Volume II Part 55 (1/2)
The effect of the amendments to the Const.i.tution must be to annul the power over this subject in the States, whether past, present, or future, which is contrary to the amendments. The amendments would even arrest the action of the Supreme Court in cases pending before it prior to their adoption, and operate as an absolute prohibition to the exercise of any other jurisdiction than merely to dismiss the suit. 3 Dall., 382; 6 Wheaton, 405; 9 ib., 868; 3d Circ. Pa., 1832.
And if the restrictions contained in the Const.i.tution as to color, race or servitude, were designed to limit the State governments in reference to their own citizens, and were intended to operate also as restrictions on the federal power, and to prevent interference with the rights of the State and its citizens, how, then, can the State restrict citizens of the United States in the exercise of rights not mentioned in any restrictive clause in reference to actions on the part of those citizens having reference solely to the necessary functions of the General Government, such as the election of representatives and senators to Congress, whose election the Const.i.tution expressly gives Congress the power to regulate? S. C., 1847; Fox vs. Ohio, 5 Howard, 410.
Your memorialist complains of the existence of State laws, and prays Congress, by appropriate legislation, to declare them, as they are, annulled, and to give vitality to the Const.i.tution under its power to make and alter the regulations of the States contravening the same.
It may be urged in opposition that the courts have power, and should declare upon this subject. The Supreme Court has the power, and it would be its duty so to declare the law: but the court will not do so unless a determination of such point as shall arise make it necessary to the determination of a controversy, and hence a case must be presented in which there can be no rational doubt. All this would subject the aggrieved parties to much dilatory, expensive and needless litigation, which your memorialist prays your honorable body to dispense with by appropriate legislation, as there can be no purpose in special arguments ”_ad inconvenienti_,” enlarging or contracting the import of the language of the Const.i.tution.
_Therefore_, Believing firmly in the right of citizens to freely approach those in whose hands their destiny is placed under the Providence of G.o.d, your memorialist has frankly, but humbly, appealed to you, and prays that the wisdom of Congress may be moved to action in this matter for the benefit and the increased happiness of our beloved country.
SPEECH OF A. G. RIDDLE,
_In Support of the Woodhull Memorial, before the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives, as Reproduced in the Convention on the Evening of the same Day._
Mr. RIDDLE spoke as follows: Mr. _Chairman_--(Senator Nye)--I have always thought that the questions involved in this movement could be the more effectively presented by ladies; and I have never appeared in their public discussions unless by special request, and for some special purpose. I have been asked to bring to your notice as well as I may this evening the argument: That the women of these United States are full and complete citizens.
Citizens as fully, broadly, and deeply as it is possible for men to be, though not permitted to exercise the elective franchise.
As I arise I find between myself and this proposition, two or three questions, about which I am disposed to tax your patience for a moment, though there is nothing new to be said. In the outset, let me say that it is conceded by all, that the right of self-government, in America at any rate, is a natural right. You may select with care or at random, any one of the forty or fifty American const.i.tutions that have been prepared with more or less pains, and promulgated with solemnity, and you will find there is not one that has a.s.sumed to create and confer this right of self-government. But they all declare, expressly or impliedly, that the right to govern is inherent in the people. Now, if these ladies are a portion of the people, this right resides in them.
There is no new right to be conferred upon them. They are simply to go into the new exercise of an old franchise; for if the right of self-government is a natural right, then does it pertain to every human being alike. Such is the recognized theory of every American const.i.tution, and such is its practice.
