Volume II Part 52 (1/2)
Stanton and Miss Anthony should resign their offices for a season, and place some popular man at the head of the National Society. They readily a.s.sented, hoping thereby to heal the division so distracting to friends in every State, and unite all the forces in a grand Union a.s.sociation. Theodore Tilton, editor of the _Independent_, was chosen for the position. He and Mr. Beecher exchanged amicable letters, and a meeting of pacification[132] was held at the Fifth Avenue hotel where both sides were fairly represented. Complimentary greetings were exchanged, but nothing was gained.
The one wise step in this episode was the meeting of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation: in Was.h.i.+ngton, January, 1871, as usual under its long-tried leaders, as if no mistaken policy had been suggested or considered. Emerson says the power of the human mind is shown in its ability to recover after a blunder. The a.s.sociation showed its real strength in taking up again and carrying forward its grand National work.
THE SECOND DECADE CELEBRATION.
At half past ten o'clock Friday morning October 19, 1870, the twentieth anniversary convention a.s.sembled in Apollo Hall, New York.
A large number of the life-long friends were on the platform and a fine audience in attendance. Mrs. Stanton called the meeting to order and read the call.[133] She said, after due consultation the committee had decided that as Mrs. Davis had called the first National Convention twenty years ago, and presided over its deliberations, it was peculiarly fitting that she should preside over this also. A motion was made and seconded to that effect, and unanimously adopted.
On taking the chair Mrs. Davis gave the following resume of the Woman's Rights movement:
In a.s.sembling to review the past twenty years, it is a fitting question to ask if there has been progress; or has this universal radical reform, which was then declared, been like reformations in religion, but a subst.i.tution of a new error for an old one; or, like physical revolutions, but a rebellion? Has this work, intended from its inception to change the structure of the central organization of society, failed and become a monument of buried hopes? Have we come together after twenty years, bowed with a profound grief over the wreck and debris of the battle unwon, or to rejoice over what has been attained, and mark out work for the next decade?
We answer, in many things we have failed, for we believed and hoped beyond the possible; but reviewing the past we have only cause for rejoicing--for thanksgiving to G.o.d--and for courage in the future. We affirmed a principle, an adjustment of measures to the exigencies of the times, a profound expediency true to the highest principles of rights, and to-day we reiterate the axiom with which we started, that ”They who would be free, themselves must strike the blow,” believing it as imperative as when the first woman took it up, and applied it to her needs; and it must be kept as steadily before the eye, for not yet can we rest on our privileges gained.
Women are still frivolous; the slaves of prejudice, pa.s.sion, folly, fas.h.i.+on, and petty ambitions, and so they will remain till the shackles, both social and political, are broken, and they are held responsible beings--accountable to G.o.d alone. Not till then can it be known what untold wealth lies buried in womanhood--”how many mute, inglorious Miltons.” Men are still conceited, arrogant, and usurping, dwarfing their own manhood by a false position toward one half the human race.
In commencing this work we knew that we were attacking the strongholds of prejudice, but truth could no longer be suppressed, nor principles hidden. It must be ours to strike the bottom line. We believed it would take a generation to clear away the rubbish, to uproot the theories of ages, to overthrow customs, which at some period of the world's history had their significance.
We proclaimed that our work was to reform, reconstruct, and harmonize society; not to lay waste her homes and her sanctuaries. A few only have been found brave enough to do more than touch the fringe work that circles round the vortex which is heaving and surging with social pollutions, which might well make angels stand appalled; but should the occasion come in this country, the pure women of our nation will rise, as the women of England are now doing, resisting a legislation which degrades womanhood to the lowest depths. We proclaimed a peaceful revolution; for we abhorred then as now the atrocities of war, hence our demand for a partic.i.p.ation in government, that we might bring a new element into it to restrain and purify it. Says a French lady in a private letter received a few days since, ”Oh, is it not time that women come? Is it not because we have no voice in public affairs that Europe is on fire now? Men are true brutes. Pride, injustice, and cruelty are their most remarkable qualities. What can free us from their laws so unjust?” This is the sad, pa.s.sionate utterance of a French woman now in the hour of her country's peril. What better proof that women love peace more than glory, than in the Empress Eugenie's course,--She would have no force used to uphold her power. ”She would rather be pitied than hated.”
