Volume III Part 113 (1/2)
The world does not stand still. The dawn of Christianity was the dawn of light for woman. For eighteen centuries she has been gradually but slowly rising from the condition of drudge and servant for man, to become his helpmeet, counselor and companion. As she has been advanced in the social scale, our laws have kept pace with that advancement and conferred upon her rights and privileges with accompanying duties and responsibilities. She has not abused those privileges, and has been found equal to the duties and responsibilities. And the day is not far distant when the refining and elevating influence of women will be as clearly manifested in the political as it now is in the social world.
Urged by all these considerations of right, and justice, and expediency, and the strong conviction of duty, I approved that act of which this bill contemplates the repeal, and it became a law. To warrant my reconsidering that action, there ought to be in the experience of the last two years something to show that the reasons upon which it was founded were unsound, or that the law itself was wrong or at least unwise and inexpedient. My view of the teachings of this experience is the very reverse of this. Women have voted, and have the officers chosen been less faithful and zealous and the legislature less able and upright? They have sat as jurors, and have the laws been less faithfully and justly administered, and criminals less promptly and adequately punished? Indeed the lessons of this two years' experience fully confirm all that has been claimed by the most ardent advocate of this innovation.
In this territory women have manifested for its highest interests a devotion strong, ardent, and intelligent. They have brought to public affairs a clearness of understanding and a soundness of judgment, which, considering their exclusion hitherto from practical partic.i.p.ation in political agitations and movements, are worthy of the greatest admiration and above all praise. The conscience of women is in all things more discriminating and sensitive than that of men; their sense of justice, not compromising or time-serving, but pure and exacting; their love of order, not spasmodic or sentimental merely, but springing from the heart; all these,--the better conscience, the exalted sense of justice, and the abiding love of order, have been made by the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of women to contribute to the good government and well-being of our territory. To the plain teachings of these two years' experience I cannot close my eyes. I cannot forget the benefits that have already resulted to our territory from woman suffrage, nor can I permit myself even to seem to do so by approving this bill.
There is another, and in my judgment, a serious objection to this bill, which I submit for the consideration and action of your honorable body. It involves a reference to that most difficult of questions, the limitations of legislative power. High and transcendent as that power undoubtedly and wisely is, there are limits which not even it can pa.s.s. Two years ago the legislature of this territory conferred upon certain of its citizens valuable rights and franchises. Can a future legislature, by the pa.s.sage of a law not liable to the objection, that it violates the obligation of contracts, take away those rights? It is not claimed, so far as I have been informed, that the persons upon whom these franchises were conferred have forfeited or failed to take advantage of them. But even if such were the case it would be rather a matter for judicial determination than for legislative action. What that determination would be is clearly indicated in the opinion of a.s.sociate-justice Story in the celebrated case of Trustees of Dartmouth College _vs._ Woodward: ”The right to be a freeman of a corporation is a valuable temporal right. * * It is founded on the same basis as the right of voting in public elections; it is as sacred a right; and whatever might have been the prevalence of former doubts, since the time of Lord Holt, such a right has always been deemed a valuable franchise or privilege.”
But even if we concede that these rights once acquired may be taken away, the pa.s.sage of this bill would be, in my judgment, a most dangerous precedent. Once admit the right of a representative body to disfranchise its own const.i.tuents, and who can establish the limits to which that right may not be carried? If this legislature takes from women their franchises or privileges, what is to prevent a future legislature from depriving certain men, or cla.s.ses of men, that, from any consideration they desire to disfranchise, of the same rights? We should be careful how we inaugurate precedents which may ”return to plague the inventors,” and be used as a pretext for taking away our liberties.
It will be remembered that in my message to the legislature at the commencement of the present session I said: ”There is upon our statue book an act granting to the women of Wyoming territory the right of suffrage and to hold office which has now been in force two years. Under its liberal provisions women have voted in the territory, served on juries, and held office. It is simple justice to say that the women, entering for the first time in the history of the country upon these new and untried duties, have conducted themselves with as much tact, sound judgment, and good sense as the men. While it would be claiming more than the facts justify, to say that this experiment, in a limited field, has demonstrated beyond a doubt the perfect fitness of woman, at all times and under all circ.u.mstances, for taking a part in the government, it furnishes at least reasonable presumptive evidence in her favor, and she has a right to claim that, so long as none but good results are made manifest, the law should remain unrepealed.”
These were no hastily formed conclusions, but the result of deliberation and conviction, and my judgment to-day approves the language I then used. For the first time in the history of our country we have a government to which the n.o.ble words of our _Magna Charta_ of freedom may be applied,--not as a mere figure of speech, but as expressing a simple grand truth,--for it is a government which ”derives all its just powers from the consent of the governed.” We should pause long and weigh carefully the probable results of our action before consenting to change this government. A regard for the genius of our inst.i.tutions, for the fundamental principles of American autonomy, and for the immutable principles of right and justice, will not permit me to sanction this change.
These reasons for declining to give my consent to the bill, I submit with all deference for the consideration and judgment of your honorable body.
J. A. CAMPBELL.
The Republicans in the House made an ineffectual effort to sustain the veto, but the party whip and the power of the saloons were too strong for them, and the bill was pa.s.sed over the veto by a vote of 9 to 4. It met a different and better fate, however, in the Council, where it was sustained by a vote of 4 to 5, a strict party vote in each case. Mr. Corlett, a rising young lawyer, at that time in the Council and since then a delegate in congress, made an able defense of the suffrage act and resisted its repeal, sustaining the veto with much skill and final success. And there was much need, for the Democrats had made overtures to one of the Republican members of the Council (they lacked one vote) and had obtained a promise from him to vote against the veto; but Mr. Corlett, finding out the fraud in season, reclaimed the fallen Republican and saved the law. It is due to Mr. Corlett to say that he has always been an able and consistent supporter of woman's rights and universal suffrage. He is now the leading lawyer of the territory.
