Volume II Part 56 (1/2)

But, ladies and gentlemen, aside from badinage, for the subject is too grave and too solemn, it comes back to this thing. The Const.i.tution of the United States solemnly declares that every person born and naturalized in the United States, and within its jurisdiction, are citizens; and that no State shall pa.s.s, or enforce a law to abrogate the privileges and immunities of citizens.h.i.+p. We do not need any XVI. Amendment. We need only intelligent, firm decisive, and deciding--reasonably brave courts, and to have a question made and brought to their adjudication. I propose to offer Mrs. Griffing and two or three other ladies for registration, two or three months hence, when the time comes, here. (Applause.) If they are not registered, I propose to try the strength of the Supreme Court of the District of Columbia, composed of five intelligent gentlemen, and known not to be conservatives on some questions, whatever they will prove to be on this, and see whether they will issue a mandamus.

If they won't, I will take the case to the Supreme Court of the United States, and one of the present judges of that Court, who is not pre-eminently in favor of what is called woman's rights, recently pa.s.sed upon this XIV. Amendment. In the case of the ”Live Stock Dealers” et al. _vs._ ”The Crescent City Live Stock Company,” in the circuit court of the United States, at New Orleans, Judge Bradley, of the Supreme Court of the United States, said of the XIV. Amendment:

”It is possible that those who framed the article were not themselves aware of the far-reaching character of its terms.

They may have had in mind but one particular phase of social and political wrong, which they desired to redress. Yet, if the amendment, as framed and expressed, does, in fact, bear a broader meaning, and does extend its protecting s.h.i.+eld over those who were never thought of when it was conceived and put in form, and does reach such social evils which were never before prohibited by Const.i.tutional Amendment, it is to be presumed that the American people, in giving it their imprimatur, understood what they were doing, and meant to decree what has, in fact, been done.

”It embraces much more. The 'privileges and immunities'

secured by the original Const.i.tution were only such as each State gave to its own citizens. Each was prohibited from discriminating in favor of its own citizens, and against the citizens of other States.

”But the XIV. Amendment prohibits any State from abridging the privileges or immunities of the citizens of the United States, whether its own citizens or any others. It not merely requires equality of privileges, but it demands that the privileges and immunities of all citizens shall be absolutely unabridged, unimpaired.”--_Mrs. Bradwell's Legal News._

What ”particular phase of social and political wrong” could have been in the mind of the clear-seeing judge when he gave forth these utterances?

Gentlemen and ladies, when I stand in the presence of and contemplate for a moment this great XIV. Article, the crown of the now perfected Const.i.tution, I bow with amazed reverence to it. It s.h.i.+nes upon me with the light of a new revelation. And this argument is great from no effort of mine, but great in its power of self-enunciation. This article is one of those great principles that come, Messiah like, to announce themselves. It needed no forerunner, and it works its own miracles in its own good time, and will convert all to its own sway, and to its own purposes. And, I trust that ere long we shall hear from the committee of the House upon this question, and that we shall get enlightened and intelligent discussion of it in the House of the American Representatives.

Here the argument closes, but suffer a word further. It is said that woman does not want the suffrage. Who says that she does not want it? Man says so and n.o.body else. Man asks the question, and answers it himself. I know it often comes from female lips, but it is man's answer.

I deny that women have declared that they don't want the ballot.

They have never been asked whether they want it. When we want a response from men how do we propound the question? We submit it formally to be voted upon by the ballot. That is the way we propound a political question to men. How do they answer it? They answer it by their solemn votes at the ballot box. Propound this question, and in this solemn way to the women of the United States. Pa.s.s a law to that effect and take a vote, or else forever stop--close up all gabble on this subject, that women do not want it. Offer her the chance by which she can speak and see whether she wants it or not, and let her vote ”yes” or ”no.” Then from that we will take another start. But don't refuse to let her answer, and a.s.sume to answer for her, and say you represent her.

You barely succeed in misrepresenting men at your best, let alone this atrocious twaddle about representing women. Let her vote, and then we can tell whether you have a right to represent her or not.

We men have made the inst.i.tutions for men, and for men alone; never consulted woman. We have said she was n.o.body, and nowhere, or, if she was found anywhere she was out of her sphere, (laughter) and must go back to nowhere immediately, and to n.o.body. We have gravely a.s.sumed that we understood her nature and character better than she did herself. It is one of the wondrous elements of the s.e.xes that they shall perpetually reveal themselves to each other, and neither shall ever fully comprehend the other. Let woman speak for herself. Give her a chance to speak as man speaks, by precisely the same language, and in the same manner, and then reverently incline your heads, and listen to what she says.

I have said this great question is up for final argument. My mission was simply to present to you this dry, but very interesting question of woman's rights, under the XIV. Amendment.

To my mind, the argument is perfectly invincible. It never can be met, and never will be, and it will, ultimately work out its own end.

Thanking you for the kindness with which you have listened to me, I leave this matter with you.

ADDRESS OF MRS. ISABELLA BEECHER HOOKER.

Mrs. HOOKER said: We are told by men themselves that there are too many voters already; restriction is what we want, not enlargement of the suffrage. Let us see how this is, my friends--let us reason together on this point for a few moments.

The one great propelling power of this Government that moves the great political engine, and that keeps us alive as a Nation on the face of the earth, is G.o.d's own doctrine of personal liberty and personal responsibility. That is all we have to go upon. It is, in fact, fuel and steam. Liberty is the steam, responsibility puts on the brakes, and then what is the safety-valve, I ask you?

Is it not our election day? Look at it in this way. Every honest lawyer will tell you that the next best thing to settling a quarrel between two belligerents is to bring the parties into court. Because the court-room is a great cooling off place, a perfect refrigerator. A man who has quarreled with his neighbor comes into court, and, before the lawyers get through with him, he wishes he hadn't quarreled. How is it that our courts act in this way? What do we gain in this? Everything. In old times a dispute between man and man was settled by blows--fisticuffs--gradually superseded by the sword, at last by the pistol; and now we have thrown that out, and established a system of jurisprudence. Now all these petty grievances must be settled in court. Private violence must no longer be permitted, and that is a great march in civilization.

The parallel case is this: We in this country--we men, I mean, for women are n.o.bodies and nowhere when you come to the discussion of great questions like these, but I use the conventional we--we in this country are attempting to carry our ideas of liberty and responsibility into legislation, and we don't agree--we quarrel bitterly and almost come to blows again--but election days cool us off, acting like a court-room itself. We accept their judgment, and go about our business quietly till next time. Now if we were all Americans, acting under an intelligent sense of responsibility, everything might be expected to run smoothly under this regime; but the trouble is when the foreigner comes in who does not understand our inst.i.tutions, who is, perhaps, ignorant, debased, and superst.i.tious. But the foreigner is, it seems to me, the very man who needs this safety-valve of the election day more than any other on the face of the globe. We ourselves could run our own nationality; but here comes this man from the princ.i.p.alities of the old world--from Europe we will say, to begin with--and he has an idea that he is going to be richer, smarter, happier, more on an equality with every other man than ever he was before. He comes here, and what does he find? He finds a ladder, reaching higher into the clouds, perhaps, but the lower rounds are just as near the earth as over there, and he is on the lowest round still. He sees his next-door neighbor has more money than he has, is better educated, and commands the respect of the community, as he does not, and he is filled with disappointment, and sometimes with rage. What would he naturally do, with his old world antecedents and training, when he is thus aggrieved as he conceives himself to be? Why, burn your barn, break into your house, steal all he could from you. But what does election day do for him? On that day he is as good as anybody. He goes to the polls side by side with the first man in the land, and he rides in a carriage there, if he is too drunk to walk, and he can vote the first man in the line, if he chooses. The richest man in the country must walk behind him and wait for his turn. He drops his ballot and he is cooled off. He soon begins to get hold a little of this idea of responsibility that I am speaking of, and after a while it will come into his head--very slowly, perhaps, for we are all slow to learn these things--that he has got to work himself up and get on a par with those intelligent and influential people who are so powerful in making laws and customs.

Now, gentlemen, it seems to me if you could disfranchise every foreigner to-day who was not intelligent, or if you could make intelligence the test of voting, you would have ten barns burned where you have one now. I believe it firmly. Being naturally conservative, as I think all women are, a few years ago I really thought that ten, even twenty years' residence might be required of foreigners before they should be allowed to vote. I said they did not know enough, and so ought to be kept out as long as that.

