Volume II Part 54 (1/2)
MY DEAR MRS. DAVIS AND MRS. STANTON:--Will you kindly let me answer both your notes together, and a.s.sure you how much I value the feeling which prompted you to write them. I shall not easily part with either of those letters, although pressure of work drives me to answer them in one, and say that I am utterly unable to respond to your wish that I should attend your Decade Meeting. Few things would give me such satisfaction as to find myself in America, especially after your n.o.ble invitations and promises of a cordial reception everywhere. But--and how many buts there are in life--I dare not leave my work at present in England. There are several very important movements just now resting almost entirely upon me, and having put my hand to the plow, I dare not look back. I am at present the only regular lecturer here on this subject, and I am full of engagements up to April next--north, south, east, and west--and the discussion society I have started in London is still too young to run alone, and yet promises such good things for the future, that I feel it ought to be carefully tended.
I can only add that I shall watch with great interest for the accounts of your meeting on the 19th. I long for the day when I can see you in the flesh--those with whose spirits I now ever hold communion. Excuse haste. I have just returned from the North, and find my table overwhelmed with invitations to lecture and appeals for help. The learned meetings and social discussions of the British a.s.sociations at Liverpool, and the Social Science Congress at Newcastle, have all been crowded into the last fortnight. Wis.h.i.+ng you and your n.o.ble workers G.o.d-speed, believe me,
Yours, most truly, EMILY FAITHFUL.
DEAR LADIES:--It would give me great pleasure to accept your kind invitation to be present at your meeting to-day, if it were possible, but it is not.
Go on with your great work; it is arduous, but it is sublime! You are doing good that you know not of in old Europe. You have taken the initiative, and she is following hard after. I wish to recommend to you the appeal of Mme.
Gasparin to the American women to join in her heart-cry for peace. Coming so recently as I have, from the seat of war--from Paris and from Rome--I can testify to the earnest, the beseeching appeal of European women to their sisters in America to give them help in this their hour of calamity and need--the help of sympathy, the succor of love!
The day before I left France, one of the n.o.blest of French women, Mademoiselle Daubie (the distinguished author of that remarkable work, ”The Poor Women of the Nineteenth Century,”
which every woman and legislator ought to read,) said to me: ”We are looking wistfully every whither for some hand stretched out through the darkness, but, alas! there is none. But you are going to America. Oh! tell the women there to help us in this struggle with ignorance, corruption, and war.” Let us heed this cry.
France lies prostrate in the dust! But Rome is free! So in all human sorrow there is some hope. Let us, then, lift up the one by all possible help, remembering her greatness, and pity her misfortunes; having faith in her capabilities, and praying for her liberty--for that liberty that can only be practicable when built upon intelligence and virtue, and only real when woman is not the slave, but the helpmate of man; and let us rejoice with that other sister--Italia--who is now lifting up her face toward heaven, and after these long years of anguish and waiting the mother is restored to her children!
The rule of the Caesars is gone, and the reign of absolutism is pa.s.sing away! And while the science of men goes flas.h.i.+ng round the earth--over sea and land--uniting the nations in treaties of commerce and compacts of liberty, the warm, generous heart of woman shall keep pace, uniting humanity in sympathy and love.
I am, dear ladies, yours most respectfully, EMELIA J. MERIMAN.[136]
The speakers during the day gave many delightful reminiscences of the n.o.ble men and women who had given their earnest efforts to promote this great reform, and dwelt with hope on the many encouraging steps of progress that had marked the years since the initiative steps were taken. The day before the Convention an elegant reception was held at the St. James Hotel. Nearly two hundred persons called during the afternoon, and about forty sat down to a sumptuous dinner.[137]
The Was.h.i.+ngton Convention of 1871[138] was thus described by _The Republican_ of that city:
The third Annual National Woman's Suffrage Convention, held at Lincoln Hall, was an unprecedented success. Its leading spirit was Mrs. Isabella Beecher Hooker, who, together with Josephine S.
Griffing, Paulina Wright Davis, and Susan B. Anthony, made all the preliminary arrangements, and managed the meeting. Mrs.
Hooker's zeal, activity, and amiability gave her the power to make an easy conquest wherever she carries the banner of the good cause. Her generals.h.i.+p in Was.h.i.+ngton marshalled hosts of new and ardent friends into the movement. Five sessions were held, during each of which the Convention was presided over by some member of the Senate or House of Representatives; and it was a novel feature to see such men as Senators Nye, Warren, and Wilson sitting successively in the president's chair, apparently half unconscious that it was one of greater honor than their familiar seats in the Senate. Speeches were made by Adelle Hazlett, Olympia Brown, Lilie Peckham, Isabella B. Hooker, Lillie Devereux Blake, Cora Hatch Tappan, Susan B. Anthony, Kate Stanton, Victoria C. Woodhull, Hon. A. G. Riddle (of the Was.h.i.+ngton bar), Frederick Dougla.s.s, Senators Nye and Wilson, and Mara E. Post, who made a journey all the way from Wyoming to attend the Convention. A good deal was said by the speakers concerning the proposed interpretation of the existing const.i.tutional amendments. It was thus a convention with a new idea. The reporters could not say that only the old, stock arguments were used. There was an air of novelty about the proceedings, indicating healthy life in the movement. The consequence was that the cause of woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt made a new, sudden, and profound impression at Was.h.i.+ngton.
This Convention was remarkable for the absence of the usual long series of resolutions covering every point of our demands.
Another peculiarity was the unusual amount of money that flowed into the treasury, as the following letter, among many others of the same character, shows:
MISS ANTHONY--I have this morning deposited $500 for the use of the N. W. S. A., and I will give a check for the amount as you desire it.
Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C. Mrs. M. M. CARTTER.
Letters were read from Mrs. Esther Morris,[139] Justice of the Peace in Wyoming Territory, and from Mrs. Jane Graham Jones, of Chicago.
Senator Nye, who presided at the evening session, said, ”He had not given much thought to the question of Woman Suffrage, but it was his opinion that in proportion as we elevated the mothers of voters, so were the voters themselves elevated.” The audiences during this convention were large, and the press not only respectful but highly complimentary.
It was just before this enthusiastic convention that Victoria Woodhull presented her memorial to Congress and secured a hearing[140] before the Judiciary Committee of the House, which called out the able Minority Report, by William Loughridge, of Iowa, and Benjamin F.
Butler, of Ma.s.sachusetts. The following is from the Congressional _Globe_ of Dec. 21, 1870.
In the Senate: Mr. HARRIS presented the memorial of Victoria C.
Woodhull, praying for the pa.s.sage of such laws as may be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the right vested by the Const.i.tution in the citizens of the United States to vote without regard to s.e.x; which was referred to the Committee on the Judiciary, and ordered to be printed.
In the House: Mr. JULIAN--I ask unanimous consent to present at this time and have printed in the _Globe_ the memorial of Victoria C. Woodhull, claiming the right of suffrage under the XIV. and XV. Articles of Amendments to the Const.i.tution of the United States, and asking for the enactment of the necessary and appropriate legislation to guarantee the exercise of that right to the women of the United States. I also ask that the pet.i.tion be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary.
No objection was made, and it was ordered accordingly.