Since that time the suffrage act has grown rapidly in popular favor, and has never been made a party question. The leading men of both parties, seeing its beneficial action, have given it an unqualified approval; and most, if not all, of its former enemies have become its friends and advocates. Most of the new settlers in the territory, though coming here with impressions or prejudices against it, soon learn to respect its operation, and admire its beneficial results. There is nowhere in the territory a voice raised against it, and it would be impossible to get up a party for its repeal.
The women uniformly vote at all our elections, and are exerting every year a more potent influence over the character of the candidates selected by each party for office, by quietly defeating those most objectionable in point of morals. It is true they are not now summoned to serve on juries, nor are they elected to office; and there are some obvious reasons for this.
In the first place, they never push themselves forward for such positions, as the men invariably do; and in the second place, the judges who have been sent to the territory, since the first ones, have not insisted on respecting the women's rights as jurors, and in some cases have objected to their being summoned as such. But these matters will find a remedy by and by. It used to be an important question in the nominating caucuses, ”Will this candidate put up money enough to buy the saloons, and catch the loafers and drinkers that they control?” Now the question is, ”Will the women vote for this man, if we nominate him?” There have been some very remarkable instances where men, knowing themselves to be justly obnoxious to the women, have forced a nomination in caucus, relying on their money and the drinking shops and party strength to secure an election, who have been taught most valuable lessons by signal defeat at the polls. It would be invidious to call names or describe individual cases, and could answer no necessary purpose. But I would ask particular attention to the following articles, taken from recent newspapers, as full and satisfactory evidence of the truth of these statements, and of the wisdom of granting universal suffrage and equal rights to the citizens of Wyoming territory.
The Laramie City _Daily Sentinel_ of December 16, 1878, J. H.
Hayford, editor, has the following leading editorial:
For about eight years now, the women of Wyoming territory have enjoyed the same political rights and privileges as the men, and all the novelties of this new departure, all the shock it carried to the sensibilities of the old conservatives, have long since pa.s.sed away. For a long time--even for years past--we have frequently received letters asking for information as to its practical results here, and still more frequently have received copies of eastern papers with marked articles which purported to be written by persons who resided here, or had visited the territory and witnessed the awful results or the total failure of the experiment. We have usually paid no attention to these false and anonymous scribblers, who took this method to display their shallow wit at the sacrifice of truth and decency. But recently we have received more than the usual number of such missives, and more letters, and from a more respectable source than before, and we take this occasion and method to answer them all at once, and once for always, and do it through the columns of the _Sentinel_, one of the oldest and most widely circulated papers in the territory, because it will be readily conceded that we would not publish here at home, false statements and misrepresentations upon a matter with which all our readers are familiar, and which, if false, could be easily refuted.
We a.s.sert here, then, that woman suffrage in Wyoming has been in every particular a complete success.
That the women of Wyoming value as highly the political franchise, and as generally exercise it, as do the men of the territory.
That being more helpless, more dependent and more in need of the protection of good laws and good government than are men, they naturally use the power put into their hands to secure these results.
That they are controlled more by principle and less by party ties than men, and generally cast their votes for the best candidates and the best measures.
That while women in this territory frequently vote contrary to their husbands, we have never heard of a case where the family ties or domestic relations were disturbed thereby, and we believe that among the pioneers of the West there is more honor and manhood than to abuse a wife because she does not think with her husband about politics or religion.
We have never seen any of the evil results growing out of woman suffrage which we have heard predicted for it by its opponents. On the contrary, its results have been only good, and that continually. Our elections have come to be conducted as quietly, orderly and civilly as our religious meetings, or any of our social gatherings, and the best men are generally selected to make and enforce our laws. We have long ago generally come to the conclusion that woman's influence is as wholesome and as much needed in the government of the State as in the government of the family.
We do not know of a respectable woman in the territory who objects to or neglects to use her political power, and we do not know of a decent man in the territory who wishes it abolished, or who is not even glad to have woman's help in our government.
Our laws were never respected or enforced, and crime was never punished, or life or property protected until we had woman's help in the jury box and at the polls, and we unhesitatingly say here at home that we do not believe a man can be found who wishes to see her deprived of voice and power, unless it is the one ”who fears not G.o.d nor regards man,” who wants to pursue a life of vice or crime, and consequently fears woman's influence and power in the government. We a.s.sert further that the anonymous scribblers who write slanders on our women and our territory to the eastern press, are either fools, who know nothing about what they write, or else belong to that cla.s.s of whom the poet says:
”No rogue e'er felt the halter draw With good opinion of the law.”
We took some pains to track up and find out the author of one of the articles against woman suffrage to which our attention was called, and found him working on the streets of Cheyenne, with a ball and chain to his leg. We think he was probably an average specimen of these writers. And, finally, we challenge residents in Wyoming who disagree with the foregoing sentiments, and who endorse the vile slanders to which we refer, to come out over their own signature and in their own local papers and take issue with us, and our columns shall be freely opened to them.
There are some obvious inferences to be drawn and some rather remarkable lessons to be learned, from the foregoing narrative.
In the first place, the responsibilities of self government, with the necessity of making their own laws, was delegated to a people, strangers to each other, with very little experience or knowledge in such matters, and composed of various nationalities, with a very large percentage of the criminal cla.s.ses. It is a matter of surprise that they should have so soon settled themselves into an orderly community, where all the rights of person and property are well protected, and as carefully guarded and fully respected as in any of our old eastern commonwealths.