Frances Wright, a n.o.ble Scotchwoman, early sought to make herself thoroughly acquainted with the nature of our inst.i.tutions, and the genius of our government. She determined to try the experiment of organized labor with negroes. Purchasing two thousand acres of land on the Bluffs, now known as Memphis, Tenn., she took a number of families, with fifteen able-bodied men, and, giving them their freedom, organized her work.
Prostrated by illness, she was compelled to yield her personal supervision, and thus her attempt to civilize those people failed, and they were finally sent to Hayti.
She then commenced lecturing on the nature and object of the ”American Political Inst.i.tutions.” She gave also a course of Historical and Political Lectures; and another course on the Nature of Knowledge, Free Inquiry, Divisions of Knowledge, Religion, Morals, Opinions, Existing Evils and a Reply to the Traducers of the French Reformers. No other person was at that time prepared so well to defend them as she was, from her having been in part educated in General Lafayette's family. In all those lectures she showed the low estimate of woman, and her inferior education.
To this heroic woman, who left ease, elegance, a high social circle of rich culture, and with true self-abnegation gave her life, in the country of her adoption, to the teaching of her highest idea of truth, it is fitting that we pay a tribute of just, though late, respect. Her writings are of the purest and n.o.blest character, and whatever there is of error in them is easily thrown aside. The spider sucks poison from the same flower from which the bee gathers honey; let us therefore ask if the evil be not in ourselves before we condemn others. Pharisaism, then as now, was ready to stone the prophet of freedom. She bore the calumny, reproach and persecution to which she was subjected for the truth, as calmly as Socrates. Looking down from the serene heights of her philosophy she pitied and endured the scoffs and jeers of the mult.i.tude, and fearlessly continued to utter her rebukes against oppression, ignorance and bigotry.
Women joined in the hue and cry against her, little thinking that men were building the gallows and making them the executioners.
Women have crucified in all ages the redeemers of their own s.e.x, and men mock them with the fact. It is time now that we trample beneath our feet this ign.o.ble public sentiment which men have made for us; and if others are to be crucified before we can be redeemed, let men do the cruel, cowardly work; but let us learn to hedge womanhood round with generous, protecting love and care.
Then men will learn, as they should, that this system of traducing women is no longer to be used as a means for their subjugation. Let us learn to demand that all men who come into our presence be as pure as they claim that woman should be. Let the test be applied which Christ gave, that if any is without sin in word, or deed, or thought, he shall ”cast the first stone.”...
When the war ended and National reconstruction commenced, women, feeling an equal interest in having the work rightly done, presented their pet.i.tions for the right of suffrage, but were coolly told by those who were most eager to enfranchise the negro, ”stand aside and wait, it is the black man's hour.” The sacrifice of their sons on the altar of freedom was not counted to them as anything. Their years of toil and weary watching in camp and hospital were not to be put in the scale with the black man's, who fought for his own freedom. Such wrong and injustice is bearing its fruits, in the confusion of the councils of the Republican party. Like the French of 1848, they refused to deal justly with the mothers of the nation, and are now reaping a bitter reward. They dared to suppress the pet.i.tions of thousands of women, and now disintegration has begun; the handwriting is seen on the wall. Thus injustice has done its work, and thousands of women have been roused by it to protest who had never before given any thought to public affairs.
The National Convention, held in the Church of the Puritans, after the war, was one of intense interest, and marked an era in this movement. The demand for suffrage became paramount--the only one with many. Mrs. Stanton, in 1867, went before the Judiciary Committee of the New York Legislature, asking universal suffrage to be recognized by the Const.i.tutional Convention which was to be held. About this time a bill was before a Committee of the Legislature, the purport of which was to legalize prost.i.tution Reading this bill in the presence of the Committee, her quick mind comprehended all its horrors at a glance, and she tried the test of asking each man if he would be willing that that law should be applied to his daughter, his sister, or any one dear to him. Self-ism answered ”No.” ”Then, gentlemen,” said she, ”legislate for the poorer daughters of the State as you would for your own.” All that winter she battled against that hideous system, which would legalize the foulest of sins, and to her efforts, mainly, the delay of pa.s.sing that law is due. She made a clear exposition of that cruel, corrupt, one-sided legislation, which subjects woman to the grossest indignities, while men are benefited and allowed safe and unlimited license. To her lectures, also, is due a healthier tone of public sentiment on the marriage question. It is slowly beginning to be felt that in that relation there is a vast amount of legalized prost.i.tution.
