Volume II Part 12 (2/2)

My honorable friend from Oregon [Mr. Williams] thinks this is entirely preposterous. I have no doubt he does, and I give him all credit for honesty and sincerity in the remarks that he has made; but the trouble with him is, and with a great many others--perhaps it is with myself upon some subjects--is that he directs his gaze too long upon a particular point. It is remarkable that when a man who looks long and steadily upon one subject to the exclusion of every other, that subject at last becomes to him the universe itself. I have met fellow-politicians fellow-Senators, and fellow-coworkers in the great battle of life, who really had so long contemplated one subject that it was not within their capacity to see any others.

But it unfortunately happens that in this world there are others besides the negro who suffer. When you have told of the injuries and outrages which prevail on the earth in regard to the negro you have not finished. Another, and in my judgment a much more important personage, comes upon the scene; she lifts the curtain and reveals to you a new drama, and she tells you distinctly that you have not only been tyrannizing over your brother, your sable brother, your brother at the other end of the national antipodes, your troublesome antipathic brother; you have not only been drenching the earth from the East to the far West with the blood of savages of a different color from yours; you have not only left your blood-stained marks in j.a.pan, in China, in the East Indies, everywhere, and in the West, where one of your Christian bishops boasted that six million Mexicans at one time had been sacrificed, and what for? To make them Christians; to make the rest Christians after the six millions had gone. I say this new personage who makes her appearance upon the drama of human affairs informs you that you and your religion, under the conduct of the male, generative, fecundative principle of the s.e.x, have filled the world with blood from one end to the other of it. What for? To give her liberty. She complains to-day; she complains in your most intelligent high places; she complains in your most refined cities; she complains in your halls decorated with a more than Grecian beauty of architecture; she complains where all of past civilization, all of past adornment, and all of past education comes down to satisfy us that we stand upon the very acme of human progress; she complains that you have been tyrant to her. Mr. President, let me read from the proceedings of the Twenty-ninth Annual Meeting of the Pennsylvania Anti-Slavery Society. I propose to read from the remarks of Mrs. Gage, a woman, a lady, a lady of brain and intellect, of courage and force; and whether I am in earnest or not, whether I may be charged with being serious or not, no man dare charge Mrs. Gage with not being serious. Mrs. Frances D. Gage said: ”I have read speeches and heard a great deal said about the right of suffrage for the freedmen.” So have we all, Mr. President; and the probability is that we have been even more afflicted if that can be said to be a punishment, and there is very great difficulty now to ascertain what is punishment in this world. If that can be said to be a punishment, I think this Senate can with at least equal propriety with Mrs. Gage, complain of its extraordinary infliction upon them without any previous trial and conviction.

[Laughter]. ”What does it mean? Does it mean the male freedman only, or does it mean the freedwoman also? I was glad to hear the voice of Miss Anthony in behalf of her s.e.x.” I am glad, Mr.

President, that we have a male of that name in this body who emulates the virtues of his more humble sister [laughter], and stands up equally here for the broad rights of humanity as she does. ”I know it is said that this is bringing in a new issue.”

Yes, that is what was said about me yesterday evening. Gentlemen said it was a new issue; we had not talked about this thing here before; n.o.body had thought about it. Why had n.o.body thought about it? Because n.o.body was thinking about the actual, real sufferings which human beings were subjected to in this world.

Persons thought about such things just in proportion as they reflected themselves upon their future political career. If it became necessary, in order to elect a dozen Senators to this body this winter, that the women should be treated as women ought to be treated, that they should be put upon an equal footing with the men in all respects and enjoy equal rights with men, then I should have great hopes of carrying my amendment, and carrying it in spite of everybody, because then and in that light it would be seen by Senators, and they would be thereby guided. ”I know it is said that this is bringing in a new issue. We must bring in new issues.”

Now, I want to know what the honorable Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts [Mr. Wilson] will say when he finds me advocating this new issue that must be brought in while he lags behind. My honorable friend from Delaware [Mr. Saulsbury] will have immensely more the advantage of him to-day than he had yesterday if he dares lag, because I put the question to him now distinctly, and I do not leave it to his sense of propriety as to whether he shall speak or not speak on this question; I demand that he do speak. I demand that that voice which has been so potential, that voice which has had so much of solemn, I do not say sepulchral wisdom in it heretofore, shall now be heard on the one side or the other of this important question, which involves the fate, the destiny, the liberty of one-half of the people who inhabit this Continent.

I know from the generous upswelling of the bosom, which I almost perceive from here in my brother, that he will respond to this sentiment, and make a response of which his State and her progress, having two negroes in the Legislature now [laughter], will be proud. I feel a.s.sured of it, and I feel that when suffering humanity in any shape or form, whether it be male or female, whether it be black or white, red or yellow, appeals to him, the appeal will not be in vain, but that he will come to the rescue, and that he will strike the s.h.i.+eld of the foremost knight on the other side and defy him to the combat.

”We must [said Mrs. Gage][57] bring in new issues. I sat in the Senate Chamber last winter.”

And now I beg pardon of my honorable friend from Ma.s.sachusetts, the other Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts [Mr. Sumner], for any offence that I may do to his modesty; but when I come to consider the recent change which has taken place in his life and habits, I am the better a.s.sured that he will endure it. At any other time I should not have dared to introduce this quotation: ”I sat in the Senate Chamber last winter [said Mrs. Gage. Last winter, remember] ”and heard Charles Sumner's grand speech, which the whole country applauded.”

And Mr. President, they did, too, and they did it properly. It was a great, a grand, and a glorious speech; it was the ultimate of all speeches in that direction; and I too applauded with the country, although I too might not have agreed with every part of the speech. I might not have agreed with the speech in general, but it was a great, grand, proud, high, and intellectual effort, at which every American might applaud, and I pardon Mrs. Gage for the manner in which she speaks of it. She has not excelled me in the tribute which I offer here to the honorable Senator from Ma.s.sachusetts, and which I am glad to lay at his feet: ”I sat in the Senate Chamber last winter, and heard Charles Sumner's grand speech which the whole country applauded; and I heard him declare that taxation without representation was tyranny to the freedman.”

That was the ring of that speech; that was its key-note; it was the same key-note which stirred his forefathers in 1776; it was the same bugle-blast which called them to the field of Lexington and Bunker Hill ninety years ago; and it is no wonder that Mrs.

Gage picks that out as being the residuum, that which was left upon her ear of substance after the music of the honorable Senator's tones had died away, after the brilliancy of his metaphors had faded, after the light which always encircles him upon this subject had gone away. It is no wonder that all that remained of it was that taxation without representation was tyranny. Let me commend it to the honorable Senator, with his keen eye, his good taste, his appreciation of that which is effective, and that which strikes the American heart to the core; let me commend it to him who desires to be the idol of that heart.

”When”--Now, Mr. President, _sic transit gloria mundi_. ”When I afterwards found that he meant only freedom for the male s.e.x, I learned that Charles Sumner fell far short of the great idea of liberty.”

All this outpouring, all this magnificent burst of eloquence, all this eclectic combination drawn from all the quarters of the earth, all the sublime talk about the ballot, was merely meant for the question of trousers and petticoats? ”Tyranny to the male s.e.x,” says Mrs. Gage, and now she goes on, and this right to the point. The proposition here is to give to the male freedman a vote and to ignore the female freedwoman, to be tautological: ”I know something of the freedwomen South. Maria--I do not know that she had any other name--when liberated from slavery at Beaufort went to work, and before the year was out she had laid up $1,000.”

That is a magnificent Maria, that is a practical Maria. She puts Sterne's Maria and all other Marias, except Ave Maria, in the shade. [Laughter].

”I never heard of any southern white making $1,000 in a year down there. Shall Maria pay a tax and have no voice?” Shall Maria pay a tax and have no voice where the principle is admitted, where the principle is thundered forth, where it is axiomatic, where none dare gainsay it, that taxation without representation is tyranny? ”Shall Maria pay a tax and have no voice?” That is the question. That, Mr. President, is the question before the Senate.

”Old Betty”--There is not so much of the cla.s.sic, not so much of the euphonious, not so much of the _salva rosa_ about Betty as about Maria--”Old Betty, while under my charge, cleared more than that amount free from taxation, and I presume is worth $3,000 to-day.”

Think of Betty! ”Is she to be taxed in South Carolina to support the aristocracy?” Betty lives in South Carolina, it seems. ”Will you be just, or will you be partial to the end of time!”

The marriage relation was alluded to by Mrs. Gage.

