History of Woman Suffrage
Chapter 186 : Universal suffrage is affirmed by its advocates as among the absolute or natural right

Universal suffrage is affirmed by its advocates as among the absolute or natural rights of man, in the sense of mankind, extending to females as well as males, and susceptible of no limitation unless as opposed to child or infant. It is supposed to originate in rights independent of citizens.h.i.+p; like the absolute rights of liberty, personal security, and possession of property, it is natural to man. It exists, of course, independent of s.e.x or condition, manhood or womanhood. To admit it in the adult and deny it to the youth would be to abridge the right and ignore the principle. Now, sir, in practice its extension to women would contravene all our notions of the family; "put asunder" husband and wife, and subvert the fundamental principles of family government, in which the husband is, by all usage and law, human and divine, the representative head. Besides, it ignores woman, womanhood, and all that is womanly; all those distinctions of s.e.x whose objects are apparent in creation, essential in character, and vital to society, these all disappear in the manly and impressive demonstration of balloting at a popular election. Here maids, women, wives, men, and husbands promiscuously a.s.semble to vindicate the rights of human nature.

Moreover, it a.s.sociates the wife and mother with policies of State, with public affairs, with making, interpreting, and executing the laws, with police and war, and necessarily disseverates her from purely domestic affairs, peculiar care for and duties of the family; and, worst of all, a.s.signs her duties revolting to her nature and const.i.tution, and wholly incompatible with those which spring from womanhood.

Besides, the ballot is the inseparable concomitant of the bayonet. Those who practice the one must be prepared to exercise the other. To introduce woman at the polls is to enroll her in the militia; to transfer her from the cla.s.s of non-combatants to the cla.s.s of combatants.--_Congressional Globe_, part 1, second session Thirty-ninth Congress, 1866-'67, page 40.

Mr. SARGENT.--I have no doubt of the consistency of my friend from Maine on this proposition and on every other. I have no doubt that the remarks which he made formerly on this subject he repeats to-day with the same idea of their entire correctness; but I differ with him upon both the propositions which he advances. He says that women do not desire the right of suffrage and there is no evidence before Congress that they do desire it.

Why, sir, the tables of your committee-rooms have been loaded with pet.i.tions from every State in this Union on this subject, and they come forward day after day.

Mr. EDMUNDS.--And remonstrances also.

Mr. SARGENT.--Very few indeed.

Mr. STEWART.--I suggest to my friend from California if the only question is whether women desire the right of suffrage or not, that can only be determined by submitting it to them. When we wish to ascertain whether the male citizens of the country desire a proposition, we submit the question to them and let them vote upon it.

Mr. SARGENT.--That suggestion is very just. But the fact that there are remonstrances against the extension of the suffrage to women shows that there is agitation, and agitation shows interest in the matter. If this opinion were not in danger of prevailing, if it were not sweeping over the country, we would get no remonstrances; it would be looked upon as mere idle wind blowing nowhere and amounting to nothing. I say these pet.i.tions are coming here in every form. There are large and popular conventions, attended by ladies and attended by a great many men, making strong efforts to this end. There is as much agitation on this point as there was for the abolition of slavery before the war broke out.

Now I come to the other proposition of my friend from Maine. He says the ballot and the bayonet go together, and that he who handles the one must be prepared to handle the other. What do you do with men who are past the years of military service and exempted by your laws? Do you deprive them of the ballot? That of itself is a sufficient answer to that argument. They are not inseparable. Fortunately for our country the necessity for the use of the bayonet occurs very seldom; but when it does occur there are large cla.s.ses of male voters who are not called to the field, but are exempted by the policy of our law. No one believes that if women had this privilege, or this immunity, or this right--whatever you may call it--put into their hands we would therefore require of them to do things that would degrade or uns.e.x them, or that would be improper for them to perform. I believe that men would have the same respect for women with the ballot in their hands as without it.

