History of Woman Suffrage
Chapter 138 : STEPHEN S. FOSTER, basing the demand for the ballot upon the natural right of the citi

STEPHEN S. FOSTER, basing the demand for the ballot upon the natural right of the citizen, felt bound to aid in conferring it upon any citizen deprived of it irrespective of its being granted or denied to others. Even, therefore, if the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the colored man would probably r.e.t.a.r.d the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman, we had no right for that reason to deprive him of his right. The right of each should be accorded at the earliest possible moment, neither being denied for any supposed benefit to the other.

CHARLES L. REMOND said that if he were to lose sight of expediency, he must side with Mrs. Stanton, although to do so was extremely trying; for he could not conceive of a more unhappy position than that occupied by millions of American men bearing the name of freedmen while the rights and privileges _free_ men are still denied them.

Mrs. STANTON said: That is equaled only by the condition of the women by their side. There is a depth of degradation known to the slave women that man can never feel. To give the ballot to the black man is no security to the woman. Saxon men have the ballot, yet look at their women, crowded into a few half-paid employments. Look at the starving, degraded cla.s.s in our 10,000 dens of infamy and vice if you would know how wisely and generously man legislates for woman.

Rev. SAMUEL J. MAY, in reply to Mr. Remond's objection to the resolution, said that the word "colored" was necessary to convey the meaning, since there is no demand now made for the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of men, as a cla.s.s. His amendment would take all the color out of the resolution. No man in this country had made such sacrifices for the cause of liberty as Wendell Phillips; and if just at this moment, when the great question for which he has struggled thirty years seemed about to be settled, he was unwilling that anything should be added to it which might in any way prejudice the success about to crown his efforts, it was not to be wondered at. He was himself of the opinion, on the contrary, that by asking for the rights of all, we should be much more likely to obtain the rights of the colored man, than by making that a special question. He would rejoice at the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of colored men, and believed that Mrs. Stanton would, though that were all we could get at the time. Yet, if we rest there, and allow the reconstruction to be completed, leaving out the better half of humanity, we must expect further trouble; and it might be a more awful and sanguinary civil war than that which we have just experienced.

GEORGE T. DOWNING desired that the Convention should express its opinion upon the point he had raised; and, therefore, offered the following resolution:

_Resolved_, That while we regret that the right sentiment, which would secure to women the ballot, is not as general as we would have it, nevertheless we wish it distinctly understood that we rejoice at the increasing sentiment which favors the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the colored man.

Mr. DOWNING understood Mrs. Stanton to refuse to rejoice at a _part_ of the good results to be accomplished, if she could not achieve the whole, and he wished to ask if she was unwilling the colored man should have the vote until the women could have it also? He said we had no right to refuse an act of justice upon the a.s.sumption that it would be followed by an act of injustice.

Mrs. STANTON replied she demanded the ballot for all. She asked for reconstruction on the basis of self-government; but if we are to have further cla.s.s legislation, she thought the wisest order of enfranchis.e.m.e.nt was to take the educated cla.s.ses first. If women are still to be represented by men, then I say let only the highest type of manhood stand at the helm of State. But if all men are to vote, black and white, lettered and unlettered, washed and unwashed, the safety of the nation as well as the interests of woman demand that we outweigh this incoming tide of ignorance, poverty, and vice, with the virtue, wealth, and education of the women of the country. With the black man you have no new force in government--it is manhood still; but with the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman, you have a new and essential element of life and power. Would Horace Greeley, Wendell Phillips, Gerrit Smith, or Theodore Tilton be willing to stand aside and trust their individual interests, and the whole welfare of the nation, to the lowest strata of manhood? If not, why ask educated women, who love their country, who desire to mould its inst.i.tutions on the highest idea of justice and equality, who feel that their enfranchis.e.m.e.nt is of vital importance to this end, why ask them to stand aside while 2,000,000 ignorant men are ushered into the halls of legislation?

EDWARD M. DAVIS asked what had been done with Mr. Burleigh's amendment.

The CHAIR--No action was taken upon it, as no one seconded it.

ABBY KELLY FOSTER said: I am in New York for medical treatment, not for speech-making; yet I must say a few words in relation to a remark recently made on this platform--that "The negro should not enter the kingdom of politics before woman, because he would be an additional weight against her enfranchis.e.m.e.nt." Were the negro and woman in the same civil, social, and religious status to-day, I should respond aye, with all my heart, to this sentiment. What are the facts? You say the negro has the civil rights bill, also the military reconstruction bill granting him suffrage. It has been well said, "he has the t.i.tle deed to liberty, but is not yet in the possession of liberty." He is treated as a slave to-day in the several districts of the South.

Without wages, without family rights, whipped and beaten by thousands, given up to the most horrible outrages, without that protection which his value as property formerly gave him. Again, he is liable without farther guarantees, to be plunged into peonage, serfdom or even into chattel slavery. Have we any true sense of justice, are we not dead to the sentiment of humanity if we shall wish to postpone his security against present woes and future enslavement till woman shall obtain political rights?

Rev. HENRY WARD BEECHER said: It seems that my modesty in not lending my name has been a matter of some grief. I will try hereafter to be less modest. When I get my growth I hope to overcome that. I certainly should not have been present to-day, except that a friend said to me that some who were expected had not come. When a cause is well launched and is prospering, I never feel specially called to help it. When a cause that I believe to be just is in the minority, and is struggling for a hearing, then I should always be glad to be counted among those who were laboring for it in the days when it lacked friends. I come to bear testimony, not as if I had not already done it, but again, as confirmed by all that I have read, whether of things written in England or spoken in America, in the belief that this movement is not the mere progeny of a fitful and feverish _ism_--that it is not a mere frothing eddy whose spirit is but the chafing of the water upon the rock--but that it is a part of that great tide which follows the drawing of heaven itself. I believe it to be so. I trust that it will not be invidious if I say, therefore, I hope the friends of this cause will not fall out by the way. If the division of opinion amounts merely to this, that you have two blades, and therefore can cut, I have no objection to it; but if there is such a division of opinion in respect to mere details, how important those details are, among friends that are one at the bottom where principles are, that there is to be a falling out there, I shall exceedingly regret it; I shall regret that our strength is weakened, when we need it to be augmented most, or concentrated.

All my lifetime the great trouble has been that in merely speculative things theologians have been such furious logicians, have picked up their premises, and rushed with them with race-horse speed to such remote conclusions, that in the region of ideas our logical minds have become accustomed to draw results as remote as the very eternities from any premises given. My difficulty on the other hand, has been that in practical matters, owing to the existence of this great mephitic swamp of slavery, men have been utterly unwilling to draw conclusions at all; and that the most familiar principles of political economy or politics have been enunciated, and then always docked off short.

Men would not allow them to go to their natural results, in the cla.s.s of questions in society. We have had raised up before us the necessity of maintaining the Union by denying conclusions.

The most dear and sacred and animating principles of religion have been restrained, because they would have such a bearing upon slavery, and men felt bound to hold their peace. Our most profound and broadly acknowledged principles of liberty have been enunciated and pa.s.sed over, without carrying them out and applying them to society, because it would interrupt the peace of the nation. That time is pa.s.sed away; and as the result of it has come in a joy and a perfect appet.i.te on the part of the public.

I have been a careful observer for more than thirty-five years, for I came into public life, I believe, about the same time with the lady who has just sat down (Mrs. Foster), although I am not so much worn by my labors as she seems to have been. For thirty-five years I have observed in society its impetus checked, and a kind of lethargy and deadness in practical ethics, arising from fear of this prejudicial effect upon public economy. I have noticed that in the last five years there has been a revolution as perfect as if it had been G.o.d's resurrection in the graveyard.

