Volume III Part 19 (1/2)

ENTER PORTIA.--An act of congress was not necessary to authorize women to be lawyers, if their legal acquirements fitted them for that vocation; nor was it necessary to state, as an expression of opinion by the national legislature, that some women are so fully qualified for the legal profession that no barriers should be permitted to stand in their way. It was needed simply as a key whereby the hitherto locked door of the Supreme Court of the United States may be opened if a woman lawyer, with the usual credentials, should knock thereon. That is all; and there is no new question opened for profitless debate. The ability of some women to be lawyers is like the ability of others to make bread--it rests upon the facts. There is no room for elaborate argument to prove either their fitness or unfitness for legal studies, so long as in Missouri, Wisconsin, Michigan, the District of Columbia, Iowa and North Carolina there are women in more or less successful practice and repute. * * * Nowhere are these great attributes of civilization and regulated liberty--law, conservatism, justice, equity and mercy in the administration of human affairs put in broader light or truer, than they are by the words that Shakespeare puts in the mouth of this woman jurist.--[_Public Ledger_, Philadelphia, February 12.

When congress recently pa.s.sed a law allowing women to practice in the Supreme Court, it was not a subject of any special or eager comment. A woman who is a lawyer sent flowers to the desks of the members who voted for the bill, and before they had faded, comment was at an end. The home was still safe and the country was not in peril. It was one of the questions which had settled itself and was a foregone conclusion. * * * United States Senator Edmunds of Vermont, has fallen into disfavor with the ladies for voting against the above bill.--[From John W. Forney's _Progress_, February 22.

On March 3, by motion of Hon. A. G. Riddle, Mrs. Lockwood was admitted to the bar of the United States Supreme Court,[48] taking the official oath and receiving the cla.s.sic sheep-skin; and the following week she was admitted to practice before the Court of Claims. The forty-sixth congress contained an unusually large proportion of new representatives, fresh from the people, ready for the discussion of new issues, and manifesting a chivalric spirit toward the consideration of woman's claims as a citizen. On Tuesday, April 29, the following resolution was submitted to the Committee on Rules in the House of Representatives:

_Resolved_, That a select committee of nine members be appointed by the speaker, to be called a Committee on the Rights of Women, whose duty it shall be to consider and report upon all pet.i.tions, memorials, resolutions and bills that may be presented in the House relating to the rights of women.

Admitting the justice of a fair consideration of a question involving every human right of one-half of the population of this country, Alex. H. Stephens of Georgia, James A. Garfield of Ohio, Wm. P. Frye of Maine, immediately declared themselves in favor of the appointment of said committee, and Speaker Randall, the chairman, ordered it reported to the House. A similar resolution was introduced in the Senate, before the adjournment of the special session. This showed a clearer perception of the magnitude of the question, and the need of its early and earnest consideration, than at any time during the previous thirty years of argument, heroic struggle and sacrifice on the altar of woman's freedom.

The anniversary of 1879 was held in St. Louis, Missouri, May 7, 8, 9. Mrs. Virginia L. Minor and Miss Phoebe W. Couzins made all possible arrangements for the success of the meeting and the comfort of the delegates.[49] Mrs. Minor briefly stated the object of the convention and announced that, as the president of the a.s.sociation had not arrived, Mrs. Joslyn Gage would take the chair.

Miss Couzins gave the address of welcome:

_Mrs. President and Members of the National Woman Suffrage a.s.sociation:_

It becomes my pleasant duty to welcome you to the hospitalities of my native city. To extend to you who for the first time meet beyond the Mississippi, a greeting--not only in behalf of the friends of woman suffrage, but for those of our citizens who, while not in full sympathy with your views, have a desire to hear you in deliberative council and to cordially tender you the same courtesies offered other conventions which have chosen St. Louis as their place of annual gathering.

And I am the more happy to do this because of the opportunity it affords me to disabuse your minds of certain impressions which have gone abroad concerning our slowness of action in the line of advanced ideas. Certainly in some phases of that reformation to which you and your co-laborers have pledged your lives, your fortunes--the cause of woman--St. Louis is the leader.

