Volume II Part 114 (1/2)
Blackwell. The following session was princ.i.p.ally devoted to the hearing of the reports from the auxiliary societies. The delegates, 159 in number, represented twelve States.
Rev. CHARLES G. AMES, of Pennsylvania, in reply to Mrs. Stone, said he thought it both impolitic and unreasonable to come into collision with the awakening spirit of the country in the matter of the Centennial. The American Revolution did great things for us all, woman included; and although it did not give her a political status, yet it established organic principles which make woman suffrage possible, logical and ultimately certain. No event has yet brought suffrage to woman; shall she therefore regard all history up to date as a failure, as if there were nothing in it worth celebrating? Rather may we rejoice that all the past is a series of steps leading up to the present; and still we mount! Woman suffrage is present in the inst.i.tutions of our country as a germ; it is growing. In not affirming it the fathers did no conscious or intentional wrong; and only a few cultivated women of the Revolutionary period, like Mrs. Adams and a lady friend of Richard Henry Lee, felt the inconsistency of affirming the equality of all human beings and then ignoring half of them. But in days of war and slavery, Mr. Seward said, ”Liberty is in the Union”; so we may say, Suffrage is in the Union. The negroes who fought for the Union, while it was only a white man's Union, were winning their own enfranchis.e.m.e.nt; the women who celebrate American Independence are doing honor to principles which will some day bring justice to all the inhabitants of the land.
The discussions on this subject of suffrage have disclosed to the American people their own low estimate of the ballot, as a coa.r.s.e and uncertain instrument for procuring only coa.r.s.e and doubtful benefits. They ought to thank us for bringing to light this dangerous skepticism, and for compelling attention to those deeper principles of justice and equality which alone can work the timely cure. To refuse to follow those principles when their new application becomes obvious, is to give up the Republic.
Yet there has been a relative decline of politics. The ”powers that be,” or the ruling forces of the country are not seated alone at Was.h.i.+ngton and the State capitals; new and mightier lawgivers have arisen. Civilization has come to include and employ other than political agents for the maintenance of order and the promotion of welfare. The power of opinion as generated by education, literature, religion, business or social life, and as announced through the press, and propagated in the widening circles of personal influence--this rules the rulers and masters the country. Thus, within the nation and fostered by its freedom, there has grown up a grander republic of thought and sentiment, which has also blossomed into many a fair inst.i.tution. Of this more glorious republic, woman is a welcome and unquestioned citizen. Her opportunities for self-help and for helping others, her share in the common burdens and her dividend of the common benefits, must be far larger, in our country and now, than in any other land or time. All this, the thoughtful friends of suffrage will gladly admit.
But does this concession belittle the importance of woman's political rights? Exactly not! A part in the government becomes important to any cla.s.s in proportion as they become large stockholders in common affairs and as they become aware of their own interests and their own powers. The ballot is of little value to an unawakened, unaspiring people; their masters will look after matters. But American women are not unawakened or unaspiring. To many of them, life has grown painful, because their advancing ideal is dishonored by a sense of violated justice. Along with large freedom has come developed faculty, awakened desire, conscious power and public spirit. Precisely because their actual freedom is so large and sweet, they are galled by every rusty link of the old political chain. Not the mere handling of a ballot do they crave, but the position of unchallenged and unqualified equality, and the removal of the old brand of inferiority, which weakens alike their self-respect and their hold on the respect of others.
At present, the position of woman in the State is false, contradictory and uncomfortable. She has ceased to be a n.o.body; but she is not yet conceded to be a somebody. As she has gained many rights which were once denied, the old theory which made her a slave is overthrown; as she has not gained the absolute and chartered right of self-government, the new theory of her equality is not yet established. Of that equality suffrage is the symbol, as in this country it is now the symbol for men. She demands to be the custodian of her own affairs, and not to hold them by sufferance. She demands to be equal behind the law and in the law, as well as before the law.
The Committee on Nominations reported the list of officers[200]
for the ensuing year.