The dead men are living, and the live men are thrice alive. I can scarcely express my sense of the leap the public mind and the public moral sense have taken within this time. The barrier is out of the way. That which made the American mind untrue logically to itself is smitten down by the hand of G.o.d; and there is just at this time an immense tendency in the public mind to carry out all principles to their legitimate conclusions, go where they will. There never was a time when men were so practical, and so ready to learn. I am not a farmer, but I know that the spring comes but once in the year. When the furrow is open is the time to put in your seed, if you would gather a harvest in its season. Now, when the red-hot plowshare of war has opened a furrow in this nation, is the time to put in the seed.

If any man says to me, "Why will you agitate the woman's question, when it is the hour for the black man?" I answer, it is the hour for every man, black or white. (Applause.) The bees go out in the morning to gather the honey from the morning-glories.

They take it when they are open, for by ten o'clock they are shut, and they never open again until the next crop comes. When the public mind is open, if you have anything to say, say it. If you have any radical principles to urge, any organizing wisdom to make known, don't wait until quiet times come. Don't wait until the public mind shuts up altogether.

War has opened the way for impulse to extend itself. But progress goes by periods, by jumps and spurts. We are in the favored hour; and if you have great principles to make known, this is the time to advance those principles. If you can organize them into inst.i.tutions, this is the time to organize them. I therefore say, whatever truth is to be known for the next fifty years in this nation let it be spoken now--let it be enforced now. The truth that I have to urge is not that women have the right of suffrage--not that Chinamen or Irishmen have the right of suffrage--not that native born Yankees have the right of suffrage--but that suffrage is the inherent right of mankind. I say that man has the right of suffrage as I say that man has the right to himself. For although it may not be true under the Russian government, where the government does not rest on the people, and although under our own government a man has not a right to himself, except in accordance with the spirit and action of our own inst.i.tutions, yet our inst.i.tutions make the government depend on the people, and make the people depend on the government; and no man is a full citizen, or fully competent to take care of himself, or to defend himself, who has not all those rights that belong to his fellows. I therefore advocate no sectional rights, no cla.s.s rights, no s.e.x rights, but the most universal form of right for all that live and breathe on the continent. I do not put back the black man's emanc.i.p.ation; nor do I put back for a single day or for an hour his admission. I ask not that he should wait. I demand that this work shall be done, not upon the ground that it is politically expedient now to enfranchise black men; but I propose that you take expediency out of the way, and that you put a principle that is more enduring than expediency in the place of it--manhood and womanhood suffrage for all. That is the question. You may just as well meet it now as at any other time. You never will have so favorable an occasion, so sympathetic a heart, never a public reason so willing to be convinced as to-day. If anything is to be done for the black man, or the black woman, or for the disfranchised cla.s.ses among the whites, let it be done, in the name of G.o.d, while his Providence says, "Come; come all, and come welcome."

But I take wisdom from some with whom I have not always trained.

If you would get ten steps, has been the practical philosophy of some who are not here to-day, demand twenty, and then you will get ten. Now, even if I were to confine--as I by no means do--my expectation to gaining the vote for the black man, I think we should be much more likely to gain that by demanding the vote for everybody. I remember that when I was a boy Dr. Spurzheim came to this country to advocate phrenology, but everybody held up both hands--"Phrenology! You must be running mad to have the idea that phrenology can be true!" It was not long after that, mesmerism came along; and then the people said, "Mesmerism! We can go phrenology; there is some sense in that; but as for mesmerism--!"

Very soon spiritualism made its appearance, and then the same people began to say, "Spiritualism! Why it is nothing but mesmerism; we can believe in that; but as for spiritualism--!"

(Laughter.) The way to get a man to take a position is to take one in advance of it, and then he will drop into the one you want him to take. So that if, being crafty, I desire to catch men with guile, and desire them to adopt suffrage for colored men, as good a trap as I know of is to claim it for women also. Bait your trap with the white woman, and I think you will catch the black man.

(Laughter.) I would not, certainly, have it understood that we are standing here to advocate this universal application of the principle merely to secure the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the colored citizen. We do it in good faith. I believe it is just as easy to carry the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of all as the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of any cla.s.s, and easier to carry it than carry the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of cla.s.s after cla.s.s--cla.s.s after cla.s.s. (Applause.)

I make this demand because I have the deepest sense of what is before us. We have entered upon an era such as never before has come to any nation. We are at a point in the history of the world where we need a prophet, and have none to describe to us those events rising in the horizon thick and fast. Sometimes it seems to me that that Latter Day glory which the prophets dimly saw, and which saints have ever since, with faintness of heart, longed for and prayed for with wavering faith, is just before us. I see the fountains of the great deep broken up. I think we are to have a nation born in a day among us, greater in power of thought, greater in power of conscience, greater therefore in self-government, greater still in the power of material development. Such thrift, such skill, such enterprise, such power of self-sustentation I think is about to be developed, to say nothing of the advance already made before the nations, as will surprise even the most sanguine and far-sighted. Nevertheless, while so much is promised, there are all the attendant evils. It is a serious thing to bring unwashed, uncombed, untutored men, scarcely redeemed from savagery, to the ballot-box. It is a dangerous thing to bring the foreigner, whose whole secular education was under the throne of the tyrant, and put his hand upon the helm of affairs in this free nation. It is a dangerous thing to bring men without property, or the expectation of it, into the legislative halls to legislate upon property. It is a dangerous thing to bring woman, unaccustomed to and undrilled in the art of government, suddenly into the field to vote. These are dangerous things; I admit it. But I think G.o.d says to us, "By that danger I put every man of you under the solemn responsibility of preparing these persons effectually for their citizens.h.i.+p." Are you a rich man, afraid of your money? By that fear you are called to educate the men who you are afraid will vote against you. We are in a time of danger. I say to the top of society, just as sure as you despise the bottom, you shall be left like the oak tree that rebelled against its own roots--better that it be struck with lightning. Take a man from the top of society or the bottom, and if you will but give himself to himself, give him his reason, his moral nature, and his affections; take him with all his pa.s.sions and his appet.i.tes, and develop him, and you will find he has the same instinct for self-government that you have. G.o.d made a man just as much to govern himself as a pyramid to stand on its own bottom.

Self-government is a boon intended for all. This is shown in the very organization of the human mind, with its counterbalances and checks.... We are underpinning and undergirding society. Let us put under it no political expediency, but the great principle of manhood and womanhood, not merely cheating ourselves by a partial measure, but carrying the nation forward to its great and ill.u.s.trious future, in which it will enjoy more safety, more dignity, more sublime proportions, and a health that will know no death. (Applause.)

HENRY C. WRIGHT said that circ.u.mstances had made Wendell Phillips and others, leaders in the Anti-Slavery movement, as they had made Mrs. Stanton and others leaders in this; and while they all desired the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of both cla.s.ses, it was no more than right that each should devote his energies to his own movement.

There need not be, and should not be any antagonism between the two.

Miss ANTHONY said--The question is not, is this or that person right, but what are the principles under discussion. As I understand the difference between Abolitionists, some think this is harvest time for the black man, and seed-sowing time for woman. Others, with whom I agree, think we have been sowing the seed of individual rights, the foundation idea of a republic for the last century, and that this is the harvest time for all citizens who pay taxes, obey the laws and are loyal to the government. (Applause.)

Mr. REMOND said: In an hour like this I repudiate the idea of expediency. All I ask for myself I claim for my wife and sister.

Let our action be based upon the rock of everlasting principle.

No cla.s.s of citizens in this country can be deprived of the ballot without injuring every other cla.s.s. I see how equality of suffrage in the State of New York is necessary to maintain emanc.i.p.ation in South Carolina. Do not moral principles, like water, seek a common level? Slavery in the Southern States crushed the right of free speech in Ma.s.sachusetts and made slaves of Saxon men and women, just as the $250 qualification in the Const.i.tution of this State degrades and enslaves black men all over the Union.

