46th Congress, ) HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES. < Mis. Doer. 
 2d Session. f \ No. 20. 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. — ARGUMENTS BEFORE THK COMMIT- 
 TEE ON THE JUDICIARY. 
 
 Fkhki ary 3, 1880.— Recommitted to the Committee on the Judiciary, and ordered to 
 
 be priuted. 
 
 Washington, D. 0., January 24, 1SS0. 
 
 Tlie Chairman pro tern. (Mr. Harris, of Virginia) : The order of busi- 
 ness for the present session of the committee is the delivery of argu- 
 ments by delegates to the Woman Suffrage Convention now holding its 
 sessions in Washington. I am informed that the delegates are in at- 
 tendance upon the committee. We will be pleased to he tr them. 
 
 A list of the names of the ladies proposing to speak, with a memoran- 
 dum of the limit of time allotted to each, has been handed to me for my 
 guidance: and, in the absence of the chairman, (Mr. Knott), it will be 
 my duty to confine the speakers to the number of minutes apportioned 
 to them respectively upon the paper before me. xVs an additional con- 
 sideration for adhering to the regulation as to time, I will mention that 
 members of the committee have informed me that, having made engage- 
 ments to be at the departments and elsewhere ou business appointments 
 during the day, they will be compelled to leave the committee-room upon 
 the expiration of the time assigned for the present order of business. 
 
 The first name upon the list is that of Mrs. Emma Mont. McKae, of 
 Indiana, to whom five minutes are allowed. 
 
 REMARKS OF MRS. EMMA MONT. MCRAE, OF INDIANA. 
 
 Mrs. McKae (who was introduced by Miss Susan B. Anthony, as the 
 principal of the high school at Muncie, Iud.) occupied five minutes. 
 She said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee: The women 
 in the State of Indiana who want to vote doubtless number many more 
 than you imagine upon hearing the name of the Hoosier State. In 
 Indiana the cause of woman has made marked advancement, and there 
 women have advantages over their sex in other States. At the same 
 time we realize — and as mothers especially we realize it — that we need 
 the li^ut to vote, in order that we may have protection. We need that 
 right as one indispensably necessary to our security in the enjoyment 
 of other rights. We need the ballot because through the medium of its 
 power alone we can hope to wield that influence, in the making of laws 
 affecting our own and our children's interests, to which we claim to be 
 entitled. Therefore, I have come from the State of Indiana to give ut- 
 terance to the voice of the mothers among the women of that State, in 
 behalf of their petition for the right to vote. 
 
 Some receut occurrences in Indiana, one in particular in the section 
 of the State from which I come, have impressed us more sensibly than 
 we were ever before impressed with the necessity to us of the exercise 
 of this right. We want to vote that we may be permitted to earn our 
 bread. The particular incident to which I refer was this: In the town 
 
12*25 
 
 2 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 of Muncie, Indiana, from which I coine, a young girl, of some twenty- 
 one years, who for the past five years bad been employed as a clerk in 
 the post-office, and upon whom a widowed mother was dependent for 
 support, was told, on the first of January, that she was no longer needed 
 in the office. She had filled her place well ; no complaint had been 
 made against her, and it was not intimated that her place was a super- 
 numerary one. She very modestly asked the postmaster as to the 
 cause of her discharge, aud he replied : "We have a man who has done 
 work for the party, and we must give that man a place ; I haven't room 
 for both of you. I must take your place away from you and give it to 
 that man." Now, there you have at once the reason why we want the 
 ballot ; we want to be able to do something for the party in a substan- 
 tial way, so that men may not have this to tell us, that they have no 
 room for us because we do nothing " for thepartyP I want this young 
 girl, and all the young girls, and all the mothers in Indiana, to be able 
 to do something for 44 the party" in Indiana, by means of which they can 
 show they have the power to protect themselves in earning livelihoods. 
 When they have the ballot, women will work for " the party," as a 
 means of enabling them to hold places in which they may get bread for 
 their mothers and for their children, if necessity requires this of them. 
 [Here the five minutes expired.] 
 
 REMARKS OF MISS JESSIE T. WAITE, OF ILLINOIS, 
 
 Miss Waite was awarded the next five minutes. She said . 
 
 Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee of the House of 
 Representatives : I feel called upon to say that, previous to this time, the 
 women of Illinois have not been ready for the ballot, but that now they 
 are. In that State we have attained to almost every right except that of 
 the ballot. W T e have been admitted to all the schools and colleges; we 
 have become accustomed to parliamentary usages; we have become accus- 
 tomed to voting in literary societies and in all matters connected with 
 the interests of the colleges and schools; we are considered members in 
 good standing of the associations, and, in some cases, the young ladies in 
 the institutes have been told that they hold the balance of power. 
 
 The same reason for woman suffrage that has been given by the dele- 
 gate from Indiana (Mrs. McRae) holds good with reference to the State 
 of Illinois, that women must have the ballot in order that they may 
 have the means of self support and protection in getting bread for 
 themselves and their families by giving to the party that looks for their 
 support some substantial evidence of their strength. There are evidences 
 of an uprising among the women of our State, aud of the development 
 among them of this feeling that they must have the ballot. Experi- 
 ence has demonstrated, especially iu the temperance movement, how 
 fruitless are all their efforts while the ballot is withheld from their 
 hands. They have prayed ; they have petitioned; they have talked; 
 they have lectured ; they have done all that they could do, except to 
 vote; and yet all availeth them nothing. Miss Frances Willard and 
 other ladies presented to the legislature of Illinois a petition of such 
 length that it would have reached around this room. It contained over 
 50,000 signatures. 
 
 Miss Susan B. Anthony (aside). One hundred and eighty thousand. 
 
 Miss Waite (continuing.) I am obliged for the correction. One hun 
 died and eighty thousand. 1 was not aware that it contained so many 
 names, though I did learn that the number of signatures was largely 
 increased over 50,000. The purpose of the petition was to have the 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 3 
 
 legislature give the women of the State the right to vote upon the 
 question of license or no license, in their respective districts. 
 
 I have found, siuce coming to the East, that the women of the West 
 have reason to congratulate themselves upon* their comparatively ad- 
 vanced position. They may, indeed, flatter themselves upon the truth 
 of the remark of Bishop Berkeley, of California, as applied to the con- 
 dition of women in the State of Illinois, when he said that " Westward 
 the star of empire takes its way." This is manifest in all our schools, 
 and in all the avenues of employment which have been opened to women 
 in that State, within the past live or ten years. There remains, there- 
 fore, only this one great deprivation, the denial of the suffrage; as, ex- 
 cept upon school district matters (in which particular the right has 
 also been extended to women in some of the Eastern States), we have 
 not been allowed to vote. In some of the counties of our State we 
 have ladies as superintendents of schools, and one or two who are pro- 
 fessors in colleges. One of the professors in the Industrial University 
 at Champaign is a lady. Throughout the State you may find ladies 
 who excel in every branch of study and in every trade. It was a lady 
 who took the prize at ''the Exposition" for the most beautiful piece of 
 cabinet-work. This is said to have-been a marvel of beauty, and ex- 
 traordinary as a specimen of fine art. She was a foreigner; a Scandi- 
 navian, I believe. Auother lady is a teacher of wood-carving, a branch 
 of industry which is becoming quite an art. There are lady physicians. 
 There are two lady attorneys, Perry and Martin, now practicing in the 
 city of Chicago. Representatives of our sex are also to be found among 
 real estate agents and journalists; while, in one or two instances, as 
 1 trenchers, they have been recognized and authorized to sa}~ what they 
 lei t called upon to say in the churches. 
 
 [Here the five minutes expired.] 
 
 REMARKS OF MRS. CATHERINE A. STEBBINS, OF MICHIGAN. 
 
 Mrs. Stebjbins was given the next five minutes. She said: 
 
 " Better fifty years of Europe than a cycle of Cathay \ v So said the 
 poet ; and I say, Better a week with these inspired women in conference 
 than years of an indifferent conventional society ! Their presence has 
 been a blessing to the people of this District, and will prove in the 
 future a blessing to our government. These women, from all sectious 
 of our country, with a moral and spiritual enthusiasm (enthusiasm, God 
 in us) which seeks to lift off the moral burdens of our government and 
 social life, come to you, telling of the obstacles and barriers that have 
 beset their path and baffled them in their strivings. They have tried 
 to heal the hurts of the stricken in vice, ignorance, and despair; to 
 save our land from self-destruction and disintegration. One has sought 
 to reform the drunkard, to save the moderate drinker, to convert the 
 liquor-seller; another, to shelter the homeless; another, to lift and save 
 the abandoned woman. ''Abandoned V- once asked a prophet -like man 
 of our time, who added, "There never was an abandoned woman with- 
 out an abandoned man !" Abandoned of whom I let us ask. Surely not 
 by the merciful Father. No; neither man nor woman is ever aban- 
 doned by Him, and He sends His instruments, in the persons of some of 
 these great-hearted women, to appeal to you to restore their God-given 
 freedom of action, that ''the least of these r may be remembered. 
 
