Volume III Part 24 (1/2)

All injustice at last works out a loss. The great ledger of nations does not report a good balance for injustice. It has always met fearful losses. The irrepealable law of justice will, sooner or later, grind a nation to powder if it fail to establish that equilibrium of allegiance and protection which is the essential end of all government. Woe to that nation which thinks lightly of the duties it owes to its citizens and imagines that governments are not bound by moral laws.

It was the tax on tea--woman's drink prerogative--which precipitated the rebellion of 1776. To allay the irritation of the colonies, all taxes were rescinded save that on tea, which was left to indicate King George's dominion. But our revolutionary fathers and mothers said, ”No; the tax is paltry, but the principle is great”; and Eve, as usual, pointed the moral for Adam's benefit. A most suggestive picture, one which aroused the intensest patriotism of the colonies, was that of a woman pinioned by her arms to the ground by a British peer, with a British red-coat holding her with one hand and with the other forcibly thrusting down her throat the contents of a tea-pot, which she heroically spewed back in his face; while the figure of Justice, in the distance, wept over this prostrate Liberty. Now, gentlemen, we might well adopt a similar representation. Here is Miss Smith of Glas...o...b..ry, Conn., whose cows have been sold every year by the government, contending for the same principle as our forefathers--that of resistance to taxation without representation. We might have a picture of a cow, with an American tax-collector at the horns, a foreign-born a.s.sessor at the heels, forcibly selling the birthright of an American citizen, while Julia and Abby Smith, in the background, with veiled faces, weep over the degeneracy of Republican leaders.h.i.+p.

But there are those in authority in the government who do not believe in this decision by the Supreme Court of the United States. The attorney-general, in his instructions to the United States marshals and their deputies or a.s.sistants in the Southern States, when speaking of the countenance and support of all good citizens of the United States in the respective districts of the marshals, remarks:

It is not necessary to say that it is upon such countenance and support that the United States mainly rely in their endeavor to enforce the right to vote which they have given or have secured.

You notice the phraseology. Again, he says:

The laws of the United States are supreme, and so, consequently, is the action of officials of the United States in enforcing them.

Secretary Sherman said in his speech at Steubenville, July 6:

The negroes are free and are citizens and voters. That, at least, is a part of the const.i.tution and cannot be changed.

And President Hayes in his two last messages, as Mrs. Blake recited to you, has declared that--

United States citizens.h.i.+p shall mean one and the same thing and carry with it all over our wide territory unchallenged security and respect.

And that is what we ask for women.

In conclusion, gentlemen, I say to you that a sense of justice is the sovereign power of the human mind, the most unyielding of any; it rewards with a higher sanction, it punishes with a deeper agony than any earthly tribunal. It never slumbers, never dies.

It constantly utters and demands justice by the eternal rule of right, truth and equity. And on these eternal foundation-stones we stand.

Crowning the dome of this great building there stands the majestic figure of a woman representing Liberty. It was no idealistic thought or accident of vision which gave us Liberty prefigured by a woman. It is the great soul of the universe pointing the final revelation yet to come to humanity, the prophecy of the ages--the last to be first.[59]

When the proposition to print these speeches came before the House a prolonged debate against it showed the readiness of the opposition to avail themselves of every legal technicality to deprive women of equal rights and privileges. But the measure finally pa.s.sed and the doc.u.ments were printed. To the Hon. Elbridge G. Lapham of New York we were largely indebted for the success of this measure.

The Was.h.i.+ngton _Republican_ of February 6, 1880, describes a novel event that took place at that time:

In the Supreme Court of the United States, on Monday, on motion of Mrs. Belva Lockwood, Samuel R. Lowry of Alabama was admitted to practice. Mr. Lowry is president of the Huntsville, Ala., industrial school, and a gentleman of high attainments. It was quite fitting that the first woman admitted to practice before this court should move the admission of the first Southern colored man. Both will doubtless make good records as representatives of their respective cla.s.ses. This scene was characterized by George W. Julian as one of the most impressive he ever witnessed--a fitting subject for an historical painting.

In 1880, women were for the first time appointed census enumerators. Gen. Francis Walker, head of that department, said there was no legal obstacle to the appointment of women as enumerators, and he would gladly confirm the nomination of suitable candidates. Very different was the action of the head of the post-office department, who refused, on the ground of s.e.x, the application of 500 women for appointment as letter-carriers.

In view of the important work to be done in a presidential campaign, the National a.s.sociation decided to issue an appeal to the women of the country to appoint delegates from each State and territory, and prepare an address to each of the presidential nominating conventions. In Was.h.i.+ngton a move was made for an act of incorporation in order that the a.s.sociation might legally receive bequests. Tracts containing a general statement of the status of the movement were mailed to all members of congress and officers of the government.

At a meeting of the Committee on Rules, Mr. Randall, a Democratic member of Pennsylvania, and Mr. Garfield, a Republican member of Ohio, reminded Mr. Frye of Maine that he had been instructed by that committee, nearly a year before, to present to the House a resolution on the rights of women. The _Congressional Record_ of March 27 contains the following:

Mr. FRYE: I am instructed by the Committee on Rules to report a resolution providing for the appointment of a special committee on the political rights of women, and to move that it be placed on the House calendar.

Mr. CONGER: Let it be read.

The clerk read the resolution as follows:

_Resolved by the House of Representatives_, That the speaker appoint a special committee of nine members, to whom shall be referred all memorials, pet.i.tions, bills and resolutions relating to the rights of the women of the United States, with power to hear the same and report thereon by bill or otherwise. The resolution was referred to the House calendar.

This was a proof of the advancing status of our question that both Republican and Democratic leaders regarded the ”rights of women”

worthy the consideration of a special committee.

In the spring of 1880, the National a.s.sociation held a series of ma.s.s meetings in the States of Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin and Michigan, commencing with the May anniversary in Indianapolis, at which sixteen States were represented.[60] The convention was held in Park Theatre, Miss Anthony presiding. The arrangements devolved chiefly on Mrs. May Wright Thompson, who discharged her responsibilities in a most praiseworthy manner, providing entertainment for the speakers, and paying all the expenses from the treasury of the local a.s.sociation. A series of resolutions was presented, discussed by a large number of the delegates, and adopted.