Volume III Part 17 (1/2)
_Resolved_, That it is logical that these amendments should fail to protect even the male African for whom said courts, legislatures and parties declare they were expressly designed and enacted.
_Resolved_, That the judges of the Supreme Court of the United States in denying Belva A. Lockwood admission to its bar, while she was ent.i.tled under the law and under its rules to that right, violated their oath of office.
_Resolved_, That the Senate Judiciary Committee, Mr. Edmonds chairman, in its report on the bill to allow women to practice law in the courts of the United States in which it declares that ”further legislation is not necessary,” evaded the plain question at issue before it in a manner unworthy of judges learned in the honorable profession of the law, and thereby sanctioned an injustice to the women of the whole country.
WHEREAS, The general government has refused to exercise federal power to protect women in their right to vote in the various States and territories; therefore,
_Resolved_, That it should forbear to exercise federal power to disfranchise the women of Utah, who have had a more just and liberal spirit shown them by Mormon men than Gentile women in the States have yet perceived in their rulers.
WHEREAS, The proposed legislation for the Chinese women on the Pacific slope and for outcast women in our cities, and the opinion of the press that no respectable woman should be seen in the streets after dark, are all based upon the presumption that woman's freedom must be forever sacrificed to man's licence; therefore,
_Resolved_, That the ballot in woman's hand is the only power by which she can restrain the liberty of those men who make our streets and highways dangerous to her, and secure the freedom that belongs to her by day and by night.
[Ill.u.s.tration: Frances E. Willard]
At the close of the convention it was decided at a meeting of the executive committee to present an address to the president and both houses of congress, and that a printed copy of the resolutions should be laid on the desk of every member. The president having granted a hearing,[46] the following address was presented:
_To his Excellency, the President of the United States_:
WHEREAS, Representatives of a.s.sociations of women waited upon your excellency before the delivery of your first and second annual messages, asking that in those doc.u.ments you would remember the disfranchised millions of citizens of the United States; and,
WHEREAS, Upon careful examination of those messages, we find therein specifically enumerated, the interests, great and small, of all cla.s.ses of men, and recommendations of needful legislation to protect their civil and political rights, but find no mention made of any need of legislation to protect the political, civil, or social rights of one-half of the people of this republic, and,
WHEREAS, There is pending in the Senate a const.i.tutional amendment to prohibit the several States from disfranchising United States citizens on account of s.e.x, and a similar amendment is pending upon a tie vote in the House Judiciary Committee; and as pet.i.tions to so amend the const.i.tution have been presented to both houses of congress from more than 40,000 well-known citizens of thirty-five States and five territories,
THEREFORE, we respectfully ask your excellency, in your next annual message, to make mention of the disfranchised millions of wives, mothers and daughters of this republic, and to recommend to congress that women equally with men be protected in the exercise of their civil and political rights.
On behalf of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation.
ELIZABETH CADY STANTON, _President_.
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, _Corresponding Secretary_.
SUSAN B. ANTHONY, _Chairman Executive Committee_.
The delegates from the territory of Utah were also received by the president. They called his attention to the effect of the enforcement of the law of 1862 upon 50,000 Mormon women, to render them outcasts and their children nameless, asking the chief executive of the nation to give some time to the consideration of the bill pending under different headings in both houses. The president asked them to set forth the facts in writing, that he might carefully weigh so important a matter. A memorial was also presented to congress by these ladies, closing thus:
We further pray that in any future legislation concerning the marriage relation in any territory under your jurisdiction you will consider the rights and the consciences of the women to be affected by such legislation, and that you will consider the permanent care and welfare of children as the sure foundation of the State.
And your pet.i.tioners will ever pray.
EMMELINE B. WELLS.
ZINA YOUNG WILLIAMS.
Mr. Cannon of Utah moved that the memorial be referred to the Committee on the Judiciary with leave to report at any time. It was so referred. The Judiciary Committee of the Senate brought in a bill legitimatizing the offspring of plural marriages to a certain date; also authorizing the president to grant amnesty for past offenses against the law of 1862.
The _Congressional Record_ of January 24, under the head of pet.i.tions and memorials, said:
The vice-president, Mr. Wheeler of New York, presented the pet.i.tion of Elizabeth Cady Stanton, Matilda Joslyn Gage and Susan B. Anthony, officers of the National a.s.sociation, praying for the pa.s.sage of Senate joint resolution No. 12, providing for an amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, protecting the rights of women, and also that the House Judiciary Committee be relieved from the further consideration of a similar resolution.
Mr. FERRY--If there be no objection I ask that the pet.i.tion be read at length.