When, eighteen or twenty years since, Harriet Hosmer desired to study anatomy, to perfect herself in her art, not a college in New England would open its doors to her; she traveled West, and through the generous patronage of Wayman Crow of this city, she became a pupil of the dean of the St. Louis Medical college.

When other cities had refused equality of wages and position, St.

Louis placed Miss Brackett at the head of our normal school, giving her--a heretofore exclusively male prerogative--the highest wages, added to the highest educational rank.

And here in St. Louis began the advance march which has finally broken down the walls of the highest judicial fortress, the Supreme Court of the United States. Was.h.i.+ngton University, in response to my request, unhesitatingly opened its doors, and for the first time in the history of America, woman was accorded the right to a legal course of training with man, and, at its close, after successful examination, I was freely accorded the degree of Bachelor of Laws! A city or a State that could perpetrate the anomaly of a female bachelor, is certainly not far behind the radicalism of the age.

Again, as I turn to its record on suffrage, I find as early as 1866 the Hon. B. Gratz Brown of Missouri made a glowing speech for woman's enfranchis.e.m.e.nt, in the United States Senate, on Mr.

Cowan's motion to strike out ”male” from the District of Columbia suffrage bill, which resulted in an organization in 1867, through the efforts of Mrs. Virginia L. Minor, its first president. And again, I remember when that hydra-headed evil arose in our midst, degrading all women and violating all the sweet and sacred sanct.i.ties of life--a blow at our homes and a lasting stigma on our civilization--the people of this community, led by the chancellor of Was.h.i.+ngton University, at the ballot-box but recently laid that monster away in a tomb, never, I trust, to be resurrected.

And now, Mrs. President, let me add, in words which but faintly express the emotion of my heart, the grat.i.tude we feel towards the n.o.ble women who have borne the burden and heat of the day.

They who have been ridiculed, villified, maligned, but through it all maintained an unswerving allegiance to truth. In the name of all true womanhood I welcome this a.s.sociation in our midst as worthy of the highest honor.

We have lived to see the enlargement of woman's thought in all directions. From our laboratories, libraries, observatories, schools of medicine and law, universities of science, art and literature, she is advancing to the examination of the problems of life, with an eye single only to the glory of truth. Like the Spartan of old she has thrown her spear into the thickest of the fray, and will fight gloriously in the midst thereof till she regains her own. No specious sophistry or vain delusion--no time-honored tradition or untenable doctrine can evade her searching investigation.

Mrs. Gage responded to this address in a few earnest, appropriate words.

Of the many letters[50] read in the convention none was received with greater joy than the few lines, written with trembling hand, from Lucretia Mott, then in the eighty-seventh year of her age:

ROADSIDE, Fourth Month, 26, 1879.

MY DEAR SUSAN ANTHONY--It would need no urgent appeal to draw me to St. Louis had I the strength for the journey. You will have no need of my worn-out powers. Our cause itself has become sufficiently attractive. Edward M. Davis has a joint letter on hand for my signature, so this is enough, with my mite toward expenses. And to all a.s.sembled in St. Louis best wishes for--yes, full faith in your success. I have signed Edward's letter, so it is hardly necessary for me to say,

LUCRETIA MOTT.

The distinguis.h.i.+ng feature of this convention was an afternoon session of ladies alone, prompted by an attempt to reenact a law for the license of prost.i.tution, which had been enforced in St.

Louis a few years before and repealed through the united efforts of the best men and women of the city. Mrs. Joslyn Gage opened the meeting by reading extracts from the Woman's Declaration of Rights presented at the centennial celebration, and drew especial attention to the clause referring to two separate codes of morals for men and women, arising from woman's inferior political position:

There are two points which may be considered open for discussion during the afternoon--one, the fact that there are existing in all forms of society, barbaric, semi-civilized, civilized or enlightened, two separate codes of morals; the strict code to which women are held accountable, and the lax code which governs the conduct of men.

The other question which can very properly be discussed at the present time is, ”Why in this country, and in all civilized nations, do one-half of the population die under five years of age, and in some countries a very large proportion under one year?”

A letter was read from Mrs. Josephine E. Butler. As the experiment of licensing prost.i.tution had been extensively tried in England, and she had watched the effects of the system not only in her own country but on the continent, her opinions on this question are worthy of consideration: