 The first century of our national life under the Constitution is about to close. To 
 women it has been a century of injustice, since no wrong can compare with that of 
 disfranchisement, and while we are singing pseons in honor of the great instrument 
 it is well to remember that women had a share in the work. At that date, women 
 voted in New Jersey at all elections upon terms of equality with men. 
 
 They voted for members of the constitutional convention from that State. They 
 voted for the ratification of the constitution when submitted." They voted for the 
 first, second, and third Presidents of the United States. The fact that wonaen voted 
 in one of the States was well known to those who framed the Constitution, and we 
 must construe the instrument as they left it. 
 
 As before said, neither men nor women as such are alluded to. The clause estab- 
 lishing suffrage is so worded as to exclude neither, but to include both. So that, 
 whether you succeed through the courts or through Congress, it will be due to the 
 fact of your citizenship. 
 
 For the purpose you have in view, that word is to you the most important word in 
 the language. 
 
 In hoc signo vinces, you should place on your badges and adopt it as a motto. 
 
 Francis Minor. 
 
 Saint Louis, January, 1889. 
 
 I wish to ask the geutlemeii of this committee, who are now acting 
 for us in Congress, to leave to their children an inheritance they will 
 not have to blush for. We want you to show that your prevision has 
 beeu sufficient to look down the vista of the future and see what must 
 inevitably occur. Fifty years ago a member of the Senate declared 
 that the ver^^ mention of the subject of emancipation would never be 
 admitted in the Cougress of the United States. It was a woman's pro- 
 phetic voice that then replied : " You can build out the winds and hedge 
 out the stars, but you can never keep this question out of Congress." 
 (Applause.) 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. ABIGAIL SCOTT DUNIWAY. 
 
 Miss Anthony. As the committee have listened to an argument in 
 which the assertion was made that the Supreme Court has decided that 
 the United States Government has no power over the question of suf- 
 frage, I should like to introduce to you a representative from the great 
 Northwest, where suilrage has been given by territorial action, and 
 where the judges appointed by tlie National Government have robbed 
 the women of the Territory of their right to vote. Mrs. Abigail Scott 
 Dnniway, of Oregon, who had a large hand in gaining the suffrage bill 
 in the Territory of Washington, and who, therefore, is quite able to 
 present the facts in the case, will now address the committee. 
 
 Mrs. DuNiWAY. Gentlemen of the committee, I had thought to oifer 
 a little apology for the seeming temerity of my coming before you on 
 such an occasion, presumably to instruct you in the law, but I am 
 happy to state that the able paper read by our delegate from Missouri 
 (Mrs. Minor) has made that apology unnecessary, a-nd I shall proceed 
 at once to give historic facts. 
 S. Rep. 2543 4 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 In the year 1883, amid the mingled acclaim of booming guns and ring- 
 ing bells, it was announced to all our people that the letrislative as- 
 sembly ot Washington Territory had passed a bill, and the governor 
 had approved the act, enfranchising women. Everything went well 
 with these newl3^-enfranchised citizens for a time, buta change in admin- 
 is ration was followed by a change in our territorial judiciary, and the 
 result was that means were soon discovered whereby a flaw or techni- 
 cality in the construction of the law enabled them to pronounce it un- 
 constitutional, the ground taken being that the purpose of the bill was 
 not expressed in the title to the act. There were some thirty-five bills 
 in the same condition. We appealed to our Senators from Oregon, one 
 of whom (Mr. Dolph) I am proud to say, has been grandly re-elected 
 for another six years' term in this great capital, who has been one of our 
 most consistent champions from the beginning. These gentlemen ac- 
 ceded to our request, and a bill or resolution was passed through the 
 Senate validating all those laws. When the bill came up in the Iloiise 
 it was objected to by a gentleman from Virginia, I think, and because 
 there was an objection under parliamentary rule the " omnibus bill'* 
 could not be passed unless the clause enfranchising women should be 
 stricken out. 
 
 Eealizing that we were blocked in this manner, and wishing to be 
 law-abiding, however much the laws might oppress us, we went to work 
 to secure the re-enactment of the law, working quietly, and, as we 
 thought^ modestly and judiciously, to secure the pledge from the in- 
 coming or next-convening legislature that they would re-enact the 
 Law. To the surprise of our opponents that legislature, which had been 
 elected previously by the votes of women largely (of course we do 
 not overlook the help and co-operation of the men), re-enacted the law, 
 this time making no mistake about the title. 
 
 Again the universal sound of acclaim went forth throughout oui 
 borders, and everywhere we sounded paeans of praise to the chivalric 
 and patriotic spirit that had moved the members of the legislature tc 
 again recognize our rights. 
 
 Time went on, and at the next general election one woman's vote, 
 among the many whose votes were received, was refused. I allude tc 
 Nevada Bloomer, whose case is now upon the docket of the supreme 
 court. Mrs. Bloomer brought suit for the recognition of her right tc 
 vote before the supreme court of the Territory, and the decision was 
 adverse to her claim, the decision being made upon the ground thai 
 the Territories have no right to pass a law enfranchising their citizens, 
 or, in other words, that the Territories have no jurisdiction over the 
 qualifications of their own voters. Mrs. Minor has already explained 
 to you the absurdities of this decision, and we come to day strong in 
 the hope that inasmuch as this case, being on the docket, will require 
 years to reach it and woman's condition in the Territory calls for im 
 mediate action, that your honorable committee will at once take such 
 measures as to recognize the wrong to which our sex has been sub- 
 jected, and will, in the spirit of justice, rebuke this usurpation of the 
 Territorial organic act of Congress, of which usurpation we are made 
 the victims. 
 
 As our leader. Miss Anthony, informs me that I must not trespass 
 beyond ten minutes, and as it is impossible for a woman to say ver^ 
 much in ten minutes, I gladly give way to others. 
 
WOMAT^ SUFFRAGE. 
 
 5i 
 
 REMARKS BY MISS ALICE STONE BLACKWELL. 
 
 Miss Anthony. I now have the pleasure of introducing to you Miss 
 Alice Stone Blackwell, of Boston, one of the editors of the Woman's 
 Journal. All of you who know anything of the history of our move- 
 ment know that she is the daughter of Lucy Stone, who was one of the 
 originators, and has been for the whole forty years one of the leaders, 
 of our movement. 
 
 Miss Blackwell. Gentlemen of the committee, I feel that I come 
 before you a very inadequate representative of the Woman's Journal 
 and the American Woman Suffrage Association ; but at the same time 
 I am glad of the opportunity which Miss Anthony's kindness has af- 
 forded me to say a word in behalf of the proposed constitutional 
 amendment giving suffrage to women, because while what I can say 
 may not be of much value in itself, it gives me an opportunity to show 
 which side I am on in desiring suffrage to be granted to women. 
 
 In reading the various Congressional debates on the subject of woman 
 suffrage, we find a number of different objections offered. Very little, 
 however, is generally said as to what seems to most of us women who 
 wish to vote the fundamental basis of our claim. The general argu- 
 Iment for woman suffrage is the same as the argument for having a re- 
 publican form of government rather than a monarchy. We say that 
 it is fair and right that those who are required to obey the laws should 
 have a voice in making them, and that those who are required to pay 
 taxes should have a voice in deciding what shall be the amount of the 
 tax and how the money raised by taxation shall be spent, and as we can 
 Qot suit everybody, we take everybody's opinion and go according to the 
 wiidx of the majority. That seems to be on the whole the fairest way, 
 lud that, roughly stated, is the principle of republican government. A 
 v^ote is simply a written expression ot opinion, which is written down 
 lud put into a box so that it may be counted. 
 
 In thus taking the sense of the community there are certain classes 
 )f persons who are always passed over, because their opinions, for one 
 : reason and another, are not considered worth counting. The laws of the 
 lifferent States differ, but all are agreed in excluding children, idiots, 
 I unatics, felons, and women. There are good and obvious reasons for 
 .naking all these exceptions but the last. Of course it is self evident 
 l ;hat the opinions of children ought not to be counted, nor those of 
 diots, lunatics, and criminals. Is there any reason at all why, in reck- 
 Iniing up the opinions of the community, no account shall be taken of 
 |:he opinions of women? 
 
 i Let us try a few of the objections that are usually offered and see 
 A'hether they are sound. One point that is often brought up in the ob- 
 ections to woman suffrage in Congressional debates is that women do 
 jot need to vote, because they are virtually represented already by their 
 lusbands, fathers, brothers, etc. 
 The first difficulty with the doctrine of virtual representation is that 
 ^ t is not according to numbers. I knew a man once who had a wife, a 
 ; vidowed mother, five unmarried sisters, and five unmarried daughters. 
 , According to this doctrine of virtual representation his vote represented 
 ! limself and all those women, and it counted one, while the vote of his 
 bachelor neighbor next door, without a female relative in the world, 
 ounted one, just the same. Thus there is an inequality even when all 
 he women of the family think just as their male rehitives do. Of 
 ourse sometimes even in the most united family this can not be tho 
 
52 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. / 
 
 case. How is a man to represent his wife and daughters if they do not' 
 all think alike, or if they do not all think as he does? In my own State' 
 there is one Senator who has two daughters. One of them is a woman 
 suffragist. The other is very much o]>posed to woman suffrage, SO4 
 much so that she burns the Woman's Journal when it comes into the • 
 house before her father can get hold of it. How is that gentleman to 
 represeut the opinions of his two daughters on that subject? Some- 
 times a man has a widowed mother, a wife, and a daughter. One of 
 them may be a Republican, another a Probibitionist, another a Dem- i 
 ocrat. How can he represent those three women by one vote unless 
 he could be, like Cerebus, three gentlemen at once. 
 
 Then, again, even in the cases where a man tries honestly and does 
 his best to represent his woman-kind, this principle of virtual repre- 
 sentation is still imperfect. I read the other day of a man who under- 
 took honestly and did his very best to represent his women. He was a 
 member of the Greenback party. He had three daughters who were 
 all Eepublicans, and neither he nor his daughters believed in woman 
 suffrage. The whole family held that the women of a family ought to 
 be represented by the male members of it. When the election ap- 
 I)roached those three daughters all sought their father and represented 
 to him how very wrong it would be in him, when three members of the 
 family were Republicans, to cast theonly vote of that family for the Green- 
 back party. They said, " You are our representative; you always said 
 so, and we believe it. We are Republicans, and we want you to vote 
 to represent us." The father saw the i)oint, and actually did it. Though 
 himself a Greenbacker, he went and voted the Republican ticket in 
 order to re})resent his daughters. That is the best that can be done 
 under that system. But do you not see that even that way was not 
 fair? The Greenback candidate was entitled to one vote out of that 
 family, and he did not get it. The Republican candidate was entitled 
 to three votes, and he only got one. 
 
 So I think we are justitied in saying, with James Otis in the old rev- 
 olutionary times, that there is really no such thing as virtual represeuta 
 tion ; that it is really a delusion and a snare. The only sense in whict 
 it is true is this: I have no doubt that men in general mean well bj 
 women, feel friendly to them, and mean to make such laws for them a£ 
 they consider for their good. It is equally true that women in genera 
 feel friendly towards men, and we find women as well fitted to mak< 
 laws for the men. I have no doubt there are many such women, but 
 I think it is very doubtful whether you would be satisfied with the re- 
 sults of our efforts in that line, and I am sure that none of you would 
 like to occupy such a position. 
 
 Then it is often said of women that they will be contaminated and 
 degraded by the ballot. Men use this argument who themselves would 
 take a musket on their shoulders and fight to the death if it was pro-f/ 
 posed to deprive them of their right of suffrage. They think that the I 
 right for them is invaluable, but when anything is said fibout letting 
 women vote they draw such a picture of the hardships, horrors, and con- 
 tamination in the filthy pool of politics, all of which they say is involved 
 in suffrage, that you would think it was the greatest kindness in the 
 world on their part to refuse to let women have a share in the ballot. 
 
 There is a story told of a boy whose little sister found an apple and 
 began to eat it. The boy rushed up to her and with horror and conster- 
 nation told her the apple was green ; that if she ate it she certainly 
 would have the cholera. The child threw the apple down, when hei 
 brother immediately picked it up and began to eat it. The little girl 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 53 
 
 looked at him surprised for a few moments and said, ^'Will it not give 
 you the cholera, too?" ^'Oh, no," said he, "boys don't have cholera." 
 rLaughter.] 
 
 I ^ If the exercise of the right of suffrage is really contaminating we 
 3Ught to establish a monarchy instead of a republic. We ought to re- 
 strict the right of suffrage as much as possible and spare it to men as 
 well as women. 
 
 It seems to me self-evident that the right of suffrage is degrading or 
 not according to the spirit in which you exercise it. lb must be degrad- 
 ing to anybody to whom it is simply a selfish scramble for office, but I 
 think it can hardly be otherwise than ennobling to any one to take an 
 intelligent interest in the affairs of the country, and cast an honest vote 
 for the best men and the best measures. 
 
 : Then it is said that the bad women will vote, and the argument is put 
 jin such a shape that you would think the bad women formed a majority 
 ^instead of being a very small minority of the feminine population. 
 \ Then it is said that women must not vote because they are too good 
 to vote. The very same people who have been saying so much about 
 bad women will turn and say, " Women must not vote because they 
 are angels." All we can say in regard to that is, if women are angels 
 it is very unreasonable to be afraid of the effects of thoir voting, for 
 the effect conld hardly be otherwise than good. There was once a lit- 
 tle boy afraid to go to bed in the dark. His mother told him not to be 
 lafraid, because the angels would watch over him. But he said, " It is 
 th3 angels themselves I am afraid of." [Laughter.] The people who 
 are so much afraid of woman's vote because women are angels, are just 
 in the unreasonable position of the little boy. On the other hand, if 
 women are only ordinary human beings, why should they not have or- 
 (iinary human rights? 
 
 i 1 Then it is said that if women vote they must hold office. A very in- 
 telligent Democratic lawyer told me once the only objection in his mind, 
 aie said, I can see perfectly well that all the objections generally made 
 ,0 woman suffrage are entirely illogical when carried to their logical 
 Oonclusions, but suppose the mother of a young family is elected to 
 r'ongiess, what is to become of the children f He had before his eyes 
 4 dreadful vision of half the homes of the country left desolate because 
 I'he mothers had been sent to Congress. It did not occur to him that 
 Piot one person in a thousand can go to Congress anyway, and that no- 
 body is obliged to go against his will. The mother of a young family 
 would not be likely to ask to go to Congress, and if she did ask she 
 would not likely be sent. Yet for all that, she might have a very defi- 
 nite opinion as to what sort of a man she wanted to send to make laws 
 for her and her children, and is there any reason why her opinion should 
 not be counted on this subject along with her husband's, father's, and 
 brother's. 
 
 In this matter of bad women there is one point that I think should 
 J be brought out, and that is, the argument from experience in this 
 thing. You can not tell anything about it until you have tried it. 
 ' You can see that there is no reason to expect that bad women would 
 vote more generally than good ones, and in this matter an ounce of 
 experiment is worth a pound of theory. Mrs. Duniway has told you 
 something about the experience in Washington Territory; Mrs. Johns 
 will tell you about the experience in Kansas. Then we have to bring 
 in fourteen States where women have the right, more or less restricted, 
 to vote on school questions. In every one of those States women ex- 
 ercise the right. 
 
54 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 The complaint in Massaclinseits for a long time was 'tliat odIj the 
 best women voted. At our last scliool election in Boston we had, I 
 think, very evident proof that whenever women- are allowed to vote on 
 a question which reaches out to general public opinion, and on which 
 tliere is reason to vote, they will vote. 
 
 There was a controversy that arose in regard to the use of text-books 
 in the schools. Indeed, there was a very general impression that the 
 text-books had been tampered with in the interest of the Koman Cath- 
 olic Church, and that the facts of history were not fairly presented. I 
 thi?»k myself there was something to be said on both sides of the ques- 
 tion, but many felt that the schools were in danger, and 21,000 womeii 
 registered to vote, paying a voluntary tax in order to do so, and goin/^ 
 through a very troublesome process to get registered. When voting - 
 day came a northeast storm was i aging, and when a northeast storm 
 rages in Boston it is something formidable. But for all that, 18,000 or 
 19,000 of those women came out to the polls. They not only cam 3 
 themselves but they brought with them many husbands and brothers 
 who were not in the habit of voting. So the control of the city gov - 
 ernment of Boston was taken out of the hands of the Democratic ad- 
 ministration, which had held it for many years, and was given over to 
 the Bepublicans. Both parties agreed that it was owing to the votes 
 of the women that this happened. 
 
 I see that my time is out, and I shall not detain yon. There are 
 many more things that could be said in favor of woman suffrage. It is 
 told of Mr. Lincoln that during the very busiest period of his adminii^- 
 tration a man came to him to protest against an appointment he had 
 made of some one as postmaster. This man was a great bore, and 
 talked on and on. Mr. Lincoln was too polite to send him away, bi t 
 waited while this man enumerated every possible reason he could thin k 
 of why the person was unfit for postmaster. Finally, to bring his argu- 
 ment to a climax, he said : " Mr. Lincoln, the man you have appoint( ^. 
 has no more sense than an oyster." *^ Well," said Mr. Lincoln, " 2- 
 oyster is a very stupid creature, but it does know some things wort- 
 knowing; it does know how to shut up." [Laughter.] I will try^j 
 show, gentlemen, that a woman does know sometimes how 1:0 shut up 
 
 Senator Blair. Will you not state, if you know, the registration o,i 
 women in Boston on the occasion you speak of? « 
 
 Miss Blackwell. The registration of women was 21,000 and sonfie 
 odd. 
 
 Senator Blair. The vote was how many ? 
 
 Miss Blackwell. The vote is not exactly known. The only wa y 
 they can get the vote is by taking the highest number of votes cast for 
 mayor by the men and the highest number of votes cast for any mem- 
 ber of the school committee. One man's name was on all the tickets (^f 
 the school committee. It was a curious fact that in this controvers y 
 which turned on this question, the one man whose name was on all th e 
 tickets was a Jew. They could agree upon him, and there were so man y 
 votes cast for him as to show that at least about 17,000 women had vote( 1. 
 A great many women had scratched the name of this Jew from ti e 
 tickets. He was not only a Jew, but a freethinker, and he had used 
 language which was distasteful to many women of the orthodox cliurche 
 He had spoken of Jesus Christ as an amiable young enthusiast, an d 
 had very much shocked the women who belonged to the orthodo v. 
 churches. So his name was largely scratched, and there is no way cf 
 getting at the exact number of women who voted. It was about 17,00(ij, 
 plus the women who scratched this gentleman's name. f 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 55 
 
 Senator Blair. Do you kuow what the perceutage of the vote as 
 compared with the registration w^as, and how that compared with the 
 voting of the men ? 
 
 Miss Blackwell. I can not tell you exactly, but it is very generally 
 claimed, in the absence of any detinite statistics, that the women voted 
 much more generally in i)roportion to the registration than the men. 
 The Boston Transcript published a long list of various wards, in which 
 only one, two, or three women out of several hundred had failed to vote, 
 and oftentimes a very good reason w^as given for her absence; something 
 which made it imi)ossible for her to vote. Mrs. Shattuck also has studied 
 this question. 
 
 Mrs. Shattuck. I think it was 80 per cent, of the w^omeii who were 
 registered, and therefore fully qualified, who voted. That is the state- 
 ment I saw, and I suppose it was authoritative. 
 
 Senator Blair. I had seen that statement — I did not know whether 
 it was questioned — and 80 per cent, was said to be a larger per cent, 
 than of the men who voted. 
 
 J\Iiss Hatch, of Boston. The registration of women in Boston was 
 20,416. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. LAURA M. JOHNS. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Mrs. Johns is the next speaker 1 had proposed to 
 present, if the committee is through asking questions of Miss Blackwell. 
 The Boston election has settled two points for us, at least. First, that 
 women will vote if they have a chance: and second, that they will vote 
 just the way they want to when they do vote — two very good points, you 
 see. I now introduce to you Mrs. Laura M. Johns, of Kansas, where, 
 as the committee know, women have for the past two years enjoyed the 
 right to vote in all the cities of the State — two hundred and eighty-three 
 in number. 
 
 Mrs. Johns. Gentlemen of the committee, I suppose the reason why 
 our general orders me up here to speak, though the weakest member 
 of her staff, is because 1 can testify to 3'ou of some things whereof I 
 kuow in a State where woman suffrage is on trial*. The usefulness of 
 woman suffrage in Kansas is gauged in the minds of people outside of 
 our State mainly by representations of newspapers. It appears that 
 certain people know a great many things which are not quite so, and 
 have reported a number of things that are far from true, and very erro- 
 neous impressions are made upon many minds j so when Kansas people 
 go abroad or w hen they read papers outside of their State they learn 
 a great many very novel and remarkable things about the workings of 
 woman suffrage in Kansas — things that are remarkable chiefly for the 
 conspicuous absence of truth — and we have found ourselves quite help- 
 less in getting our statements of facts or corrections put before the 
 readers of the falsehoods. 
 
 A favorite romance of the newspapers has been that we had very dis- 
 reputable scenes at our polling places, in consequence of the presence 
 of women there, and that we were obliged to come in contact with inci- 
 dents and people extremely damaging and disagreeable. The truth of 
 the matter simply is, that women met with nothing exceedingly dread- 
 ful at our polling places, and good sensible people would be very likely 
 to suppose that such was the case. We met with nothing to molest us 
 or make us afraid. ISTobody was monstrously unmannerly. 
 
 The first effect of the passage of the woman suffrage Iaw% in conse- 
 quence of the prospective presence of women at the polls, was the enact- 
 
56 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 ment of our fifty-foot law. The euactmeiit of this law was the direct 
 consequence of the woman suffrage law. This fifty-foot law provides 
 that nobody, except those just about to cast a vote, shall stand within 
 50 feet of the polls. Those who wish to deny as much as possible to the 
 chiims of woman suffrage, say that the good order we had in those elec- 
 tions is due entirely to the operation of this law; which we deny. But 
 let them say so. The fifty-foot law owes its existence to the passage of 
 the woman suffrage law, and therefore the good order at our polling 
 places was due to woman suffrage. 
 
 The next effect was visible in the moving of our polling-places into 
 more decent quarters. " The women are coming," said the authorities, 
 " and we must have fit places for them.'^ 
 
 - The next consequence was the appointment of many women as judges 
 and clerks of elections. The presence of these women made profanity 
 and disorder very unlikely, and I am glad to tell you that the women 
 did this work quite as well as the men, and you will be glad to know 
 that they received exactly the same wages that the men received — a 
 circumstance that does not happen always, even in this progressive day 
 and age. Thus woman's suffrage even at the very inception ushers in 
 the dawn of a day of equal wages for equal work. 
 
 It was stated by the newspapers (and I have found people who are 
 quite ready to believe it) tliat bad women voted in our elections. The 
 fact is that we met with no more of these women, came no more in 
 contact with them, saw no more of them, were no more annoyed by 
 their presence at the polling- places than we are in cars, streets, and 
 stores. They simply voted and went swiftly away. In fact we saw not 
 many of this class of women at the polls. We saw not so many bad 
 women there as we saw bad men; and indeed how should we, since 
 there are not so many of the former, as the records of crime show. We 
 certainly saw many men there who were not well prepared to cast the 
 first stone; but, as in the time of Christ, that was the class of men who 
 made the complaint. I think if it had not been for the noise they made 
 about it and their giving the matter to the newspapers, many of us 
 would have been unaware of the presence of bad women at our polling- 
 places. . And why 'have not bad women just as good right to vote as 
 ijad men? How much more harm will a bad woman's vote do to this 
 Government than a bad man's vote? 
 
 But that class of women are caring nothing about this movement. 
 They do not vote unless they are brought out by their male support- 
 ers. In our first election it was the object of the opposition to make 
 the magdalens prominent at our polling-places in order to bring dis- 
 credit upon the movement, but such swift opprobrium fell upon the 
 men and upon the side undertaking to do this thing, that in the sec- 
 ond election little of such effort was made, and as a consequence, a very 
 much smaller number of this class of women voted. 
 
 Another favorite fiction of the newspapers was, that the enfranchise- 
 ment of the women of Kansas simply added to the number of voters, 
 without making any material difference in the results ; that we all voted 
 just like our husbands. The truth of it is that we voted no oftener like 
 our husbands did than our husbands voted like we did, and we voted 
 no oftener the way our husbands did than sons voted like their fathers 
 did. The fact that sons votelike their fathers do, quite generally, never 
 seems to have occurred to anybody as a good and sufficient reason for 
 disfranchising the sons, even while the fathers were living to repre- 
 sent them, which they cou'd more adequately do than represent their 
 daughters and wives. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 57 
 
 Senator Blair. How about the quarrels which resulted at home 1 
 
 Mrs. Johns. I wish to say that the tide of domestic happiness flows 
 on in Kansas as softly and smoothly as it did before the women voted. 
 If you were to travel all over the State I think you would not suppose 
 from domestic infelicities that the women had ev ^r voted in our State. 
 I kuow of no cases of family quarrel arising from the wife voting difi'er- 
 ently from the way in which her husband voted, and I know personally 
 and from report of hundreds of instances in which wives, especially 
 upon tbe question of the moral life of the candidate, or when the ques- 
 tion of the enforcement of the prohibitory law was up, voted a ticket 
 directly opposite to that which their husbands voted. I know of only 
 one case in which there was any difficulty resulting therefrom, and that 
 was the case of a man who believed tbat he owned his wife, that he owned 
 all her opinions, all her property, tbat she was entirely his possession ; 
 and as he was disabused of that idea by the line which was imposed 
 upon him for his conduct, I think probably he has changed his mind. 
 
 Senator Blair. In these cases of disagreement in the matter of pro- 
 hibition which way did the wife vote, as a rule'? 
 
 Mrs. Johns. The wife, as a rule, voted for the officers who she be- 
 lieved w^ould enforce the prohibitory law. 
 
 Senator Palmier. What proportion of the women do you suppose 
 voted for prohibition ? 
 
 Mrs. Johns. I am not prepared to state the percentage, but I believe 
 that not only a majority, but the larger part of the body of women elec- 
 tors always voted that way. 
 
 Senator Blair. How many voted ? 
 
 Mrs. Johns. Very nearly 30,000 women voted at the one regular elec- 
 tion we have had. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Sixty-six thousand men at that time voted and 30,000 
 women. 
 
 Mrs. Johns. Our women voted with a great deal of independence — 
 more than was expected. It must be remembered that the men of Kan- 
 sas are largely in the majority. All these facts must be taken into ac- 
 count when the women's vote is counted up. It must be remembered 
 also that the only regular election in which we have taken part came 
 ver3' soon after the passage of the law, too soon for fair registration. I 
 do not think anybody could say that the women of Kansas had half a 
 chance to register. 
 
 Senator Blair. When will the next election occur ? 
 
 Mrs. Johns. It will occur next April. The time was too short for 
 registration. Many of our city clerks kept the books open some time 
 after the date designated by law, in order that the women might have 
 a better chance, but in other cities the already too short time was 
 made shorter by the refusal of the clerks to keep open tbe books. 
 
 Senator Blair. What seems to be tbe prospect of registration for 
 the coming election ? Will it be larger in proportion or smaller 
 
 Mrs. Johns. The registration has alreaily begun. It began very 
 soon after the books were opened the first of January. The prospect 
 is that the registration will be larger than it was in eitlier the first or 
 the second year. 
 
 In the first regular election, two-thirds of our women of voting age 
 registered, and about half of them went to the polls. Of those who 
 were registered and did not go to the polls there were many wbo re- 
 fused to go because neither of the candidates were men whom they 
 could conscientiously support j others simply did not go because of the 
 
68 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 two candidates, it made very little difference which one was elected; 
 and others did not go because there was only one candidate. 
 
 Senator Blair, llav^e the women begun to take part in caucuses ? 
 
 Mrs. Johns. They have. 
 