Mr. PILLSBURY protested against the use of the few last moments of this meeting in these discussions. We should be now only "a committee of ways and means," and future work should be the business in hand. Mr. Downing presented an unnecessary issue.

Government will never ask us which should enter into citizens.h.i.+p first, the woman or the colored man, or whether we prefer one to the other. Indeed government has given the colored man the ballot already. We are demanding suffrage equally, not unequally. Mrs.

Stanton's private opinion, be it what it may, has nothing to do with the general question. The white voters are mostly opposed to woman's suffrage. So will the colored men be, probably; at least so she believes, as Mrs. Mott also suggested very strongly, and a million or more of them added to the present opposition and indifference, are not a slight consideration. Mrs. Stanton does not believe in loving her neighbor _better_ than herself. Justice to one cla.s.s does not mean injustice to another. Woman has as good a right to the ballot as the black man--no better. Were I a colored man, and had reason to believe that should woman obtain her rights she would use them to the prejudice of mine, how could I labor very zealously in her behalf? It should be enough for Mr.

Downing and all who stand with him that Mrs. Stanton does not demand one thing for herself as to rights, or time of obtaining them, which she does not cheerfully, earnestly demand for all others, regardless of color or s.e.x.

Miss ANTHONY read the following telegram from Lucy Stone:

"ATCHISON, KANSAS, May 10, 1867.

"Impartial Suffrage, _without regard to color or s.e.x_, will succeed by overwhelming majorities. Kansas leads the world!

LUCY STONE."

Miss ANTHONY also read a hopeful and interesting letter from Hon.

S. N. Wood, of Kansas, showing his plans for the canva.s.s of that State.

JOSEPHINE GRIFFING said: I am well satisfied that this Convention ought not to adjourn until a similar plan is laid out for all the States in the Union, and especially for the District of Columbia.

This being a national convention, it seems peculiarly appropriate that it should begin its work at the District of Columbia. The proposition has already been made there, and the parties have discussed its merits. The question of the franchise arose from the great fact that at the South there were four millions of people unrepresented. The fact of woman's being also unrepresented is now becoming slowly understood. It is easier now to talk and act upon that subject in the District of Columbia than ever before, or than it will be again. Even the President has said that if woman in the District of Columbia shall intelligently ask for the right of franchise, he shall by no means veto it. To my mind the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman is a settled fact. We can not reconstruct this government until the franchise shall be given not merely to the four millions but to the fifteen millions. We can not successfully reconstruct our government unless we go to the foundation. Let us apply all the force we can to the lever, for we have a great body to lift. No matter how ready the public is, we can accomplish nothing unless we have some plan, and unless we have workers. I presume none of us are aware how many laws there are upon the statute books disabling our rights. When the Judges in the District of Columbia were to decide who were to vote and who were not to vote, the question arose who could be appointed officers of the city; and it was found that there was a law that no one could be appointed a judge of elections who had not paid a tax upon real estate in the District of Columbia, a law which almost defeats all the work which has been done during the canva.s.s of the last eight weeks in that District. There is work yet to be done there, and so we shall find it at every step. I am thankful with all my heart and soul that the people have at last consented to the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of two millions of black men. I recognize that, as the load is raised one inch, we must work by degrees, accepting every inch, every hair's breadth gained toward the right. I welcome the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of the negro as a step toward the enfranchis.e.m.e.nt of woman.

Miss ANTHONY said we seem to be blessed with telegrams, with cheering news from Kansas, and read the following from S. N.

Wood:

ATCHISON, KANSAS, May 10, 1867.

"With the help of G.o.d and Lucy Stone, we shall carry Kansas!

The world moves! SAM WOOD."

These telegrams were received with much applause. The resolutions were then put to vote, and unanimously carried, and officers were elected for the ensuing year.[73]

SOJOURNER TRUTH was called for and said: I am glad to see that men are getting their rights, but I want women to get theirs, and while the water is stirring I will step into the pool. Now that there is a great stir about colored men's getting their rights is the time for women to step in and have theirs. I am sometimes told that "Women aint fit to vote. Why, don't you know that a woman had seven devils in her: and do you suppose a woman is fit to rule the nation?" Seven devils aint no account; a man had a legion in him. [Great laughter]. The devils didn't know where to go; and so they asked that they might go into the swine. They thought that was as good a place as they came out from. [Renewed laughter]. They didn't ask to go into sheep--no, into the hog; that was the selfishest beast; and man is so selfish that he has got women's rights and his own too, and yet he won't give women their rights. He keeps them all to himself. If a woman did have seven devils, see how lovely she was when they were cast out, how much she loved Jesus, how she followed Him. When the devils were gone out of the man, he wanted to follow Jesus, too, but Jesus told him to go home, and didn't seem to want to have him round.

And when the men went to look for Jesus at the sepulchre they didn't stop long enough to find out whether he was there or not; but Mary stood there and waited, and said to Him, thinking it was the gardener, "Tell me where they have laid Him and I will carry Him away." See what a spirit there is. Just so let women be true to this object, and the truth will reign triumphant.

ALFRED H. LOVE (President of the Universal Peace Society) said: Your President paid the Universal Peace Society two visits; and some of us, in turn, are here to reciprocate. The Universal Peace Society, knowing that we must have purity before we can have peace, knowing that we need our mothers, wives, and daughters with us, knowing that we need the morality, the courage, and the patience of the colored man with us, adopted as our first resolution that the ballot is a peacemaker, and that with equality there can be no war; and in another resolution we have said that women and colored men are ent.i.tled to the ballot.

Therefore, you have us upon the same platform, working for you in the best way we can. We mean no cowardly peace; we mean such a peace as demands justice and equality, and world-wide philanthropy. I put the ballot of to-day under my foot, and say I can not use it until the mother that reared me can have the same privilege; until the colored man, who is my equal, can have it.

E. H. HEYWOOD of Boston, said he could hardly see what business men had upon this platform, considering how largely responsible they are for the conditions against which women struggle, except to confess their sins. Men had usurped the government, and shut up women in the kitchen. It was a sad fact that woman did not speak for herself. It was because she was crowded so low that she could not speak. Woman wanted not merely the right to vote, but the right to labor. The average life of the factory girl in Lowell was only four years, as shown by a legislative investigation. New avenues for labor must be opened. It is said that the women on this platform are coquetting with the Democrats. Why shouldn't they? The Democrats say, "Talk of negro suffrage, and then refuse women the right to vote. All I have to say is, when the negroes of Connecticut go to the polls, my wife and daughter will go, too."

EVENING SESSION.

The meeting was called to order by Mrs. Stanton.

Miss Anthony read another letter from Hon. S. N. Wood, of Kansas, received since the Morning Session.

FRANCES D. GAGE was then introduced: It is not to-day as it was before the war. It is not to-day as it was before woman took her destiny in her hand and went out upon the battle-fields, and into the camp, and endured hunger and cold for the sake of her country. The whole country has been vitalized by this war. What if woman did not carry the bayonet on the battle-field? She carried that which gave more strength and energy. Traveling through Illinois, I saw the women bind the sheaf, bring in the harvest and plow the fields, that men might fight the battles.

When such women come up now and ask for the right of suffrage, who will deny their request? In the winter of 1860, the law was pa.s.sed in New York giving to married women the right to their own earnings. It was said frequently then that women did not want the right to their own earnings. We were asked if we wanted to create separation in families. But did any revolution or any special trouble grow out of this recognition of woman's right? You see women everywhere to-day earnestly striving to find a place to earn their bread. Madame Demorest has become a leader of fas.h.i.+on, teaching women to make up what Stewart imports; and she has a branch establishment in every large city in the Union clear to Montana. I do not know but some of those ladies cutting out garments, and setting the fas.h.i.+ons of the day, might aspire to the Presidential chair; and perhaps they would be quite as capable as the present inc.u.mbent--a tailor. [Applause].