 Bnt in our councils no one has dwelt upon one of the great evils of our 
 civilization, the scourge of war; though it has been said that women 
 
4 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 will fight. It is true, there are instances in which they have considered 
 it a duty ; there were such in the rebellion. But the majority of women 
 would not declare war, would not enlist soldiers, and would not vote 
 supplies and equipments, because many of the most thoughtful believe 
 there is a better way, and that women can bring a moral power to bear 
 that shall make war needless. 
 Jeaunette, in the old song, appeals to her lover, Jennot : 
 
 "If kings will show their might, 
 Why, let those who make the quarrels 
 Be the ouly men to light." 
 
 Like my father and mother, I was reared in the society of u Friends," 
 and we loved the principles of peace, of non resistance of injuries. 
 The rebellion came; a brother iu New York City enlisted in the Army 
 in April, ? 61. We had come to think, because we hoped, that men iu 
 our country had outgrown the spirit of war on the battle-held, although 
 we perceived that if men would not repent and make clean our govern- 
 ment, it might prove inevitable. Brother wrote us that he had enlisted 
 and must go. We were overwhelmed with grief at the thought, but the 
 act was done; we could ouly submit. I well remember what I wrote 
 him; painful as it was, I must once write it. The thought, 1 told him, 
 that he was to deliberately stand in the ranks to be aimed at and shot 
 down was a terrible one and a great fear to us; but the other thought, 
 that he was as deliberately to stand up and aim his weapon at another 
 man, and perhaps take his life, was a far more terrible thought; aud let 
 me say here, that if men could see and know the lives they take, they 
 would shrink, in many cases utterly shrink, from war. They do not see 
 the individual men. Modern warfare is very different from the old. Men 
 seldom fight hand to hand, and the smoke of battle hides their deeds 
 from sight. The soldiers tell us — whole regiments, 1 think — that they 
 never saw a man fall who was hit by their individual bullets. O, what 
 a solace to their sensitive hearts! — not to their consciences, for they start 
 out to serve their country. The humau heart of man, under the best 
 conditions and under the tender guidance of a conscientious mother, 
 revolts at such deeds. 
 
 In passing, let me speak of a reply this brother made to our blessed 
 mother after she had warned him against the temptations of the great 
 city. He wrote, " Never fear for me, dear mother, iu regard to these 
 temptations; I have not the least inclination to the vices of the low, 
 for I have had too good a start at home." O, comforting, enduring 
 words! They live in memory of a mother's faithfulness and a son s 
 truth. And here we see the close connection with deeper questions of 
 the mother's influence, which we have no time to discuss to-day. 
 
 But let us take one picture, representative of the general features 
 of war — we say nothing of our convictions in regard to the conflict. 
 Ulysses S. Grant or Anna Ella Carroll make plans and maps for the 
 campaign ; McClellan and Meade are commanded to collect the colum- 
 biads, muskets and ammunition, and move their men to the attack. 
 At the same time the saintly Clara Barton collects her cordials, medi- 
 cines, and delicacies, her lint and bandages and, putting them in tin* 
 ambulance assigned, joins the same moving train. McClellan's men 
 meet the enemy and men — brothers — on both sides, fall by the death- 
 dealing missiles. Miss Barton and her aids bear off the sufferers, 
 staunch their bleeding wounds, soothe the reeling brain, bandage the 
 crippled Limbs, pour in the oil and wine, and make as easy as may be 
 the soldier's bed. What a, solemn and heart rending farce is here en- 
 acted ! Aud t \et in our present development, men and women seek to 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 5 
 
 reconcile it with the requirements of religion and the necessities of our 
 conflicting lives. So few recognize the absolute truth ! 
 
 But mothers know the cost of a life. One of the sweetest and most 
 self-sacrificing women who ever did works of mercy in this District and 
 one of the most serious whoever appeared before your committee, in 
 conversation with me about the faith, love, and suffering of women, said, 
 "In maternity every mother goes down into the garden of Gethsemano 
 and leans her heart on the heart of God." Another has said, '-Every 
 mother is a Madonna by the cradle of her first born. 1 " Will you help us 
 to save our first born ! 
 
 [Here the time expired.] 
 
 REMARKS OF MRS. ELIZABETH L. SAXOX, OF LOUISIANA. 
 
 Airs. Saxon (to whom was allotted five minutes) said : 
 
 Getttlmieii of the Committee : I feel that I would much prefer leaving 
 my time to Miss Anthony but having been called upon as one of three 
 members here present from the south — coming, as I do, from the State 
 of Louisiana — it may be incumbent upon me to state why I am here. 
 
 It is said that the emancipation proclamation was a military neces- 
 sity ; that the political privilege to the negro was a political necessity. 
 I entered upon the enfranchisement of women as a moral necessity. 
 We who are mothers have gathered here from all quarters of the land, 
 because we want to be able to help our children — helping, through our 
 children, all mankind. 
 
 In the course of conversation with one or two of the gentlemen here, 
 1 made to them the statement that our people are not as unfavorable to 
 this movement as they think, and I will, as briefly as possible, give the 
 authority for my statement. In July last, during the session of the con- 
 stitutional convention of Louisiana, I presented to that body a petition 
 on this subject signed by the very best men in the city of New Orleans 
 and elsewhere. We had the names of five clergymen and seven of the 
 most prominent physicians of the State. Dr. Richardson, a leading 
 physician, said to his wife afterwards, U I reproach you for not standing 
 by these ladies in their effort for the emancipation of women.' 7 Gov- 
 ernor WiltZj who occupied the chair of the convention (being at that 
 time lieutenant governor), heartily approved our petition. We also pre- 
 sented a supplementary petition, which, with the first, was referred to 
 the judiciary committee. We were formally invited by Mr. Poche, a 
 prominent Creole from one of the upper parishes and a member of the 
 committee on the elective franchise, to appear before the judiciary 
 committee, which was then meeting in the St. Charles Hotel. They 
 set apart an evening for our accommodation and permitted the at- 
 tendance of any other ladies who desired to attend. The ladies, not 
 being accustomed to appear before public bodies, being timid and 
 reserved, as all Southern ladies are, declined to take part witli me 
 in the presentation of the subject. However, I went before the judici- 
 ary committee attended by Col. John D. Sandige, and made my argu- 
 ment beiore them. That committee, having upon it some Republican 
 members but composed largely of Democrats, heard me so favorably 
 that they reported affirmatively an ordinance on the subject to the con- 
 vention. Subsequently, I appeared before the convention in company 
 with other ladies, among whom were Mrs. Merrick, the wife of the chief 
 justice of the State; and Mrs. Dr. Keating (niece of Mrs. Dr. Clemence 
 Lozier, of New York,) a lady who had some of the first families of the 
 State under her care as a physician, and who, though her pecuniary in. 
 
6 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 terests were in a way to be sacrificed, was governed solely by her sense 
 of right, and did not hesitate to go with me before the convention and 
 make her plea for woman — which I do not think many men would have 
 done. Mrs. Dorsey, who left to Jefferson Davis her fortune, and who 
 was then on her death-bed — than whom no woman ever ranked higher 
 socially, intellectually, or in any way — was among the signers to the 
 petition which we presented. She wrote a letter on this subject, which 
 was read to the convention by Colonel Saudige, and the occasion of that 
 formal letter was the last upon which she ever handled a pen. In our 
 appeal to that convention we plead as mothers, and our plea was, "We 
 do not want men's places; we only want you, gentlemen, to help us in 
 school reforms, in prison reforms, aud social reforms." 
 
 I would mention, in this connection, the very pertinent retort made 
 by the delegate now here from Delaware, from whom I learned of it last 
 evening. Upon being told by a gentleman promiuent in public life that 
 he favored woman suffrage, but that men were opposed to women going 
 to the polls, she replied, that when there was a foul place about a house, 
 a cess-pool, or anything of the kind, it was the women who went to work 
 to carbolize and scour it up and, as they did this in private life, they 
 w 7 ould prove equally efficient in scouring up the foul places iu public life. 
 
 Yesterday, before the Senate Judiciary Committee, I heard Miss An- 
 thony make an argument that, to my mind, was indisputable. I have 
 no doubt that every one who heard it will agree with me in that. Those 
 who now come before you, gentlemen, are pleading with you to help us 
 women to do that which is emphatically our own work. They want 
 nothing more. The character of the ladies who worked with me in this 
 cause iu Louisiana was a sufficient guarantee to those who appended 
 their names to our petition that it was not the riff-raff of society who 
 were asking for recognition but the mothers of a community; and let 
 me tell you, gentlemen, that whenever the moral forces of a nation are 
 to be aroused, as those of our nation are fast becoming aroused, the 
 most effective agents that can be employed in the work are the mothers. 
 We want to go into the institutions of learning, and make reforms there. 
 We want to go into prisons, and make prison reforms. Wherever woman 
 sins and suffers, there let woman go. The ranks of iniquity, gentlemen, 
 are not recruited from a foreign race, but from the babes born of our 
 bodies and nursed in our arms, and every woman who has gone down 
 to ruin has gone down with a broken-hearted mother behind her. I 
 plead for those, gentlemen 
 
 [Here the live minutes expired.] 
 
 REMARKS OF MRS. LILLIE DEVERETJX BLAKE, OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Mrs. Blake (to whom ten minutes had been assigned) came forward, 
 bearing a volume of the Kevised Statutes, and said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman and gentlemen of the committee : 1 come here with your 
 own laws in my hands, and the volume is quite a heavy one too, to ask 
 you something about our position to day. 1 ask you whether we. women, 
 arc 1 citizens of this nation ? 
 
 The Chairman (Mr. Harris, of Virginia, in the chair). 1 have only to 
 say to yon, madam, in reply, that the committee are here to listen, not 
 to advise 
 
 Mrs. BLAKE. Then T will proceed to instruct you, if I may be per- 
 mitted to instruct so august a body as this. 
 
 I have here the book of laws which you, men, have made. I find in 
 this book, under the heading of the chapter on ''Citizenship," the fol- 
 lowing : 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 7 
 
 "Sec. 191)2. All persons born in tlie United States and not subject to 
 any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are declared to be citi- 
 zens of the United Stares/' 
 
 I suppose that you, gentlemen, will admit that we, women, are, in 
 the language of the section, "persons," and that we cannot reasonably 
 be included in the class spoken of as "Indians not taxed." Therefore 
 I claim that we are "citizens." 
 
 The same chapter also contains the following: 
 
 "Sec. 1994. Any woman who is now or may hereafter be married to 
 a citizen of the United States anil who might herself be lawfully natur- 
 alized shall be deemed a citizen." 
 
 Under this section also we are citizens. I am myself, as indeed are 
 most of the ladies present, married to a citizen of the United States; 
 so that we are citizens under this count if we \\ere not citizens before. 
 
 Then, further, in the legislation known as "The Civil Rights Bill," I 
 find this language: 
 
 "All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have 
 the same right, in every State and Territory, to make and enforce con- 
 tracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence, and to the lull and equal benefit 
 of all laws and proceedings for the security of persons and property as 
 is enjoyed by white citizens, and shall be subject to like punishments, 
 pains, penalties," and so forth. 
 
 One would think that the logical conclusion from that which I have 
 last read would be that all citizens are entitled to equal protection every- 
 . where. It appears to mean that. 
 
 Then I turn to another piece of legislation — that which is known as 
 " The Enforcement Act" — one which some of you, gentlemen, did not 
 like very much when it was enacted — and there I find another declara- 
 tion on the same question. The act is entitled "An act to enforce the 
 right of citizens of the United States to vote in the several States of 
 this Union and for other purposes." The right of " citizens 77 to vote ap- 
 pears to be conceded by this act. In the 2d section, the act says : 
 
 " It shall be* the duty of every such person and officer to give to all 
 citizens of the United States the same and equal opportunity to perform 
 such prerequisite, and to become qualified to vote, without distinction 
 of race, color, or previous condition of servitude." 
 
 I ask you, gentlemen of the committee, as lawyers, whether you do 
 not think that, after we have been declared to be citizens, we have the 
 right to claim the protection of this enforcement act % Is it not clear to 
 you that the gentlemen have made the most singular muddle — I don't 
 . wish to seem disrespectful — but is it not the fact, that they have made 
 the most singular muddle in the present condition of woman in this 
 country ? We are practically remanded to a sort of intermediate con- 
 dition, although we have been declared to be citizens by the laws of the 
 United States. When you, gentlemen from the North, rise in your 
 places here in the halls of Congress and make these walls ring with your 
 eloquence, you are prone to talk a great deal about the right of every 
 United States citizen to the ballot, and the necessity of protecting every 
 Such citizen in its exercise. Whatdo you mean by it \ 
 
 It occurs to me here to call your attention to a matter of recent oc- 
 currence. As you know, there has been a little unpleasantness in 
 Maine — a State which is not without a representative among tin 4 mem- 
 bers of the Judiciary Committee — and certain gentlemen there, es- 
 pecially Mr. Blaine, have been greatly exercised in their minds because, 
 as they allege, the people of Maine have not been permitted to express 
 their will at the polls. Why, gentlemen, I assert that a msvj >ri y of the 
 
8 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRA.Gr. 
 
 people of Maine have never been permitted to express their will at the 
 polls. A majority of the people of Maine are women, aud, from the 
 foundation of this government to this day, have never been permitted 
 to exercise any of the inalienable rights of citizens. Mr. Blaine made a 
 speech a day or two ago in Augusta. He began by reciting the condi- 
 tion of affairs, owing to the effort, as he states, " to substitute a false 
 count for an honest ballot," and congratulated his audieuce upon the in- 
 strumentalities by which they had triumphed — " without tiring a gun, 
 without shedding a drop of blood, without striking a single blow, with- 
 out one disorderly assemblage. The people have regained their own 
 right through the might and majesty of their own laws." He goes on in 
 this vein to speak of those whom he calls u the people of Maine." Well, 
 gentlemen, I do not think you will deny that women are people. It ap- 
 pears to me that what Mr. Blaine said in that connection was nonsense, 
 unless indeed he forgot that there were any others than men among the 
 people of the State of Maine. I don't suppose that you, gentlemen, are 
 often so forgetful. Mr. Blaine said further, " The Eepublicans of Maine 
 and throughout the land felt that they were not merely fighting the bat- 
 tle of a single year, but for all the future of the State ; not merely 
 fighting the battle of our own State alone, but for all the States that 
 are attempting the great problem of State government throughout the 
 world. The corruption or destruction of the ballot is a crime against 
 free government, and when successful is a subversion of free govern- 
 ment." Does that mean the ballot for men only or the ballot for the 
 people, men and women too ? If it is to be received as meaning any- 
 thing, it ought to mean not for one sex alone, but for both. 
 
 Mr. Lincoln declared, in one of his noblest utterances, that no man was 
 good enough to govern another man without that man's consent. Of 
 course be meant it in its broadest terms ; he meant that no man or wo- 
 man was good enough to govern ^another man or woman without that 
 other man's or woman's consent. 
 
 I need not recall to you, gentlemen, the old fundamental principles of 
 this republic, that " taxation without representation is tyranny," 44 that 
 governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed." 
 You learned those lessons when boys at school ; and remember, gentle- 
 men, we learned them when little girls at school also. We love our lib- 
 erties just as dearly as you love yours, aud w 7 e do not like to be disfran- 
 chized any more than you would like it. What gentleman here would 
 consent to give up his right' to vote — I will not say his right to hold 
 office — and yet you expect us, women, some of us as old as yourselves, 
 aud some of us your seniors, to be content with our disfranchised con- 
 dition. 
 
 Mr. Blaine, on another occasion, in connection with the same subject- 
 matter, had much to say of the enormity of the oppression practiced by 
 his political opponents in depriving the town of Portland of the right of 
 representation in view of its paying such heavy taxes as it does pay. 
 He expressed the greatest indignation at the attempt, forgetting utterly 
 that great, that enormous, body of women who pay taxes and who are 
 perpetually deprived of the right of representation. 
 
 In this connection it may be pertinent for me to express the hope, by 
 way ol a suggestion to you, gentlemen, that hereaiter, when making 
 your speeches, you will not use the term " citizens" in a broad, general 
 sense unless you mean to include women as well as men, and that when 
 you do not mean to include women you will speak of male citizens as 
 a distinct and separate class, because the term, in its general applica- 
 tion, is illogical and its meaning obscure if not self-contradictory. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 9 
 
 Mr. Hayes, our Amiable president, was so pleased with one of the 
 sentences in the message put out by him a year ago that, in his mes- 
 sage of this year, he has reiterated the same sentence, repeating it in 
 precisely identical language. The sentence reads thus: kk That no 
 temporary or administrative interests of government will ever displace 
 tike zeal of our people in defense of the primary rights of citizenship, 
 and that the power of public opinion will override all political prejudices 
 and all sectional and State attachments in demanding that all over our 
 wide territory the name and character of citizen of the United States 
 shall mean one and the same thing, and cany with them unchallenged 
 security and respect." Let me suggest what he ought to have said 
 unless he intended to include women, although I am afraid that Mr. 
 Hayes, when he wrote this, forgot that there were women in the United 
 States, notwithstanding that his excellent wife, perhaps, stood by his 
 side. He ought to have said: u An act having been passed to enforce 
 the rights of male citizens to vote, the true vigor of half the population 
 is thus expressed, and no interests of government will ever displace 
 the zeal of half of our people iu defense of the primary rights of our 
 male citizens. The prosperity of the States depends upon the protection af- 
 forded to onr male citizens ; ami the name and character of male cil '/ens 
 of the United States shall mean one and the same thing and carr\ with 
 them unchallenged security and respect'' If Mr. Hayes had thus ex- 
 pressed himself, he would have made a perfectly logical and clear state- 
 ment. Gentlemen, I hope that hereafter, uhen speaking or voting in be- 
 half of the citizens of the Uuited States, you will bear this in mind and 
 will remember that women are citizens as well as men, and that they 
 claim the same rights. 
 