 Senator Blair. 1)o they take part in primary meetings'? 
 
 Mr. Johns. They have quite largely, and more so in the second elec- 
 tion than in the first. 
 
 Senator Blair. They are admitted, and no objection is made to their 
 presence ? 
 
 Mrs. Johns." They are sometimes admitted, and sometimes caucuses 
 are held so secretly that we do not find it out. But women go to cau- 
 cuses whereever admitted. They had to learn, after the first election, 
 that it was necessary for them to go into caucuses. They had an idea 
 in the first election that it would be a proper, modest, and w^omanly 
 thing to stay out of the caucuses. Experience taught them before the 
 second election that it would be necessary, in order to bring about the 
 success whicli they desired, for them to go into the caucuses. I think 
 they will go into the caucuses this coming year more largely than they 
 did last year. 
 
 Senator Blair. They will find out that the government of the country 
 is in the caucuses and not in Congress. 
 
 Mrs. Johns. I think most of our women were very much suri)rised 
 to find that the matter of the nomination of officers was done before 
 people got into caucus, very frequently. 
 
 Senator Blair. That is a great lesson to learn in politics. 
 
 Mrs. Johns. The fact that we had such a short time for registration 
 and such a short time for the preparation and instruction of our colored 
 and foreign population in that one regular election should be taken into 
 consideration when we size up the women's vote in Kansas. We had 
 no time to i)repare them. 
 
 As to the charge that the women's vote fell off in the second election, 
 1 assert that it did not fall off*, exce.pt in those cities in which the elec- 
 tion was of lesser importance, and that it did not fall off in as large a 
 proportion as the male vote did. The second election was in an off year 
 and we had nothing but w ard elections. However, when there was any 
 issue, when it was a question of the enforcement of the prohibitory law, 
 or of schools, or any other matter of interest to the cities, the women 
 came out in those wards in force, and they voted in larger numbers than 
 they did the first year. 
 
 For example, in the city of Leave^j^worth the temperance men had 
 failed for years to oust an obnoxious councilman — a man who had given 
 his strength to the anti-enforcement of the prohibitory law element. 
 In the first election the women even had failed to rout him, but they 
 were ready in the second election. They called a meeting of the women 
 who cared the most for the best interests of the city and appointed some 
 committees, did pretty effective but very quiet work, so as not to draw 
 the fire of the enemy, and when election day came the councilman 
 found himself counted out, greatly to the dismay and amazement of 
 his followers, and the whisky and temperance men are agreed that the 
 women did it. 
 
 As to the matter of election to office, the women in our State have not 
 rushed into office to the extent of destroying all home joys, the abolish- 
 ment of womanhood, or of depleting the State of young people. Our 
 honored senior Senator (Mr. Ingalls) was right when he said we could 
 not abrogate the statutes of the Almighty by law. Indeed, in justice 
 to us, it ought to be mention ^id that we have not tried to do that; but 
 
WOMAN STJFFRAGE. 
 
 59 
 
 our youDg men are gomg on after tbe old fashion, making love to the 
 young women, and those of us who can just remember how it used to 
 be in the old days before women voted. fail to see any difference in the 
 process. The performances are falling quite as far short of the prom- 
 ises as they used to be, but still the woman is going on implicitly be- 
 lieving the same lovely old story and giving herself in marriage with 
 the same comparative confidence that everything not quite sure will be 
 sure to come to her. 
 
 Our statistics show that the marriage licenses in the, last two years 
 are increasing and that divorce is decreasing, which goes to show that 
 marriage is not a failure in Kansas, even though women do vote and hold 
 office. 
 
 We have elected to the school offices more than half a hundred women, 
 and not to the detriment of the home but to its great advantage, be- 
 cause these women expend more time, more energy, more thought, on 
 the matters which involve the physical and moral growth of our chil- 
 dren, as well as their intellectual growth, and so well have they served, 
 and so profitably, that we expect to double this number in the coming 
 election. 
 
 The suffrage organization in Kansas has never made any effort to 
 put women into municipal offices, but it does make an effort to put 
 women into school offices. As to municipal offices, however, women 
 have very little ambition to fill these. They are not at all particular 
 about getting into these offices themselves, but they are very particular 
 about who does get into them. Of about a dozen women, who have 
 been elected to city offices in four cities of the State (and all these have 
 been mayors), no complaint has been made. They have served accept- 
 ably. The city of Oscaloosa last year elected an entire woman govern- 
 ment. It was done for both the temporal and moral welfare of the 
 city, and I am glad to state that these women have filled the purpose 
 of their election in meeting and overcoming the difficulties, which were 
 not few nor small, and they have proved the fact that their government 
 does not lack the element of strength. 
 
 1 went to Oscaloosa to see these city officers, and to find out how they 
 came to be elected, and how the experiment was working. I found that 
 the women themselves, the worthy mayor and her councilwomen, were 
 very womanly women, very mild, gentle-mannered, strong, capable; that 
 they knew exactly what they wanted to do, and they knew how to do 
 it and succeed in doing it. I got my information as to how the exper- 
 iment was working from men to whom I was an utter stranger, and who 
 were not at all infiueuced by any leanings of mine in giving their testi- 
 mony, and so I think it was unprejudiced. They said that the admin- 
 istration of these women was really satisfactory to the better element, 
 but that it was extremely objectionable to people who wanted to violate 
 the Sunday law, as had been done in that city before these women went 
 into office, to those who wanted to plead that a prohibitory law does not 
 prohibit, and to old fogies who could not see any use in spending money 
 to make streets and attending to matters of sanitation. 
 
 However, there is no general movement in my State at all towards 
 Oscaloosaing our city governments. I do not suppose any women will 
 be elected mayors this year unless it is in Oscaloosa, in order that the 
 women may carry out the work which they have begun there. 
 
 Senator Palmer. 1 understood you to say that only 30,000 women 
 voted and that 60,000 men voted. 
 
 Mrs. Johns. Yes, sir. 
 S. Rep. 1 -29 
 
60 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 Senator Palmer. That can not be the whole vote of KaDsas. 
 
 Mrs. Johns. It was just in the cities. I wish to add that in our third- 
 class cities, in wliich the elections are regular and of equal importance 
 every year, in tlie second election the woman's vote gained largely over 
 the first year. 1 know many cities in which the vote was two, three, 
 and four, and in one city forty times as much as it was the first year. 
 The sum total of the woman's vote in the third-class cities the second 
 y^ar is very much larger than the sum total of the woman's vote in those 
 same cities the ^rst year. 
 
 REMARKS OF REV. OLYMPIA BROWN. 
 
 Miss Anthony. The next speaker that I present to the committee is 
 Rev. 01ymi)ia Brown, of Wisconsin, who will say a much-needed word, 
 
 Mrs. Brown. Gentlemen of the committee, I come neither from 
 Massachusetts, where women have voted for the school committee, nor 
 yet from the great West, where they vote at the municipal elections, 
 and hence I can bring you no testimony drawn from experience of 
 the effects of the voting of women. I can only give some principles 
 which are familiar and support them by undeniable and pertinent facts. 
 
 It has been often said that it is always safe to do right. It is equally 
 true that it is always unsafe to do wrong. 
 
 It is impossible that such a great wrong as the disfranchisement of 
 women should have been done in this country for so many years with- 
 out working very serious evils j and if we can believe the testimony of 
 public men, political campaign speakers, and the daily newspapers, it 
 must be evident that we have come very far short of perfection in the 
 matter of government in the United States — indeed, it would seem that 
 we are upon the very verge of national ruin. 
 
 Senator Blair has said that the caucus, and not the Congress, governs 
 the country, and the question in the caucus is always, How shall we 
 secure the foreign vote? What candidate will be most pleasing to the 
 Germans? Whom can we put up that will satisfy the Scandinavians? 
 These are the questions with politicians. 
 
 Even a great moral-reform party in my own State, a party professedly 
 standing for principle and against the " policy of the old parties," dares 
 not to avow its allegiance to woman's suffrage lest it should offend the 
 Scandinavians. 
 
 When great reformers, progressive men, like John M. Olin and Z. C. 
 Richmond, of Wisconsin, are obliged to crucify conscience to please 
 Scandinavians, I inquire where is the liberty of American men ? 
 When every party finds it necessary first of all to please the foreigners, 
 no matter at what cost, it is quite evident that the foreign vote governs 
 the country. 
 
 In the great cities of the Northwest our city officials, our mayors, 
 members of the common council, and even our school boards, are, to a 
 lar-ge extent, foreigners, not the mostl earned or the most nobly born 
 of the European nations, but often men of limited education, bigoted 
 in religion, and ignorant of the first i)rinciples of republicanism. 
 
 Our forefathers fought out the war of the Revolution and baptized the 
 earth in the blood of heroes only that we might be governed by the 
 tramps, paupers, convicts, the refuse of the Old World, that have been 
 thrown upon our shores. 
 
 Women have through all the years cf our national life been loyal, 
 brave, and true. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 61 
 
 They have by their patieuce aud fidelity, their earuest endeavor, and 
 their unflinching courage, helped to create this grand civilization of the 
 West ; they have done their share in redeeming this land from the wil- 
 derness; they have been an important factor in founding homes, build- 
 ing cities, establishing manifold industries, and winning victories, both 
 of peace and war; and yet intelligent, patriotic, tax-paying, native-born 
 women are made the political subjects of foreign paupers, and when 
 they ask for the right of suffrage, which has been declared to be the 
 inalienable right of every citizen, they are told that the, mere mention 
 of the subject must be prohibited, because it might displease the Scan- 
 dinavians. 
 
 But it is not women alone who are the sufferers. American men, by 
 the disfranchisement of women, are being made themselves the subjects 
 of foreign rule. We require an American to live here twenty-one years 
 and learn the nature of our institutions, the history of the country, and 
 the policy of the Government before he votes. But foreigners may vote 
 in Wisconsin before they have become citizens, learned anything of our 
 Government, or rendered any service to the State. We give them 
 twice as many votes in proportion to their population as we give to our 
 own people. Their population is largely male, it is easier for men to 
 emigrate than it is for women. They have more temptations to do so. 
 They wish to escape serving in the army ; and often ftaey flee from the 
 officers of the law, or from their creditors, and the result is that there 
 are at least two millions more foreign men than foreign women in the 
 country. While on the other hand, owing to the effects of the war and 
 of accidents, there are a million more American women than there are 
 American men. 
 
 To illustrate the effect of this let us look at the population of Wis- 
 consin. By the census of 1880 there were in Wisconsin 910,072 native 
 born, and 405,425 foreign ; but although the foreign population was not 
 quite half as numerous as the native, yet they were allowed over 40,000 
 more votes, the voting population standing, native, 149,463; foreign, 
 189,409. Minnesota presents a similar discrepancy, as there the popu- 
 lation stands, native, 513,097, foreign, 207,676. But the vote wa«, in 
 1880, native, 88,622 ; foreign, 123,777. Thus, with only about half the 
 l^opulation, the foreigners have over 35,000 more votes. In New Jersey 
 the native population is more than four tifnes as great as the foreign, 
 but the vote stands, native, 100,656; foreign, 99,300. I might go on 
 through all the States showing how we pay a premium upon foreign 
 birth and ignorance, but I will not weary you with figures. I have 
 given you enough to show that the enfranchisement of women is 
 only needed to outvote the foreign jiopulation and make secure Ameri- 
 can institutions and republican principles. And surely the need of 
 woman's vote is most i^ressing. When the red flag is hoisted in our 
 great cities, when riots and mobs are feared on every occasion ; when 
 the gulf between capital and labor is growing daily wider and wider ; 
 when our free schools are being closed in some parts of the land; when 
 history is tampered with ; when anarchy threatens on the one hand, and 
 on the other Catholic influence bids fair to take from us all the inheri- 
 tance of liberty that we have received from our fathers, is it not time to 
 ask seriously what can be done? 
 
 This is not merely a question of the rights of women, but of the very 
 lif<^ of this Republic. Shall we have a republic? Shall we have a free 
 government ? Shall the American man have standing room on Ameri- 
 can soil *? These are the qu( stions which are pressing upon us. 
 
G2 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 Ill a recent address to the veterans in Indianapolis the President- 
 elect recognized the dangers whicli threaten our institutions and the 
 perpetuity of onr Government ; and he attributed them to the sup- 
 inession of the ballot, saying very justly, "The suppression of the bal- 
 lot under any circumstances is an evil that can not be tolerated." We 
 need for the salvation and permanency of this Government a free bal- 
 lot and a fair count in all the States of the Union." And what he 
 most desired, he said, was "to hear a bugle call for an equal ballot 
 sounding throughout the land." 
 
 I can not believe that such a man as Mr. Harrison uttered such words 
 without knowing what he said, or without meaning what he said. And 
 this is not merely his own utterance. Il is the utterance of the whole 
 ]iepublican party, as again and again sounded through the land. This 
 call for a fair ballot and a fair count, and the right of every citizen in 
 every State to cast a ballot and have it honestly counted, is conspicuous 
 in the party platforms. It is enunciated everywhere by its speakers, 
 who again and again reiterate that the "Eepublican party is pledged 
 to secure for every citizen in every State the right to cast a ballot and 
 have it honestly counted." Have we not reason to expect that the Re- 
 publican party will, in the coming four years, carry out those pledges 
 and fulfill its grand mission, thus saving the nation from destruction 
 and securing to the manhood of America a fair opportunity to live and 
 maintain the right of conscience and free speech on American soil*? 
 May we not also believe it will, at the same time, do justice to the 
 women of the country by i)assing a sixteenth amendment for their en- 
 franchisement ? 
 
 REMARKS BY REV. ANNIE SHAW. 
 
 Miss Anthony. Gentlemen of the committee, I now introduce to you 
 one who is not a lawyer, one who is not a member of Congress, one 
 who is not an M. D., but one who has the title of Eeverend. I think it 
 will do this honorable committee a great deal of good to listen to the 
 Rev. Annie Shaw, of Illinois. So I shall introduce her as the next 
 speaker. I do not know exactly what she is going to say, but I know 
 she will speak in favor of the sixteenth amendment and woman suf- 
 frage, and that is all we are after. 
 
 Miss Shaw. Mr. Chairman, and gentlemen of the committee, I sup- 
 pose Miss Anthony has introduced me that I may vouch for the ortho- 
 doxy of the body that has been gathered together here. We are 
 orthodox on the woman suifrage question, and although they do not 
 all agree with me on matters of faith in religion, they do agree with 
 me on matters of faith in government. 
 
 We have no apology to offer for being here. We have come to the 
 conclusion that if w^omen are to be free they must strike the blow. We 
 have long enough waited for our chivalric brothers to do it for us. They 
 decline, preferring to bear our burden of the ballot, while they also de- 
 cline to bear our burden of the responsibility of life. Since we must 
 bear the responsibility of the ballot without having the pleasure of 
 bearing the ballot that we may govern the responsibility, we should 
 like to govern the responsibility we have to bear. Yet while those of 
 us who in the different parts of the country have had no experience like 
 Mrs. Johns of Kansas, and no experience like the women of Massachu- 
 setts, and no facts from experience to offer, we do not come before you 
 without a desire to offer them. 
 
 I wish to plead to-day not for myself alone, but especially for the 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 63 
 
 women of the Territories. There is a great deal of talk before the coun- 
 try now about the injustice of the exclusion of the Territories from state- 
 hood, and there are great hopes on the part of many people that several 
 of the Territories will soon be admitted as States. I wish to plead in 
 behalf of the women of those Territories that when they are admitted 
 the word ^'male" may be left out of the constitution and the Territories 
 admitted into the Union as States only on the ground that all the people 
 in the Territories are free, and that the State shall come in in the way 
 in which we all ought to have come in in the beginning, without any 
 restriction on the ballot so far as the sexes of the citizens of the State 
 or the Territory are concerned. 
 
 I therefore wish to put in a word this morning for the women of the 
 Territories. While you are realizing, as so many of our brethren seem 
 to realize, the terrible burden of disfranchisement on the part of the 
 men of those Territories, I trust that you will also feel a pang of suffer- 
 ing on account of the condition of disfranchisement on the part of the 
 women, and while you are speaking for the men that you will speak 
 and work for the women also. 
 
 We women have wept a great while. We have wept because we 
 have been told it is proper for women to weep. We thought that 
 would bring us justice; but justice does not come to weeping women. 
 The only thing it has brought us is the thought that we have no place 
 in the Grovernment because we weep. We have tried to be pleasant, 
 because we have beeu told it is becoming to women to be pleasant, and 
 then we have been told that we have been altogether too pleasant to 
 enter into political relations. It is a bar to our enfranchisement. We 
 have tried to be sweet and womanly, and then we have been told that 
 we are so sweet and womanly that it would never do to injure the 
 sweetness and womanliness of our nature by bringing us in contact 
 with coarser things. After having tried to be what we were told we 
 ought to be, we have discovered that we have only been placing bar- 
 riers to our further advancement. 
 
 But the mourning women have dried their tears ; the pretty women 
 have gone to looking after something else; the sweet women have 
 taken another course, and so are come here as neither sweet, pretty, 
 nor weeping. We come here with strong convictions. We come with 
 the purpose of coming just as often as we are permitted to come until 
 we obtain our request, like the woman in the Word who appeared be- 
 fore the unjust judge. It would hardly become us to put you on a level 
 with the unjust judge, but we come before you gentlemen who are our 
 judges, and we will plead again and again until our petition shall be 
 heard. We will be here regularly and s^'Stematically, Providence per- 
 mitting, until the angel Gabriel blows the last trump, unless something 
 is done. [Laughter and applause.] There is only one way to get rid 
 of us, and that is by granting our request. Then we will stay at home. 
 There is nothing we so much desire as to remain at home. 
 
 Of women who have never had the experience of married life, like 
 Miss Anthony and myself, who are of the superfluous class of women, 
 my State has 70,000. I want to know how we are represented in the 
 Government and by whom. Nobody has offered himself to represent 
 tne out of Government, and I doubt if anybody is representing me in 
 Government. The question is, shall I be unrepresented while so many 
 women are represented in so many different ways under different con- 
 ditions ? I need the ballot for my protection. In my city of Boston 
 there are some 22,000 women who are obliged to earn their own liveli- 
 
64 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 hood. It has been declared that the ballot is worth 50 cents a day to 
 the laboring man of this coiiDtry. If it is true that the ballot is worth 
 50 cents a day to the laboring man it is also true that it will be worth 
 50 cents a day to the laboring woman, and there is not a laboring woman 
 of us who would not be glad for an extra 50 cents a day. If the ballot 
 will bring us this in response to our service rendered in the different 
 lines of work in"which we are engaged we want it. 
 
 But you may say that the ballot has nothing to do with pay ; that 
 wages are not regulated by the ballot. We know that is true directly, 
 we know that indirectly legislation and public sentiment regulate de- 
 mand and supply, and that regulates wages. Just as long as legisla- 
 tion debars women from a certain position, just as long as social cus- 
 tom, which rest upon legislation, debars women from certain lines of 
 employment, then women will be more or less crowded into few employ- 
 ments and there will be a greater supply of laborers than of labor, and 
 the result will be that the wages of the laborer will be reduced. So we 
 find women in the city of New York sewing, making shirts for 4 cents 
 a piece, making coarse overalls for 3 cents a pair, and then we wonder 
 that there are immoral women all over our country ! The simple fact 
 is the wages that are paid the laboring women of this country are so 
 meager that it is strange to me that the cry during the last campaign 
 was not " Look at the working women of New York, look at the 
 working women of Chicago and of Boston," instead of *^Look at the 
 working women of London and of the other cities of England." We 
 have them where they can barely sustain themselves by the hard labor 
 which they render seventeen hours a day. I consider that the great- 
 est class of laborers we have in this nation are the working women, 
 who are trying to sustain life on the meager pittance which they receive 
 for their labor. The ballot means better pay for women as well as it 
 means better pay for men. We have these women not only in a few 
 cities, but generally all over the country women are required to labor 
 by the absolute necessity of earning a livelihood, and they desire to 
 earn it in better ways. I am the national superintendent of the fran- 
 chise department of the Womans' Christian Temperance Union. There 
 are more than 200,000 of us, and wherever we have gone in the different 
 lines of our work we have been brought at last to a great barrier, and 
 we can go no farther unless we have the ballot to open up the way. In 
 our protective agency in Chicago we fintl that while it is quite possible 
 to secure a favorable result in a civil suit, it is rarely possible to secure 
 a favorable result in a criminal suit, and in our work in the northern 
 woods of Michigan and Wisconsin, where terrible conditions of im- 
 purity prevail, we find ourselves blocked at every step simply because 
 we are politically powerless. Wherever we go, and under all conditions, 
 we feel that we need the ballot to help us, in order that the results we 
 desire for moral conditions may be advanced. 
 
 One great fear of us women is that we will all vote the prohibition 
 ticket. A gentleman told me his only objection to the enfranchisement 
 of women was that the women might all vote the prohibition ticket, and 
 yet this same gentleman was very angry with a certain district of our 
 country because there were persons deprived of the right of suffrage 
 there on the very ground that they did not vote the ticket that some^ 
 body else wanted them to vote. The simple fact is women no more 
 agree among themselves upon a ticket than do men. There would be as 
 great diversity of opinion among us as there is among the men of the 
 country as to the ticket we would vote. We would probably vote our 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 65 
 
 own convictions in whicbever direction that might lie, and we are not 
 asking for the ballot that we may vote one way or another, but that we 
 may protect ourselves under the conditions in which we are placed in 
 whatever way we need, and because we find that wherever we under- 
 take any legislative work the ballot is necessary. 
 
 Take, for instance, the case of petitioning a legislature. Every gen- 
 tleman here knows the value of a petition upon which the names of prom- 
 inent and influential political men are found, and the utter want of value 
 of a petition that is signed by a large number of women. If I were to 
 go before any legislative body in this country with a petition I would 
 rather have the names of one hundred influential men than the names of 
 one hundred thousand women ; the petition would be of more influence. 
 I well remember when I was about to sign a petition on a certain subject 
 in Massachusetts, the lady who gave me the petition snatched both peti- 
 tion and pencil out of my hand and ran to a man, and when she came back 
 apologized, on the ground that the name of one man was worth the 
 names of forty women. Why is it? Is it because the legislators feel 
 more kindly towards men than towards women and do more justly to 
 men than to women'? Not at all. It is merely because men, having 
 political power, are their constituents, and they conserve the interests 
 of their constituents, while they can not conserve the interests of a dis- 
 franchised class. 
 
 We are at a disadvantage, not because we are women — nobody be- 
 lieves that — but because in a republic a disfranchised class is always 
 at a disadvantage, and because we are called the weaker sex. Are we 
 to be deprived of every right because we are weak, and then told to go 
 alone, when men can not get along, with their superior strength, with- 
 out the help of government? We ask that we may have the ballot for 
 own protection ; for the protection of the home ; that we aid good men 
 to give us the best forms of government. As one of your Senators has 
 said, the nature of the sexes is widely different. We believe on that 
 very ground that we should be enfranchised, in order that the diverse 
 nature of our race, the masculine and the feminine, may affect legisla- 
 tion as long as legislation affects us. Everybody knows that the opin- 
 ion of a wise man and a wise woman upon any subject is infinitely 
 better than the opinion of two men or of two women on the same sub- 
 ject. What I want is the outcome of both for the interests of all, and 
 this can only be done when in counting the opinion of the people of 
 our country we count the opinion of both men and women. You will 
 find in the end that women are as capable and willing to give a wise 
 opinion as men. 
 
 Hence, for the general good of our nation, we beseech you that there 
 shall be something done that shall give to us a sixteenth amendment, 
 that there* may no longer be any disfranchisement in this country 
 either because of race, color, previous condition of servitude, or sex. 
 [Applause.] 
 
 REMARKS BY MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY. 
 
 MisS Anthony. Gentlemen of the committee, the fact that we bring 
 before you this morning only seven speakers is not because we have not 
 a score more here from almost as many different States whom I should 
 be glad to have address you, but because of the shortness of your time. 
 
 Allow me simply to mention the States which are represented here 
 t)efore you dismiss us. Minnesota is represented by Ella M. S. Marble, 
 S. Rep. 2543 5 ' 
 
66 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 president of her State woman suffrage society ; Kentucky, by Mary 
 B. Clay, the daufi:bter of Cassius M. Clay ; New York, by Lillie Deve- 
 reux Blake, Mary Seymour Howell, Sarah Anthony Burtis, who was 
 secretary of the first woman's rights convention in 1848, and Charlotte 
 Daley^; Pennsylvania, by Matilda Hindmao, Dr. Caroline Dodson, and 
 Kachel Foster- Avery ; Ohio, by Sarah M. Perkins and Sara Wiuthrop 
 Smith, who rolled up 13,000 names of men and women at the Cincinnati 
 and Columbus Centennial Expositions who desired the enfranchise- 
 ment of women ; Indiana, by Ida W. Harper and May Wright Sewall; 
 Nebraska, by Clara B. Colby, the editor of the Woman's Tribune, that 
 comes weekly to each of you and all the members of Congress ; Mary- 
 laud, by Mrs. Caroline Hallowell and Mrs. Sarah T. Miller; Massa- 
 chusetts, by Lavina A. Hatch and Harriet B. Shattuck, the president 
 of the national branch of our association; and here is Utah, the Terri- 
 tory in which Congress took from all the women their vested right of 
 suffrage, represented by Margaret Caine and Emily S. Richards. 
 
 But I do not propose, gentlemen, to ask you to listen to all of these 
 women, though each one could make a most excellent argument. I 
 know the majority of this committee is in favor of woman's enfranchise- 
 ment aud will do all in its power to secure the legislation that we seek; 
 still I must repeat that this is the twelfth Congress to which the women 
 of this nation have appealed for the protection of their " citizen's right 
 to vote." 
 
 As has been stated by one of the speakers, we have not only been 
 coming here for the last score and more of years, but we shall be com- 
 ing every winter for the next twenty and more years, unless Congress 
 shall pass the resolution for a sixteenth amendment, or, better still, a 
 declaratory act, which Congress has ample power to do, proclaiming 
 that women already possess the right to vote under the original Con- 
 stitution, with its fourteenth and fifteenth amendments. 
 
 This committee has reported favorably from Congress to Congress 
 ever since its first appointment, and I hope you will not fail to bring in 
 a report, late as it is in this last session of the Fiftieth Congress, and 
 also take the steps to secure both a discussion aud a vote upon the 
 floor of the Senate before the 4th of March arrives. 
 
 REMARKS BY MRS. HARRIETTE R. SHATTUCK. 
 
 Mrs. Shattuck. I wish to make a request of the committee before it 
 adjourns. The speakers so far have represented the petitions for an 
 amendment to the National Constitution. I could well have been in- 
 cluded, although it was not necessary, because I sent personally a peti- 
 tion here representing our Massachusetts National Branch, which is 
 before your committee. It was sent early in the session. 
 
 1 should like also to speak of another petition which has been referred 
 to you lately — that of Mrs. Harriet H. Kobiuson, of Massachusetts, ask- 
 ing for the removal of her political disabilities. That petition was sent 
 to Senator Dawes, who presented it in the Senate and referred it to your 
 committee, as, of course, you know. Mrs. Eobinson, whose daughter 
 I have the honor to be, has been in communication with the commitree 
 through its chairman, and will, at the proper time, present her argu- 
 ment on the invitation of the committee. 
 
 I am not here to present any argument, but simplj^ to ask you to 
 consider the petition and to consider seriously the argument when it 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 67 
 
 is made. Believing that a personal application is better sometimes 
 than a written one, I thought I had better represent my mother in ask- 
 ing you, when the matter comes up (she has legal counsel engaged to 
 present it in proper form), that you will consider it as it should be con- 
 sidered, and remember that when I was here as her daughter I asked 
 you so to do. 
 
 Senator Palmer. Is there anything further that you wish to present, 
 Miss Anthony? 
 Miss Anthony. 1 believe not. 
 The committee accordingly adjourned. 
 
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