Volume III Part 23 (1/2)
One would think the logical conclusion from that which I have last read would be that _all citizens_ are ent.i.tled to equal protection everywhere. It appears to mean that. Then I turn to another piece of legislation--that which is known as ”The Enforcement Act”--one which some of you, gentlemen, did not like very much when it was enacted--and there I find another declaration on the same question. The act is ent.i.tled ”An Act to Enforce the Right of Citizens of the United States to Vote in the Several States of this Union, and for other purposes.” The right of ”citizens” to vote appears to be conceded by this act. In the second section it says:
It shall be the duty of every such person and officer to give to all citizens of the United States the same and equal opportunity to perform such prerequisite, and to become qualified to vote, without distinction of race, color or previous condition of servitude.
I ask you, gentlemen of the committee, as lawyers, whether you do not think that, after we have been declared to be citizens, we have the right to claim the protection of this enforcement act?
When you gentlemen from the North rise in your places in the halls of congress and make these walls ring with your eloquence, you are p.r.o.ne to talk a great deal about the right of every United States citizen to the ballot, and the necessity of protecting every such citizen in its exercise. What do you mean by it?
It occurs to me here to call your attention to a matter of recent occurrence. As you know, there has been a little unpleasantness in Maine--a State which is not without a representative among the members of the Judiciary Committee--and certain gentlemen there, especially Mr. Blaine, have been greatly exercised in their minds because, as they allege, the people of Maine have not been permitted to express their will at the polls. Why, gentlemen, I a.s.sert that a majority of the people of Maine have never been permitted to express their will at the polls. A majority of the people of Maine are women, and from the foundation of this government have never exercised any of the inalienable rights of citizens. Mr. Blaine made a speech a day or two ago in Augusta.
He began by reciting the condition of affairs, owing to the effort, as he states, ”to subst.i.tute a false count for an honest ballot,” and congratulated his audience upon the instrumentalities by which they had triumphed--
Without firing a gun, without shedding a drop of blood, without striking a single blow, without one disorderly a.s.semblage. _The people_ have regained their own right through the might and majesty of their own laws.
He goes on in this vein to speak of those whom he calls ”the people of Maine.” Well, gentlemen, I do not think you will deny that _women are people_. It appears to me that what Mr. Blaine said in that connection was nonsense, unless indeed he forgot that there were any others than men among the people of the State of Maine. I don't suppose that you, gentlemen, are often so forgetful. Mr. Blaine said further:
The Republicans of Maine and throughout the land felt that they were not merely fighting the battle of a single year, but for all the future of the State; not merely fighting the battle of our own State alone, but for all the States that are attempting the great problem of State government throughout the world. The corruption or destruction of the ballot is a crime against free government, and when successful is a subversion of free government.
Does that mean the ballot _for men only_ or the ballot _for the people_, men and women too? If it is to be received as meaning anything, it ought to mean not for one s.e.x alone, but for both.
Mr. Lincoln declared, in one of his n.o.blest utterances, that no man was good enough to govern another man without that man's consent. Of course he meant it in its broadest terms; he meant that no man or woman was good enough to govern another man or woman without that other man's or woman's consent.
Mr. Blaine, on another occasion, in connection with the same subject-matter, had much to say of the enormity of the oppression practiced by his political opponents in depriving the town of Portland of the right of representation in view of its paying such heavy taxes as it does pay. He expressed the greatest indignation at the attempt, forgetting utterly that great body of women who pay taxes but are deprived of the right of representation. In this connection it may be pertinent for me to express the hope, by way of a suggestion, that hereafter, when making your speeches, you will not use the term ”citizens” in a broad sense, unless you mean to include women as well as men, and that when you do not mean to include women you will speak of male citizens as a separate cla.s.s, because the term, in its general application, is illogical and its meaning obscure if not self-contradictory.
President Hayes was so pleased with one of the sentences in his message of a year ago that in his message of this year he has reiterated it. It reads thus:
That no temporary or administrative interests of government will ever displace the zeal of our people in defense of the primary rights of citizens.h.i.+p, and that the power of public opinion will override all political prejudices and all sectional and State attachments in demanding that all over our wide territory the name and character of citizen of the United States shall mean one and the same thing and carry with them unchallenged security and respect.
Let me suggest what he ought to have said unless he intended to include women, although I am afraid that Mr. Hayes, when he wrote this, forgot that there were women in the United States, notwithstanding that his excellent wife, perhaps, stood by his side. He ought to have said:
An act having been pa.s.sed to enforce the rights of _male_ citizens to vote, the true vigor of _half_ the population is thus expressed, and no interests of government will ever displace the zeal of _half_ of our people in defense of the primary rights of our _male_ citizens. _The prosperity of the States depends upon the protection afforded to our male citizens_; and the name and character of _male_ citizens of the United States shall mean one and the same thing and carry with them unchallenged security and respect.
If Mr. Hayes had thus expressed himself, he would have made a perfectly logical and clear statement. Gentlemen, I hope that hereafter, when speaking or voting in behalf of the citizens of the United States, you will bear this in mind and will remember that women are citizens as well as men, and that they claim the same rights.
This question of woman suffrage cannot much longer be ignored. In the State from which I come, although we have not a right to vote, we are confident that the influence which women brought to bear in determining the result of the election last fall had something to do with sending into retirement a Democratic governor who was opposed to our reform, and electing a Republican who was in favor of it. Recollect, gentlemen, that the expenditure of time and money which has been made in this cause will not be without its effect. The time is coming when the demand of an immense number of the women of this country cannot be ignored. When you see these representatives coming from all the States of the Union to ask for this right, can you doubt that, some day, they will succeed in their mission? We do not stand before you to plead as beggars; we ask for that which is our right. We ask it as due to the memory of our ancestors, who fought for the freedom of this country just as bravely as did yours. We ask it on many considerations. Why, gentlemen, the very furniture here, the carpet on this floor, was paid for with our money. We are taxed equally with the men to defray the expenses of this congress, and we have a right equally with them to partic.i.p.ate in the government.
In closing, I have only to ask, is there no man here present who appreciates the emergencies of this hour? Is there no one among you who will rise on the floor of congress as the champion of this unrepresented half of the people of the United States? The time is not far distant when we shall have our liberties, and the politician who can now understand the importance of our cause, the statesman who can now see, and will now appreciate the justice of it, that man, if true to himself, will write his name high on the scroll of fame beside those of the men who have been the saviors of the country. Gentlemen I entreat you not to let this hearing go by without giving due weight to all that we have said. You can no more stay the onward current of this reform than you can fight against the stars in their courses.
Mr. WILLITS of Michigan: _Mr. Chairman_: I would like to make a suggestion here. The regulation amendment, as it has heretofore been submitted, provided that the right of citizens of the United States to vote should not be abridged on account of s.e.x. I notice that the amendment which the ladies here now propose has prefixed to it this phrase: ”The right of suffrage in the United States shall be based on citizens.h.i.+p.” I call attention to this because I would like to have them explain as fully as they may why they incorporate the phrase, ”shall be based on citizens.h.i.+p.” Is the meaning this, that all citizens shall have the right to vote, or simply that citizens.h.i.+p shall be the basis of suffrage? The words, ”or for any reason not applicable to all citizens of the United States,” also seem to require explanation. The proposition in the form in which it is now submitted, I understand, covers a little more than has been covered by the amendment submitted in previous years.
SARA A. SPENCER of Was.h.i.+ngton, D. C.: If the committee will permit me, I will say that the amendment in its present form is the concentrated wish of the women of the United States. The women of the country sent to congress pet.i.tions asking for three different forms of const.i.tutional amendment, and when preparing the one now before the committee these three were concentrated in the one now before you (identical with that of the resolution offered in the House by Hon. George B. Loring and by Hon. T. W.
Ferry in the Senate), omitting, at the request of each of the three cla.s.ses of pet.i.tioners, all phrases which were regarded by any of them as objectionable. The amendment as now presented is therefore the combined wish of the women of the country, viz., that citizens.h.i.+p in the United States shall mean suffrage, and that no one shall be deprived of the right to vote for reasons not equally applicable to all citizens.
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE said: It is necessary to refer to a remarkable decision of the Supreme Court. The case of Virginia L.
Minor, claiming the right to vote under the fourteenth amendment, was argued before the Supreme Court of the United States, October term, 1874; decision rendered adversely by Chief-Justice Waite, March, 1875, upon the ground that ”the United States had no voters in the States of its own creation.” This was a most amazing decision to emanate from the highest judicial authority of the nation, and is but another proof how fully that body is under the influence of the dominant political party.
Contrary to this decision, I unhesitatingly affirm that the United States has possessed voters in States of its own creation from the very date of the const.i.tution. In Article I, Sec. 2, the const.i.tution provides that
The House of Representatives shall be composed of members chosen every second year by the people of the several States, and the electors in each State shall have the qualifications requisite for electors of the most numerous branch of the State legislature.
The persons so designated are voters under State laws; but by this section of the national const.i.tution they are made United States voters. It is directed under what conditions of State qualification they may cast votes in their respective States for members of the lower house of congress. The const.i.tution here created a cla.s.s of United States voters by adoption of an already voting cla.s.s. Did but this single instance exist, it would be sufficient to nullify Chief-Justice Waite's decision, as Article VI, Sec. 2, declares
The const.i.tution and the laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof * * * shall be the supreme law of the land.