Miss EASTMAN said: There are many questions of profound interest occupying the minds of the community, and people come together to unravel if possible the complications of business and human obligations; questions of railroads, of tariffs, of the protection of dumb animals, and, most important of all, of the delicate relations of society to the unfortunate cla.s.ses, and of equity between man and man. All these need the consideration which is made possible by the acc.u.mulated wisdom of centuries and the insight which eighteen hundred years' study of Christian principles have developed. But I shall never get over a sense of anachronism, of being out of time, in arguing at this late day a claim for so fundamental a thing as human freedom. I rub my eyes to make sure that I have not been in a Rip Van Winkle slumber for a few centuries, and am not coming before a nineteenth century audience with an untimely protest against a wrong long since abolished, and of which children only hear nowadays in their study of history, or when their parents draw a picture of the sad old times when an injustice prevailed against one half the people, and these the mothers, wives, and daughters. But no! we have none of us been permitted to betake ourselves to a mount of delight and to rest in enchanted slumber while the great wrongs righted themselves. We are here on the hither side of the conflict and must put our puny human strength into the work.
Though this is the nineteenth century after Christ, we are here--in the most civilized, or perhaps I should better say, the least uncivilized country on the face of the globe--to urge the right of one half the human race to the same personal freedom and voice in the control of its own and the general interests as are possessed by the other half.
Mrs. FRANCES WATKINS HARPER was the last speaker. She said that she had often known women who wished they had been born men, but had known only one man who wished he had been born a woman, and that was during the war when he was in danger of being drafted into the army. He then not only expressed the wish that he had been born a girl, but even went further, and longed to be a girl-baby at that. Mrs. Harper gave a touching description of the disabilities to which women, and especially colored women, are subjected, and looked forward to their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt as the dawn of a better era alike for men and for women. At the conclusion of Mrs. Harper's address the Convention adjourned _sine die_.
The anniversary of the recognition of the equal political rights of women by the Const.i.tutional Convention of New Jersey, July 2, 1776, celebrated in 1876 by the American Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation, was as bright and beautiful as the fact it commemorated. Notwithstanding the heat of the weather and the varied attractions of the Exhibition and the great procession, an intelligent audience a.s.sembled at Philadelphia in Horticultural Hall. It contained many representatives of Pennsylvania, but was mainly composed of several hundred friends of woman suffrage from all parts of the country. The meeting was called to order by Henry B. Blackwell, Secretary of the Society, who read the call and introduced Mrs. LUCY STONE as Chairman of the meeting. Mrs.
Stone prefaced her address by a historical statement of the interesting facts of woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt and disfranchis.e.m.e.nt in New Jersey.[201]
The HUTCHINSON family sang with thrilling power and sweetness ”The Prophecy of Woman's Future.”
Mr. BLACKWELL said: The Philadelphia newspapers are discussing the question whether the second or the fourth day of July is the real anniversary of American Independence. I give my vote for the second of July for a reason which has not been generally named.
On this day the men of New Jersey, for the first time in the world's history, organized a State upon the principles of absolute justice. For the first time, they established equal political rights for men and women. This was a greater event than the Declaration of Independence. The Declaration only announced the principle that ”governments derive their just powers from the consent of the governed,” but the men of New Jersey applied the principle alike to women and negroes. By as much as practice is worth more than theory and life more than raiment, by so much is the event we celebrate more glorious than any other in the annals of the Revolution. It was the prophecy and the guarantee of our national future.
Some people say that we celebrate a failure, because thirty-one years later the franchise was taken away from the women of New Jersey. But the generation which enacted woman suffrage did not repeal it. New Jersey was first settled by the Puritans and Quakers--educated and intelligent, full of the spirit of liberty.
Soon after the State was organized, this population was overwhelmed by an ignorant immigration from Continental Europe.
Slavery became a power. Free schools did not exist. Another body of men supplanted the intelligent founders of the State and lowered its inst.i.tutions to meet the lower level of character and purpose.