Take a step further and you find that starting with a recognition of this pre-existing right of government, Const.i.tution makers have simply provided the means and machinery by which this right of government may work itself out. The only means placed in the hands of the individual citizen by which he may accomplish his portion of this great task is the ballot, or the _viva voce_ vote. If this right of self-government is a natural right, and if it can be exercised alone by the ballot, then is the right to the ballot a natural right, and he who stands up against this everlasting right of nature, had better look to it, and take himself out of the way. As this is a political question I may venture a single word to politicians. We of the masculine gender, are all of us, more or less politicians; and of all the timid things in the world the professed politician (a member of Congress excepted) is the most timid. [Laughter.] He is afraid of his soul, as if he had one, or one large enough to occasion apprehension. [Laughter.] I have this thing to say to them, that when any great idea or great truth finds itself at large in this lower world, and is obliged to get itself incorporated into the working processes of a government, if it does not find a political party ready, willing, and worthy to receive it, it forthwith makes for itself a new party. [Applause.] And as it does not create new human beings to form a party of, it must necessarily gather them from the old parties. Just as the distinguished Senator (Senator Nye) will recollect the present Republican party was formed, and against which the two old fossil parties united, as they always do. Now, this new great idea, if rejected, will disintegrate these old parties; take that which is fit, proper, and deserving for its own great mission, leaving the residuum to unite, and crumble and pulverize together under the feet of the new.
The right of self-government, as I have said, is a natural right pertaining to all alike, and is to be exercised by the ballot.
And the right to that is therefore a natural right, as is the right to wear clothes. Decency and comfort require that clothes should be worn; but they are artificial wholly. Just so is the right to vote a natural right, though the vote, or the mode of voting at least, is an artificial means. This logic can not be caviled with or gainsaid. The young man and the young woman outside of political considerations, in every other point of view, stand before the law on an equality, and what one may do, so may the other, each may govern him or herself. But not so politically; when the youth reaches the age of twenty-one the ballot comes to his hands by due course of law, protecting his natural right, he having grown to it. Why do you give him the ballot, pray, or permit him to take it for himself? Simply because it is the means by which he governs and protects himself.
n.o.body would start I suppose the terribly heterodox idea that it is not necessary for the young man to govern himself with the ballot. It would be one of those unheard-of atrocities that n.o.body would have the hardihood to promulgate in the presence of masculine a.s.sociates at all. He is ent.i.tled to the right for the purpose of governing himself. n.o.body was born to govern anybody else--man or woman. It is only because in political a.s.sociations people become so united, that a man in order to govern himself is obliged to govern others, that we get the right to govern others at all. It grows out of our effort to govern ourselves. As an essential necessity we are obliged to govern others and to be governed by them. This is our only warrant for the government of others.
Now, I pray to know why a young maiden, when she approaches the same age, may not have accorded to her the same protection of her natural right that is accorded to the youth, and for the same purpose. In the name of all womanhood, and of all manhood, I beg to know why this may not be so? In the name of my own daughters whose whispered words haunt the chambers of my soul, asking to know why, if it is necessary for their brother to exercise this right, it is not necessary for them? n.o.body need to argue to a father that his daughters are not the equals of his sons. I will never tolerate hearing it said, that my son is born to empire and sovereignty, while his sisters are born to be hidden away and yarded up in some solitary desert place, as their proper sphere.
[Applause.] I do not propose to raise and educate my daughters to keep them cooped up with their feet tied until some masculine purveyor comes along with his market basket.
Oh! ye opponents of the rights of woman, why not be consistent.
If, as you say, she has not the capacity to choose or exercise the elective franchise, why not choose for her in everything, and impose upon her the husband of your choice? Don't you represent her? You concede that the young woman has abundance of capacity to choose her lord and master to whom she shall be delivered, and yet she is not fit to vote for a constable. (Laughter.)
Be consistent, you who oppose us in this movement, and say she shall not have anything to do with the selection of her husband.
If she is competent at an early age, in the vortex and whirlpool of life, to select him to whom first, last, and always she shall belong, may she not once in four years have the privilege of voting for President without any great hazard? Think of it. Oh!
this terrible old question! We have been mining and drilling in the earth's crust, and we have got finally to the last question, or, rather, it has made its way to the surface. This question of woman's suffrage and woman's right at last comes up for final argument, and it will work its way along until it is definitely determined. Indeed, I believe it is already settled.