And here is a most important part, to which I would direct the attention of my brother Senators as fundamental in two respects--fundamental in the testimony it furnishes of the character of those you now propose to invest with the right of suffrage, fundamental in its character as to the use which they will make of it as to one-half of the people who are in this bill presumed to be the objects of your especial care. The marriage relation was alluded to by Mrs. Gage. ”When the positive order was sent to me to compel the marriage of the colored people living together, the women came to me with tears, and said, 'We don't want to be married in the church, because when we are married in the church our husbands treat us just as old ma.s.sa used to, and whip us if they think we deserve it; but when we ain't married in the church they knows if they tyrannize over us we go and leff 'em.'”

That is the cla.s.s of male, gentlemen, to whom you propose to give suffrage. These poor women who have to be whipped if the males think they deserve it, are the people to whom you deny it. These are the gentlemen who are to fabricate and make your laws of marriage, who are to fix the causes of divorce in these several States. These are the men, in other words, who are to enact, if it so please them, that upon the marriage the husband becomes seized of all his wife's property, of the personalty absolute and the realty as tenant by courtesy; or perhaps they will have no courtesy about it--and I should not wonder if they had not--and give it to him in fee.

”And the men”--I beg the Senate to remember that I am reading the testimony of Mrs. Gage; unexceptionable testimony: ”And the men came to me and said: 'We want you to compel them to be married, for we can't manage them unless you do.'”

I am not certain whether they can always be managed even after they are married. [Laughter]. But this is worse a great deal than before: ”'They goes and earns just as much money as we does, and then they goes and spends it, and never asks no questions. Now we wants 'em married in the church, 'cause when they's married in the church we makes em mind.' So in San Domingo establis.h.i.+ng the laws of marriage made tyranny for these redeemed slave women.”

Mrs. Gage continues: ”I would not say one word against marriage, G.o.d forbid. It is the n.o.blest inst.i.tution we have in this country. But let it be a marriage of equality. Let the man and woman stand as equals before the law. Let the freedwoman of the South own the money she earns by her own labor, and give her the right of suffrage; for she knows as much as the freedman. Bring in these elements, and you will achieve a success. But I will stand firmly and determinedly against the oppression that puts the newly emanc.i.p.ated colored woman of South Carolina under subjection to her husband required by the marriage laws of South Carolina. I demand equality on behalf of the freedwoman as well as the freedman.”

I might follow Mrs. Gage further; I might detain the Senate here hour after hour reading extracts from the various speeches and essays which have been delivered and made upon this subject within the last few years, and I may again make the challenge which I made yesterday. Let us have a reason why these are not potent to influence our action. Let us be told wherein the object of this argument is defective. Let us be shown why it is, if these things are rights, natural or conventional, that those who have interests are not to partic.i.p.ate in them.

I listened to the eloquent and ingenious remarks of my honorable friend from Maine [Mr. Morrill]--old, time-worn, belonging to the region of paleontology, far behind the carboniferous era. I would not undertake to go back there and answer them. All I can do with them is to refer them to the next meeting of the Equal Rights Society, which more than likely will meet in Albany or Boston the next time. There they will be attended to, and there they will be answered in such satisfactory phrase, I have no doubt, as would pale any poor effort of mine in the attempt. I have also listened to my honorable friend from Oregon [Mr. Williams], and still there are the same ancient foot-prints, the same old arguments, the same things that satisfied men thousands of years ago, and which never did satisfy any woman that I know of, the same traveling continually of the tracks of the lion into the cave along with his victim, and _nulla retrorsum vestigia_, not a step ever came back. But let me say to my friends that Mrs. Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Mrs. Frances D. Gage, Miss Susan B. Anthony, are upon your heels. They have their banner flung out to the winds; they are after you; and their cry is for justice, and you can not deny it. To deny is to deny the perpetuity of your race.

Now, Mr. President, in regard to this District and this city, here is a fair proposition. It proposes to confer upon all persons above the age of twenty-one years the right to partic.i.p.ate in the city government. Is any one afraid of it? Is my honorable friend from Maine afraid of it? He says it shall be confined to the males. He and my friend from Oregon have gone on to tell you that the white males of this city are in a very bad condition; indeed, some of them in such a terrible condition that we are called upon to pa.s.s a bill of attainder, or a bill of pains and penalties, and a little _ex post facto_ law in order to reach their tergiversations and perverseness. If that be true, why not incorporate some other element? I do not know much about the female portion of the negroes of this District except what I have seen, and I must confess that although there are a great many respectable persons among the negroes, and many for whom I have considerable regard, yet as a ma.s.s they have not impressed me as being a very high style of human development.

<script>