Another lesson we should never forget is, that the women of New Jersey lost the franchise because they voted against extending this right to others. The women were generally Federalists. They were said to have given the electoral votes of the State to John Adams against Thomas Jefferson in 1800. The Democratic party was bent upon enfranchising the poor white men who were excluded by a property-qualification. The women, then as now conservative in character, opposed this extension of suffrage. In 1807, when the Democrats got possession of the State Government, they put out the women and colored men and introduced the poor white men. With this warning before us, let us rejoice that American women have taken so warm an interest in the emanc.i.p.ation and enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the slaves--that every colored delegate whom I met at the National Republican Conventions of 1872 and 1876 recognized the women as their friends, and were ready to help put a woman suffrage plank into the platform.
Also, let me congratulate you that the Prohibitionists and Republicans have each adopted our principle of equal rights for women in their party creeds, and that in the nomination of Rutherford B. Hayes, a woman suffragist, we have a man whose first public reputation was won as the champion of a wronged and friendless woman.
The HUTCHINSONS gave a spirited song. Mr. RAPER, of England, was then called, and gave an interesting sketch of the progress of woman suffrage in England. The afternoon meeting was opened by a song, ”One Hundred Years Hence,” by the HUTCHINSONS.
CHARLES G. AMES said: This meeting stands for something good and necessary--better than anything we can say. The advocates of impartial suffrage are the most consistent friends of the principles upon which our inst.i.tutions are founded, because they alone propose to apply them. All others shrink from this application. They distrust human nature. They are afraid to move for fear of what may follow. They are like the Frenchman, who, being a little drunk, had dropped his hat and apostrophized it thus: ”If I try to pick you up, I shall myself fall down. If I fall down, you can not pick me up. Therefore I will go on without you.” But woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt will open every college door and every avenue of employment. Every woman will be cared for, as every man is now cared for. A government without justice is tyranny, piracy, and despotism. A society without justice would be a h.e.l.l. The lower elements of appet.i.te and pa.s.sion exist in society. They must be overcome by the higher elements of justice.
With justice will come heavenliness, purity, and peace. Thus, in opening the proceedings of this afternoon, we represent in 1876 the principles of 1776--the principles which will triumph more clearly and gloriously in 1976.
Mrs. HOWE said: Heaven gives each of us two human hands. One is meant to receive the gifts of Providence, and one is meant to give largely of what we receive to others. Ignorant, selfish human beings too often hold out but the one hand. They receive, and are satisfied with that; but they do not give. They seem to say to divine Providence, ”What is yours is mine, and what is mine is my own.” Nevertheless, in the order of this same Providence, what we give is as important to our happiness as what we receive. The rich man who has done nothing to enrich the community in which he lives, has really profited very little by the wealth he has ama.s.sed and inherited. Himself commanding the means of refinement and luxury, he lives surrounded by poverty, barbarism, and crime; and these, from the beginning of his career to the end, poison the very sources of his life. As much worse is it with those who receive liberty and do not give it, as liberty is better than money. ”Give me liberty or give me death!” says Patrick Henry. He receives it. Does he give it to his slave? No.
To his wife? Still less. What does he have of it, then? Only one half--the selfish half of possession, not the joyous and generous side of sympathy and partic.i.p.ation.
These Jerseyites, it seems, were wiser than any in their day and generation. They saw the anomaly, the contradiction between a free manhood and an enslaved womanhood. They saw it taking effect at the sacred hearth, beside the tender cradle. And they saw their way out of it. What they received and valued as the greatest of G.o.d's gifts, they gave to their women, rational, human creatures like themselves, bone of their bone and flesh of their flesh, only made to exemplify that peaceable and loving side of human nature whose beauty has been always felt, and whose triumph is written among the eternal prophecies which time only fulfills. Honor then, to-day, to those truly brave and generous men who, with their own hands unbound, were not afraid to unbind the hands of their wives and mothers! Honor, too, to the women who were intelligent enough to appreciate the gift, and wise and brave enough to use it. No scandal accompanied its exercise.