It is not for the few women who remonstrate from luxurious parlors, sitting upon sofas, in the glare of the gaslight, changing and choosing their phrases, but for the great cla.s.s of laboring women in the country that I appeal for this redress. I appeal for the women who have been struggling on in these Government offices, doing the same work that men do, aye, and in many cases doing it better, for about one-half of the pay. Do you suppose if they had ballots they would not make their voices heard here and get for the same work the same pay? Who ever knew a labor strike of women to succeed? When women in New York City and other places are bowed down to the earth by their labor--making s.h.i.+rts at a s.h.i.+lling a day--and they strike for more pay, for more bread, for an opportunity to live, who ever heard of one of their strikes succeeding? Men strike from their workshops and they succeed, and why? Because they have the ballot; because they have political force, because they have the power of citizens.h.i.+p behind them in its fullest sense. Give these poor struggling women the same chance and they can make their way to a fair remuneration of wages in the public offices, and they can make their way in the workshops, and these toiling mothers, widows, and sisters supporting orphan brothers and sisters will have some opportunity to vindicate their rights and to procure not merely political rights, but a chance to live, and a chance to avoid infamy.

Senators talk about this question as if the ballot was not demanded for women. Will you tell me why it was that the great party which controls both branches of Congress and holds the Executive, when it met in Philadelphia at that grand convention, put a plank in its platform stating that these demands for further rights should be respectfully considered? Do you think there was no agitation, no desire on the part of women for the ballot when that great convention could be moved to a declaration like this:

The Republican party is mindful of its obligations to the loyal women or America for their n.o.ble devotion to the cause of freedom. Their admission to higher fields of usefulness is viewed with satisfaction, and the honest demand of any cla.s.s of citizens for additional rights shall be treated with respectful consideration.

Was that mere euphuism, mere phrasing? Did that mean nothing? Did it respond to no demand? Ay, sir, did it not only respond to a demand which was there pressed, but did it not imply a duty, a pledge which this party ought to redeem?

But the Senator from Maine, as well as the Senator from North Carolina, a.s.serts that the XIV. Amendment of the Const.i.tution has no relation whatever to political rights, that it relates to something with reference to social equality, something in the far distance, but does not touch this question at all. When I called the attention of the Senator from North Carolina to the XV.

Amendment which says "the right of citizens to vote shall not be denied or abridged," a.s.suming the right to exist, not saying that the right hereafter shall exist and shall not be abridged; but the right now existing by fair intendment shall not be abridged, he replied "that I deduced this right by an inference," and he thought a right of this kind ought not to stand on mere inference. His argument for the opposite construction, that the right to vote may be abridged for any other cause than those enumerated in the amendment, is drawn only by an inference from it. The affirmative language is that the right shall not be abridged for certain causes; and then by an inference the Senator says it may be abridged for others. In other words, his argument is that I am not at liberty to infer from the Const.i.tution of the United States rights for women or rights for mankind. I shall not extend it by inference in favor of freedom, but any inference which will limit its operation, which will destroy or curtail its meaning, is legitimate.

Mr. MERRIMON: What clause of the Const.i.tution does the Senator a.s.sert creates the right?

Mr. SARGENT: The first section of the XV. Amendment declares that the right of citizens of the United States to vote shall not be denied or abridged--speaking of it as an affirmative right; not speaking of it as here established but as a right which of course must have been established by the XIV. Amendment.

Now, sir, to show that I do not strain the interpretation of the Const.i.tution, I desire to refer to some few authorities even under the old Const.i.tution which go very far to answer the authority that the Senator cited. Bushrod Was.h.i.+ngton, a member of the United States Supreme Court, and well known as a jurist of high attainments and great powers of mind, in the case of Corfield _vs._ Coryell declared what I shall read, which is approvingly cited by Kent, the master writer upon American law, in the second volume of his Commentaries:

It was declared in Corfield _vs._ Coryell that the privileges and immunities conceded by the Const.i.tution of the United States to citizens in the several States were to be confined to those which were in their nature fundamental, and belonged of right to the citizens of all free governments. Such are the rights of protection of life and liberty, and to acquire and enjoy property, and to pay no higher impositions than other citizens, and to pa.s.s through or reside in the State at pleasure, and to enjoy the elective franchise according to the regulations of the laws of the State.

Those, according to the decision in Corfield _vs._ Coryell, cited approvingly by Chancellor Kent, are the rights and immunities of citizens of the United States. Then comes in the XIV. Amendment to the Const.i.tution of the United States, which declares that "all persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States," and further, that "no State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States."

Now, sir, I quote from Bouvier's Law Dictionary, under the t.i.tle "citizen." He gives what the word means, first in English law, and then he comes down to American law:

One who, under the Const.i.tution and laws of the United States, has a right to vote for Representatives in Congress and other public officers, and who is qualified to fill offices in the gift of the people.

In the face of authorities like these, who shall deny that the right to vote is one of those privileges and immunities of citizens.h.i.+p, or that citizens.h.i.+p itself carries with it that highest right? Go into literature and you find the same definition; as, for instance, in the work which I hold in my hand ent.i.tled "Words and their Uses," by R. Grant White. He says:

A citizen is a person who has certain political rights, and the word is properly used only to imply or suggest the possession of these rights.

Is it a mere question of privilege or immunity? It is a right which exists and so it is considered in all the law; so it is treated in the well-considered decisions on the subject, and by the text writers.

By the pledge which was given by the dominant party of the country in their last National Convention, by the allegiance which Democrats themselves owe to the Const.i.tution of the United States, by the higher benefit which will be conferred upon society, upon the women themselves who are struggling for a chance in life, and upon men themselves by the purification of society, I ask that this amendment be adopted.

Mr. BAYARD: I should like to ask the honorable Senator a question before he takes his seat. I understand that he denies the power of the Congress of the United States or of a State to exclude a female from voting, to make an exclusion based upon s.e.x, because it would be an infringement of her rights as a citizen, under the meaning of that word in the Const.i.tution, according to the construction given it by the courts. I should like to ask him whether he considers that an exclusion by reason of age is not just as arbitrary and unauthorized as the exclusion by reason of s.e.x, and by what right can it be that a State or the United States shall arbitrarily fix a period in a person's life at which he shall attain his civil rights? In most of the States, and by the common law of England, the age of twenty-one years was fixed as what they term the majority, when a person becomes _sui juris_. Under the laws of the various States of this Union, following the laws of other civilized communities of older date, a period has been fixed in the life of man at which he attains his civil rights. Ordinarily it is at the age of twenty-one years; under the civil law it is twenty-five; it is so in France; it is so in Spain; it is so in the French and Spanish Colonies.

Among the English-speaking people the age of twenty-one years is the period fixed. If the rights which have been spoken of by the Senator from Indiana and the Senator from California are inalienable, natural rights, are part and parcel of those "privileges and immunities" referred to by the Const.i.tution of the United States, how can it be that a law, a mere arbitrary enactment by a State or by Congress, shall exclude a man who is twenty years and six months old from exercising those inalienable rights, those privileges and immunities which six months after, by the mere difference of time, they permit him to enjoy? I have stated the question at length for the purpose of letting the Senator from California answer it more fully.

Mr. SARGENT: Mr. President, I do not think the Const.i.tution prevents a regulation of the power to vote. The States unquestionably have a right to fix the time when voting shall take place, to fix the places where the voting shall be done, and they have the right to fix the age at which voting shall be exercised. But under the Const.i.tution they have no power to prescribe a test which is not equally attainable by all persons.

They have no right to say that only white men shall vote, for that would exclude black men. They have no right to say that only black men shall vote, for that would exclude white men. They have no right to say that only men shall vote, for that would exclude women. The Const.i.tution says that all shall be put on an equality in this respect, that any test which may be required shall apply to all alike, men and women, black or white.

Mr. BAYARD: But the law does no such thing. There are cla.s.ses, and a very large and great cla.s.s in the State that the Senator represents, who can not become citizens of the United States and can not vote there.

Mr. SARGENT: Why not?

Mr. BAYARD: Because of their race; because they are Asiatics and not Africans.

Mr. SARGENT: The Const.i.tution of the United States does not prevent it.

Mr. BAYARD: No; but the law of Congress prevents it. The Senator says these are all ent.i.tled under the law.

Mr. SARGENT: I will not detain the Senate now on the point referred to by the Senator. He has s.h.i.+fted his ground and I will not follow him. Whenever legislation comes up on that subject I will discuss it. They are not citizens of the United States. I am dealing now with citizens whose privileges and immunities as such no one has a right to abridge.

