Volume III Part 68 (1/2)

Hence the necessity of holding meetings throughout the State, and rolling up pet.i.tions asking that the const.i.tution be so amended as to secure to women the right to vote. The following appeal was issued by this a.s.sociation:

_To the Editor of the Post:_

SIR: There is no political question now before the people of this commonwealth more important than the consideration of the changes to be made in our const.i.tution. The citizens of the State, by an enormous majority of votes, have re-claimed the sovereign powers of government, and evinced a determination to re-form the fundamental law, the const.i.tution of this State, in the interest of a government ”of the people, by the people, and for the people.” In this new adaptation of old rules of government to the advanced ideas of the age, it seems to us fitting and opportune that woman in her new status as a citizen of the United States (under the fourteenth amendment of the const.i.tution), should be allowed the exercise of rights which have been withheld under old rules of action. Therefore we respectfully ask you to give this, with our appeal, an insertion in your paper, and to continue the appeal until further notice. And we ask all the friends of woman suffrage to aid our a.s.sociation in placing this appeal in each paper of our city, as well as of the neighboring towns.

”There is no distinction in citizens.h.i.+p as has been determined by the fourteenth amendment to the const.i.tution of the United States. The citizens of Pennsylvania have decided on a revision of the const.i.tution of the commonwealth. The power of revision is to be delegated by the citizens of the commonwealth to a convention. The foundation of free government is based on the consent of the governed. Therefore, the Citizens' Suffrage a.s.sociation of Pennsylvania appeals to the sense of right and justice in the hearts of the citizens of this State, to aid in securing to every citizen, irrespective of s.e.x, an equal voice in the selection of delegates, and an equal right, if elected thereto, to a seat in said const.i.tutional convention.”

WM. MORRIS DAVIS, _Controller_.

Mr. Robert Purvis, at the request of the Citizens' Suffrage a.s.sociation of Philadelphia, waited upon Mrs. President Hayes and presented to her an address adopted by that society. Mr. Purvis wrote:

I have just returned from a very satisfactory and delightful interview with Mrs. Hayes. She received me most cordially. I read to her the eloquent address from the Citizens' Suffrage a.s.sociation. She listened with marked attention, was grateful for the high favor conferred upon her, and sent her best wishes for the success of the cause. I made reference to the fact that the address bore the honored name of Lucretia Mott, which she received with a ready acknowledgment of her great worth and usefulness, and her distinguished place as a reformer and philanthropist.

Through the liberality of Edward M. Davis, this society was able to publish and circulate an immense number of tracts covering all phases of the question. He has been one of the few abolitionists who have thrown into this movement all the old-time fervor manifested in the slavery conflict. A worthy son of the sainted Lucretia Mott, her mantle seems to have fallen on his shoulders.

The Hon. John M. Broomall was ever ready to champion the cause of equality of rights for women, not only in the legislature and in the const.i.tutional conventions of his own State, but on the floor of congress as well. In a letter giving us valuable information on several points, he says:

You ask when I made my first declaration for woman suffrage. I cannot tell. I was born in 1816, and one of the earliest settled convictions I formed as a man was that no person should be discriminated against on account of sect, s.e.x, race or color, but that all should have an equal chance in the race which the Divine Ruler has set before all; and I never missed an opportunity to give utterance to this conviction in conversation, on the stump, on the platform and in legislative bodies. My views were set out concisely in my remarks in congress, on January 30, 1869, and I cite the commencement and conclusion, as I find them in _The Globe_ of that date:

Every person owing allegiance to the government and not under the legal control of another, should have an equal voice in making and administering the laws, unless debarred for violating those laws; and in this I make no distinction of wealth, intelligence, race, family or s.e.x. If just government is founded upon the consent of the governed, and if the established mode of consent is through the ballot-box, then those who are denied the right of suffrage can in no sense be held as consenting, and the government which withholds that right is as to those from whom it is withheld no just government. * * * * The measure now before the House is necessary to the complete fulfillment of what has gone before it. To hesitate now is to put in peril all we have gained. Let this, too, pa.s.s into history as an accomplished fact. Let it be followed, in due course of time, by the last crowning act of the series--an amendment to the const.i.tution securing to all citizens of full age, without regard to s.e.x, an equal voice in making and amending the laws under which they live, to be forfeited only for crime. Then the great mission of the party in power will be fulfilled; then will have been demonstrated the capacity of man for self-government; then a just nation, founded upon the full and free consent of its citizens will be no longer a dream of the optimist.