 Gentlemen, this question of woman suffrage cannot much longer be 
 ignored by you. In the State from which I come, although we had not 
 last fall a right to vote, we are confident that the influence which we, 
 as women, brought to bear iu determining the result of the election at 
 that time had something to do with sending into retirement a Demo- 
 cratic foven&r who was opposed to our reform, and electing a Repub- 
 lican governor who was iu favor of it. Kecollect, gentlemen, that the 
 expenditure of time and money whi *h has been made iu this cause will 
 not be without its effect. The time is coming when the demand of an 
 immense number of the women of this country cannot be ignored. When 
 you see these representatives comiug up here from all the States of the 
 Union to ask for this right, can you doubt that, some day, they will 
 succeed in their mission ? AVe do not stand before you to plead as beg- 
 gars; we ask for that for which we do ask as our right. We ask if as 
 due to the memory of our ancestors, who fought for the freedom of this 
 country just as bravely as did yours. We ask it on many considera- 
 tions. Why, gentlemen, the very furniture here, the carpet on this floor, 
 was paid for with our money. We are taxed equally with the men to 
 contribute to defray the expenses of this Congress, and we have a right 
 equally with them to participate in the government. 
 
 In closing, I have only to ask, Is there no man here present who ap- 
 preciates the emergencies of this hour Is there no one among you who 
 \\ ill rise up, on thefloorof Congress, as the champion of this unrepresented 
 half of the people of the United States ! If so, the time is not far dis- 
 tant when there will be. The time is not far distant when we shall have 
 our liberties, and the politician who can now understand the political im- 
 portance of our eause, the statesman who can now see. and will now ap- 
 preciate, the justice of it, that man, if true to himself, will write his 
 name high on the scroll of fame beside those of the men who have been 
 
10 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 tbe saviors of tbis country. Gentlemen, I entreat you not to let this 
 bearing go by without giving due weight to all tbat we have said. I 
 ask yon to carry it in your hearts. We shall be successful in a few years. 
 You can no more stay the onward current of this reform than you can 
 tight against the stars in their courses. 
 
 Mr. Willits, of Michigan. Mr. Chairman, I would like to make a 
 suggestion here. The regulation amendment, as it has heretofore been 
 submitted, provided that the right of citizens of the United States to 
 vote should not be abridged on account of sex. I notice that the amend- 
 ment which the ladies here now propose has preh'xeu to it this phrase : 
 " The right of suffrage in the United States shall be based on citizen- 
 ship." I call attention to this, because I would like to have them ex- 
 plain as fully as they may why they incorporate the phrase, "shall be 
 based on citizenship." Is the meaning this, that all citizeus shall have 
 the right to vote, or simply that citizenship shall be the basis of suf- 
 frage ? The words " or for any reason not applicable to all citizens of 
 the United States," also seem to require explanation. The proposition, 
 in the form in which it is now submitted, I understand, covers a little 
 more than has been covered by the amendment submitted in previous 
 years. 
 
 Mrs. Sara A. Spencer, of Washington, D. C. If the committee will 
 permit me, 1 will say that the amendment, in its present form, is the 
 concentrated wish of the women of the United States. The women of 
 the country sent to Congress petitions, asking for three different forms 
 of constitutional amendment and, when preparing the form of amend- 
 ment now before the committee, I concentrated these three forms in the 
 one before you (ideutical with that of the resolution offered in the House 
 by Hon. George B. Loring and by Hon. T. W. Ferry in the Senate), 
 omitting at the request of each of the three classes of petitioners, all 
 phrases which were regarded by any of them as objectionable. The 
 amendment, as now presented, is therefore the combined wish of the 
 women of the country, viz, that citizenship in the United States shall 
 mean suffrage, and that no one shall be deprived of the right to vote for 
 reasons not equally applicable to all citizeus. 
 
 REMARKS OF MRS. MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, OF NEW YORK. 
 
 Mrs. Gage, the next speaker, was given thirty minutes. 
 She said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee : 
 It is upon this point of the centralization of the suffrage power in the 
 hands of the United States that I propose to speak. I will endeavor to 
 show you that, in the progress of our government, from its very incep- 
 tion, liberty has been defended and has increased as certain power has 
 been centralized in the hands of the general government, and taken 
 away from the States. It will be borne in mind that at the beginning 
 of their rebellion against Great Britain, each of the colonies had its indi- 
 vidual grievance, and that at an early day, long anterior to the procla- 
 mation of our Declaration of Independence, it was deemed best for the 
 colonies to unite. 
 
 Our first American Congress, which met in 1705, was fearful that the 
 divers injuries under which the colonies suffered, and tin 1 many different 
 charters under which they were governed might ensnare them — snc!i 
 was the language made use of by that Congress — u might ensnare 
 them" into working in opposite directions. Ill this the Congress rep- 
 resented the popular sentiment, which found expression in various ways. 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 LI 
 
 In the same year in which that body first convened, The Constitutional 
 Courant, a paper published in the city of New York', came out with 
 a significant representation of a serpent surrounded by thirteen stars 
 and, encircling the whole, an inscription reading Join, or die !'' This 
 inscription was at once adopted by the colonists as their motto ; the 
 announcement of it Hew like wildfire over the whole thirteen colouies; 
 the people began to be united in sentiment, and to realize that only by 
 banding together in one compact whole could they hope to make their 
 separate forces effective against the tyranny of Great Britain. It followed 
 that, prior to our Declaration of Independence, eleven of the colonies, and 
 a portion of one of the two remaining, united in certain articles of associ- 
 ation. Indeed, that is the day to which weought to look back as that of the 
 birth of our nation, instead of that of 1776; for at that day, although form- 
 ally adhering to their allegiance to Great Britain and to His Majesty 
 George III, they united together and thenceforth acted as one body in 
 regard to non-importation, non-exportation, and non-consumption, and 
 practically became one people. Some nine years after The Constitutional 
 Courant had put forth the motto of join or die, the first American Con- 
 gress gave expression to the popular sentiment in declaring its appre- 
 hension that "the diverse interests" of the American colonies would 
 u ensnare them 1 ' to keep themselves separate from each other. In 177<>, 
 with the proclamation of our Declaration of Independence, our country 
 came before the world as an independent nation and one possessed of 
 all the rights of a natiou. 
 
 The importance of the necessity of a greater centralization of po- 
 litical power in the hands of the general government became mani- 
 fest within a brief period after that proclamation had been made, 
 as certain States asserted the right of an individual State to make 
 peace, declare war, and contract alliances. Articles of confederation, 
 having for their object the consolidation of certain powers in the gen- 
 eral government with a view to promoting the security and ensuring 
 the liberty ot # all the people, were entered into by the States. In 1781% 
 after much discussion, originated upon a proposition in Congress to levy 
 certaiu tariff duties and imposts — the State of Ehode Island, advocating 
 what is now known as "the State rights' view, and protesting against 
 the proposition through her Representative, the Speaker of the lower 
 house, Hon. William Bradford — it was recommended by Congress that 
 the States should confer greater power upon the general government. 
 This recommendation was acquiesced in by only four of the thirteen col- 
 onies. The discussion, however, continued. It was then declared that 
 the rights for which this nation contended were the rights of humanity. 
 In the same year in which Rhode Island made her protest, the State of 
 New York, from which I come, formally submitted a proposition for a 
 general convention of the people to pass upon the question. This tailed 
 to ensure definite action. Finally, in 1780, the house of delegates or 
 Virginia, passed a resolution inviting the assembling of commissioners 
 from the various States, to discuss the question and agree upon some 
 means for conceding greater power to the general government. In Sep- 
 tember of the same year, as the result of a conference of commissioners 
 Prom the States of New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania,. Delaware, and 
 Maryland (three of which were then slave States), a call was issued tor 
 a Constitutional convention. This convention assembled in Philadelphia 
 and finally adopted a framework of government, which received the 
 approval of the people. Subsequent to the adoption of the Constitution, 
 some ten conciliatory amendments were appended to it. 
 
 I have thus hastily reviewed the more prominent features of our early 
 
12 
 
 WOMAN kUFFPAGE. 
 
 governmental history with reference to the steps taken from time to 
 time to secure the liberty of the citizens by centralizing power in the 
 hands of the general government. 
 
 In making this demand for the ballot as secured by the United States, 
 we women have frequently been met with this objection, 41 It is central- 
 ization, and centralization tends to destroy liberty." I acknowledge, 
 gentlemen, that an indiscriminate centralization of power does tend to 
 destroy liberty ; but, on the other hand, a wise and judicious centrali- 
 zation of certain powers of government is not only promotive of, but 
 absolutely essential to, the maintenance and perpetuation of liberty. 
 The accumulation of the powers of a State in the hands of the legislature 
 of a State, by which that body is given the exclusive control of all State 
 affairs even down to the building of a bridge or the location of a village 
 cemetery, is one phase of that centralization which is dangerous to lib- 
 erty. To .such an extent has this policy been carried that in many of 
 the States, steps have been taken to curtail or restrict the State gov- 
 ernment and to give the county and town authorities the control of their 
 own local affairs. With respect to all such matters, we women believe 
 in a diffusion of the powers of government. We appreciate the fact 
 that, as power becomes more diffused in that way, in connection with 
 these minor matters, liberty is more fully established. 
 