Mr. FERRY, of Michigan: It is not my intention to speak on the merits of this proposition; but inasmuch as the Senator from Maine (Mr. Morrill) has raised the question of consistency and appealed to his record, it reminds me of the fact that the question of woman suffrage appeared as early, I think, as 1858, before the Legislature of Michigan. I had the honor of holding a seat in the Senate of the State at that time, and the question was referred to the committee of which I was a member, and it fell to my lot to report upon it. If my recollection serves me rightly the resolution favoring the right of women to vote was lost by but a majority of three in the Michigan Senate.

Mr. EDMUNDS: Which way was the report?

Mr. FERRY, of Michigan: I am reminded by the Senator from Vermont that perhaps I have not intimated which side the report took. The report was in favor of woman suffrage, and it may be regarded as having contributed to so large a vote. To-day, sir, is the first time since that occasion that I have been officially called upon to record my judgment upon the same question. I have had no reason since that report was drawn to shake my belief that the right of suffrage will not be jeopardized or perverted if wielded by the hand of woman. Believing that now and desiring to act in accord with my action in 1858 in the Senate of my native State. I am glad of the opportunity to prove my consistency by voting for woman suffrage to-day.

Mr. ANTHONY: Mr. President, I am quite content that this experiment of female suffrage should be tried in this new Territory. I believe that female suffrage is coming with the other ameliorations and changes which have been tending for so many years in the same direction. I have not taken any part in the measures which have been agitated to hasten that event. I think it will come in its own good time; but I should do very great injustice to myself if I should allow it to be supposed that my opinion is based upon some of the arguments that have been made here. I do not believe that suffrage is a natural right. I believe it is a right that grows out of society, a political right, and that it is within the body-politic to decide upon its limits, its modifications, and its conditions. The only question in my mind is whether it is proper and expedient. I think that the XIV. Amendment has nothing whatever to do with it.

Mr. MORTON: Mr. President, the Senators from Rhode Island, Maine, and North Carolina have all said that the right to vote is not a natural right, but merely a political right. Is not that a distinction without a difference? If I have a natural right, I have a right to use the necessary and proper means to enforce that right; it is a part of it. To say that I have a natural right but have not the right to use the means for its protection is illogical; it makes nonsense of it. The natural and proper means to enforce any right are a part of it. The right of self-defense is one of the natural rights; everybody concedes it, and to take from me the natural and effective means of defending myself is to take from me the right itself. Government is the means of securing natural rights, and should depend upon the consent of the governed. Therefore the right to give or to withhold my consent is a part of the natural right. Let us come down to the substance and put away these shadowy distinctions. To say that I have the right of self-defense, but that I have no right to use the knife or any instrument necessary to protect my life against the a.s.sa.s.sin, is nonsense. So far as the right of government is concerned, the right to a.s.sent, to consent, or to dissent, the natural means under our system is the right to vote.

You can not conceive any other. Therefore it is a part of the right and without it the other is worth nothing.

Mr. EDMUNDS: I wish to ask the Senator from Indiana whether persons under the age of twenty-one and eighteen years respectively have not all the natural rights that grown-up people have?

Mr. MORTON: I think I can answer that question very readily, if the Senator is through.

Mr. EDMUNDS: That is my only question at present.

Mr. MORTON: Every right must have some sort of regulation.

Mr. EDMUNDS: That does not answer the question.

Mr. MORTON: Wait until I get through. We have in our country, and I believe generally in Europe, certainly in England, agreed that twenty-one years is the age when men and women have come into the full possession of their understanding and are supposed to be so well informed that they can take upon themselves the government of their own fortunes and the control of their own property. The mere fact that this thing is to be regulated does not take away the right. The natural right to own and control property is regulated in that way. There must be some age fixed. We know the infant can not do it; we know the child ten years old has not the necessary knowledge of the world or strength of understanding; and we have agreed upon a certain age when men and women come to the possession of their understanding and are able to take care of their own rights, whatever they may be.

Mr. EDMUNDS: May I ask the Senator, after all, what his opinion is, whether a child of tender years, say ten years of age, has not every natural right that a man of seventy has?

Mr. MORTON: Certainly.

Mr. EDMUNDS: Morally, legally, and every other way?