In 1867 an extensive lecturing tour through Kansas was made by Mrs. Stanton, Miss Anthony, Rev. Olympia Brown, Henry Blackwell, and Lucy Stone. The proposition of striking the words ”white male” from the Const.i.tution had been submitted to the people, and the result of the campaign was one third the vote of the State in favor of both propositions. Of Miss Brown, now preaching in New England, we can not forbear saying we have few in our ranks more earnest, honest, or devoted. A clear, incisive intellect, a true heart and firm purpose mark her every day life. She is un.o.btrusive and gentle, but always ready at the call of duty. On this campaign they were joined by a new worker, George Francis Train, whether for good or ill it will be for history to decide.
Certain it is, that a new impulse was given to the cause, and _The Revolution_ established, with Susan B. Anthony as proprietor, and Elizabeth Cady Stanton and Parker Pillsbury as editors, has done a great work. It has been hated, abused, slandered, misquoted, and garbled; nevertheless, it has been a terror to evil doers, and a help to those who would do well.
Others, thinking to do better, have started monthly and weekly papers....
In May, 1869, at the annual meeting of the Equal Rights Society, which had been three years in existence, a change of name was proposed. Notice was given to that effect, and at a large meeting, in which nineteen States were represented, the National Woman Suffrage Society was formed, which has done most efficient service, holding conventions in many of our large cities, and awakening thought and action. In Saratoga and Newport a new cla.s.s was reached. Wearied with the monotony of fas.h.i.+onable dissipation and the driveling idiocy of flirtations, women were glad to hear a few sensible, wholesome truths.
In December, 1869, an able report was received from Mrs. Kate N.
Doggett, one of the six delegates to the Labor Convention, in Berlin. In the spring of 1869 a fresh impulse was given to the work in the establishment of the Woman's Bureau, by Mrs.
Elizabeth B. Phelps. Its discontinuance was due to the same cause which has thwarted so many plans of women. There were not a sufficient number possessed of wealth who had the will to render this a permanent inst.i.tution. Mrs. Phelps possesses in an eminent degree all the requisites for such a post--a queenly hospitality, elegant manners, fine conversational ability, with a generous catholic spirit. Delicacy forbids saying all that the heart prompts of friends.... In November, 1869, a delegate convention was held in Cleveland, Ohio, and a society organized, called the American Woman's Suffrage Society. Its work is yet to be done.
The crowning act of 1869, and the one which gave an omen for the year that was approaching, was the enfranchising of the women of Wyoming and Utah. For these acts of justice we are most grateful.
A correspondent says:
The cause of woman in Wyoming goes bravely on. At the last sitting of the District Court in Albany County, both the Grand and Pet.i.t Juries were equally composed of either s.e.x; and Chief-Justice Howe, presiding, took advantage of this occasion to compliment, in the highest terms, the intelligence, discrimination, honesty, and propriety of the conduct with which the women acquitted themselves last session, saying they had gone far to vindicate the policy, justify the experiment, and realize the expectations of those who had clothed themselves with the right. The bar, the bench, and the intelligent men of the country had long felt that something was needed to improve and justify our jury system; something to lift it above prejudice and pa.s.sion, and imbue it with a higher regard for law, justice, oath, and conscience. His Honor then expressed the opinion that the introduction of the new element furnished good reason to expect that to women we should ultimately be indebted for those reforms which the unaided exertions of men had been incompetent to effect.
This is certainly a most flattering presentment of the results of enfranchising the s.e.x in Wyoming, and what is better, it seems substantially a just one. The question will therefore naturally suggest itself, if women, in their new political capacity, are thus able to ”tone” the rude elements of Western civilization, what inconsistency is there in granting them like privileges in communities whose superior refinement is so much less likely to expose them to insult or mortification? In Utah it is of less account, because the women there are under a hierarchy, and as yet vote only as directed.
In January, 1870, a convention was called in Was.h.i.+ngton by the officers of the National Society. This meeting, large in attendance and deeply earnest, marked an historical era, the influence of which can not be estimated. A hearing before the joint committee of the House and Senate of the District was asked, in order to present the question of woman suffrage, and granted. Elizabeth Cady Stanton made the argument in favor of enfranchising women of the District of Columbia. It was clear, incisive, and cogent; divested of all sentiment, and condensed into a twenty-minutes' speech. It was very impressive. Susan B.