To return to these const.i.tutions, from which I mean not to wander again. I said to you that these const.i.tutions of the various American States have recognized as older than themselves the right of government. They have furnished the means, which were also older than themselves, the exercise of the elective franchise. They have not attempted to create and confer any right to govern. They simply regulate it; and they are framed upon this idea, that all people are equally ent.i.tled to govern themselves, women and men, and would all govern themselves if some were not excluded by the terms and provisions of these, their const.i.tutions. Take up the whole thirty-five that can be found in the edition of 1864, and every one of them says that the elective franchise shall be exercised by the _male_ white citizens. We have got rid of the ”white.” We have finally given color to the Const.i.tution. (Laughter.) And, in getting rid of that ”white,” we got rid of more than was probably intended at the time. Good does get itself done by accident sometimes. It has to when bad men do it. (Laughter and applause.) Why is this term ”male” used in the const.i.tutions, pray? It was not by accident. Forty or fifty of them would not use it, except by design. It was because every mortal man knew when tinkering up a const.i.tution that if he did not put male in, females would vote. They had the right, and there had to be a const.i.tutional barrier erected to prevent their exercise of it. Now, the thing which we have to do is either to strike out this term ”male,” which, I trust, ladies (turning to the ladies on the platform), is not particularly odious anywhere else, except in the const.i.tution.
Mrs. DAVIS and others--Not at all.
Mr. RIDDLE.--I repeat, that what we have to do is either to get rid of this word ”male,” or to convince Congress, the courts, and the rest of the world, that it is already gotten rid of, which, I think, is easier. If it remains it can be put out in a very summary way. It makes no difference in how many const.i.tutions it is found, nor in how many carefully considered statutes it has been incorporated, for a single provision in the Const.i.tution of the United States is of that potency that instantaneously all const.i.tutions and all statutes are clarified of the exclusive ”male” principle, and that without other change or repeal.
And this brings me to the immediate question to be discussed, the XIV. Amendment of the Const.i.tution, which stands as the XIV.
Article. And you will understand that when the people or the legislature speak by const.i.tution or law, and use ordinary language, that they mean what they say, and n.o.body can get up and say they do not mean that, or that they mean something else.
There is n.o.body that can be heard for a moment to argue against the plain, obvious, declared, well-ascertained meaning of words.
And when such words are used, it is the end of argument and of construction. The great object to be achieved, so far as women are concerned, is to bring them into the possession of the rights of citizens.h.i.+p. ”A person” is one thing, and naturally, ”a citizen” is something a little more. He or she is the creature of a political compact, having the rights, the privileges, the franchises of that particular political a.s.sociation, whatever they are. A very ingenious, and at the same time a very meritorious writer, recently, in overhauling these English words--and it is a pretty good thing my honorable friends from the two Houses of Congress are not to be referred to--but it is a good thing for the rest of us who use words sometimes carelessly, to see how Mr. Grant White says some of them should be used, and what they really do mean. On page 100 of his recent work on ”Words and their Uses,” which, so far as I know, has received the highest commendation of the critics--in speaking of this term ”citizen,” and how it is used, or rather how it is misused, says:
Citizen is used by some newspaper writers with what seems like an affectation of the French usage of _citoyen_ in the First Republic. For instance, ”Gen. A. is a well-known citizen.” ”Several citizens carried the sufferer,” etc. The writer might as well have said that the sufferer was carried off by several church members or several ”Freemasons.” Now mark, he says, that ”a citizen is a person who has certain political rights, and the word is properly used only to imply or suggest the possession of those rights.”
That is what we should use the term ”citizen” for--apply it to a naturalized person in possession of certain political franchises, rights, and privileges. Thanking Mr. Grant White for that, let us, in its light, read the first clause of the XIV. Amendment, and see what it does say and mean. ”Sec. 1st. All persons;” not all male persons, nor all white persons, but ”all persons born or naturalized in the United States, subject to the jurisdiction thereof, _are citizens_ of the United States, and of the States where they reside.” That is what they are. They are citizens.
That is, ”persons,” are ”citizens,” which means naturalized persons, clothed and permeated with, surrounded by, and put in possession of, citizens.h.i.+p. The term is used in the sense in which Mr. White uses it. It is no new meaning; no new use of the word.