To-day I am inclined not to limit the time a moment longer than it is necessary for men to get their naturalization papers out, and go through the required legal formalities. If disfranchis.e.m.e.nt meant annihilation, selfishly, I might be glad to get rid of this troublesome question in that way, the task of ruling this country would then be a far easier one than it is; but it does not mean annihilation. So when gentlemen talk with me, and say we have too many voters already, I reply, do not disfranchise these men, enlighten them, for G.o.d has sent them here for a purpose of His own. And I say to you gentlemen the ballot in the hands of every man is the only thing that saves us from anarchy to-day, that keeps us alive as a republic--the ballot in the hands of these ignorant men, and the more ignorant they are the more they need it, and the more we need they should have it. And let me say, in pa.s.sing, that reconstruction at the South is hindered to-day for the same reason, responsibility is taken away from a large cla.s.s of citizens. A disfranchised cla.s.s is always a restless cla.s.s; a cla.s.s that, if it be not as a whole given up to deeds of violence, will at least wink at them, when committed by men either in or out of its own ranks. What the South needs to-day is ballots, not bullets.

I leave out of the question the ultimate educating power of the ballot, though I would like to make you an argument upon that alone. But I say give the poor men, ignorant men the ballot for purposes of self-defense, and because we could not live in safety in our homes otherwise. New York is poorly governed, we say, to-day, and getting to be a pretty dangerous place to live in.

But what would it be if every foreigner and every ignorant man could not go out on election day, and prove that he was as good as anybody? That is human nature, and it is human nature, and plenty of it too, that we have to deal with. And now, let me ask you, what are these men sent here for and who sent them? We have got all Europe, and all Asia is coming, and who sends them? When G.o.d put into that good s.h.i.+p _Mayflower_ those two great ribs of oak, personal liberty and personal responsibility, He knew the precious freight she was to bear, and all the hopes bound up in her, and He pledged Himself by both the great eternities, the past and the future, that that s.h.i.+p should weather all storms and come safe to port with all she had on board. And what G.o.d has promised He will perform. So I beg of you not to think for a moment of limiting manhood suffrage.

And if men can not live in this country in safe homes, except their neighbor men are enfranchised, can they live without enfranchised women any more? If you can not live in safety with irresponsible men in your midst, how can you live with irresponsible women? Much more, how can you grow into the stature of perfect men in Christ Jesus our Lord; how can you become perfect legislators, except your mothers are instructed on these great subjects you are called to legislate upon, that they may instruct you in their turn? You do not know anything so well as what your mothers have taught you; but they have not taught you political economy. It is not their fault that they have not, nor yours, perhaps. No man nor woman studies a subject profoundly except he or she is called upon to act upon it. What business man studies a business foreign to his own? What woman studies a business foreign to her own? In past ages this woman, in the providence of G.o.d, we will say, has been shut out from political action, for, so long as the sword ruled and man had to get his liberty by the sword, so long woman had all she could do to guard the home, for that was her part of the work; and she did it bravely and well, you will say. But now men are not fighting for their liberty with the gun by the door and the Indians outside.

You are fighting for it in halls of legislation, with the spirit of truth--with spiritual weapons--and woman would be disloyal to her womanhood if she did not ask to share these heavy responsibilities with you. And she has really been training herself all these years she has seemed so indifferent; she has neglected her duty in part--I confess it freely--it is not your fault alone, gentlemen, that we are not with you to-day. If we had been as conscious of our duty and privilege years ago as we are to-day, if we had known our birthright, we should have stood by your side, welcome coadjutors, long since. So we will take the blame of the past alike--we have all been walking very slowly this path of Christian civilization. But in the greatest conflict of modern times, you announced great principles and fought for them on the field, and we stood by them in the home, and we stand by them still there. And when we come to deliberate with you in solemn council as to how these principles shall be carried into legislation, your task will be easier, our opportunities will be larger, and still our hearts will be where they have ever been--in our homes.

Forty-first Congress, 3d Session, House of Representatives, Report, No. 22, Jan. 30, 1871, recommitted to the Committee on Judiciary and ordered to be printed. Mr. BINGHAM, from the Committee on the Judiciary, made the following report.