Mrs. Virginia Barnhurst writes:

I think you should make mention of the few men who, against the greatest opposition, stood boldly up and avowed themselves in favor of woman's cause. When I think of some of the speeches that I heard from the opposite side--expressions which sent the hot blood to my face, and which showed the low estimate law-makers put upon woman, those few men who dared to defend mothers and sisters, stand out in my mind as worthy of having their names go down in history--and especially in a history written by women. I had a good talk with Lawyer Campbell. He is one of the most ardent in the cause; he believes the ballot to be a necessity to woman, as a means of self-protection, this necessity being seen in the unequal operation of many laws relating to the guardians.h.i.+p of children and the owners.h.i.+p of property. Caleb White's words have in them the just consciousness of their own immortality: ”I want my vote to be recorded; not to be judged of here, but to be judged of by coming generations, who, at least, will give to woman the rights which G.o.d intended she should have.”

[Ill.u.s.tration: Rachel G. Foster]

The const.i.tutional convention to which reference has been so frequently made in this chapter, a.s.sembled November 12, 1872, and as early as the 22d, resolutions relative to women holding school-offices and to the property-rights of women were presented.

Numberless pet.i.tions for these and full suffrage for women were sent in during the entire sitting of the convention. February 3, 1873, John H. Campbell presented the minority report of the Committee on Suffrage and Elections:

The undersigned, members of the Committee on Suffrage, Election and Representation, dissent from that part of the majority report of said committee, which limits the right of suffrage to male electors. We recommend that the question, ”Shall woman exercise the right of suffrage,” be submitted by the convention to the qualified electors of this commonwealth, and also upon the same day therewith, to those women of the commonwealth who upon the day of voting shall be of the age of twenty-one years and upwards, and have been residents of the State one year, and in the district where they offered to vote at least sixty days prior thereto; and that if the majority of all the votes cast at said election should be in the affirmative, then the word ”male” as a qualification for an elector, contained in section ----, article ---- on suffrage and election shall be stricken out, and women in this State shall thereafter exercise the right of suffrage, subject only to the restrictions placed upon the male voters.

JOHN H. CAMPBELL, LEWIS C. Ca.s.sIDY, LEVI ROOKE.

The amendment for full suffrage was lost by a vote of 75 to 25, with 33 absent, while the amendment making women eligible for school offices was carried by a vote of 60 to 32.[268] The debate by those in favor of the amendment was so ably and eloquently conducted that we would gladly reproduce it, had not all the salient points been so often and so exhaustively presented on the floor of congress, and by some of the members from Pennsylvania.

After the pa.s.sage of the school law of 1873, it was immediately tested all over the State, rousing opposition and conflict everywhere, but the struggle resulted favorably to women, who now hold many offices to which they were once ineligible. At the first election of school directors in Philadelphia the nomination of two women was hotly contested. The _Evening Telegraph_ of February 6, 1874, gives the following:

There is progressing in the Thirteenth ward a contest which involves so peculiar and important an issue as to merit the widest publicity. It ill.u.s.trates how the rights guaranteed to women under the new const.i.tution are to be denied them, if cunning and bold chicanery are to be tolerated, by a few ward politicians. At the Republican primary election, held January 20, Mrs. Harriet W. Paist and Mrs. George W. Woelpper were duly nominated as candidates for members of the board of school directors of the ward. Both of these ladies received their certificates, that given to Mrs. Paist reading as follows:

This is to certify that at a meeting of the judges of the different divisions of the Thirteenth ward, held in accordance with the rules of the Republican party, on the evening of January 20, 1874, Mrs. Harriet W. Paist was found to be elected as candidate upon the Republican ticket from the Thirteenth ward, for school director.

CHARLES M. CARPENTER, _President_.

JAMES M. STEWART, } _Clerks_.

DAVID J. SMITH, }

No sooner was it ascertained that the ladies had actually become candidates on the Republican ticket than a movement was inaugurated to oust them, the old war tocsin of ”Anything to beat Grant” being for this purpose amended thus: ”Anything to beat the women.” This antagonism to the fair candidates was based entirely upon the supposition that their names would so materially weaken the ticket as to place the election of the Republican common councilman, Henry C. Dunlap, in the greatest jeopardy. To save him, therefore, the managers of the movement must sacrifice Mesdames Woelpper and Paist. How was this to be accomplished?

Each was fortified in her position by a genuine certificate of election, and had, furthermore, expressed her determination to run. What could not be done fairly must be accomplished by strategy. Mr. Ezra Lukens called upon Mrs. Paist, stating that if she did not withdraw the Republicans who were opposed to the lady candidates would unite with the ”other party” and defeat the Republican ward ticket. Mrs. Paist inquired if she had not been regularly nominated, and his reply was that she had been, but that her opponents in the party would unite with the ”other party” and defeat her. Mrs. Paist was firm, and Mr. Lukens retired foiled. A day or two after, the chairman of the Thirteenth ward Republican executive committee received somehow this letter: