Volume III Part 61 (1/2)
In 1876 a presidential election was again approaching, and to meet the exigencies of the campaign a woman suffrage committee was formed to ask the legislature to grant presidential suffrage to women, as it was strictly within their power to do without a const.i.tutional amendment. To this end Mrs. Gage prepared an appeal which was widely circulated throughout the State:
Within a year the election of President and Vice-President of the United States, will again take place. The right to vote for these functionaries is a National and not a State right; the United States has unquestioned control of this branch of suffrage, and in its const.i.tution has declared to whom it has delegated this power. Article 2 of the Const.i.tution of the United States, is devoted to the president; the manner of choosing him, his power, his duties, etc. In regard to the method of choosing the president, Par. 2, Sec. 1, Art. 2, reads thus: ”Each State shall appoint in such manner as the legislature thereof may direct, a number of electors, equal to the whole number of senators and representatives to which the State may be ent.i.tled in the congress.” There is no other authority for the appointment of presidential electors, either in the Const.i.tution of the United States, or in the const.i.tution of any State. The const.i.tution of the State of New York is entirely silent upon the appointment of presidential electors, for the reason that the const.i.tution of the United States declares that they _shall_ be appointed in such manner as the legislature may direct. With the exception of South Carolina, every State in the Union has adopted the plan of choosing presidential electors by ballot, and it is in the power of the legislature of each State to prescribe the qualifications of those who shall be permitted to vote for such electors.
The authority to prescribe the qualifications of those persons in the State of New York who shall be permitted to vote for electors of President and Vice-President of the United States, therefore lies alone in the legislature of this State. That body has power in this respect superior to the State const.i.tution; it rises above the const.i.tution; it is invested with its powers by the Const.i.tution of the United States; it is under national authority, and need in no way be governed by any representative clause which may exist in the State const.i.tution. In prescribing the qualifications of those persons who shall vote for electors, the legislature has power to exclude all persons who cannot read and write. It has power to say that no person unless possessing a freehold estate of the value of two hundred and fifty dollars, shall vote for such electors. It has power to declare that only tax-payers shall vote for such electors, it is even vested with authority to say that no one but church members shall be ent.i.tled to vote for electors of President and Vice-President of the United States. The legislature of this State at its next session has even power to cut off the right of all white men to vote for electors at the presidential election next fall. It matters not what qualifications the State itself may have prescribed for electors of State officers, the question who shall vote for president and vice-president is on an entirely different basis, and prescribing the qualifications for such electors lies in entirely different hands. It is a question of national import with which the State (in its const.i.tution) has nothing to do, and over which even congress has no power. The legislature which is to a.s.semble in Albany, the first Tuesday in January next, will have power, by the pa.s.sage of a simple bill, to secure to the women of this State the right to vote for electors at the presidential election in the fall of 1876, and thus to inaugurate the centennial year by an act of equity and justice that will be in accordance with that part of the Declaration of Independence which declares that ”governments derive their _just_ powers from the consent of the governed.” Shall it not be done?
MATILDA JOSLYN GAGE, LILLIE DEVEREUX BLAKE, CLEMENCE S. LOZIER, M. D., _N. Y. State Woman Suffrage Com._
[Ill.u.s.tration: Lillie Devereux Blake]
A memorial embodying this claim was presented to the legislature, and on, January 18, the committee went to Albany and were heard by the Judiciary Committee of the a.s.sembly, to whom their paper had been referred. Hon. Robert H. Strahan of New York presided. On February 8, the memorialists[229] had another meeting before the Judiciary Committee of the Senate, in the Senate chamber, Hon.
Bradford L. Prince presiding. The audience was overflowing, and the corridors so crowded that the meeting adjourned to the a.s.sembly chamber by order of the chairman. Soon after, Hon. George H. West of Saratoga presented a bill giving the women of the State the right to vote for president. It was referred to the Judiciary Committee and reported adversely, notwithstanding it was twice called up and debated by its friends, Messrs. Strahan, Husted, Ogden, Hogeboom and West. No vote was reached on the measure, but this much of consideration was a gain over previous years, when nothing had been done beyond the presentation of a bill and its reference to a committee.
In 1876 Governor Samuel J. Tilden appointed Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell as commissioner of the State Board of Charities, the first official position a woman ever held in this State.
During the winter of 1877 a memorial was sent to the legislature, asking that women be allowed to serve as school officers. The Hon.
William N. Emerson, senator from Monroe, presented the following bill:
AN ACT _to Authorize the Election of Women to School Offices._
The People of the State of New York, represented in Senate and a.s.sembly, do enact as follows:
SECTION 1. Any woman of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, and possessing the qualifications prescribed for men, shall be eligible to any office under the general or special school laws of this State, subject to the same conditions and requirements as prescribed to men.
SEC. 2. This act shall take effect immediately.
Pet.i.tions and memorials from all parts of the State were poured into the legislature, praying for the pa.s.sage of the bill. Mr.
Emerson made an eloquent speech in its favor, and labored earnestly for the measure. It pa.s.sed the Senate by a vote of 19 to 9; the a.s.sembly by a vote of 84 to 19. This success was hailed with great rejoicing by the women of the State who understood the progress of events. But their delight was turned into indignation and disappointment when the governor, Lucius Robinson, returned the bill to the Senate with the following veto:
STATE OF NEW YORK, EXECUTIVE CHAMBER, } ALBANY, May 8, 1877. }
_To the Senate:_
I return without approval Senate bill No. 61, ent.i.tled ”An act to authorize the election of women to school offices.”
This bill goes too far or not far enough. It provides that women may hold any or all of the offices connected with the department of education, that is to say, a woman may be elected superintendent of public instruction, women may be appointed school commissioners, members of boards of education and trustees of school districts. In some of these positions it will become their duty to make contracts, purchase materials, build and repair school-houses, and to supervise and effect all the transactions of school business, involving an annual expenditure of over twelve million dollars in this State. There can be no greater reason that women should occupy these positions than the less responsible ones of supervisors, town clerks, justices of the peace, commissioners of highways, overseers of the poor, and numerous others. If women are physically and mentally fitted for one cla.s.s of these stations, they are equally so for the others.
But at this period in the history of the world such enactments as the present hardly comport with the wisdom and dignity of legislation. The G.o.d of nature has appointed different fields of labor, duty and usefulness for the s.e.xes. His decrees cannot be changed by human legislation. In the education of our children the mother stands far above all superintendents, commissioners, trustees and school teachers. Her influence in the family, in social intercourse and enterprises, outweighs all the mere machinery of benevolence and education. To lower her from the high and holy place given her by nature, is to degrade her power and to injure rather than benefit the cause of education itself.
In all enlightened and Christian nations the experience and observations of ages have ill.u.s.trated and defined the relative duties of the s.e.xes in promoting the best interests of society.
Few, if any, of the intelligent and right-minded among women desire or would be willing to accept the change which such a law would inaugurate.
The bill is moreover a clear infraction of the spirit if not the letter of the const.i.tution. Under that instrument women have no right to vote, and it cannot be supposed that it is the intention of the const.i.tution that persons not ent.i.tled to the right of suffrage should be eligible to some of the most important offices in the State.
L. ROBINSON.
On May 24, 25, 1877, the National and State conventions were again held in New York, at Steinway Hall. Both conventions pa.s.sed resolutions denouncing Governor Robinson's action in his veto. The following address was issued by the State a.s.sociation:
_To the Voters and Legislators of New York:_
The women of the State of New York, in convention a.s.sembled, do most earnestly protest against the injustice with which they are treated by the State, where in point of numbers they are in excess of the men:
_First_--They are denied the right of choosing their own rulers, but are compelled to submit to the choice of a minority consisting of its male residents, fully one-third of whom are of foreign birth. _Second_--They are held amenable to laws they have had no share in making and in which they are forbidden a voice--laws which touch all their most vital interests of education, industry, children, property, life and liberty. _Third_--While compelled to bear the burdens and suffer the penalties of government, they are debarred the honors and emoluments of civil service, and the control of offices in the righteous discharge of whose duties their interest is equal to that of men.
_Fourth_--They are taxed without their consent to sustain men in office who enact laws directly opposing their interests, and inasmuch as the State of New York pays one-sixth the taxes of the United States, its women feel the arm of oppression--like Briareus with his hundred hands--touching and crus.h.i.+ng them with its burdens.