 In regard to general governmental matters, such as the exercise of the 
 suffrage by citizens of the United States, we know that in the steps it 
 has taken in that direction the general government, as I have shown 
 you, has promoted the liberty of the citizen and better secured it by 
 the exercise of its protecting power over the ballot. 
 
 Following the adoption of the Constitution aud the ten amendments of 
 which I have spoken, other steps were taken to centralize power in the 
 general government because of the necessity which seemed to be felt 
 at the time for the enforcement of this policy. In the latter part of 
 the eighteenth century, the Xlth amendment to the Constitution (per- 
 taining to the judiciary) was adopted, and in the early part of the 
 nineteenth century, the Xllth amendment (regulating the election of 
 President and Vice-Presideut by electors), in regard to which. I believe 
 a bill for a change in the method is now pending befoie the House, 
 was adopted. An interval of some years elapsed before this necessity 
 for a more complete centralization of power in the general manage- 
 ment again manifested itself. It did present itself to the attention of 
 the people of the country upon the breaking out of the war of the Re- 
 bellion, when the Xlllth amendment was adopted, aud afterwards the 
 XlVih and XVth amendments, all of them seeming to be in the interest 
 of liberty. 
 
 Here permit me to digress for a moment in order to notice an objec- 
 tion that we have sometimes encountered, and one that was urged wben 
 Mrs. Minor's case came before the SupremeCourtof the United States. It 
 found expression in the declaration of Chief Justice Waite when he de- 
 clared that the United States had no voters. I assert that those who 
 exercise the suffrage are in a certain sense voters of the United States as 
 distinguished from the voters of the States. I claim, and shall endea vor 
 to show you in the course of my remarks, that the power over the ballot 
 which has been relinquished by the several States has been voluntarily 
 relinquished to the general government, in the course of time, as the 
 States have become consolidated into one harmonious whole. The XlVth 
 amendment declared that all persons born and naturalized m the United 
 States or in the several States are citizens of the State in which they 
 reside. Then the XVth amendment was passed securing to all men 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 13 
 
 tbe right to vote without regard to color. The purpose and effect of 
 those* amendments was to centralize this power, so far as regards the 
 colored men, in the hands of the United States. En other words, the 
 general government made those colored men United States voters, as 
 those amendments completely overrode all State provisions. The States 
 which had denied to colored men the right to vote could not longer with- 
 hold the suffrage from them after those amendments went into effect. 
 In the State ci New York, from which 1 come, for instance, prior to the 
 ratification of those amendments, no colored man was allowed to vote 
 unless he had a property qualification of $250, but immediately alter the 
 ratification of those amendments the State statute on that subject be- 
 came a dead letter; and, although it remained for a time on the statute 
 books of the State, these colored men were admitted to vote irrespective 
 of the property qualification. J ask therefore, gentlemen, were they not 
 United States voters I 
 
 We now ask, at the hands of Congress, the passage of the With 
 amendment. We ask this in the interest of liberty, not only because 
 we seek for our own, but because we would have you preserve your lib- 
 erty. We base our demand upon the broadest considerations. Accord- 
 ing to the argument of our opponents, we have this great anomaly in 
 governmental history, that the underlying principle of a goverment 
 which was founded, as was our own, upon the basis of individual rights, 
 upon the right of every person to self government (which rights in this 
 country are only exercised by and through the ballot), that this funda- 
 mental principle has been left for 100 years in the hands of the States 
 individually, and should continue there. I answer that you have taken 
 from the States the power to fix State boundaries, to coin money, to estab- 
 lish post-routes, to declare peace or war, to collect revenues, to regulate 
 commerce, and such like powers; and, in the greater interest of the liber- 
 ties of the people, you have centralized these powers in the United States 
 Government. Under the amendments to the Constitution, it is only the 
 black man who is secure in his right to vote in the States. White men 
 are not moM secure in that right than are we women ; audi submit 
 that this theory of government which admits that the States severally 
 have entire jurisdiction over the ballot is a most dangerous one. This 
 power is shown most dangerously in those States which have prohibited 
 women from holding the ballot and declared that males only should ex- 
 ercise it. It is against this that we women protest when we declare that 
 the ballot should be based only on citizenship. We desire that citizen- 
 shit) and suffrage in the United States should be practically synonymous 
 terms. Under such an interpretation of the meaning of tin 1 terms, we 
 would be willing to leave the regulation of the suffrage in the hands of the 
 States. I, for one, would not take from the States any power which be- 
 longs to them ; I only ask that what shall be done shall be done exactly 
 in the line of all that has been, done since the beginning of our govern- 
 ment for the purpose of more fully securing the liberty of all citizen- oi 
 the United States, of enabling the people of the States more fully to pre- 
 serve their political dignity, while permitting them to regulate the suf- 
 frage on conditions equally applicable to all persons. This is what is 
 meant by the language of the form of amendment here submitted : [and 
 in asking this, I repeat, we are asking for the security of your liberty as 
 well as our own. 
 
 Furthermore, under the amendments to the Constitution, the condition 
 of male citizens is this: xVny white man may be disfranchised by ;i State 
 law but no colored man can be thus disfranchised ; the colored man is 
 Secure while the white man is not secure in the exercise of tbe suffrage; 
 
14 
 
 WOMA.N SUFFRAGE. 
 
 and the security of tb e colored man depends not upon any statutes of 
 the States but solely upon the assurance afforded by the United States 
 in the amendments to which I have referred. 
 
 Those of you, gentlemen, who are advocates of the State rights doc- 
 trine need entertain no apprehension that we contemplate any violation 
 of that doctrine in the position we have assumed here, because an amend- 
 ment to the Constitution such as we propose cannot be ratified, and 
 therefore cannot be made affective, without the consent of two-thirds of 
 the States. When Miss Anthony, in her argument before the Senate 
 Judiciary Committee yesterday, asked the chairman (Senator Thurman) 
 whether that was not in strict accordance with the States rights prin- 
 ciple, that gentleman answered that it was. 
 
 As 1 was saying, the States, at all times in the past, when they have 
 given up a portion of their liberties in the interest of the general gov- 
 ernment, have given them up in the interest of all the States, and, in so 
 doing, have secured their owu liberty more fully. We know, too, that 
 in proportion as the right of the ballot is nationalized, as it is made 
 broader, as it is made more secure to citizens of the United States, the 
 more it is permanently secured. We kuow, too, that our country has 
 reached a period in its history when the attention of the people of the 
 country is directed most earnestly and anxiously to what shall be 
 the condition of the republic. We are convinced that this suffrage 
 question has assumed a larger and wider scope and is of more profound 
 interest at this time than at any time heretofore; that it is rapidly 
 becoming a feature of the national policy; and that, siuce the war, the 
 demand for woman suffrage has extended over the whole country. We 
 desire to remind you, gentlemen, tha$ by passing the XVlth amendment 
 you will not only be securing to yourselves the rights of individual self 
 government and making yourselves more secure in the exercise of those 
 rights, but that you will be following directly in the line which our 
 country has followed from the meeting of the first American Congress 
 up to this day. With these remarks, I leave this portion of the ques- 
 tion with you. 
 
 [Here the time expired.] 
 
 REMARKS OF MISS PIICKBE W. COUZINS, OF MISSOURI. 
 
 Miss Couzins (to whom had been assigned the next thirty minutes) 
 came lor ward and said : 
 
 Mr, Chairman and Gentlemen of the Judiciary Committee: I am in- 
 vited to speak of the dangers which beset us at this hour in the recent 
 decision by the United States Supreme Court in the case of Mrs. Minor. 
 Coming, as I do, from the State of Missouri, it has been deemed best 
 that I should review this case more fully before you than has been done 
 by the speakers who have preceded me. 
 
 The decision of the Supreme Court of the United States in Mrs. Mi- 
 nor's case not only stultifies its previous interpretation of the recent 
 Constitutional amendments and makes them a dead letter, but will rank, 
 in the coming ages, in the history of the judiciary, with the Dred Scott 
 decision. The law, as explained in the Dred Scott case, was au infamous 
 one, which trampled upon the most solemn rights of the loyal citizens of 
 the government, and declared the Constitution to mean anything or 
 nothing, as the case might be. Yet, the decisiou in that case had a 
 saving clause, for it was not the unanimous voice of a Democratic judi- 
 ciary. Dissenting opinions were nobly uttered from the bench. In the 
 mor e recent case, under the rule of a Republican judiciary (created by a 
 
♦ 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 15 
 
 party professing to be one of justice and equal rights,) tbe rights of one- 
 half of the people were deliberately abrogated without a dissenting voice. 
 This violation of the fundamental principles of our government called 
 forth no protest from the bench of a Republican judiciary. In all of the 
 decisions against woman in the Republican court, there has not been 
 found one Lord Mansfield who, rising to the supreme height of an unbi- 
 ased judgment, would give the immortal decree that shall crown with regal 
 dignity the mother of the race: 1 care not for the supposed dictates of 
 judges, however eminent, if they be contrary to principle. It the par- 
 ties will have judgment, let justice be done, though the Heavens fall." 
 
 The Dred Scott decision declared as the law of citizenship, "to be a 
 citizen is to have actual possession and enjoyment or the perfect right 
 to the acquisition and an enjoyment of an entire equality of privileges, 
 civil and political." But the slave power was then dominant and the 
 court decided that a black man was uot a citizen because he had not the 
 right to vote. But when the Constitution was so amended as to make 
 "all persons born or naturalized in the United States citizens there- 
 of," a negro, by virtue of his United States citizenship, was declared, 
 under the amendments, a voter in every State in the Union. And the 
 Supreme Court reaffirmed this right in the celebrated Slaughter-house 
 cases (16 Wallace, 71), reaffirming the negro's right. It said, "The 
 negro, having by the XlVth amendment, been declared to be a citizen of 
 the United States, is thus made a voter in every State in the Union." 
 
 But when the loyal women of Missouri, appiehending that "every- 
 body beneath the flag were made citizensaud votersby theXIVth amend- 
 ment," through Mrs. Minor, applied to the Supreme Court for protection 
 in the exercise of that same right, this high tribunal, reversing all its 
 former decisions, proclaims State sovereignty superior to national au- 
 thority. This it does in this strange language: "Being born in the 
 United States, a woman is a person and therefore a citizen " — we are 
 much obliged to them for that definition of our identity as persons — 
 " but the Constitution of the United States does uot confer the right of 
 suffrage upoij any one." And then, in the face of its previous decisions, 
 the court declared : " The United States has no voters in the States of 
 its own creation ; " that the elective officers of the United States are all 
 elected, directly or indirectly, by State voters. It remands woman to 
 the States for her protection, thus giving to the State the supreme au- 
 thority and overthrowing the entire results of the war, which was fought 
 to maintain the national supremacy over any and all subjects in which 
 the rights and privileges of the citizens of the United States are in- 
 volved. 
 
 No supreme allegiance, gentlemen of the committee, can be claimed 
 for or by a government if it has no citizens of its own creation, and con- 
 stitutional amendments cannot confer authority over matters which have 
 no existence in theConstitution. Thus, our supreme lawgivers hold them- 
 selves up for obloquy and ridicule in their interpretation of the most solemn 
 rights of loyal citizens, and make our constitutional law to mean anything 
 or nothing as the case may be. You will see, gentlemen, that the very 
 point which the South contended for as the true one is here acknowledged 
 to be the true one by the Supreme Court — that of State l ights superior to 
 national authority. The whole of the recent contest hinged upon this. 
 The appeal to arms and the constitutional amendments by the govern- 
 ment were to estahlish the subordination of the State to national su- 
 premacy, to maintain the national authority over any and all subjects 
 in which the rights and privileges of the citizens of the United States 
 were involved; but this decision in Mrs. Minor's case completely nulli- 
 
16 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 fies the supreme authority of the government, and gives the South more 
 than has hitherto been claimed tor it by the advocates of State rights* 
 The subject of the franchise is thus wholly withdrawn from federal su- 
 pervision and control. If u the United States has no citizens of its own 
 creation, 7 ' of course no supreme allegiance can be claimed by it over 
 the various citizens of the States. 
 
 The constitutional amendments also cannot confer authority over a 
 matter which has no existence in the Constitution. If it has no voters, 
 it can have nothing whatever to do with the elections and voting in the 
 States ; yet the United States invaded the State of New York, sent its 
 officers there to try, convict, and sentence Miss Anthony for exer- 
 cising a right in her own State which they declared that the Uni- 
 ted States had no jurisdiction over. They send United States troops 
 into the South to protect the negro in his right to vote, and then 
 declare they have no jurisdiction over his voting. Then, mark the 
 grave results which may and can follow this decisiou and legislation, 
 I do not imagine that the Supreme Court, in its cowardly dodging of 
 woman's right to all the rights and privileges which citizenship involves, 
 designed to completely abrogate the principles established by the recent 
 coutest, or to nullify the ensuing legislation on the subjeef. But it cer- 
 tainly has done all this; for it must logically follow that if the United 
 States has no citizens, it cannot legislate upon the rights of citizens, 
 and the recent amendments are devoid of authority. It has well been 
 suggested by Mr. Minor, iu his criticism of the decision, that if members 
 of the House of liepresentatives are elected by State voters, as the 
 Supreme Court has thus declared, there is no reason why States may 
 not refuse to elect them as in 18005 aQ d thus deprive Congress of its 
 power. And if a sufficient number could be united to recall at their 
 pleasure these Kepresentatives, what authority has the Federal Govern- 
 ment, under this decision, for coercing them into subjection or refusing 
 them a separation, if all these voters in the States desired an independ- 
 ent existence ? None whatever. 
 
 Mr. Garfield, in the House, in his speech last March, calls attention 
 to this grave subject, but does not allude to the fact that the Supreme 
 Court has already opened the door. He says: 'There are several ways 
 in which our government may be annihilated without the firing of a gun. 
 For example, suppose the people of the United States should say, we 
 will elect no Representatives to Congress. Of course this is a violeut 
 supposition ; but suppose that they do not. Is there any remedy ? Does 
 our Constitution provide any remedy whatever ? In two years there 
 would be no House of Representatives; of course, no support of the 
 government and uo government. Suppose, again, the States should 
 say, through their legislatures, we will elect no Senators. Such absten- 
 tion alone would absolutely destroy this government; and our system 
 provides no process of compulsion to prevent it. Again, suppose the 
 two houses were assembled in their usual order, and a majority of one 
 in this body or in the Senate should firmly band themselves together 
 and say, we will vote to adjourn the moment the hour of meeting ar- 
 rives, and continue so to vote at every session during our two years of 
 existence — the government would perish, and there is no provision of 
 the Constitution to prevent it." The States may inform their Repre- 
 sentatives that they can do this; and, under this position, they have 
 the power and the right so to do. 
 
 Gentlemen, we are now on the verge of one of the most important 
 Presidential campaigns: The party in power holds its reins by a very 
 uncertain tenure. If the decision shall favor the one which has been 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 17 
 
 on the anxious bench tor lo! these twenty years, and i ; i probation until 
 hope has well-nigh departed, what may be its action if invested again 
 with the control of the destinies of this nation ? Under the decision of 
 which I have spoken, the Republican judiciary and legislation have 
 placed in the hands of that party a club which can break in pieces their 
 political bonds and scatter the illogical brain a of their adversaries to the 
 four winds. Hurling back at the party which has so long dominated 
 over it the principle which the Republican party has everywhere bombas- 
 tically enunciated, it may cause that party to realize that there is a vast 
 difference as to whose ox it is that is gored in the coming political pasture. 
 The next party in power may inquire, and answer, by what right and how 
 far the Southern States are bound by the legislation in which they had no 
 part or consent. And if the Supreme Court of a Republican judiciary now 
 declares, after the war, after the constitutional amendments, that federal 
 suffrage does not exist and never had an existence in the Constitution, 
 it follows that the South has the right to regulate and control all of the 
 questions arising upon suffrage in the several States without any inter- 
 ference on the part of an authority which declares it has no jurisdiction. 
 
 Gentlemen, an able writer has said. "All injustice at last works out a 
 loss. The great ledger of nations does not report a good balance for 
 injustice. It has always met fearful losses. The irrepealable law of 
 justice will, sooner or later, grind a nation to powder, if it fails to estab- 
 lish that equilibrium of allegiance and protection which is the essential 
 end of all government. Woe to that nation which thinks lightly of the 
 duties it owes to its citizens and imagines that governments are not 
 bound by moral laws." 
 
 It was the tax on tea — woman's drink prerogative — which precipitated 
 the rebellion of 17 70. To allay the irritation of the colonies, all taxes 
 were rescinded save that on tea, which was left to indicate KingGeorge's 
 dominion. But our revolutionary lathers and mothers said, "No; the 
 tax is paltry, but the principle is great;" and Eve, as usual, pointed 
 the moral for Adam's benefit. A most suggestive picture, one which 
 aroused the ii*tensest patriotism of the colonies (and it is one which may, 
 perhaps, accompany the typical snake-form of which Mrs. Gage has 
 spoken to you), was that of a woman pinioned by her arms to the ground 
 by a British peer, with a British red-coat holding her throat with one 
 hand, and with the other forcibly thrusting down her throat the contents 
 of a tea pot, which she heroically spewed back in his face; while the 
 figure of Justice, in the distance, with veiled face, wept over this prostrate 
 Liberty. Now, geutlemen,we might well adopt a similar representation 
 as indicative of our own prostrate liberty. Here is Mrs. Smith [refer- 
 ring to Mrs. Julia Smith, of Glastonbury, Conn. J, whose cow has beeu 
 sold every year by the government, coutending for the same principle 
 that our forefathers fought for, that of resistance to taxation without 
 representation. We might have a picture of a cow, with an American 
 tax-collector at the horns, a foreign-born assessor at the heels, forcibly 
 selling the birthright of an American citizen, while Julia and Abby 
 Smith, in the background, with veiled faces, weep over the degeneracy 
 of Republican leadership. 
 
 The same tyrannical spirit of King George is manifest to day. The 
 rights of every citizen, save of women, are uow jealously guarded aud 
 freely recognized. Royalty, on Capitol Hill, in complaisant security, 
 with its scepter in the White House aud its throne in Justice's Hall, 
 shouts, "The king is dead," and yet we must say, "Long live the king." 
 But, forever and aye, uneasy is the head that wears a crown : and dis- 
 guised Indians — (one lady has said that we were not Indians: but we may 
 
 H. Mis. 20 2 
 
18 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE, 
 
 be Indians, gentlemen, and may yet take some scalps on Capitol Hill) — 
 disguised Indians may yet proclaim wrecked ships for that royalty 
 which dares bo sail upon the main with autocratic powers. 
 
 But there are those in authority in the government who do not believe 
 in this decision that has been made by the Supreme Court of the United 
 States. The Attorney-General, in his instructions to the United States 
 marshals and their deputies or assistants in the Southern States, when 
 speaking of the countenance and support of all good citizens of the 
 United States in the respective districts of the marshals, remarks: u It 
 is not necessary to say that it is upon such countenance and support 
 that the United States mainly rely in their endeavor to enforce the 
 right to vote which they have given or have secured." You notice the 
 phraseology. Again, he says: "The laws of the United States are 
 supreme, and so, consequently, is the action of officials of the United 
 States in enforcing them." Secretary Sherman said, in his speech at 
 Steubenville on the 6th of July : "The negroes are free, and are citizens 
 and voters. That, at least, is a part of the Constitution and cannot be 
 changed." Mr. Hayes has been quoted here. In his last message he 
 has quoted the same expression which he made use of in a former mes- 
 sage. He says : "I find no reason to qualify the opinion I expressed in 
 my last annual message, that no temporary or administrative interests 
 of government will ever displace the zeal of our people in defense of the 
 primary rights of citizenship, and that the power of public opinion will 
 ovenide all political prejudices and all sectional and State attachments 
 in demanding that all over our wide territory the name and character 
 of citizen of the United States shall mean one and the same thing, and 
 carry with them unchallenged security and respect." 
 
 And this is what we ask of you this morning, "that citizenship shall 
 mean one and the same thing" for us, women. 
 
 In conclusion, gentlemen, I say to you that a sense of justice is the 
 sovereign power of the human mind, the most unyielding of any; it re- 
 wards with a higher sanction, it punishes with a deeper agony than any 
 earthly tribunal. It never slumbers, never dies. It constantly utters 
 and demands justice by the eternal rule of right, truth, and equity. 
 Aud on these eternal foundation stones we stand. 
 
 Crowning the dome of this great building (which was erected, as Mrs. 
 Gage has so beautifully aud so truthfully said, by the taxes of the women 
 of the United States), there stands the majestic figure of a woman repre- 
 senting Liberty. It was no idealistic thought or accident of vision which 
 gave us Liberty prefigured by a woman. It is the great soul of the uni- 
 verse pointing the final revelation yet to come to humanity, the prophecy 
 of the ages — the last to be first. Not more certain than that upon the 
 dome of the Capitol stands the majestic figure of a woman, representing 
 all that is grand and noble and free in self-government, is it that in the 
 great hereafter there shall come the exaltatiou of a glorious woman- 
 hood, coming up out of the wilderness of the past, clear as the sun, fair 
 as the moon, powerful in her righteousness as au army with banners; 
 and that humanity, from the East and the West, and the North and the 
 South, sitting at her feet, shall learn that Freedom from its loftiest heights 
 is Liberty in Woman. 
 
 | Here the time expired.] 
 
 REMARKS OF MISS SUSAN B. ANTHONY OF NEW YORK. 
 
 At this point the time allotted for the hearing having expired, the 
 chairman protem announced an extension of thirty minutes to allow Miss 
 Anthony to address the committee. 
 
 She said : 
 
 Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen of the Committee : I did not propose to 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 19 
 
 make any argument, but simply to call the attention of the committee 
 to the fact that disfranchisement is not only political degradation, bat 
 that it is also social, moral, and industrial degradation. It does not 
 matter whether the class affected by disfranchisement is that of ignorant, 
 intemperate, or vicious men — the serfs in Russia, the negroes on our 
 plantations before the war, the Chinamen on our Pacific coast to day — 
 or the intelligent, educated women of this Republic, disfranchisement 
 works precisely the same results. If we could make the men aud women 
 of thisrepublic realize fora momentthattheresults of disfranchisement to 
 woman are the same as the results of disfranchisement to all the different 
 classes of men I have named, we should not ha ve to wait for another Con- 
 gress before the proposition for a XVITH amendment would be submitted. 
 But the difficulty is that each man to whom we appeal fails to appreciate 
 the consequences of this law of disfranchisement or to realize the degrada- 
 tion which it entails. I have endeavored, in my arguments, to show that 
 disfranchisement is the cause of woman's degradation in the world of 
 labor ; that it is because of it that she is doomed, everywhere doomed, 
 to remain in the subordinate departments of labor, in the school-house, 
 everywhere; that she is doomed to do her work for half pay, always as 
 a subordinate, as I have said, and without any promotion. If men 
 could only believe that the fact of that position of woman in the world 
 of work was due to her disfranchisement, we should not have one session 
 of Congress pass without a proposition for an amendment. But the 
 people do not believe it ; and yet, as some of the ladies have shown 
 here, it is the cause of woman's degradation in labor everywhere. We 
 are here to ask that woman may have the power of the ballot ; that 
 when she speaks she shall be respected ; that when women workers 
 in the factories and shops, the teachers in the school-houses, shall com- 
 bine together to demand better wages of the capitalists; the political ed- 
 itors of the newspapers iu a community will feel that if they speak on 
 the side of the capitalist and against the working women their party 
 will lose the votes of those workiugwomen at the next election. 
 With theballotfiu the hands of all the millions of factory women aud work- 
 iugwomen in this nation, you can perceive at once that they have a power 
 by which they, like the workmen of the nation, can decide what work they 
 will do, what prices they will be paid, and what positions they will occupy. 
 Then, as to the government departments of which some one here has 
 spoken, the facts are that all over the country there are hundreds 
 of thousands of civil service offices; that many of the women of 
 this republic are well qualified to do the work in those departments, 
 but stand very little chance to get a fair quota of those appoint- 
 ments at the hands of members of Congress, members of the 
 state legislatures, and u the powers that be" everywhere — this, 
 not because men are unjust, not because many of the members of 
 Congress here at Washington would not be glad to have women ap- 
 pointed to the various positions of work, but because it is an utter im- 
 possibility, politically speakiug, for them to secure places. Govern- 
 ments cannot afford to give good places, good work, or good offices to 
 persons who cannot help to make government. So long as woman holds 
 in her hands no power to help make this govcriinnMit.no member of 
 Congress can afford to advocate equal pay and equal place for women 
 in the departments. The best of oar friends, as members of this com- 
 mittee, know that, on the floor of Congress, when wc have asked them 
 to ordain that women workers shall be paid equal wages with men, they 
 have told us that to pass such a law, and enforce it, would be to drive 
 all the women out of the departments, because the onl\ excU8« that 
 
20 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 the government now has for employing them is that it is a matter of 
 economy to the government. Now, what we ask is that 'women shall 
 have this power of appeal to the self-interest of the government office- 
 holders and the government itself. We ask that womau shall have the 
 ballot that she may come within the body-politic, and there become joint 
 heir with her brothers for all the good things that are to be disposed of 
 at the hands of the government. 
 
 This disfranchisement is not only an industrial and a social, but a 
 moral degradation. Why, gentlemen of the committee, did you every 
 stop to think of what disfranchisement says to each and every one of 
 these women here to-day and to each and every one of the women under 
 this proud flag 'I It says, non compos, your judgment is not sound, your 
 opinions are not worthy to be counted up in what men call " public sen- 
 timent," " the crystallizing of the popular will into law." While that is 
 true of all women, let me put before you the other side. Enfranchise- 
 ment says to every man, poor or rich, ignorant or learned, drunk or 
 sober — to every man outside the State's prison or the lunatic asylum — 
 " your judgment is sound, your opinion is worthy to be counted." And 
 you gentlemen, all of you, recognize rhe fact that the equal counting and 
 equal recognition of men's opinions establishes in this country that good 
 thing which we call " political equality" — each and every man equal to 
 each and every other man. The opinion of the most ignorant ditch- 
 digger in the country, on election day, counts for just as much as that of 
 the richest and proudest millionaire. It is a good thing, gentlemen ; 
 and we, women suffragists, believe in the principle of democracy 
 and republicanism, in the equal recognition of all men ; but while 
 that principle establishes the equal and just recognition of ail men 
 among men, we at the same time recognize that it establishes 
 between the sexes that hateful thing of inequality; that it makes 
 all men sovereigns and all women subjects; that it makes all men, 
 politically, superiors and all women inferiors. And there is no amount 
 of training, education, or discipline that can ever educate an ignorant 
 man or a small boy to the belief that that is not the discrimination. 
 This ignoring of women's opinions politically is not grounded upon in- 
 tellectual inferiority. The more ignorant the man the better he feels 
 convinced that he knows more than the most intelligent woman in the 
 country. Intelligent men know that the great work of this republic from 
 the beginning has been the sloughing off, little by little, of the old feu- 
 dalistic ideas of caste, until at last we have this grand idea of seif-gov- 
 ernment. We women know that those who are engaged in this move- 
 ment are struggling with might and main to lift the women, through the 
 XVIth amendment, upon the same platform with intelligent, cultivated 
 man, who does respect an intelligent, cultivated woman, whom the ig- 
 norant man does not comprehend and has no appreciation of. 
 
 I will give you an illustration of my meaning. There are three ladies 
 in this room to-day from the State of Iowa. One of those ladies pays 
 more taxes in the city of Maquoketa, in which she resides, than do the 
 Whole t welve men who are the membersof the common council of hercity. 
 Those three women, in the city of Maquoketa, and county of Jackson, 
 have been at the very head and front ol the Women's Christian Tem- 
 perance organization in that city. They have prayed, petitioned, and 
 done everything to shut up the grog-shops in their community which a 
 disfranchised class can do — which is exactly nothing. On election morn- 
 ing, the question of license or no license is to be voted on in that city. 
 My friend, Mrs. Allen, and other ladies who work with her have paid into 
 the treasury of the county of Jackson no small amount of taxes for the 
 support of the victims of the idiocy and crime which are the outgrowth of 
 
 i 
 
WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 21 
 
 the liquor traffic. My friend, Mrs. Allen, is standing on the street on election 
 morning-, and in another quarter there stands an ignorant man, a man 
 who by his drunkenness has caused to be sold under the hammer the 
 farm he inherited from his father, whose every dollar of property is gone, 
 whose wife and children are houseless and homeless and he a pauper 
 in the county house, supported at the public expense. He knows that 
 three-fourths of the money taken from Mrs. Allen's and those other 
 ladies' taxes goes to support him and others like him in his and their 
 necessities. He looks at that woman ; he sneers at her educatiou, her 
 standing, her line clothes, her self-respect, at everything she possesses ; he 
 envies her; but at last he bethinks himself. He folds his arms and with 
 utter complacency exclaims, " Yez can sing, yez can shout, yez can pray, 
 yez can petition agin rum; but, be jabers, yez can't go to the ballot- 
 box and vote agin it. I can vote for free whisky and you can't help 
 yourseh T es." Now, gentlemen of the committee, do you not see how 
 that little fact, that that ignorant pauper's opinion is thus respected and 
 counted that day, while that intelligent tax-paying woman's opinion is 
 ignored, educates that ignoramus into a feeling of superiority over that 
 woman ? Nothing bat an amendment of the Constitution of the United 
 States, saying that that woman's opinion shall be respected and counted, 
 will ever educate that man to respect her. The secret, underlying cause 
 of the disrespect which men often show toward women — the slighting 
 manner in which coarse, rude men are wont to speak of woman — lies in 
 the fact of woman's opinion being ignored in the deciding of all the great 
 questions involving the conditions or surroundings of society and the 
 government. 
 
 Then look at the boys of this generation. Before the boy's head 
 reaches the level of the table, he learns that he is one of the superior 
 class and that when he is twenty-one years old he will make laws for 
 Mrs. Saxon, Mrs. Gage, and all these ladies who are mothers. His 
 mother teaches him all the requisites for success in after life. She 
 says: u My son, you must not chew, nor smoke, nor gamble, nor swear, 
 nor be a libeitine ; you must be a good man." The boy looks his mother 
 in the face, unbelievingly, and, perchance, at his father, who is guilty 
 of every one of the vices which the mother says he must avoid if he 
 would become a great man. Perhaps he sees the minister of his mother's 
 church walkiug the street with a cigar in his mouth. Theu he looks to 
 Congress. It may have been a slander — nevertheless it was a newspa- 
 per report, aud I use it as an illustration — that the Forty fifth Congress, 
 at its close, had but one sober man on its floor, aud he was a black man 
 (Cain) of South Carolina. I do not say that that was true, but 1 give 
 it as I heard it. If the boy goes iuto court, he sees the judge, with a 
 good-sized spittoon by his side and half tilled. Now,, what does the boy 
 say when he looks up to his mother ? He says, u O, nonsense ! mother, 
 you don't know what you are talking about ; you're only a woman." 
 
 If you would have that boy respect his mother, your laws will first 
 have to respect her. Laws do more to educate and develop public 
 seutimeut than you, whose business it is to make laws and constitutions, 
 are doing to day. Therefore, as a matter of educating ignorant men 
 and small boys in a just and respectful appreciation of woman, I ask 
 you not to bury this petition of ours, but to do something to awaken an 
 agitatiou and discussion of our request on the floors of Congress. 
 
 Allow me to make one further observation. Since the days of Fre- 
 mont and Jessie, women have been very politely invited to attend Re- 
 publican meetings. All of you Republicans know how the women 
 filled up your empty benches in those days and made your conventions 
 
22 
 
 WOMAN SUFFRAGE. 
 
 look very respectable indeed. By and by tbe Democrats came into line, 
 and tbe conventions of botb parties often contained as many women 
 as men. Tben tbe poor stump orators are put to tbeir wit's end upon 
 the woman question. Tbey can, without difficulty, frame paragraphs to 
 suit every class of human beings who have a ballot; tbey can appeal 
 alike to tbe rumsellers and the temperance men, to the irishmen, the 
 Germans, the Swedes, the Bohemians and, since the XVtb amend- 
 ment, to the negroes. Every politician can promptly sbow why his own 
 party is the one for which the particular class to which be addresses 
 himself should vote. Finally he comes to the inevitable woman and, 
 realizing that he must say something on that point, says: "I am glad 
 to see the ladies here to-night, am always glad to have them in my au- 
 diences; tbey are a sort of inspiration, euable me to make a better 
 speech : the fact is, gentlemen, I rather like tbe ladies, for my mother 
 was a woman— God bless her." Now, gentlemen, don't you believe tbat 
 if under those bonnets there were voters, those voters would soon cause 
 that orator and his party, whether in or out of power, to suddenly dis- 
 cover there were some brains under there ? You see that we want this 
 power to appeal to tbe instinct of self-interest in this government; and 
 if this committee does not do itself the honor to report a proposition for 
 a XVItb amendment, some succeeding committee will do itself tbat 
 honor. Tbe tide is moving, it cannot be swept back. I beg you, in tbe 
 name of justice, humanity, and mercy, that you will not keep woman 
 coming back here for tbe next thirty years as sbe has been kept coming 
 here for the last thirty years. 
 
 I hope too, that you will help us all you can. We, who are agitating 
 this movement, are not a moneyed Mass. I trust that you will submit 
 a resolution directing that the reports of this bearing shall be printed 
 at tbe government expense. I would also urge the importance of your 
 presenting the proposition for a XVItb Amendment before Congress be- 
 cause it will create an agitation and discussion which may educate not 
 only the members of Congress but their constituencies on this question. 
 
 Mr. Lapham, of New York. I have understood that your association 
 desired to have an act of incorporation. 
 
 Miss Anthony. It is true that we desire incorporation. When tbe 
 rich Miss Dorseys and others all over tbe country take it into their 
 heads to make us a bequest, w ; e should be in a condition to hold any 
 such bequest according to law. We have framed a bill looking to the 
 chartering of our organization that we may become a legal personage, 
 and I ask of you to give the measure Avhatever of aid you may be able 
 to give it. 
 
 Mrs. Sara A. Spencer of Washington, D. C. I desire to thank the 
 committee for their courtesy to the women of the United States as rep- 
 resented here by delegates from twenty-two States. It was in answer to 
 my urgent appeal in behalf of our association that the committee granted 
 this hearing. All the delegates desired to be beard ; but for the con veu- 
 ience of the committee, tbe brief time was apportioned among those who 
 represented different sections of the country and different phases of our 
 question. 1 would now ask you, gentlemen, to print the record we have 
 made, that it may come before tbe 376 members of Congress. We can ex- 
 pect this only by your courtesy but, as you have printed l0,U00copies o(a 
 memorial service held over a dead man, we ask you to piiul a like num- 
 ber of copies of an argument in behalf of ten millions of living women 
 citizens. 
 
 At this point, the hearing having been concluded, the committee ad- 
 journed. 
 
 C